They wasted their time on games, social media, and entertainment

When my daughter gets to use computer, her only toys will be:

• vi
• cc
• make

.

President Obama Announces Major Initiative to Spur Biofuels Industry and Enhance America's Energy Security

That's Big Government for you. Instead of various people acting as they see fit — some making mistakes and some not — we have a government, that's big enough to make a mistake for all of us at once...

Competing ideas? To each his own? Personal responsibility? No way, no how — citizen, the Science is Settled[TM] and you are blocking our progress towards the Common Good[TM].

Fat is bad for you — all of you! Until it is not. Except it still is...

Biofuels is about to become the latest example of this. As our benevolent and omniscient overlords in Washington jump from one trend to another, the whole country is supposed to rejig, retool, and reorient itself each time: from "low-fat" to "low-sugar", from growing biofuels to drilling oil. Because they "know" better — and they are 100% confident in that settled "knowledge" of theirs. Until it changes to the exact opposite like some kind of quantum particle — and only the confidence remains.

How about we — the subjects — make our own choices, huh? Leaving only the courts, police and military to you, our beloved government class? Yes, we — some of us — will be making the same mistakes. But, at least, they will be neither coercing nor outright forcing the others to repeat them.

Our conclusion is that having N(N + 1)/2 spare disks is more than enough to achieve a 99.999 percent probability of not losing data over four years.

Instead of keeping the spares inside as just that — spares — can it not start using all of them (in a sufficiently redundant configuration) and gradually lose capacity as physical disks fail?

Yes, it would require coordination with the driver and filesystem, but there is nothing insurmountable in that...

It *is* nonviolent.

Sure. It is also "quiet" and "stealthy" — and a bunch of other things. Which is the best term to use in this context? That depends on the subtle connotations of each one, does not it? I am willing to believe, TFA's use was an honest mistake — the article makes no (other) suggestions, bank-robbing (violent or otherwise) may be a just thing. But...

Are the Somali pirates just that — pirates — or are they hard-working folks laboring in a harsh environment, risking their lives directing foreign aid to their impoverished country and the people, who need it most?

See also "Hezbollization".

stealing cards remains an effective, nonviolent way to get at the cash in an ATM.

Wow, that makes it sound like the card-thieves are nice folks — see, they are "nonviolent". Almost like the "unarmed" we read so much about recently.

What a way to turn a phrase and alter connotations — pick a nice-sounding synonym of many. Khmm, "quiet"? Neah... "Stealthy"? No... "Nonviolent" — yeah, that's it!!

You know you have a fair well-reasoned argument though the little quip at the end just comes across as childish.

Your victory is not complete, until you've peed on the opponent's unmoving body...

Yes, they're quite "free" to quite their jobs

Yes, indeed, they are free to quit their jobs — without having to give up on their house, country, and friends — if their assessment of the risk of coming to work is so drastically at odds with that of their employer.

you are "free" to move to Somalia if you're unhappy with having a functioning government.

Oh, no you don't. That cliche is too worn-out and too oft-refuted to still be usable. Libertarians have no problem with a functioning government. We just want to (drastically) cut its functions, thank you very much.

The families and friends of those fatalities would likely invite you to shove your entire Ayn Rand library up your arse.

Had you actually read the link on how the Statistical Value of Life is calculated, you would not have had all that angry adrenalin in your blood. For it is computed based on our own willingness to pay for extra safety.

For example, if having some hypothetical contraption in your car is convincingly known to lower your risk of death by 5% and the implement costs $10K, then the people, who are unwilling to pay extra, value their lives at below $200K.

Or they consider themselves exceptionally less prone to accidents — which is why actuaries use multiple such datapoints to arrive at the number.

Is it not "heartless" to even attempt to attach a $-figure to a human life? Hardly... Because the lost monies could've helped save lives too. Ever heard of charitable donations? A wounded fighter having one package of Celox available, for example, increases his chances of survival by 60% — according to Ukrainian volunteers trying to procure as much of the wonderful stuff as they can get donations for. $20 is what one package costs...

Sounds more like authoritarian dictatorships fail while a robust democratic government that responds to its citizens succeeds.

An authoritarian dictatorship is certainly worse, than a robust democratic government.

However, between authoritarian dictatorships, a "Radical Left" one — like that of Chavez or Castro — will bring certain misery and economic collapse, whereas a Right-wing one may set the country in the right direction.

Today, 30% of Chile's income is because of the state owned Codelco.

Irrelevant — whether the company is publicly owned or not, the income it produces still counts towards the GDP.

partially supported by the surge in copper price in 2005

Their economy economy started going up in 1984 at the rate largely unchanged since — despite all of the fluctuations in the copper price.

Statistics aside

Yes, sure. We should put statistics aside and make decisions based on individual anecdotes...

In my personal experience, based on how I've worked with chileans in IT, they are below Argentina and Brazil

Ask your colleagues, if they'd rather work in Venezuelan IT...