epi16

Are letters taken more seriously than emails? That's good to know, thanks.

I say the same thing every time I read a "slacktivism" post, but here we go again: if this is useless, what do I actually do to help? Seriously, I'm not posing this as rhetoric.

I've already filed a fairly long, unique comment to the FCC, but I've heard that the FCC ignores most comments unless they come from well-known players.

I donate money monthly to the EFF.

I've signed the letter to the lawmakers on Battle for the Net.

I don't have a personal website, so I can't put up a banner ad.

So, given that I've heard comments on this site and in person that all of the above counts as slacktivism, just makes me feel better, and doesn't contribute to an actual solution, what do I do to influence this issue? Ignoring the possibility of coming into large sums of money and buying myself a congressman of my very own?

This is a known problem with C's (and other functions in languages based off C's) "rand" function.

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/10984974/why-do-people-sa...

That's a good point. That said, I still take objection to the tone of the article. The author didn't motivate his solution in the way you just did; it was more of a "this is the obvious solution, and I don't really care about what other people say" approach. I'm fine considering this as a starting-off point, as long as everyone recognizes that having on-board reclining rights negotiations isn't really a long-term solution.

> I have rarely had anyone complain to me about my seat recline, and nobody has ever offered me money, or anything else of value, in exchange for sitting upright.

I bet no one has ever made that offer. Saying that "oh, no one has offered to pay me to stop something, therefore people can't care all that much" is the Homo Economicus fallacy gone wild. Would a majority of people accept that deal, if someone brazen enough actually offered? I doubt it. It would just cause needless conflict in a small space where everyone is stuck together for hours and hours, which is why people don't do it in the first place.

> When you buy an airline ticket, one of the things you’re buying is the right to use your seat’s reclining function.

"Rights" aren't god-given things. You can't look up in the cosmic rule book who has the right to do what. The argument is how we, as a society, want to allocate that right, and just stating "I bought the ticket therefore I own the right" isn't really useful.

I'm not coming down on either side of the Great Recliner Debate, but this article kind of irks me. We don't work the way the author is assuming, and I don't think saying "I have X right, pay me to stop if you don't like it, even though such a payment is unusual, socially uncomfortable, and potentially insulting" really adds much value to the conversation on this (frankly largely irrelevant) conversation.

Well, putting aside the endless war between cars and bikes... Several of my friends who bike regularly (hasn't happened to me, thankfully) have been hit by cars while biking, even though they were following the law and had all manner of blinky lights on their person.

I think that while the biking culture in Boston is great, it won't be a good replacement for cars until there are more bike lanes and more careful drivers.

That's very different than being able to examine the source code and the data to see where everything is going. Also, though I'm not a rabid proponent of FOSS software, in this case, I would prefer to have many eyes on this code, since the authors are unknown (to me) and the data is sensitive.

I think you're placing too much emphasis on genetics. Genetics play a major role in determining the traits of an individual, but the way the individual was raised and the culture they grew up in also play a major role. The exact balance between the two is different depending on the trait, but an argument to the tune of "treat the likelihood of reproducing solely as a genetic trait" isn't going to have enough predictive power to say that people who don't want to have children are going to die off.

The same argument (falsely) applies to homosexuality. Since homosexual people don't pass on their genes, surely they must be bred out of the population? Well, estimates put the rate of homosexuality between 1% and 10%, so that didn't really turn out the way the purely-genetic argument would predict. It's just more complex than pure genetics.

Poor customer service? That would be enough for me, in the purely hypothetical scenario where I had a choice other than "no internet", "hook up an antenna to steal internet from the Starbucks down the street", or "Comcast".

What were you trying to do? I don't understand your original post at all.

I'm not sure I understand. It seems like you're implying that the two people would be moving away from each other faster than the speed of light, but I was under the impression that that's not the case. I thought that each person would observe the other travelling at C?

From the abstract of the actual study:

- "Cool" => "Pseudomature behavior—ranging from minor delinquency to precocious romantic involvement"

- "Lose" => "Early adolescent pseudomature behavior predicted long-term difficulties in close relationships, as well as significant problems with alcohol and substance use, and elevated levels of criminal behavior."