kokofoo

Hitler had to learn the true nature and the power of nonviolent resistance the hard way. These were Hitler's words in 1943, admitting privately to his lieutenants the difficulties of ruling the conquered regions such as Denmark, Norway, Czechoslovakia, etc., where people were using nonviolent non-cooperation means to resist the Nazi occupation. "One cannot rule by force alone... For, in the long run, government systems are not held together by the pressure of force, but rather by the belief in the quality and the truthfulness with which they represent and promote the interests of the people."

I always wonder why no one plays with forehands on both sides, i.e., a right-handed forehand and a left-handed forehand. I think that would be such an advantage.

Congrats on your marriage. I really enjoy your blog posts and podcasts and comments here on HN. They taught me a lot. Thank you.

I actually told my wife (who knew the correct answer - Chicago) half jokingly that perhaps it was the sportsmanship built into Watson to throw away an easy answer once in a while, because he was on a hot streak up to that point.

I'm wondering what you think about Wun-Yi Shu Universe (http://byrev.org/tech/wun-yi-shu-universe/). I saw a post about his paper here on HN a while ago.

Centrifugal force is also used to achieve the concept called artificial gravity, which is the reason why characters in Star Trek walk around like normal in their starships.

I grew up near a lake and always used to hearing those drowning stories. One of the guy I met told me about a similar story. He was trying to rescue a kid who was drowning and he started to grab/climb him as soon as he reached him. He said he had to punch him into unconscious then rescued him.

I recently read an article in which they say one can solve problems in their dreams [1]. I could swear it has happened to me at least a couple times.

[1] http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/37926551/ns/health-behavior/

This is a much harder problem to solve than terrorism itself.

I can see the opposite side too. Prestige isn't worth much if nobody willing to pay for it. But the fact is there are people willing to pay for it. EDIT: I guess that's what you're saying as well.

The Lions book. http://www.amazon.com/Lions-Commentary-Unix-John/dp/15739801...

The extreme example would be Mozart and Gauss. I don't think either one could have become one another, even though both of them possessed one-in-billion IQs.

According to weather services, the storms at the region towered as high as 50,000 feet, an altitude higher than maximum ceiling that most commercial jetliners can climb.

A chip that implants inside your brain so that you can surf the web with sheer thought.

I have not read this before. But I heard this story told by a college professor Michio Kaku when I was in his astronomy 101 class. Yes, he is the author of the book, Hypersapce.(http://www.amazon.com/Hyperspace-Scientific-Odyssey-Parallel...) It's a good book to read if you're interested in those things.

> eaching is a skilled craft. A good teacher will work a classroom to keep all manner of kids involved and engaged. We've all had teachers like that.

Amen to that. Not only is teaching a craft, I think it's a passion.

I took College Physics I with such teacher. Physics I was one of the toughest courses in my college. According to the student polls, 70% voted it as THE toughest course. Anyway, this professor was different (there're other professors teaching the same course). He didn't mind going unconventional way. For example, he claimed that he was the only person in the country who teaches force first then motion later rather than the other way around. (In fact, he refuses to teach the other way around.) The great thing about him was he provokes students' curiosity and appreciation to the subject. During the first day lecture, he concluded it with an experiment he claimed to be the greatest experiment ever performed on earth. He just threw a chalk up into the air and caught it back, and that was it. Then he asked why didn't the chalk "fall behind" for the earth was spinning and moving at many kilometers per second. He not only knows his stuff, he has a passion to teach, cares the students learn. In many ways he has a hacker attitude. I admit there'were students who hated him because he was tough on grades, and he didn't mind shushing those students who just took up most of the time with a lot of irrelevant, stupid questions. (He'd be patient at first, though.)

Back to the topic, I think unschooling might as well work for many people, but at the risk of not meeting such great teachers.

I would guess somebody or something need to catch the passengers from the other side of the hole; otherwise, it would fall back and forth forever like gigantic pendulums..

If you want to boggle your mind this Christmas I suggest you read GEB. It's not just Math, but Philosophy, AI, programming, logic, human mind, etc. I started reading it last year, and I'm still reading it this year, probably will be next year, year...