PeterBB

T-Mobile is great in Chicago. The network goes to shit as soon as you try to go downstate, though.

Not that it matters at all, but socialists were using the word "libertarian" long before the American free-market liberals picked it up.

Eh, I sorta agree. But applying some basic math to this page[1], we find that 4% of American households that rent, are renting an NYC apartment. That's a pretty sizable chunk.

[1] http://www.nmhc.org/Content.cfm?ItemNumber=55508

I'll usually try the unsubscribe button first, if I recognize the name of the sender. But if it is difficult to unsubscribe, or doesn't work effectively, then the SPAM button it is.

It seems like about half the people are getting an "internet connection not found" error, and the other half are furious at the idea of a blind dating app.

And just to head off the inevitable shitstorm at the pass: No one is saying that assault or stalking cannot happen to men. It does happen, and is tragic.

However, women are more systematically threatened by such things in our society, and modify their behavior to avoid such things to a far greater extent than men do.

This is the precise reason for the "individual mandate" in Obamacare. The two provisions only work in combination.

That's true in this case, but only because we have other results showing that various problems are NP-complete.

Yeah, that's about the size of my current apartment in Chicago. We just call them "studio apartments", nothing especially "micro" about them.

Of course it is. You may think that the parent-child relationship is a place where authoritarianism is a very good idea, but that doesn't change the word used for the basic power structure involved.

This picture will be a core part of the conspiracy theories in five years.

> the ACT (and by association the SAT)

As someone who nearly aced both, the ACT is a noticeably better test. The SAT has a lot of dumb and predictable tricks involved. The ACT requires more actual ability.

> Cheating degrades the quality of education at any level.

Not in the least! You can argue that it degrades the prestige or something like that, but the education remains the same.

I definitely sympathize with this. I used to be (and to some extent still am) the sort of person who would get in a lot of social trouble for being too blunt about things, or for focusing on results rather than social niceties. But I’ve come to realize that in order to really value merit and honesty, good communication skills are a prerequisite. I’m going to focus on the second issue, since I think the merit issue is clearer. (There’s a reason we value languages other than assembly, and people like Bill Nye.)

If you want to be honest, you must first learn communication skills. It is impossible to communicate honestly if you can’t communicate.

Languages do not inherently contain meaning. The only reason we are able to speak and understand each other in English is because there is a social consensus that certain words and phrases mean certain things. If you try to speak to someone who isn’t part of that social consensus (because they speak only a different language, say), your words are meaningless.

Therefore, if you say some words to people, and every time they invariably interpret your words as meaning, “This person is socially aggressive and is disagreeing with me as a power play”, then that is what those words mean. It is almost entirely irrelevant that you intended them to mean, “It is my objective analysis that your plan is bad.”

Since you probably don’t believe, “I want to make a power play on this person”, you are accidentally being dishonest by stating your opinion the way you did. If you want to communicate, “I think your plan is a bad one, and that we ought to try something different”, then you must put in the effort to actually learn how to communicate that.

To take a concrete example, say a friend were to invite you to a movie. The movie is quite bad, and you have a variety of criticisms of it. At the end of the night, your friend asks, “So what did you think?” If you wish to communicate, “I thought it was a bad movie”, you cannot scowl and say, “Typical hollywood tripe.” That would accidentally be dishonest, because you would be communicating, “I’m in a bad mood, and quite possibly angry at you. Also, I’m completely uninterested in your opinion.” Instead, you might try something like smiling and saying, “Oh, it was exactly as terrible as I was expecting. I’m already composing my facebook take-down in my head. What did you think?” This more honestly communicates, “I found the movie lacking, but I’m in a good mood and glad we spent time together.” (Alternatively, if you do happen to be in a bad mood, it’s probably not because of the movie. So you might look thoughtful and say, “Well, I thought it was pretty mediocre, but I’ve been in a bad mood recently anyway, because of X, so I might just be being unfair.”)