Viewing profile — jonnathanson

See, what's interesting to me is that the grandparent comment describes "50 Shades" as ~8 hours of reading. The zero-sum argument assumes that reading time is some fixed value for …

Depth and breadth, in this case, are not opposite directions on a straight line. They are vectors that only appear oppositional when viewed under specific time constraints. The mor…

No, I'm not literally suggesting people have infinite time on their hands. Rather, what I'm suggesting is that time compresses when you're reading for pleasure. When you reach a ce…

While I don't disagree with the author on his points, I find them premised on faulty logic. His thesis assumes that depth and breadth are zero-sum pursuits. I suppose they are if t…

This article is horseshit. I'm a professional writer, and I'll trust Oates and King over whoever this guy is. "Read widely" isn't some religious dictum. It's more of a religious ca…

My god, this brings back some formative memories. Memories of AOHell. Memories of HappyHardcore, the self-styled hacker who claimed authorship of it. Memories of hanging out in War…

I think you're right, but I do like pishpash's solution of converting to currency value at the time of theft and then applying some sort of interest calculation. This divorces the …

So essentially we set damages at t0 currency value of the milkshake, plus interest over N years. Seems reasonable. If milkshakes were illiquid, and could only be bought and sold ev…

I'm inclined to agree under that assumption. [Edit: same!]

In the scenario I've presented, I think you're correct. This is because milkshakes are liquid (both literally and figuratively), and because they are replaceable. If we add the con…

Hypothetical problem... Let's imagine a universe in which milk is a rare commodity, and milkshakes are worth their weight in gold. In this world, right now in 2017, 1 milkshake tra…

Atlantic salmon aren't "different" enough from the various Pacific salmon species to occupy their own niche in the Pacific Northwest. If the big ones are too big for you, there are…

I would be highly suspicious of anything calling itself "wild" and "Atlantic" in the same breath. There is almost no wild Atlantic salmon fishery left in the United States and Cana…

Right, but genetic diversity of the breeding population would be very low, making the population itself very fragile. And that's assuming the spawn survive their first season. (Mos…

The conflict of interest (companies are also advertisers) is powerful, and it appears to be exerting a significant effect on the directional reliability of aggregate reviews for an…

Coyotes never really went anywhere; in fact, they seem to thrive in the same marginal suburban and semi-wild niches that deer do. Coyotes don't generally prey on deer, however, and…

They're not good markets, and even if they were, they fall far short of the Segway's original goals as a mass consumer product. There is a reason Segway is often used as a cautiona…

Yes, hence why I use the term "ancestral wolves" and not simply "wolves," in the hopes of avoiding confusion. Many people assume dogs are simply some sort of captured/degenerated/i…

I'd highly recommend reading a book like "The Domestic Dog," which was recently updated with a new edition in 2017. It contains all of the latest science and anthropology around th…

As barkingcat suggests, pretty much every country on the planet that has normalized diplomatic relations with China formally accepts the One China policy. This is part of China's c…

Taleb is a gifted statistician who often wanders out of his element to make broad, bold, but perfunctory claims about various subjects. You kind of have to take his work for what i…

Please point out where and how you believe I've been "poking fun at the system," or predicting its downfall, or in some broad way denouncing the US, as you seem to suggest I am doi…

(Warning: this post contains personal opinions and analysis, some of which might be deemed political.) There are really two classes of 'contract work' in the US. The first class is…

"If plants were tested after production for indicators of plant health and labels could be put on vegetables indicating quality" It's a fine idea until Monsanto, et al., find a way…