defilade

Not really. In a future of self-driving cars most people won't even own their own car so most of these cars will be shared - essentially automated taxis. So after the car drops you off it will go to its next call or park somewhere until someone calls it.

A police sniper with a magnified scope isn't there to provide "crowd control" in the sense that you're describing, i.e., getting up close and personal with a crowd. They'd be providing overwatch from a distance.

That said, using binoculars would convey a much less threatening impression than observing through a weapon-mounted scope. On the other hand, we don't know exactly what the tactical situation was when that sniper was aiming at the crowd. Unless you do, you're not in a position to say whether he should have been aiming at people or not.

Wow, lots of absolute statements there.

"Real" soldiers do sometimes use weapon-mounted optics for observation and target ID. They don't always end up shooting the people they're looking at.

Your statement about cops simply reveals your ignorance about law enforcement.

Think of it this way: you're in jail and you're talking to your lawyer about what he thinks the prosecutor's strategy will be, and how he's going to defend you against it. That has nothing to do with evidence admissibility but could still be damaging to your case if the prosecutor finds out about it.

And it's not like store security isn't going to be watching you. There's a good chance they'll detain you as soon as you try to walk out the door.

That's absolutely right, and in the few articles I've seen that break out Manhattan, it's still significantly more expensive than SF. Of course, that's old news, right? And being old news, "Manhattan is the most expensive place to live" doesn't fit into the current tech boom, linkbait narrative that all the blogs and news outlets are exploting.

Uber has higher-quality cars and you get to rate the drivers so they tend to be a little more polite and professional. Not that taxis can't have high-quality cars and drivers but it's more of a crap shoot.

I'm a big user of Workflowy and I felt the same about Gingko at first. The keyboard shortcuts help a lot though because I can get my thoughts down on paper much more quickly.

The shortcuts help a lot. Thanks! Now I'm starting to get the hang of it.

Thanks.

Also, just now I was seeing other people's cards showing up in my tree. When I switched trees, it corrected itself.

Interesting idea. Can you make it so that when I click in the card it automatically goes into edit mode? Having to click an "edit" button really slows things down.

For proof that there's a transparency problem, I'd want to look at hundreds of FOIA requests across 10-20 categories, content of news conferences and press conferences, level of press access to government officials, responsiveness to press inquiries, responsiveness to Congressional inquiries, and I could probably think of a few more things if I put more time into it. Then I'd want to compare that to data from previous administrations.

You have three instances...that meets your hurdle for statistical significance?

Just saying that a single example doesn't prove a pattern.

Yeah it's a little weird, but out of the context of other FOIA requests it doesn't make much of a point.

I believe the issue is what happens to all the other data that's not related to the intent of the surveillance. For example, if you're talking to your spouse about a health issue, your sex life, etc. If that's not the target of the surveillance, the government shouldn't be retaining it.

I'm not sure that the handling of a single document, especially one that happens to be about intelligence gathering procedures, should be THE standard by which we judge transparency.

It's a complete and utter fallacy to say that the government doesn't have the authority to kill people without due process. The police and Federal law enforcement do it all the time. It's called justifiable homicide.

Newsflash: magazines aren't restricted items because they're useless without guns. Which are made of metal.

Newsflash #2: we've had plastic magazines for years already.

Who cares if a magazine can be picked up by a metal detector?

It's not an issue of handguns vs. drones, or rifles vs. tanks. It's an issue of ~20 million households holding 300 million guns. In the (admittedly unlikely) event that someone has tyrannical aspirations, those numbers present a real obstacle.

If "the only thing 'preventing a dictatorial government' is an educated and informed electorate", then we're screwed.

Here's the calculus from the legislator's perspective: regardless of what you pass, no one will know for years if it worked. In that case you might as well do something dramatic that provides you with a big victory lap and a resume item for your next election.

Gun violence is a complex problem with many variables and to really fix it would require a lot of research and carefully structured legislation. Much of it probably wouldn't work the first time either, so there would have to be some experimentation. That's not appealing to most politicians.

You never know when you might come across a person or idea that might put you back on track. Telling people you're close to closing up shop completely closes off those opportunities.

You're just a little obsessed with parsing his every word. Maybe he did find Groupon's growth absolutely disgusting. Maybe he didn't. Either way, he was asked to participate and give advice, which is what he did. One can do that and not be thrilled with everything going on. We're not talking about criminal activity here, just one of many ways to run a business.

> The ideas in this article are weakly argued and poorly researched.

Dude we're talking about an article in thestar.com, not an academic journal or a book. The business phenomena he's describing are not new and have been researched elsewhere.

But you're absolutely right in that it's not unique to tech, it just happens more slowly elsewhere.

I can't believe anyone would install their software without having any idea who this guy is.

The job requirements and qualifications for an entrepreneur and a hedge fund analyst are so different that it's not necessarily inconsistent

Yes and a lot of finance jobs fall into this category including investment banking, hedge funds and VC firms. The more selective ones will typically only consider people from a few schools. It's just a way filter.

The article is full of bold assertions with no (or inadquate) evidence:

"TED is not simply “engaging” and “entertaining” but a specific type of entertainment that is increasingly out of touch and exclusionary."

How do you measure "out of touch and exclusionary"?

"At first, I thought I was laughing alone; however, it turns out that lots of other people are equally unimpressed by the current state of TED. From the feedback I’ve received, I’m not the only one who does not take TED very seriously or worse, views the whole project as suspect."

Wow so people who follow you agree with you. Shocker.

"So many of the TED talks take on the form of those famous patent medicine tonic cure-all pitches of previous centuries, as though they must convince you not through the content of what’s being said but through the hyper-engaging style of the delivery."

Really? Which ones?

"TED attempts to present itself as fresh, cutting edge, and outside the box but often fails to deliver. It’s become the Urban Outfitters of the ideas world, finding “cool” concepts suitable for being packaged and sold to the masses, thereby extinguishing the “cool” in the process. Cutting-edge ideas not carrying the Apple-esque branding are difficult to find."

As measured by ???

"At TED, “everyone is Steve Jobs” and every idea is treated like an iPad."

I've learned over time that when people start making universal assertions like this, they're usually lacking in data but full of shit.

I like to say that "the biggest barrier to success is failure." In other words, the longer you let a goal go unrealized, the harder it becomes to start because your repeated failures build up into a mental obstacle.

Turning something into a habit takes a lot of repetition so it's better to just get started with a modest objective so you can create a pattern of success.