czr80

Local hidden variable theories are ruled out by Bell's theorem (which has been experimentally verified).

When I get a cold I pray to Zeus. It always clears up in a few days. Can't think of any other reason for it getting better, therefore by your 3 criteria I'm justified in thinking Zeus cures my colds.

Actually, to establish causation, in as much as this is possible at all [1], you need a predictive model and controlled experiments.

[1] following Hume, you can never definitively show causation.

What if the book doesn't sell? Who absorbs the loss on the upfront costs?

Geography, accidents of history and positive feedback loops?

They're widgets without:

- the need to install something explicitly (separate from the app)

- the need to name them "widgets" (to the user they're just a fancier icon), which reduces the apparent complexity to the user

- they are completely invisible unless invoked by the user, thus preserving the simplicity iOS

- they have a natural and fixed size that helps preserve the visual aesthetic of the grid layout, without special efforts by the user

...and probably more - that's just off the top of my head.

I don't know if they're a good idea, by the way. But it's not good to just dismiss them as "android widgets".

> Can you imagine any other industry where the people doing most of the work aren't compensated financially and conglomerates make most of the profit.

Every online company relying on user generated content?

Yes. Basically, a stock split changes nothing about the value of the stock. However, it might lead to a slight rise in the stock price since small investors will now find it easier to buy, and so total demand for the stock might be a bit higher.

The hypothesis that lead exposure affects early childhood development, and that this leads to higher crime rates does lead to testable predictions - it predicts, for example, that different regions that removed lead at different times would see crime rates drop at different times. And indeed, this is exactly what we see. Is this as strong as exposing a test population and comparing it to a control? No. But neither is it meaningless pseudo-science.

This line of argument is actually very similar to the cosmological example - the theory makes a prediction about something you should observe, if the theory is correct. However, this is still much weaker proof than being able to generate a Big Bang in the lab and examine the outcome.

The QM case is an example of how much more powerful it is in fields where we can do controlled experiments, I agree. But not everything worth investigating (and worth knowing) is amenable to that type of study.

You could I guess define Science as only applying to areas where you can do controlled experiments - but you would thereby eliminate all observational sciences - evolutionary biology, astrophysics, cosmology, etc.

I suspect most people would find that a somewhat extreme position.

Also, fraud is an issue in all fields of Science, so that seems somewhat an unfair issue to introduce.

So the thesis is that technological progress relies on us incentivizing people with the hope of extreme wealth?

Seems unlikely - for one counter-example, a large part of progress in society rests on investment in basic research, and most of the scientists engaged in that work have no real expectation that they will get rich.

This is my theory, just idle speculation:

I don't think Google is desperate. I think Google is a personal playground for Larry and Sergey to invest in whatever takes their fancy - they have the money, and they don't answer to shareholders, given Google's unusual voting structure.

Sadly, they seem to favor flashy but questionable technology demonstrations (self-driving cars, glass, ara). Which is not to deny that some of the spending has been great (street view, google translate, etc.) They're no Bell labs, though, or IBM in its heyday, which is a real shame.

>This essay was written in 1958, before the 'Invisible Hand' was replaced by the Coase theorem which actually explains why externalities don't happen in free markets as often as you would think they would

I'm struggling to understand what you mean by this - Coase's theorem shows why externalities are often not addressed by market solutions, even when an apparent market solution exists (spoiler: transaction costs).

An engineer, a physicist and a mathematician are riding the train in Scotland. The engineer looks out the window and spots a black sheep.

"Look", he says, "Scottish sheep are black".

"No, no", says the physicist, "Some Scottish are black."

"No", says the mathematician, "in Scotland there exists at least one sheep, one side of which is black.

From: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitcoin#Block_chain

"Integral to Bitcoin is a sequential record of all transactions known as the block chain. There is only one block chain, and it records bitcoin ownership both present and at all points in the past. By keeping a record of all transactions, the block chain mitigates double-spending, a core design challenge of digital currency. Approximately every ten minutes a new bundle of transactions, called a block, is added to the block chain."

If you need a more in depth explanation, which also covers how this relates to a famous problem in distributed systems (the Byzantine Generals Problem), see: http://expectedpayoff.com/blog/2013/03/22/bitcoin-and-the-by...

The material you need is: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room-temperature_superconductor

the search continues...

> so we further lock customers into our ecosystem

This is a standard strategy topic at almost every company.

I'm starting to think that fb thinks their stock is overvalued, and that they should buy as many things as they can before the price drops.

I recall reading a paper once that made the case that Newton was speaking sarcastically, mocking Hook, if I remember correctly. Certainly that interpretation seems a better fit for his character.

Here, let me help you: http://youtube.com/watch?v=3S0mEJ-aajM

Let me fix one line in your post: If someone with sufficient technical knowledge wants your passwords or other data and you hand them an unlocked machine they are going to get them.

Now, reducing the technical knowledge required from "opening a shell and running apps" to "click here to see all passwords in seconds" greatly reduces the technical knowledge required and so greatly increases the risk you're exposed to.

January 2009 - Executive Order 13491 - Obama restores policy on interrogations to pre-Bush norms (i.e., rolling back the instructions that resulted in US soldiers torturing prisoners) [1]

January 2014 - Obama repeats call to close Guantanamo prison: "With the Afghan war ending, this needs to be the year Congress lifts the remaining restrictions on detainee transfers and we close the prison at Guantanamo Bay," Obama said in the address Tuesday night. Obama ordered his administration to empty the prison camps in the first year of his first term, by Jan 22, 2010. But Congress steadily thwarted that ambition by imposing escalating restrictions on transfers and blocking civilian trials of the captives.[2]

What he did not do is to aggressively pursue judicial action against the previous administration. Was this right or wrong? I personally wish he did, but I can also see why he chose not to tear the country apart over that.

So I'm curious - did you know about the executive order he signed? What else were you hoping he would do? Where do you think he lied?

[1] http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/EnsuringLawfulInt...

[2] http://www.military.com/daily-news/2014/01/30/obama-we-need-...

Of course not - but don't expect to be able to throw away lines of defense, like regulation and state enforcement.

So, a prediction - stealing coins will always happen. Maybe no one will break your cryptography, but you will never close off all side channel attacks.

Yes, but we have laws that specifically recognise existing currency. Is their applicability to bitcoin entirely clear?

I'm sure this is a silly question, but... under what law is it illegal to steal bitcoins, exactly?

I think that might be impossible to sustain for any substantial length.

It's true, admittedly, such constraints are often embraced by authors seeking novelty; consider someone's novel written entirely without using the letter 'e'. This rule, though, seems excessive - constructions would grow increasingly baroque, English's famously large vocabulary stretched thin, meaning squirreled into obscure words, awkward transitions.

And yet, perhaps too hastily dismissing an idea is equally foolhardy. Exploring Borge's library one may, indeed, see everything in sufficient time...

Quoting the post I was replying to:

> They'll come around to your point of view in time.

The quote from Keynes was merely a slightly whimsical way to make the point that people can hold false beliefs for a very long time, and that it's probably better not to personally invest in the idea that they will come around by themselves in any specific timeframe.

"The market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent"

I find this discussion (Bayesian vs Frequentist) somewhat baffling - it's as if physicists spent time arguing whether Lagrangian, Hamiltonian or Newtonian mechanics was "correct". In reality all three are equivalent, but different problems might be more naturally expressed (and easily solved) in one or the other form.

Similarly Bayesian and Frequentist descriptions are mathematically equivalent, the only question is which is the more natural description for a given problem.

Having multiple models like this is incredibly useful - some things that are intractable in one might be trivial in another - but trying to anoint one model as "the truth" seems perverse.

Wikipedia agrees with you:

On the "appointed day", 5 July 1948, having overcome political opposition from both the Conservative Party and from within his own party, and after a dramatic showdown with the British Medical Association, which had threatened to derail the National Health Service scheme before it had even begun, as medical practitioners continued to withhold their support just months before the launch of the service, Bevan's National Health Service Act of 1946 came into force. After 18 months of ongoing dispute between the Ministry of Health and the BMA, Bevan finally managed to win over the support of the vast majority of the medical profession by offering a couple of minor concessions, but without compromising on the fundamental principles of his NHS proposals. Bevan later gave the famous quote that, in order to broker the deal, he had "stuffed their mouths with gold".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aneurin_Bevan