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Comment Re:Makes sense. (Score 1) 477

Glucose (dextrose) is roughly half as sweet as fructose. People use HFCS because it's sweeter than normal syrup.

The main reason people in the US use HFCS is because corn production is heavily subsidized and that makes sweetening food with corn syrup cheaper than using sugar.

There is a reason that Mexican Coke is yummier ... its not local taste preferences, it is economic protectionism.

Comment reducing cycling accidents - fix the system (Score 1) 696

"At the end of the day, reducing cycling accidents may boil down to something simple: Making sure that bikers know the rules of the road — and that drivers know how to deal with bikers."

No, reducing cycling accidents boils down redesigning roads to make them save for cylclings (and pedestrians). Making sure everyone knows the rules of the road is important but fixing the systemic issues is the real way to address the problem.

Comment Re:Leading question (Score 1) 350

The issue is that the sample population is small and the effects of bias is often subtle so the suggestion that the image is "inappropriate" by overwhelm what my already be a "weak signal."

I don't think the goal was to determine of one image is considered more or less inappropriate it was to determine bias. So why not - "Our university is developing promotional material to attract more women. Would you use this image?" Or even better, show both images and then say "Which image would you choose for promotional material (1) image a, (2) image b, (3) neither images."

Bias is something rarely acknowledged and (thankfully) discouraged. As a result it is difficult to study. But there is a large body of rigorous research that consistently shows that even the most enlightened of us have implicit biases that effect our decision and actions on a daily basis. A very quick google came up with this literature review (http://kirwaninstitute.osu.edu/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/2014-implicit-bias.pdf). I haven't read and I'm not familiar with the Kirwan Institue but it looks like a good survey to my quick skim.

Comment Leading question (Score 1) 350

Your question mentions a work context and already suggests that the image is inappropriate. The wording is hardly impartial and may sway respondents who might otherwise be unsure how to answer and thus influenced by internalized/unconscious bias.

Also, this is a delicate topic. If you want to people to take your writing seriously, you should work hard at using respectful language. Referring to to the two graduates/mothers as "girls" is belittling.

Comment free-market rewards (Score 1) 291

the phone's shortcomings actually raise more interesting questions — about why the free-market system rewards companies for pulling off miracles at the hardware level, but not for fixing software bugs that should be easy to catch.

It doesn't. Apple is taking over half of the smartphone profit share while LG is loosing money on smart phones. Apples hardware is good but it isn't so much better than its competitors. The differentiation that makes it so profitable is software.

Comment More this (Score 1) 490

The article has it wrong (and this comment has it right). Its not that studios "allow Netflix to send out DVDs to their subscribers by mail" its that that can't stop them. This is a long article based false assumptions and zero research.

Comment Exercise vs Pollution and Catastrophe (Score 1) 947

I commuted for years by bicycle in LA. I've always wondered if it was increasing or decreasing my life expectancy.

On the one hand, my heart and body were getting a lot of exercise. On the other hand, I was sucking in a lot of pollutions and despite being a pretty careful rider I seem to get into an accident with a care once every three years.

(If you are curios, I walked away from all the accidents but a few of my ribs may never be the same again.)

Comment margins (Score 1) 348

I don't think its a good assumption that the 5c is lower margin relative to the 5s.

Apple has always sold last years model at a discount. The 5c is essentially a 5 engineered to be cheaper to produce - Plastic (err Polycarbonate) vs Aluminum and I'm guessing other tweaks as well.

The 5s on the other hand has two brand new processors the 64 bit A7 and the M7 (anyone know if the GPU is new too).

I wouldn't be surprised if the 5s is the lower margin device. I think the allowed for preorders on the 5c but not the 5s so they could sell as many 5cs as the good to improve their overall margins.

Comment Style != formatting (Score 2) 479

Almost all the posted comments are talking about formatting (tabs vs spaces, indentation, line breaks, etc).

While its good to be consistent with these. Style is so much more.
    Consistant naming schemes for variables/functions/classes/methods etc.
    Useful and meaningful comments.
    Handling non-expected input and states gracefully
    Catching and handling of exceptions
    meaningful feedback to the user if there is a problem.

I would call all these things and more "style." These are the things that make it easy to maintain code after it is written. They also help to reduce the incidence of bugs.

Comment Nothing to come clean about. (Score 1) 221

There is nothing for Apple to "come clean" about. They never said they didn't do market research (especially how it was described in the trial as tuning their marketing). What they have consistently said is that they don't use focus groups for product development.

"It's really hard to design products by focus groups. A lot of times, people don't know what they want until you show it to them."
-- Steve Jobs, BusinessWeek, May 25 1998

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