wac

So this blogger has pointed out 2 problems with a single Guardian quote. The first point doesn't make sense to me as it seems to argue that the Guardian's "be as satisfied with" means the same thing as "increase satisfaction".

The second point seems to me to be almost as poor. The blogger claims that the 40% more money claim from the Guardian is bogus since the footnote clearly shows that their calculation is in absolute Euro terms not percentages. However if you read the next sentence of the footnote:

"Full compensation for commuting one hour (one way), compared with no commuting, is estimated to require an additional monthly income of approximately 515 Euro or 40 percent of the average monthly wage. This valuation implies that the time spent commuting is worth 1.6 times the hourly wage or the average compensation for working. [...]" (Page 17, Footnote 14)

It seems that the research authors themselves argue that their research implies commuting is worth a multiple of hourly wage. Thus we easily verify that the weighted commuting hours (1.6*2) is 40% of the normal (8 hour) working day.

The Guardian could have been more accurate by adding a "average" to their quote, but I think that this is implied by the context anyway.

>...on a campus of 3,000, only eight people actually asked for a meeting with me to discuss the reasons I banned the book

I think this is really the most interesting part of the story- people are willing to complain but not take reasonable actions to remedy the situation. I think this is a symptom of a deeper problem in our society.

I've wanted to join the London Hackspace for a while now so should probably look into freeing up a Tuesday to attend an open evening. You're even closer to where I live now!

There was an episode of _Frasier_ where they did this. I think it was near the end of season 6.

I always that thought that the only language that made logical sense for philosophers to use was prolog.

I'll second Gandi. Moved to them a few years ago during another GoDaddy scandal and have been very happy with my decision.

I believe that you could probably extend Godel's theorems to argue that this isn't feasible.

Can I just point out that the BMJ's Christmas issue always includes 'humourous' pieces of research:

In 2011:

"Is 27 really a dangerous age for famous musicians? Retrospective cohort study"

http://www.bmj.com/content/343/bmj.d7799

or

"Orthopaedic surgeons: as strong as an ox and almost twice as clever? Multicentre prospective comparative study"

http://www.bmj.com/content/343/bmj.d7506

I felt like this for years- annoyed at the insistence that I pay the fee even though I don't own a TV. Then, in a moment of inspiration, I took 2 minutes to fill out the online form and haven't been bothered since.

However, the BBC offers quality TV without the even greater annoyance of incessant commercials. Take the Olympics: NBC was criticised for their delayed and edited broadcast while the BBC broadcast nearly all events live (some 20+ channels) and without any commercial breaks.

Unfortunately, we can't have commercial free TV without the fee.