My apologies; I should have read more carefully.

I think that's wishful thinking. It arises from blue-team (us, i.e., the good guys) vs. red-team (us pretending to be them, i.e., the bad guys) military exercises. In other words, a red team is a bunch of good guys pretending to be bad guys against whom the blue team can practice.

This is not correct. As others have noted, two states' outcomes can be non-independent if some common cause is at work. For example, my grass being wet and not being able to see the sun are non-independent, not because wet grass induces darkness, but because there's a common cause (rain-clouds) that can influence both events. Once you account for the common cause the events become conditionally independent. In this case, if one poll is biased against Romney, then it is likely that other polls are also biased (and non-independence holds).

The percentage of people in Ohio who vote for Obama or Romney is not independent of the percentage of people in Pennsylvania who vote for Obama or Romney. Not that a given voter in Ohio affects a random voter in PA, but that there are common background factors that impact both voters. These background factors (such as the economy) influence voters in both states.

A quick read of the source code suggests that the author is assuming each state's outcome is independent of the other states, which is highly suspect. There's a reason Nate's prediction is much lower than 97.7%. Romney's chances are better than 2.3% because if he wins (for example) Ohio, then he is likely to have also won Florida and Virginia.

I think Mr. Underbridge (Dr. Underbridge, based on his insight?) has succinctly described the pros and cons.

Based on the offers I received upon earning a Masters in Computer Science, I would probably be a little better off financially if I had joined the work force at that point in my educational career. Instead, I chose to earn a PhD (in Computer Science). I do not for a moment regret that decision. The degree affords me a fair amount of intellectual freedom (even though I work for a corporation).

The degree certainly does not guarantee a posh research position at MSR (or a similar lab). But, it does demonstrate an ability to think independently and critically, which are skills still valued in the workforce.

Finally, I would note that every CS PhD that I know is gainfully employed, and only one feels under-employed (although a delay in earning the PhD due to an advisor problem didn't help). So, my advice (FWIW) is to go back to school, provided that you are motivated more by novelty (intellectual freedom) and less by money.

I don't know that it's necessarily the Average Joe being an idiot. Privacy is a non-positional good, which (as Frank notes in The Darwin Economy) usually loses to positional goods. This is why a "rational libertarian" should support laws (such as privacy laws) that counteract individuals acting in a rational way to the detriment of the collective individuals. I.e., we all win with better privacy laws, but none of us can afford to individually opt-out (because the cost to the individual is too high, unless we all agree to act together).

This is largely good advice. However, student loans are not necessarily a bad investment. You are correct, though, that you need to take your education seriously, or it's a waste of money.

Paying off a mortgage quickly may be a bad strategy provided a) your rate is low (say 5%) and b) your employer provides some level of retirement matching (say 10%). Not only do you get to claim the mortgage interest as a tax deduction, but you're getting an automatic return on your retirement investment. So, my advice would be to pay the minimum amount on the mortgage and invest that money in a retirement account.

Paying for things with a credit card is not prudent. But, if you have a no-cost card with some sort of reward program (e.g., I can use points to obtain gift cards for groceries), paying with credit can save you money. The trick is to always pay the card in full. Even one late payment and the strategy fails big time.

Well, we know plants frigging *LOVE* the stuff... so if we don't we can probably anticipate higher crop yields.

Unfortunately, it's not that simple. For example, increased temperatures will stress food crops. More information is here.

They said the oceans would rise by 2009.

And, the oceans have been consistently rising.

But so far, the models created based on the presumption of the association keep breaking down and their predictions don't play out as expected.

Again, this assertion doesn't stand up to scrutiny. Models successfully reproduce global temperatures.

Unexploded ordinance: sounds like the debt-ceiling negotiations. ;-)

Time to read the article: e^(i \times \tau) = 1 + 0. The reason that e^(i \times \tau / 2) = -1 is because \tau / 2 = \pi corresponds to a half-rotation. So, you can get the same result, only with a more intuitive answer because the amount of rotation is built into the equation. This helps to understand that e^(i \times \tau / 4) = i because i corresponds to a quarter rotation.

I'd recommend trying the game with DOSBox. There you can set the clock-speed to allow the game to run at whatever speed you'd like.

From NPR's blurb: "A Harvard study that followed almost 50,000 male health professionals for more than two decades." And, "More than 5,000 of them got prostate cancer — 642 of them the most lethal form." That's a healthy sample size.

But, the supervisors have, in the past, been the predators (sexual abuse is more likely from a trusted adult than a random stranger). And, the schoolyard is a known fen for bullies. The entire world isn't some extraordinarily dangerous place.