I wish they went 750! Unfortunately, it seems most travel at about ~450 these days to save fuel. Maybe that will change with falling oil prices, but as long as ticket price is king, probably not.

Not lost. That's only effective if there's no pattern, and erasing a pattern is a lot more difficult than just splitting the transfers. Assuming the transfers are timely (and it would seem likely that they would be), you could narrow down the source of the funds to accounts that sent money to the launderer within a given timeframe. Seeing the pattern more than once would increase the probability of a match, so you could never receive funds to the same account twice. Further, you could never aggregate funds in the future without giving yourself away, including paying for anything, otherwise you've identified yourself. That severely lowers the value. Bitcoin is good for a lot of things, but anonymity and laundering are not among them. And pseudonymity is not anonymity. For anonymity, cash is king.

FWIW, they're apparently working with the FDA already.

Thync technology employs energy levels within the normal range of brain activity and we work with the FDA to assure product safety. Over 1,000 peer-reviewed published studies across more than 20,000 sessions further support the safety of our approach. http://www.thync.com/

And the FDA has already approved at least one such device, albeit for migraine treatment.
http://www.fda.gov/NewsEvents/...

Depends. Some portion is runoff (never seeps into the ground) and stays above ground in streams, rivers, and lakes. The rest is absorbed through infiltration, and may make it back to the surface through seepage directly into a body of fresh water, or through a spring, or not at all. If you live in a plains state, your water probably comes from aquifers. If you live along the coast, as most people do, it probably comes from runoff. I can't find exact figures, but most "fresh" (not recycled) drinking water seems to come from surface runoff vs aquifers. This probably varies by geography, with plains states sourcing aquifers and coastal states (where most people live) sourcing runoff.

Human waste contains heaps of harmful bacteria.

Poo? Yes. Piss? No.

False. http://www.sciencedaily.com/re...

While urine smells foul and probably tastes worse, it wouldn't kill you to drink it.

The bacteria may not, but dehydration definitely can, and that's the effect of drinking urine.

The stars are made out of star-eaters!

I think "every molecule," might be a stretch, but certainly it's safe to say that at least some portion of the water we drink has, at some point, been drank before. It's also probably safe to say that some water has been locked away for the entirety of life on our planet, and has never been drank.

Star-eaters would qualify I think.

Nope. Move along, people. Nothing to see here. [blindingly bright burp] Ah... shit.

We already know what happens in middle and high school: social pressure to fit in, and follow socially accepted roles, where "socially accepted" is defined, in large part, by underage peers. Being a "nerdy engineer" is socially acceptable for men because it provides the opportunity to make a pretty good living, which makes them socially desirable as a mate. There's little of the same incentive for women, who aren't ranked as much in desirability by their salary -- despite the fact that women under 30 are actually earning more than men anyway. Men are more easily incentivized by monetary rewards because money gives us status, and status makes us desirable. We gain more benefit from money than having money. Until there are external rewards beyond monetary compensation for women, they probably aren't going to start flocking to engineering programs.

But to echo the GP, honestly, equality means equality, not special treatment. If we need to make efforts to get more women in science and technology, then we also need to make efforts to get women into construction (97% men), soldiering (84% men), and manufacturing (72% men), and efforts to get men into healthcare (78% women), education (69% women), and social work (73% women). I'm all for equal opportunity, as best as possible, and we can certainly make improvements in that area, especially for economically disadvantaged people, of which single mothers are a significant part. That said, I'm not at all convinced, and have seen no empirical evidence that there's an objective problem with gender representation that doesn't mirror the general population.

And men aren't necessarily driving the division either. For example, women prefer a male boss even more than men do. Has anyone bothered to ask them how interested they are in science and technology? And if results show that they aren't, then why are we (collectively) trying to tell them that their preferences are wrong? That seems like the opposite of empowerment to me.

The author distinguishes between the need to act hastily to stop a behavior (to protect the cat, in your example, or the child from himself, in the article's example), and what we do as a follow up (time-in spent talking and engaging instead of time-out spent isolating).

As we've known for a long time, positive reinforcement causes people (and animals) to repeat behaviors that resulted in being rewarded. Negative reinforcement, on the other hand, can sometimes stop unwanted behavior, but it can just as easily cause people to become better at hiding it, which is a lose-lose. First there's the loss of trust at becoming the person the child has to fear, and then there's the loss of connection by not really knowing what the child is doing. I'm sure many of us have had "if my parents knew..." moments. Maybe we still do! We hide things from people who punish us. (It's a common problem in adult relationships as well. If our S.O. punishes us for something they don't like, usually by withholding themselves, then we start to hide that part of ourselves from them, and vice versa. Rarely do we change our behavior because we were punished.)

Anyway, I tend to agree that we should use positive reinforcement whenever possible, but it does require a lot more time and energy than negative reinforcement. Punishment is much easier to dole out than finding effective rewards. With dogs, you can reward them with a piece of ham, and it will never get old, ever. With kids, yesterday's reward is today's tedium, but punishment doesn't require much creativity or reinventing (unless you enjoy that sort of thing). And negative reinforcement may not be as good, but it would be a lie to say that it's completely ineffective. And some behaviors are only inappropriate in public anyway, like picking your nose, so it doesn't matter if it's hidden. Negative reinforcement can accomplish that, so it's just a question of whether it's worth the weakened bond.

irregardless of what others want?

Um... yes. Wait, no! Damn, I suck at answering questions posed with made-up words.

Not to mention a computer to access it with, or electricity to power the computer.

To be fair, we've been overreacting since long before the 24-hour news cycle, and the absence of information in pre-broadcast history stirred at least as much paranoia and speculation. We're paranoid and fearful animals, and we'll use whatever we need to justify it.

you can still buy a game in Russia and play it in the US.

One can be "in Russia" (virtually) quite easily, and use a Russian payment method as well. So what does this accomplish?

Exactly. There's nothing frightening about this at all; it's a nuisance at best for the sites. Between using IP addresses directly, or editing a hosts file, or switching to an offshore DNS server, it's all of a 30 second delay.

For sites dedicated to piracy, it won't make the slightest difference in traffic. The demand is there, so people will seek out the product. The idea that making it marginally (or even substantially) more difficult to find will reduce demand is like saying "If Barnes and Noble doesn't carry pornography, there won't be any demand!"

Is piracy morally justifiable? Not really. In the end, someone is going around the rules of society for personal gain. Still, available evidence suggests that the actual economic damage is minimal, at worst, and possibly that it's helpful to the bottom line. People who pirate seem mostly to be people who wouldn't pay anyway, so they're not really lost as customers. Additionally, word of mouth can help the popularity of films, regardless of whether that opinion came from a free screening, a paid viewing, or a pirated download. From a practical standpoint, it doesn't make sense to focus efforts on stamping out something that's so benign. In other words, we shouldn't tolerate measures that negatively impact the rest of society to protect one group from an imaginary harm.