Well, start with whether the results agree with common sense. If you close 2/3 of the lanes serving Fort Lee, then traffic coming up Routes 1 and 9 backs up onto the streets of Fort Lee and you get a slight improvement for through traffic coming up I-95. The actions taken were so drastic it doesn't take an expert to predict the consequences -- which is why the "study" was so fishy.

But suppose you have a legitimate need to be absolutely sure what would happen if you did something so boneheaded as close 2/3 of the traffic in a major artery that flows through the streets of a 3 square mile town. Then run your model, and shut down *one* lane for *one* hour to see if your model predicts correctly. Or shut down both lanes for a full day, if the information is absolutely critical to operations (which nobody argues it was). But don't run the experiment for *five* days, when all it is telling you is what common sense and a gas station map could tell you.

Not analogous at all. The point of Fast and Furious was to track the guns and catch the people transferring them to Mexican drug cartels. In principle this is a reasonable, though risky strategy to catch people who couldn't be caught be mere simulations. In practice ATF was too poorly organized to track the guns to the drug cartels and obtain indictments.

The supposed bridge study was statistical in nature and could easily be simulated from data obtained by counting cars.

The hunger tip is an interesting one, worth trying, but you should accustom yourself to fasting first. You don't have to fast entirely, you can limit yourself to 1/4 the calories needed to maintain your weight on a fasting day. Also, you probably shouldn't fast back to back days. Hunger is stress -- like exercise. Moderation and rest are the best training advice.

This is good advice.

I'll also give you the advice I gave my daughter going off to college. Problems will arise, you'll have bad days and sometimes bad course. Give yourself every advantage. Start by taking good care of yourself. Eat well, exercise, and sleep. Pace yourself. Cramming is the most inefficient way possible to study, so study in smaller chunks more frequently -- every day in fact. Always keep up or a little ahead of the course to avoid pointless cramming.

You can't remember what doesn't pass through your consciousness, so pay attention, and take notes. You don't have to look at the notes again, but the process of engaging the brain enough to translate a lecture into notes helps fix it there. Also, some people need to move to remember, and note taking, even doodling can help. In extreme cases you might need to play back lectures on your iPod while you walk (many schools make lectures available on video).

Depends on the bulb. I've seen cheap Chinese knock-off that look identical to high quality bulbs (unless you look closely enough to see the lousy build quality) that have unbelievably bad flickering. They were also 1500K or more bluer than claimed on the box.

A Fine Gael TD named Patrick
Vied for the cluelessness hat trick:
He blamed anonymity
For people's affinity
To gambling, drugs and well-stacked chicks.

He represents Limerick, for Christ's sake. He had it coming.

They make no sense and CFL's make a ton of sense.

CFL's take about 30 seconds to come to full brightness. At full brightness, they are still dimmer than incandesants. These are in fact, actual issues with the tecnology.

First of all, google is your friend. This is something that has been studied by many people, and many effective are available for you to use. For example, I happen to like the Method of loci which I use to memorize the main points of speeches and lists.

Different people like different methods, and there's a buffet of effective methods to choose from. Again, google is your friend.

That being said, here's the psychological answer:

If you want to increase your long term memory, you start with the theory of memory. Our brains remember things that are important to us, which means that either the information has perceived value or emotional content.

Emotional content in lectures is hard to get in a college setting - it's an aspect that good lecturers use - but you can use tricks to increase your retention. Get together with some friends and make up a "game" of reviewing the information. Play Jeopardy, make up funny physics stories, try to make puns from equations... anything that causes you and your group to laugh or think deeply will do. For example, how would "Ming the Merciless" destroy the Earth using magnetic fields (from your recent physics lecture)? Analyze it tongue-in-cheek with your friends to see if the idea is viable.

High value is anything that will get you towards your goals, but you can choose your goals. Pick an appropriate goal and you will sop up information like a sponge. Imagine starting your own company... what's your dream situation? All the MBA classes you are taking will now have new meaning: everything you are taught will cling to that goal like ornaments on a tree. Resolve to be an amateur astronomer who discovers a new comet, a teacher who wins "teacher of the year", a writer that wins a Hugo award... dream big and convince yourself that the information will get you towards that goal.

Learning is actually fun, and it's something your brain is evolved to do. As a consequence, and as a survival trait we get pleasure from learning. If you can tap into this basic function, you'll find that learning is both fun and easy.

If you don't see the data, it's because you're actively avoiding looking for it.

Meanwhile, in Ireland, it was revealed today that IBM were paid 44.8m euro in consultancy fees for setting up a billing system for Irish Water, a service that will bill, at most, 3 million customers.

Computer aided automation is not universally more cost efficient, or efficient in general. In fact, a lot of the time, computer automation is little more than an excuse to overpay the corporate class bonuses and consultation fees. See also: SAP installations.

Doesn't everyone who can proram do this? Just like gun fans identify and count shots for each weapon they see?

From the (mistaken? wise?) use of a .300 in an IPv4 address in The Net, to the identification of some kind of 6502 assembly code in the Terminator's red overlay, it's always been something to try to do in the theater without freeze-frame available.

The restrictions on teaching in America are severe. The restrictions in the UK make it doable, for now, but the backlash against Free Schools will likely end that.

I'd love to get off my high horse. I'm getting vertigo. The problem is that educating people has got so much red tape and legal bumfluff involved. PLEASE let me educate! It is my natural state of being!

You have to be more precise. What predictions are you talking about?

This is just silly. Accuracy and precision are two entirely different things, and *every* scientific discipline tolerates imprecision.

Give an example of a precise *climate* prediction, so we know what you're talking about.

Your definition of science rules out physics, which is full of arbitrary constants. For example you may remember the equation for gravitational force from high school physics: F = G *m1*m2 / r^2, where G, the universal gravitational constant, is chosen experimentally to make the equation work. It rules out chemistry and materials science because we measure the physical properties of compounds rather than predict them. It rules out electromagnetism because of the empirical factors ( e.g. 8.854187817 x 10^12 farads/m) needed to make Maxwell's equations work.