So there should be a fundemental research question that this research will answer, what exactly is that question?
"What’s most exciting about this channel of research is that it gets at the kind of complex, subtle prejudices that most people can’t even articulate if asked directly."
in other words...

They are going to try to find racism where none actually exists and then call white people racist.

If you're from Canada you'll understand when I say

Let's see it handle Newfaneese!!!!
examples here
“Who knit ya?”
Translation: Who’s your mother/parents?
This one doesn’t need too much explanation, but try telling your mother that all she was doing for nine months was “knitting.”
“I’m gutfounded. Fire up a scoff.”
translation "I'm hungry, make some food" Translation: I’m hungry. Make me some food.

I couldn't get on unless I entered my e-mail to be spammed. WTF slashdot?? Poor form for a, usually, very respectable site

apparently my new e-mail is f**K@off.com

I used to work tier 2 tech support for RoadRunner. People, usually from Florida, would call in complain their internet wasn't working. I would always get people trying to let me know just how smart they were.

Customer: "Hi, I'm A++ and MCP certified and I have a certificate from Devry so I know my stuff but I can't get my internet working"

Me: "What makes you say it isn't working Sir, what exactly is going on?"

Customer: "I can't load any websites except ones I've seen before, I tried restarting but it's just doing the same thing"

Me: "...type ipconfig, what do you see?"

Customer: "...static IP..."

Me: "Sir, do you have a kid who uses your computer for gaming? You have a static IP, that's the issue. follow these instructions and it will work..."

Customer: "No, I certainly don't have a static IP. I looked for that. The issue must be on your end"

Me: *FACEPALM!!!!!!!

comclusion: MCP MEANS NOTHING!!!!!!

Recruiting based on potential is kinda like the hoy grail I suppose but there are ways. Almost any coder can get a decent mark in JAVA 101. That doesn't mean much in an interview. What you want is to know if the person has the ability to learn quickly, think critically etc. so HOW THE @#&$@ do you test that??

One example came from the language training I took. The training was for English speakers to learn French so they spent 30 minutes teaching us a few words, counting and the alphabet in Kurdish. WTF right?...wrong!! it was brilliant. None of us had a clue about Kurdish so when they tested us they found out what we learned in that 30 minutes. That let them know our potential to learn, motivation etc.

SO WHAT? In a job interview you already know they have a certain base of knowledge from their resume. Now give a quick 5-10 minute talk on some obscure programming language, database concept...whatever. Then ask the interviewee questions on it, ask them to expand concepts that were taught. How they react and the quality of their answers will give you great insight into their potential.

"Some 3,700 people took part, including about 1,000 residents near the plant and participants from a variety of government agencies, including the Cabinet Office, the NRA, the Defense Ministry and the National Police Agency."

It's always a problem when the NRA and Charlton Heston are mixing up the long gun debate and nuclear watchdog drills

my 3 year old can unlock the ipad, swipe to the next screen, load an app and have fun, why can't the PhD I work with?

"Dozens of residents in the flow path have been told to complete all necessary preparations by Tuesday for a possible evacuation. The timeline could change, based on the flow rate."

That's a big hand!!!!!

Source

from ars technica...

Puffery is a well-defined term by the FTC, but still ends up as a "know it when you see it" thing sometimes. Here's an FTC handout discussing it with consumers. The basic point is that if a company says that something is generically awesome, that's probably just puffery and not actionable. If they use measurable numbers, talk about specifics, or directly compare it to one or more competitors, that can require proof and be actionable. Note that comparatives "our product A is better than B" are more likely to be actionable than superlatives "our product A is the best."

let’s put this into perspective

1. population of Chicago is approx. 2.9 million
2. "earn 50M less than expected"

so a little math...50,000,000 / 2,900,000 = $17.24
$17.24/365 = approx. 4.7 cents per individual in Chicago per day.

Now what's the price of a coffee at Starbucks again?

as part of a solution I would propose dummy cameras. Only a small percentage of the camera's actually need to be active. Just the presence of a potential camera will slow most people down. So put the camera's in a case so that you can't tell if there is actually a camera in there or not. have 100 cases but only 20 camera's.

Budget reduced, traffic is still slowed, # court cases reduced and if they weren't making money anyway and the true goal was to slow traffic...well then...

Training and Simulation coudl really use this technology. Although there already exists augmented reality training, having a company like Microsoft advance the technology can only be beneficial. Just imaging the perks of having special forces, police, first responders, etc. Being able to scale real stairs in buildings but battle artificial flames or artificial enemies. All the realism without the risk (insert argument of whether or not that's actually possible here). Another advantage would be that others could view, live or recorded, the events taking place!

Maple Syrup...Maple Syrup. it's not like that stuff grows on trees...oh wait a second... seriously though, just send up good old Canadian Astronauts Chris Hadfield. Those guys have maple in the blood. His sweat alone would power those cameras for years

perhaps it's firewall, or perhaps the more likely 18" error, PICNIC error or PEBKAC error but I can't score the comment. so I'll just say AHMEN!!!!!!!

So what about the requirements to manage this modular system. It's not as easy as just splitting up courses into modules and letting students pick and choose. There have to be requirements for a degree, progressions built into learning in terms of difficulty and complexity. History, for example, is better leaned in some sort of chronological order. Immagine studying the beginning of the second world war with no understanding of the treary of versailles because you "didn't want to take that module". So now we're talking about having to add pre-requisites and curriculum requirements to these modules in order to manage learning in a way that makes sense. Wait...that's what we have now!! I think this idea does have some merit. However, to say that it can be implemented for all learning, at all levels, in person or online may be somewhat crazy.

I realize that there are good intentions behind this and that is truly admirable, however, it was though of from only one side. Those who would like this kind of access will certainly benefit but the companies will suffer. It will cost more to make websites and devices compatible and people will not be willing to pay more. Ask yourself, honestly, are you willing to pay more? Of course some people are but most are not. That means that the manufacturers will have to either eat the cost or force it back onto the consumers.

One half of winning the hearts and minds of the people could be done using only a wireless PDA