I'm surprised that it has that high a value at all, given that their legal and accounting expenses must be tremendous (even if they were somehow to win every lawsuit against them) and their liability insurance provider is doubtless going to fight them over every single claim.

The real question is whether Holmes was as good at deceiving herself as she was at deceiving others. If she was, her net worth may indeed be limited to personal property (which certainly she'll get to keep since it's very difficult to confiscate personal property from the wealthy), but if she was aware of just how much of it was all smoke and mirrors, then I'm sure she found ways to hide as much as she could.

What she really needs to do is declare that she's found religion, write a book, and then become a talk show guest.

It's fascinating to see how many posters here automatically assume that it must be the PHBs who pressured the engineers into this. Very few assume that the engineers saw an opportunity for a bonus or for the PHB to owe them one, and added the cheat function voluntarily. I've not seen any posts so far that suggest an engineer thought of the cheat and suggested it to a PHB.

A reminder that we tend to think of our peers as being much more ethical than "them" and look for reasons to think of them as victims of force or circumstances, and assume that "they" are only motivated by sheer callous greed. Whoever the "them" is.

They did commit what they'll reluctantly admit were mass killings of Armenians (what the rest of the world correctly recognizes as genocide) in the aftermath of World War I.

During the Ottoman era, they did occupy Greece and were, like virtually every occupying force, remarkably brutal. This got a lot of attention in the West because they were oppressing Europeans and Christians (instead of Asians and Muslims).

But here's a story about them. During the Irish genocide by famine (when a country exports food during a famine and the occupying foreign land owners raise rents during a period of starvation, that's genocide, whether the original cause was natural or not), the then Sultan of Turkey, Abdul Majid Khan, offered to send food and 10,000 pounds sterling. England refused to allow this.

Why? Why would it refuse the kind of aid that would have saved several thousand lives?

Queen Victoria gave only two thousand pounds and a gift greater than that would make her look ungenerous.

The Sultan insisted on giving something and finally they bargained him down to one thousand pounds. He also send three ships worth of food, but kept it quiet.

Technically, the government is secular (women working in government offices are even forbidden to wear head scarves, for example), but Erdogan has been doing everything possible to uproot that. As in many countries, the cities tend to back full separation of church/temple/mosque and state, while the rural areas tend to want religion integrated into government.

As you say, for a long time the military was a strong force for secular liberalism and the standard-bearer for Ataturk's secularist reforms and even led several coups to restore secular and democratic rule. Erdogan, though, made sure early on in his administration to gut their capacity to affect policy, let alone lead a coup.

I don't think that Turkey's capacity to be a mix of Muslim culture and secular government is entirely gone, but it's certainly diminishing. If it had a stronger and more diverse economy, Tunisia might be in a position to do so, but poverty (which often breeds Islamism, just like it does Christianism) and terrorism have virtually ruled out that possibility.

It seems quite possible that polyamory/monoamory are part of human biological sexual orientation as well as part of culture. If so, oxytocin would play a strong part, probably also with factors that drive extinction of a response to a stimulus, estrogen, testosterone, etc..

One of the main reasons ebooks sold so tremendously (in volume, not price) on Amazon in the first few years was the huge number of public domain books that were suddenly free for the downloading. There was also a big spike in volume and price from this being the next generation of a format, rather like CD sales were inflated during the first few years of their popularity because people were getting on CD what they previously had on LPs or cassettes.

Where illustrations, graphs, tables, or seeing a page as a whole are important, physical books still have the advantage. I'd imagine that will last until there's a next-generation breakthrough in display.

I'm definitely not convinced of anything by this study, but it does suggest that there might be something worth examining more rigorously. If the study could be consistently replicated with people who don't have a language (or language family) in common, then it would be more indicative.

It should also be audio-only, since the instructions of "don't use facial expressions" are almost futile, considering how many our expressions are involuntary or unconscious.

Whether it's invention, integration, or just plain copying, a product has to be timely, to appeal to real and perceived needs. Steve Jobs was fortunate to be developing and marketing products during a time when gadgets and other small personal devices were taking on an extra psychological meaning to consumers. The same way that a vast number of consumers felt as though their cars were an extension of their ego and had to both reflect and enhance who they are, gadgets (and sneakers) started to do the same thing. Oprah Winfrey, for example, got a lot of her fame and fortune by combining a generic kind of spirituality with materialism and gadgets, a like of spirituality of consumption.

Apple products always implied that the people who own them are defying Big Brother or "think different." Even things like the white earbuds and headphones were designed to stand out in a crowd. People could simultaneously feel more creative and more attuned to art and design, and get the benefits of flaunting conspicuous consumption.

Even in times when a lot of people can't afford to buy a car or home, and can't show off their big electronics as a sign of conspicuous consumption, they can do so with the latest Apple device.