Exactly. Empirical science is not about proving truth, but about discovering the flaws in our current theories in the hope that there is an ultimate truth behind it all, and that we will get ever closer to it by eliminating the things that don't match observations.

Of course you have to make it through the day without getting murdered. Detroit is exceeded only by New Orleans for murder capital of America (48 per 100,000 in 2011). Compare Silicon Valley (San Jose) at 4.6 per 100,000 in 2012. So by this time next year a couple thousand of those 4 million will be dead.

There's a lot more to avoid in Detroit than the snow. I guess that makes me a wuss.

Homeowners' Associations are like little Nazi dictatorships enforcing a bland conformity on everyone. "Think of my neighbors"? How about they worry about their own shit instead of the color of my deck railing?

...but I agree with the interpretation of the law.

IANAL, but if there is indeed an exemption section to the VA FOIA that states:
"Data, records or information of a proprietary nature produced or collected by or for faculty or staff of public institutions of higher learningâ¦in the conduct of or as a result of study or research on medical, scientific, technical or scholarly issuesâ¦where such data, records or information has not been publicly released, published, copyrighted or patented." ...then pretty clearly this data is very specifically exactly that, exempt from the FOIA.

*PERSONALLY* if the research was funded by public funds, I find such an exemption execrable, but it's the law and its authors that are at fault, nor Mann at all.

PS and tangential to the point of the OP: Slashdot, it's fucking 2014. Perhaps we could invest in modern posting tech that lets us paste things like biased quotes without getting crap codes like âoe ?
Or maybe convert all postings to monotype courier, so we're reminded that slashdot's still only a handsbreath above a BBS?

TI-36 solar version. Came with the vinyl flip case which still has part of its spine holding on like grim death.

Bought it just out of high school (back in the day) and recently used it for my stats class (about 2 years ago).

I still take it with me every time I go grocery shopping to keep track of how much I'm spending.

When I step on my scale, it tells me if I need to carry an umbrella today (based on the weather forecast it downloaded). Then it sends my weight etc. to my iPhone where it's merged with information from my fitness wristband and my diet tracker. Based on that, I get suggestions like "you've been going to bed a little later than usual. You should catch up." or "drink more water today" or "try to walk this much further than you did yesterday".

I think that's not so shabby.

One thing I haven't heard discussed is whether affected companies should be notifying their end users about whether they were affected and when it was fixed. I haven't heard from my bank, for example. Where they ever vulnerable? Should I update my password? If they were vulnerable, is it fixed now or would I just be handing an attacker my new password if I were to reset it today?

I wrote up a proposal called Heartbleed headers for communicating this information to site visitors. While I'd like it if everyone picked my idea as the new standard way for doing this, I just wish admins would start using something. We're so close to having a browser plugin be able to tell you "you need to update your password on this site" as you browse. How nice would that be?

Based on what I've seen, to make humans lazier.

I'm not a luddite, but this continual drumbeat that technology solves all ills is quite clearly shot down when we see the downward spiral of common sense and critical thinking on a daily basis as a direct result of technology.

the consumer end of the Uber app as it is today, and on the other end, a self-driving car.

I'm quite capable of driving myself, including shifting gears. I don't need or want to rely on software to get me where I'm going. It's bad enough we have rearview cameras being shoved down our throats because people are too lazy or fat to turn around and look behind them, we don't need more technology to try and solve a human problem.

Once you can get past the Indian's odd "your a stupid American" attitude

Such as using your instead of you're or their instead they're, right?

This makes me think of the ideas of certain thinkers, who said that this kind of society is inherently unstable - the social inequality will keep growing, the rich becoming richer by extracting wealth from the poorer, until there is nothing left, the value of wealth vanishes because there nothing the spend it on, and the whole thing comes tumbling down. I think it was Karl Marx who said it, actually. He was sometimes a very clear thinker.

I believe it is true that he also advocated bringing on a revolution, but the main message was that at some point something will by necessity happen to overturn the system and level out the imbalances, not for ideological reasons, but because the economic dynamics make it unavoidable, no matter what we do. He also imagined that a perfect society would be something like communism or socialism, and he may well have been right; but it will have to evolve naturally, as people become convinced that this is what they want. Well, one can dream.

It is by design. The "original" retirement age of 65 was set there because that was the average life expectancy. The idea was that if you managed to beat the odds, then a small pension would pay for your food and incidentals while your family was expected to provide the rest until you managed to do the right thing and kick off.

Today, of course, "retirement" has become an entitlement and you expect the government to keep you in the style you have grown to expect with a sufficient pension to maintain your independence.

on a Netgear R6300 and it has been very fast, great with signal quality, and the QoS features are working as expected.

Both the R6250 and R6300 have a dual-core 800MHz CPU, so they have the power to handle a decent QoS requirement without bogging down potential throughput too much. I'm satisfied, and it wasn't that expensive. If your situation isn't too terribly complex (many dozens of users and extensive QoS rules) then it might be a good choice.

The R7000 is even faster and supports external antennas, so I second that suggestion, but it's also twice the price of the 6250/3000, which can be found on sale from $100-$125 brand new if you're a good comparison shopper and/or patient.

To the Left, yes.

My favorite question to Democrats is: Quick, tell me 5 things that George W Bush said that were commendable.

I can easily find 5 banal positive things that Obama, or Kerry, or Clinton said that I agree with, despite disagreeing with them politically. I don't find them evil, just ignorant or misprioritizing things, so it's simple to find basic human statements I agree with.

If you can't find 5 positive things to say about your opponent, you're a zealot, and any discussion you enter is a waste of time.

One of the most important pieces of career advice I've received is to make sure that people who cause pain feel the pain. It is not my job to be a whipping boy who suffers for every bad decision I tried to warn someone about. If management insists that I do something really goofy, then they should not be spared from the consequences of their plans. Insulating them only enables them to keep making bad choices and inflicting them on codependent organizations.

You say "rubbing their nose in it". I say "making sure decision makers understand the results of those decisions".