Viewing profile — Ratufa

If he wanted to make a public statement and get publicity for his views, $440 to get on the BBC and various other news outlets seems like a good deal.

When you talk about "increase in beehives", are you referring to hives that are managed by a beekeeper, or hives created by wild bees, and not managed by a human? When you talk abo…

Active hives have increased because beekeepers have reacted to the increase in bee die-offs by splitting hives and otherwise increasing the number of hives they have. This causes a…

I'd rather not "imagine" anything or speculate what a "sane judge" would think. What criminal law is being broken, given what we know? If you think it's obvious consider that sexua…

For the people saying she should go to the police about this: what crime (meaning something that would be criminally prosecuted as opposed to something that might be the cause of a…

Is there any good evidence that the main problem with our schools is bad teaching? In other words, if you're going to spend money on improving educational outcomes, should you spen…

Yes. Beazley's essential reference is the way to go. The docs at the Python website are still essential for some things, though, since newer 2.X versions of Python often have minor…

That apple collects "non-personal" location data isn't a secret. Look at their privacy policy: http://www.apple.com/privacy/ Some details as to what and why they collect data was p…

One of the things driving this is that e-publishing has lowered the entry barrier for people who write "genre fiction". It's easier to get published and put your work out where an …

Yes, there are multiple issues: one of which is whether or not the government should be paying for NPR and foreign aid at all. But, what I think the original poster was responding …

Good "dictionaries" for doing on-line brute-force attacks don't just contain words, they contain likely passwords. Guidelines for choosing good passwords should point this out. For…

I think that the overall causes of obesity are fairly complex --- there's not some simple cause one can point to that is "the problem". But, threads like this one and the recent HN…

Maybe one reason to encourage comments in source code is not to waste the time of good programmers who write clear code, but to help everyone who has to deal with unclear code writ…

An opinion on those conclusions from someone who is not Steve Sailer: http://www.dailyhowler.com/dh122410.shtml#MINION If you would like to verify his data, the source is here: htt…

Both of these are good tools --- you won't go too far wrong no matter which one you choose. In brief: The strength of Mercurial is that it has a fairly simple set of basic commands…

To a large extent, the focus on Social Security budget shortfalls in these pieces is like the punchline in the joke about why the drunk guy is looking under the lamp post for his k…

Somehow, I'm not comforted by reassurances that an AGI is likely to have a human-like value system, given how humans have often treated other humans who are 1) Different from thems…

Your scenarios, while technically accurate, leave something out. Here's another version: D) Your child spends his/her high-school years mowing lawns, doing part-time jobs, etc, in …

The problem with tax evasion in a democracy is that, when combined with a government's ability to borrow money, it removes the one of the main reasons why voters should care about …

One reason this is unlikely to pass is that Congress likes renewable tax breaks because 1) It gives Congress an "accomplishment" they can brag about. 2) Members of Congress like be…

The public can do something about it --- people can make it clear that they support (additional) legislation to restrict what information companies can collect and what they can do…

I have similar issues at times. One cause (for me, at least) might be anxiety -- if you are very worried about a failure or have had negative experiences with evaluation of your wo…

This sounds like the same idea as: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1463751

My initial reactions: 1. Yeah, it's true that there are some people who have addiction "issues" with porn to that point that it negatively affects their lives. Some people have obs…

My prediction: as soon as "DYI Bio" begins to have any real-world impact (or gets enough publicity), it will be banned/heavily regulated, at least within the US. It is too easy to …