spottiness

One reason may be that the vast majority of young (very fertile) pretty women are not looking for dates online; simply because they have plenty of choices around them and therefore don't need to look in the virtual world. Males follow women in that category, wherever they are.

The author meant the users of the service, because it doesn't increase significantly the chances of meeting someone for a long term relationship, otherwise there would be less involuntarily single people out there (that's Greenspun's argument).

Our site "Spottiness.com" may serve you well, in particular the "Blackspot" section. We help people communicate anonymously and allow targets to respond. If your anonymity is paramount, you should be careful with your writing style and other clues.

Yours is a widespread feeling. The following is a blackspot to GoDaddy, from December last year, that tells a similar impression: http://www.spottiness.com/spots/PDJ5K3WR

Live announcement here now http://www.cmu.edu/event/sept7/

"That those who do not are inclined to do so unless heavily prompted not to is curious indeed."

What a confusing way of ending an article. It would translate into Ruby to something like this:

def ascribe_mental_acuity_to_the_dead?

  true

  unless believe_in_after_life

    false if heavily_prompted_not_to_believe_in_after_life

  end

You mean a lot of "positive" fake reviews, in which case people tend to fake positive opinions much more than negative ones. Definitely better than the opposite...

Amazon is a good example where "real name" reviews cause a bias towards positive reviews. I believe that most people are reluctant to write negative reviews if their real names are associated with it, even if the fairness of the review is not in question. Negative reviews always put a negative halo on the reviewers, so good reviews are overwhelmingly more common. Curiously in our site, where anonymity is a requirement, also the positive reviews dominate by far, which is indicating that there's much more good than bad in the world. Cool!

We are experimenting with reputation derived from complete anonymity since we believe that anonymity is required to maximize sincerity. In our current stage, we're manually moderating all the content generated, rejecting what looks fake based on common sense and intuition. If we ever generate traffic above a certain threshold then we have a mechanism where the content is validated by the creators themselves. Basically, the writers of opinions ("spots" for us) will have to evaluate other opinions before they can post their own, and a decision is made based on the number of coincidences among all the reviewers of a specific posting. We got the idea from previous work by CMU's Luis Von Ahn, in particular his (now Google's) ESP game.

These are examples of anonymous reviews about hotels that we have in our site:

A positive one => http://www.spottiness.com/spots/BHBZ8QJT

A negative one => http://www.spottiness.com/spots/RKTPXLJJ

Interestingly, they don't have the strong deceptive indicators...

Seasteading by Patri Friedman: http://seasteading.org/mission/intro

The debate below the article is very interesting.

I voted up your posting, but please use the original title "New leukemia treatment exceeds 'wildest expectations'". The HIV part is pretty irrelevant.

I agree with you. There's also the electronic Shark Shields that repels most species of sharks...

I have mixed feelings about Neil. He certainly have the credentials and I like him, although he's never serious enough for me. I just watched the Youtube video that you pointed to, and there he sounds like a religious preacher. I found very weak points in his arguments, easily refutable.

I hope that the sequel also targets a sophisticated audience: those of us that loved the original when we were kids and have continued evolving our brains for decades.

This is total awesomeness for the really motivated to learn. I don't think I'll have the time... although, maybe this is a good enough reason to quit my job. This is certainly an indication of what the future will bring for education. I hope other universities/professors do the same...

The article says that the mug-shot was removed after Cabibi paid $399 to RemoveSlander.com, however I found this: (not sure if the same Cabibi, but at least from Utah and aprox same age) http://www.bustedmugshots.com/utah/salt-lake-city/troy-phil-...

By posting him "the blackspot"...

I couldn't help thinking about software when Jefferson refers to ideas. The thinking power called software...

Warren Buffet's bedside book, by the way. I read it a few years ago and have been putting its teachings in practice consistently with great results. The book seems a little silly at first sight, but it really isn't.

That's only "renting" and prices are not too far off in Miami based on your numbers (a place equivalent to yours in Miami I would say cost "maybe" a little less). How about food, clothe, transportation? Are those things also more than twice more expensive? No way. For example, you can live without a car in SF because public transportation there is decent. In Miami you need a car as you need your legs.

And I'm not even considering the benefits that a globalized world brings to "expensive" cities. In other words, if we assume that everything is 138% more expensive in SF then savings will also be 138% larger and, in the "equivalence equation", you have to factor in the purchasing power of San Franciscans in markets outside SF and Miami, otherwise you'd be saying something of the sorts of: To maintain your standard of living when you move to SF from Miami you need to make 138% more money (and by the way, you'll get a 20 days vacation in Spain for free).

If we do that then we would be trusting that tool, which doesn't look right to me. (I don't think that SF is 138% more expensive than Miami, FL.) Let's put whatever we make, knowing that it's just an approximation.

By the way, I'd rather live in an expensive city making proportionally more money, because my savings would also be proportionally larger, and when you're buying a plane ticket to Europe online or a pair of shoes at Zappos, they don't check your zip code to give you a price.

I thought I was going to see the numbers :(

The Cato institute is not a conservative think tank, as in "conservatives vs liberals or republicans vs democrats". They are a libertarian think tank, and have been very critical of the Bush administration for exactly the same reasons that you mention plus others. (http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=3750)

If the article is technically correct though, that's all that matters. Let's use facts expressed in numbers to make decisions and leave emotional concepts like "hypocrisy" to artists.

"Despite often-heard claims to the contrary, ethanol has nothing to do with reducing CO2; it’s just a form of farm subsidy. If you’re using first-class land for biofuels, then you’re competing with the growing of food. And so you’re actually spiking food prices by moving energy production into agriculture."

"Nuclear mishaps tend to come in big events—Chernobyl, Three Mile Island, and now Fukushima—so it’s more visible. Coal and natural gas have much lower capital costs, and they tend to kill only a few at a time, which is highly preferred by politicians."

Did your wife ever have a miscarriage? If not, I would guess it's very likely (>90%) that sperms with the chromosomes with the translocation can't fertilize an egg.

>>It implies that a person of normal natural abilities has a shot at becoming world-class

The key lies in the definition of normal. Does it mean no less than 1 standard deviation below average? Does it mean above average? Above 1 standard deviation and less than 2? See, people in all those ranges are normal, and just by reducing a little the scope of "normal" a lot of people are filtered out.

My conjecture is that at least above average innate abilities are required, which by definition leaves out half the population.

Thanks for the pointers. I'll read it later tonight...

My own personal theory is similar to yours: among the genetically very tall males, there is a lot of people with the innate abilities of Michael Jordan (let's make it 40% of the original set). From that subset, those that put the 10,000 hours with great teachers plus other things will become the likes of Michael Jordan.

>>Maybe less time on couches and more time with coaches would change your perspective?

:) funny... (fixed the typo, thanks.)

>>there is a guy, Dan...

Is this Daniel Coyle? I read his "Talent Code" book too. Similar to "Talent is Overrated" but doesn't neglect innate talent as much as the other.

>>I thought the goal was "expert level", not Nobel Prize level.

Expert level in the book is as good as one can get after 10,000 hours of "deliberate practice" with great coaching. The author doesn't make any distinction between expert level and super high achievers.

I read this book and although I enjoyed it and found it interesting, I think that the author undervalues the importance of innate talent. According to the author, almost everybody can become great at anything given the right motivation, hard-work, and coaching. I find this principle wrong, based on what I've heard experienced coaches say, and my own experience through 19 years of schooling. In other words, a lot of (non-scientific) evidence suggests that great performers have above average innate abilities in what they do. These abilities are common in the population but in no way general to most people. So, those born with the "extra" in a particular field, paired with great couches, family support, and an emotional fabric that keeps them focused for a long time, will have the chance of making it to the highest.

(I have a friend that thinks otherwise and I tell him: "Remember when you were in first grade, try to remember your classmates, what percentage of them could have become Nobel Prize winners in Physics given the right nurturing conditions?". According to the author of this book, almost all of them)