And they overvalue the effect that their optimism or pessimism will have on the outcome.

My mom used to tell me that "worrying will not change the outcome one bit". The same goes for optimism.

Of course, my mom also told me that I could be whatever I wanted to be, and Daniel Craig got to be James Bond and I didn't so what did she know, right?

"turn the experience into the defining event of my life" is also positive thinking, it's called "peak performance" in positive thinking.

It's also called "hindsight in 20/20".

You know who doesn't turn the experience into the defining event" of their lives? The positive thinkers who didn't make it.

Stockdale's comments are easy to make because he got out. It's the story every single motivational speaker tells, but only after they've survived.

I've known a fair number of pessimists who didn't make it.

Some people shrink from the fight because victory is impossible.

I'm with the martial arts masters on this one. If you fight and lose, fight again, lose better.

In sparring we say, "Invest in loss". It's a philosophy that has led to a lot of important wins.

the vein hope

That's what fueled the Gold Rush of '49.

The more he fantasizes about that woman, the more he jerks off to her image, in the long-run -- the even less likely he'll be prepared to deal with her in real life.

And goes on to develop a sincere interest in ethics in game journalism.

You should be negative.

Positively.

Add IPX8 to the high specs.

That would have been true last decade. It's changed.

File it under "stuff that matters".

A lot of arguments for open source are based on things which people outside the project could in principle accomplish, but in practice seldom do. So it's reassuring at least that an experienced developer can build the two most popular browsers from scratch. It means the arguments aren't hollow. I've seen closed source projects that were purchased by companies, only to find out that getting them to build on any computer but the one it was developed on is a serious engineering challenge.

That the process of building these browsers from scratch is somewhat arcane will come as no surprise to any experienced developer. But that it's not so arcane that it's impractical to figure out is good news.

Is it unreasonable for the average height of a population to grow by 7" in twenty generations? I should think so. But if you changed your initial conditions somewhat, maybe less unreasonable.

There are roughly 400 genes known to influence height. Imagine we have a small, isolated population that does not interbreed with other populations -- say on an isolated island. This population's average male height is, say 175 cm for men -- roughly the same as the average American. However the population contains all the alleles neede to generate individuals approacing 7' in height. We then take our population and put them under evolutionary pressure; let's say we shoot everyone who reaches the age of 16 and is below average height. It wouldn't many generations for that population's average height to become quite tall, as "tall genes" begin to predominate.

Let's change that initial condition by stipulating that there are no "tall genes" in the initial population. It's still average height, but maybe it lacks both "tall genes" and "short genes". It would be surprising if the genetic height potential for a newborn changed very quickly, because you've got to wait for a lot of "lucky" mutations and twenty generations is not that long.

Let's go back to our successful initial conditions and change something else. This time the population has all the necessary alleles to produce super-tall people, but it interbreeds extensively with a large external population which is not subject to our culling protocol. Under these conditions the population's height increase will be slow, or non-existent depending on the rate at which individuals interbreed with populations not under pressure.

The bottom line: it depends.

it is stupid that a small error without much consequence ruin your life.

Come on. Tell us. What did you do?

Seriously though. I'm not sure how you think life works, but small errors without consequence ruin lives all the time. "I only had three beers" or "I forgot to wear a rubber" are small errors.

The only question I have about this law is how in the world could it NOT end up being abused? This law is designed to be abused.

The law does not advocate removal of information, only how and when it is indexed and presented.

Wow. That is a very interesting and barely existent distinction.

Yes to the right to be forgotten.

I wish memories had a right to be forgotten. Think of all the livers that would be saved.

#NotYourTablet