I think you're right. AND a big part of it INITIALLY is the presence of natural resources. Villages - towns - cities - they all need water and food. So they start where those are available.

The weird part of TFA is how exact their numbers are.

"15 percent"

"about 83 percent"

I suspect that a LOT of averaging went on there. And more than a little bit of "toss out the 'data scatter'". Which gives them the "mathematical rule".

And what about suburbs? Do the poor people live further from the city center because they cannot afford to live there? Or do the wealthier citizens live in the suburbs because they can afford larger villas?

On the other hand, there are lots of people that are only nominally religious until the religion that they only barely believe in and participate with is visibly threatened or demeaned, then they go off the deep end in its defense.

Kind of ...

But more like the non-crazies suddenly have to explain WHY the crazies are wrong when we are doing exactly what the crazies are claiming. So the crazies get louder while everyone else gets quieter.

As in the GP post. And it is sad that it was mod'ed to +5.

Pigs are NOT magical animals. Muslims do NOT believe that pigs are magical animals. So there is NOTHING that smearing a Koran with pig blood would accomplish EXCEPT showing that you are actively trying to be offensive to the non-crazies WITHOUT UNDERSTANDING them.

IF you chose to use religion against someone, it has to be personal, and even then, you have to be very careful, such that your choice doesn't motivate others to rally to the cause of the person whom you used it against.

Exactly. And the problem is that most of the crazies don't even care about their own religion. The same with the crazies in any religion. The religion is an excuse for them to associate themselves with other people. Otherwise they are just lone crazies.

Deal with them as lone crazies.

Do not try to piss off the people they CLAIM to represent. They don't represent anyone except themselves.

The problem is that our own government seems to WANT us to be terrified of the "terrorists".

Which is why spokespeople for our government are making sure that as many of our people are aware of the "threats" as possible.

The government should be posting videos of its own MOCKING them. And re-editing their videos.

And taking down the worst ones WITHOUT TELLING EVERYONE THAT YOU ARE TAKING THEM DOWN BECAUSE THEY ARE SO BAD AND HERE IS WHY THEY ARE SO BAD.

There's no paradox.

When you have a budget of millions of dollars AND practically unrestricted access to everyone's Internet transmissions then it is a lot easier to appear to be "omnipotent" in your ATTACKS.

But DEFENSE is a lot more difficult.

Civilians, even DoD civilians, are held to different standards than enlisted men and officers. Soldiers are held to the UMCJ and can be controlled much tighter.

That is correct. But the real question is whether they NEED to be "controlled much tighter". What, specifically, is their mission?

Also, how does that mission differ from the mission that the NSA is already performing?

And if you relax physical requirements for these guys, weel then what about your mechanics or clerks or cooks? Morale issues can easily rise up from that.

Bingo. Why should the cooks be held to a higher standard?

And I'm also questioning their numbers. How many thousand people do you need to crack networks that are all, basically, running the same software with the same vulnerabilities? A few very talented people writing 0-day exploits would probably be a better investment for ATTACK than 1,000 average coders.

For other types of documents, it's a matter of defining a process and naming convention on how to keep a track of items.

Seconded. It's also easier (in my experience) to get non-tech people to understand a naming standard than it is to get them to learn a new app.

You do NOT want to be the one who has to help everyone find their "lost" documents that NEED TO BE SENT RIGHT NOW IT IS A CRISIS WE WILL LOSE THIS ACCOUNT AND IT WILL BE YOUR PROBLEM OF COURSE I CHECKED IT IN YOUR APP LOST THEM.

Airgaps don't work, ...

Yes, they do.

... Stuxnet proved you can still take down an airgapped network ...

It's not whether an attack is still possible. It's about reducing the number of people who can successfully attack it.

Stuxnet, as far as I know, depended upon someone physically smuggling in a USB device loaded with 0 day exploits.

So the airgap worked. But their physical security failed.

Not to mention any means of verifying what is running on their systems.

And it can be hilarious.

http://mentalfloss.com/article/56279/who-originally-said-im-not-doctor-i-play-one-tv

Which is also the reason why "dentists" in advertisements wear stethoscopes.

... I'd think a more rigorous study would be to have both the teachers and the strangers grade the same exam....

Based upon that I would say that the "study" was fatally flawed.

Photocopies.

I was giving the "researchers" too much credit for knowing how to do basic research.

The problem is that the anonymous scores were higher for girls.

So without a name, the girls (theoretically) completed more of the problems, correctly.

In order for the boys to score higher the teacher has to give a boy more points for either doing less work or including more errors.

Alice sets up the problem correctly. And completes it correctly except for 1 error.

Bob sets up the problem correctly. And completes it correctly except for 2 errors.

And Bob gets more points.

AND TFA seems to be saying that this in endemic to that system.

I'm wondering if those math teachers are qualified to teach math. The whole point of required that work be shown is so that the teach can look for errors in both the process and the math.

The students were given two exams, one graded by outsiders who did not know their identities and another by teachers who knew their names.

Okay.

In math, the girls outscored the boys in the exam graded anonymously, but the boys outscored the girls when graded by teachers who knew their names.

How the fuck does that happen?

2+2=4 whether you are a boy or a girl.

How is a teacher grading that differently based on the kids' names?

The problem with the Turing Test is that it's so often done wrong.

I don't see that as a problem with the test itself.

I see that as various individuals trying to cheat in order to claim that they have achieved something they have not.

Suppose someone claimed to have beaten the world record for the 200 meter dash. But could only do it with a 190 meter headstart.

Okay, no headstart but I get to use a motorcycle.

Okay, okay, no headstart and no motorcycle but I will be using "meters" that are 10cm long.

No one would bother reporting on those because those are STUPID.

But the equivalent claims can be made about "beating" the Turing Test because the people reporting on it are STUPID. As you've pointed out, the test itself is easy to set up and easy to verify. There is no problem with the test.

It doesn't matter. The domain names are only worth whatever someone will pay for them. Sure, he's made millions in the past with some high profile sales. But that's in the past.

How much do you think gouda.com is worth?

What kind of startup would trade part of themselves for gouda.com?

I looked through my bookmarks and I didn't find a single instance that would be considered "generic". The closest was amazon. Which has nothing to do with the Amazon or Amazons.

Once you give your data to "the cloud" it ceases to be YOUR data.

Now it belongs to whomever owns those servers.

You want to keep it? Then keep it on your own hardware.

"People are unpredictable. What happens if the person is not doing what they're asked or expected to do, and the car is moving at sixty miles per hour?" Zilberstein asked.

So the car is travelling at 60 MPH on automatic when a situation arises that requires the car to switch to human-control ... and there might be a problem with the human not reacting correctly?

I think that the problem would be expecting the human to take control and do anything useful at that speed if the programming couldn't handle it.