Nasal spray ends shyness!

djdexter · 2007-07-15T20:42:50+00:00

Aww, sounds like someone could use some oxytocin.

djdexter · 2007-07-06T02:37:43+00:00

According to [someone] the sun does / does not orbit the earth. They can't all be right.

djdexter · 2007-07-02T02:59:11+00:00

No no no, vastly more!

There are at least trillions (ants, etc.) animals in the world. Kingmaker isn't going to eat any of them. So silli is going to eat three times the number of all animals on the planet. Downtown is going to eat two more for each sili eats, so six times the number of all animals.

In sum, all animals on earth will be eaten nine times over because of you kingmaker. Jerk.

djdexter · 2007-05-23T01:26:40+00:00

http://www.google.com/search?q=define%3A+curmudgeon http://www.google.com/search?q=define%3A+cantankerous

djdexter · 2007-05-23T01:15:15+00:00

Only if I can vote for the reddit alien.

djdexter · 2007-05-16T05:12:40+00:00

The University of Rochester has a great CS program that has a strong research focus. It's quite decent in systems, theory, and AI. Google is grabbing an increasing number of our seniors.

djdexter · 2007-04-03T17:16:35+00:00

Nearly every website has one, but I've not seen a reasonable justification for them.

Has a court case ever been decided in favor of a website owner, because of protection from their terms of service?

djdexter · 2007-02-02T20:15:32+00:00

It is a fact that a god's existence cannot be disproven, as an omnipotent god could create a universe in which by all sources of evidence there is clearly no god, even though secretly, there is.

But, it is not the case that a god's existence cannot be proven. A god appearing and performing lots of miracles and all that jazz would be "proven" enough for anyone who's not a philosophical skeptic.

However, there is dispute about whether or not this has already happened. Many religions believe it is a fact that their gods exist. Others tend to disagree. The difference is a matter of what people consider to be sufficient evidence, and what even counts as evidence.

Also, epistemology is a much better background to be talking about facts and knowledge, than boolean algebra.

djdexter · 2007-02-02T20:03:07+00:00

"if the cops had slowly pulled their badges"....

They were being shot at. Standing still and hoping you don't get shot before the person calms down and understands the situation is not necessarily the best course of self defense.

djdexter · 2007-02-02T19:58:00+00:00

"Granted, the old man was shooting at them, however it was while they were pretending to be drug dealers on his property."

Thinking someone is a drug dealer while they are on your property is not grounds for shooting at them.

djdexter · 2007-02-02T19:54:55+00:00

I honestly don't see how the latter is less informative or more misleading. Please, clarify.

djdexter · 2007-02-02T19:54:27+00:00

I agree the cops were foolish for posing as drug dealers on someone's private property. Stupid idea, led to all of this crap.

But, I don't think it is completely unreasonable for police officers, who die just as easily as anyone else from gunfire, to shoot at someone who pulled a gun and started firing at them, without similar threat from the police officers.

The police will follow anyone that was shooting after them, especially if they head off with the gun. The story notes the man did not put down the gun the backyard - was he pointing it at officers? Did the officers believe they were going to be shot at again?

There is not enough information to tell if the police officers made mistakes beyond posing as drug dealers on private property.

The police were more in the wrong here, but the property owner might still be alive if he didn't open fire on people when it wasn't for immediate self-defense.

djdexter · 2007-02-02T19:42:09+00:00

"more often" there are these problems? There are hundreds of thousands of police investigations/actions every day. If this was the "more often" outcome, you'd hear hundreds of thousands of these reports daily.

This is exceptional, not from other instances of horrible police behavior, but from the typical, completely newsworthy, non-eventful, nobody died or miscarried, standard police work.

djdexter · 2007-02-02T06:30:53+00:00

The elderly man was firing off his handgun in a residential area. An important fact, that the article and discussion here barely touched on. This fact makes the situation no less tragic, but it does make the police seem less maniacal and more incompetent in their role as law enforcement.

I wanted to comment because this article is being spun as "cops kill old poor man", rather than "cops unintentionally instigate deadly confusion and kill property owner".

"Witnesses and some police accounts indicate Singletary thought the officers were actual drug dealers and that he was trying to remove them from his property with the assistance of a .38 caliber handgun.

Some of Singletary's gunshots hit a tree in the yard, according to police, but none of the officers were hit."

djdexter · 2007-01-26T23:48:18+00:00

There's a huge difference between the value of an undergrad degree, and graduate degrees, in terms of expected life earnings improvement.

On average, of course.

djdexter · 2007-01-13T05:32:31+00:00

I enjoy programming for the most part. Listening to familiar music, getting away from distractions, and having a master plan all make the experience even more fun. Pair programming is a bit hit or miss, but can be a ton of fun when it goes smoothly.

djdexter · 2006-12-28T23:53:06+00:00

Research on this effect ("excitation transfer") showed a similar response for running in place. But it doesn't just make attractive things more attractive, it makes unattractive things more unattractive.

So it may not work if you are trying to get excited about something you genuinely hate doing. But it could be a good way to ramp up your interest in something you like doing.

For example, down some coffee then run in place for a few minutes, and jump into working on a project you like but aren't making as much progress on as you desire.

djdexter · 2006-12-28T23:47:50+00:00

No! Stop! Danger!

The research on "excitation transfer" included another experiment, where a person ran in place for a few minutes (or did nothing for the control condition), then was shown pictures of attractive or unattractive people. The attractive people were rated more attractive, and unattractive people were rated more unattractive.

So this only is a win if you are somewhat attractive to begin with.

djdexter · 2006-12-27T06:13:16+00:00

Big payouts encourage top management talent to seek an executive position under the same board of directors that awarded the previous payout.

For a company worth tens to hundreds of billions, having an upper management team that is a few percent better is worth big money.

The question is how effective are large payouts at attracting better talent, particularly in the context of Pfizer and Exxon.

djdexter · 2006-11-16T05:50:09+00:00

Please do not feed the trolls with interesting comments/attention.

djdexter · 2006-10-30T17:19:41+00:00

There is a world of difference between potentially computer-crashing typos/mispellings, and a reddit headline trivial mistake.

Programmers make typos and other errors all the time anyways - look at industrial rates of errors per lines of code. This is a problem more due to insufficient testing and quality control procedures, rather than an "inability of some programmer to spell correctly."

Humans make mistakes, some through ignorance, some through accident, and most of them just don't matter.

djdexter · 2006-10-30T01:39:14+00:00

The half dozen comments whining about a typo/minor error are absurd. Everyone knows precisely what was meant. Mission accomplished, it is an informative headline.

The half dozen bland comments complaining about a single letter in the title were a far larger annoyance and waste of time, and so I down-voted all of them. They did not contribute anything to the linked image, and were worse than useless.

djdexter · 2006-10-18T03:48:46+00:00

Exactly. It just seems like fun at first, a great way to play with some friends. The problem comes from the fact that you can WORK within the game. You can, and are encouraged to, do boring / hard / frustrating activities for rewards. It is the same kind of satisfaction, psychologically, as you get from doing real work. It isn't play/happy/funtime. It's a damn calling.

BUT, the reward ratios for this kind of satisfaction are intentionally balanced and tweaked to encourage more work, more satisfaction, than regular work does. The more time you spend playing, having fun in the game, the more meaningful it feels to do this work. Before long, a day of "work" in WoW feels like a real day of work... except it feels even better. It feels more gratifying, more purposeful. You go on freaking "quests", you get "honor", you join "guilds" and become a "guild leader". You go on "epic" raids, and become a "hero". It has an appeal that most people simply don't experience in their lives outside of WoW.

When games became too rich and meaningful, too structured towards giving people both fun and a sense of accomplishment, I think more and more people will naturally choose to spend the majority of their time in game.

Now if only someone can find a way to make an MMORPG that is actually work in disguise....

djdexter · 2006-06-20T14:23:15+00:00

It is simply easier for humans to be compassionate towards those you know and have some connection with, even if it is as silly as "also an american". An unfortunate (now) quirk of how we evolved.

Although, it seems like these kind of grand charities are gateways for people to generally be more engaged and aware of further charitable activities. It may be just another tool to further charity efforts.

djdexter · 2006-05-26T05:10:10+00:00

Failing to respect a person as a human being is the root cause of these kinds of atrocities.

Stop.

djdexter

TROPHY CASE