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001skyon U.S. honeybee colonies hit a 20-year high

The empirical existence of rising marginal cost (as you point out) is not evidence of non-viability. Every economic 101 good is thought to be produced until its marginal cost is sloping upward. Economically coherent industries will continue to produce widgets. And increasing costs do not simply make an industry incoherent. Both social value ($demand/subsidization) and technology (cost/difficulty) come into play. It seems a bit arbitrary to make adverse assumptions about future ecosystems a bit more evidence.

001skyon Ocean acidification may cause dramatic changes to phytoplankton

The fact specific exercise is: not {all acids} introduced into {all alkaline solutions} make for end-state simple (ie, potable) water. The result is often, water with residual mineral content. And often that is, in fact, quite toxic. EG,

Another definition of a basic salt would be a salt that contains amounts of both hydroxide and other anions. White lead is an example. It is basic lead carbonate, or lead carbonate hydroxide. These salts are insoluble and are obtained through precipitation reactions.

So good luck with that exercise.

001skyon Ocean acidification may cause dramatic changes to phytoplankton

No, the water in the above examples will not sustain life if you put 'acid' in it to neutralize tested ph. The real core of the issue is the disolved mineral content of the water and how healty or not that is. That ph correlation is neither fundamental nor fully reliable. Its a gross oversimplification.

001skyon Famous Climate Scientist Issues Sea Level Warning

My point is if your can organize a paper with sixteen co-authors you can also arrange for peer review. Shortcutting the process makes no sense. Well, it makes perfect sense as propoganda. But not as sincere science.

001skyon Ocean acidification may cause dramatic changes to phytoplankton

Anyone familiar with seawater knows it is not acidic, nor anywhere close. Similarly, inland dry lakes (places like mono, great salt lake, salton etc) are not acidic. But the ph is not relevant to why they can't sustain life. Its a lot more complicated than that.

001skyon Ocean acidification may cause dramatic changes to phytoplankton

Seawater is not acidic. There is no such thing as 'acidification' in the literal sense. The water is simply moving closer to ph neutral.

Take a look here:

http://www.miseagrant.umich.edu/lessons/lessons/by-broad-con...

001skyon Famous Climate Scientist Issues Sea Level Warning

"Too urgent to be peer-reviewed"

Maybe the sixteen co-authors could have...oh, wait what?

001skyon Did Reddit Boss Coverage Cross a Line?

You've simply conflated symbols (ie, ≈ ≠ = etc).

The original uses shorthand "~=" for coarse equality, in lieu of {option+x}.

001skyon Did Reddit Boss Coverage Cross a Line?

Define unlikely? I mean just as easily the opposite could be assumed.

001skyon Did Reddit Boss Coverage Cross a Line?

...should probably examine their motivations

This is silly. NY Times is "the paper of record." The blackline of this article shows the entire piece was re-written. They did this as part of an experiment in "propogating" viral content. But "propogating propoganda"like this expressly at odds with being the "paper of record".

001skyon Did Reddit Boss Coverage Cross a Line?

Important to remeber that ~50% of ceo's are not "above average".

001skyon Reddit Chief Engineer Quits After Less Than Two Months on the Job

This is why what Sheryl Sandberg did at facebook is hard. Places like reddit and twitter are fundamentally successful products. The content creators, who are basically working for free, creating stuff that grabs other people's attention.

001skyon New York Times' Reddit Piece Shows Dangers of Internet Journalism

I suppose you could use the same argument for rolling stone, but frankly it doesn't matter. Look at the UVA rape case from earlier this year (covered widely). The RFK piece on vaccination was published originall in rolling stone. The hagiographic prose the NYT writes about the author (kennedy) and the editorial selection of the piece by rolling stone lend these ideas credibility regardless of the flaws in the articles. Again, look at the UVA rape article earlier this year (published: rolling stone) and see how much coverage it got in NYT, WaPo, LaTimes etc. Its worth noting That WaPo debunked alot of the Rolling stone reportage ultimately, but that just goes to show that not all newsrooms are single minded/purpose entities.

Lastly, if you look up (and read) the footnotes in my earlier not, you'll se that there is a clear link between the academic critique of 'journalistic integrity' and the anti-vaccination example, insofar as 'false balance' is a well defined sub-topic of that debate. Under the Wikipedia article for that...you notice (rightly or wrongly) that of the examples given, the anti-vaccination quakery (eg, kennedy in rollin stone etc) is a "well worn" example.

In other words, a commenter making reference to this is not making any novel or original argument that needs "footnotes". Footnotes are useful when there is a more subtle point, a nuance or something that is not obvious. Footnotes are less called for here, as a simple google search will attest.

001skyon New York Times' Reddit Piece Shows Dangers of Internet Journalism

Robert F Kennedy was the source for the Salon Piece in footnote 4.

"He had written a much-discussed and much-challenged story for Rolling Stone last year linking childhood vaccines and a rise in autism."

"Nonetheless, perhaps more than any other Kennedy of his generation, he is looked upon as the next potential vessel for Something Bigger. In words, temperament and actions, he conveys a frenetic vibe of restlessness that invites the questions "What else?" "What next?" "What more?""

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/25/fashion/25bobby.html?pagew...

Its this kind of stuff that is ultimately problematic. Note that this is in the 'fashion' section of the NYT.

You could say that 'Salon' is outide your definition of mainstream media, but the issue is that the sites you mentioned still cover the stories, even if nothing more than as references in pursuit of 'journalistic integrity'.

Obviously google will turn up lots of materiel on this if you want it.

(Note that the current treatment of these topics is far more skeptical. The LA times in 2015 is not going to treat these topics the same as the NY times in 2006.)

001skyon New York Times' Reddit Piece Shows Dangers of Internet Journalism

Guy complains about lack obvious lack of rigour.

HN asks him for citations.

Srsly?

________

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_balance

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Journalistic_objectivity

[3] with ref (1) to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thiomersal_controversy

[4] http://www.salon.com/2011/01/16/dangerous_immunity/

[5] http://articles.latimes.com/2010/mar/13/science/la-sci-autis...

001skyon New York Times' Reddit Piece Shows Dangers of Internet Journalism

The ethics don't stop when you hit 'send to print'

001skyon Ellen Pao Is Stepping Down as Reddit’s Chief

Friday afternoon, eh? Someone took a PR class in college!

-- Top Comment on that thread

001skyon Facebook’s Piracy Problem

This title seems (a bit) like blaming the stock exchange for insider trading.

001skyon Why We Shut Down Reddit’s ‘Ask Me Anything’ Forum

They fired the relationship manager for the AMAs. The way the did that harmed/ruined some relationships. The 'how' is as important as the what in that case, so your comment seems bizarreley off base.

This is a wholy different issue that the dust up a month ago. Thats why a petition for the CEO's resignation has 200,000 signatures. The incident 1 month ago promted onlt 10K or so, so this latest issue is a 20x increase in pissed off people.

001skyon We apologize

Can't they just 'pin' the CEO's post to the top?

This reeks of lack of imagination.

001skyon Descendants of Holocaust Survivors Have Altered Stress Hormones

This is a variant of 'I don't understand [something]...therefore I must be right'.

001skyon Greeks Reject Bailout Terms

This is too reductionist.

Eliminate NYC from new york state and what happens? Same Chicago and LA in their respective states. Likewise, many western states have huge flows of government spending for reasons that don't make sense on the surface. Those states, tend to have military installations, and huge allocations of national parks and national forest land.

In other words, that type of government spending is not social policy handouts. But rather is the US paying to keep up assets that it owns already (basically security and maintenance).

Rural appalachia is an exception (eg, west va = highly democratic; TN home of senator gore, etc) as these states were the target of many early government projects (like TVA and Food Stamps).

Lastly, huge amounts of governmnet spending are on healthcare

(& social security, which again have nothing to do with modern red state/blue state issues).

001skyon Real time Greek referendum results

why link to a discussion flagged of the front page?

001skyon Real time Greek referendum results

Some of this has to do with faulty investor logic. The euro was sold to investors in a way where they believed that once in the currecny there was no exit. So they tried to price all of the components the same, rather than pricing in soverign risk for each state. Or, in other words, if any investors pricied in sovereign risk others would be there to arb it out of the system.

I think for that there should be some mechanism to let the investors take the hit. The issue is whether or not the cost to bail out greece would be cheaper than to deal with the incremental risk premium on the rest of the eu debts. At some stage the tradeoff between economic logic and incentives (moral hazard) needs to be dealt with more transparently.

001skyon Show HN: Silicon Valley Dictionary – Urban Dictionary Meets Silicon Valley

yes...this is not at all uncommon and I imaginge in many other places around the world for the same reasons...

suprisingly, its not as terrible for the environment as it looks. but its not pleasant to see or be around regardless.

obviously, don't do this in CA b/c wildfires...etc.

001skyon Despite improvements, driving in America remains extraordinarily dangerous

Huh? what about rain, snow, sleet, and fog? What about the desert and mountainous western states? What about the wind in the midwest?

2 wheel transit requires actual expertise unless limited to mediterranean climates. you also have no way to deal with practical concerns like injuries, spare tires, designated drivers, and transit of things like gear for sports. that is all stuff that is the bread and butter of yound people needing cars/transit and why the parents delegate it out.

on the flipside, smaller cars & motorsycles are more dangerous. EG, when hit by all the massive SUVs and crazy f150 class vehicles favored by commercial drivers.

their is a logic to why americans drive the cars they do. in part that's why the story is more akin to a tradgedy than a farce. the issues don't solve themselves with trivial remedies.

Untill their is public transit that is safe, all-weather, and comprehensive, the public will need de-centralized and private transit solutions.

unfortunately, the geographic and population topography of the country does not suit the european model of public transporation. there are also many issues now that it is "too late" to save places like california, who now have such massice entrnched residential real estate that new transit corridors cannot be built by the state without paying in essence ransom to current deed holders.

...etc.

001skyon The Problem with Founders (2014)

This is a personal success story, but...wasn't his point that unicorn employees at this level are going to (be able to) retire...along with the founders...while the next tier down only gets the downpayment on a mortgage...so net/net there is no "game change" unless one is deep in equity or the exit is $1Bn or more. That math is order of magntitude correct, isn't it? I don't see the conflict with what you are saying, you guys are both saying something that is true to some extent.

001skyon [dead]

Na, that chart is flat to declining.

001skyon Study: Attractive men fare best in gaining venture capital

Ha. That's only because nobody (rationaly) wants to negotiate with a beautiful woman.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/men/relationships/11707591/Why-me...

001skyon In 1900, Los Angeles had a bike highway

yes, the interstate system was built under eisenhower, the ex general. similar to the reconcfiguration of paris to promote military transport in the 19th c. the point being you need to improve route 66 era roads to handle modern industrial transport. the interstate system is really not a passenger-car centric piece of infrastructure in many ways.