1/9     Is there a reason why lofts in the city are full of divorced
        young urban professional males (at least from the people I know)?
        \_ Lofts attract assholes?
        \_ Lots of divorced women, too
        \_ Cause you got divorced, you make decent money, you don't want
           to live in Menlo Park anymore, so you move to a loft in the
           city.  Is that so hard to imagine?
           \_ Why don't you want to live in Menlo Park anymore?
              \_ When you are single, you want to be around potential
                 mates. Isn't Menlo Park full of married people?

1/9     California wants to control the temperature in your house
        http://csua.org/u/kfn (Utility Consumer's Action Network)
        \_ That's great news. Thanks.
           \_ Yer welcome.
        \_ "Thanks to efficiency standards, California's demand for
           electricity has remained flat since the late 1970s even as its
           population has doubled, Gottlieb said."  Remained flat since the
           late 1970s?  Really?
           \_ You were right to be suspicious. Gottlieb is apparently wrong.
                http://enduse.lbl.gov/info/LBNL-47992.pdf
                This says that annual electricity consumption in CA went up
                from 167 TWh in 1980 to 258 TWh in 2000.  That's significantly
                less than double, but not "flat".
                \_ Residential use versus commercial use?
                   \_ if you read the PDF....  but anyway, ALL of {commercial,
                      residential, industrial....} went up, NONE doubled.
        \_ How is this worse than a rolling blackout?

1/10    In subversion (svn) is there a way to check out a file from
        a different BRANCH for diff purposes?
        \_ More specifically, do you want to compare your working copy of
           file.c with one in a branch?  Or do you want to compare the
           repository copy of file.c in trunk vs. file.c in branch?
           \_ compare a particular revision in trunk with a particular
              revision in another branch.               -op
              \_ Probably the easiest thing to do is get the two files and do a
                 simple diff.

1/10    Biggest Black Hole in the Universe Found:
        http://preview.tinyurl.com/293esb (space.newscientist.com)
        \_ obyermom
        \_ Racist!!!
        \_ This one?
           http://www.post-gazette.com/images4/20060630ho_onyxPJ_450.jpg

1/10    Finally reading Freakonomics: Not terribly impressed. Your thoughts?
        \_ It's popular science writing.  What did you expect?  Hav you read
           any of the original papers that Levitt wrote or referenced?
           -dans
           \_ No, I haven't. Given the way people were talking about it, I
              somehow expect revelations. Instead I got loud, unnecessary
              admonitions about not leaping to conclusions, often followed by
              the writer's leapt-to conclusions.
              \_ Keep in mind, many people, even well educated ones don't
                 grok the simple idea that correlation does not imply
                 causation.  Freakonomics explication of this is remarkably
                 good.  Have you read many other pop-sci books?  Were
                 there any that you did like? -dans
                 \_ Your first statement is key here and most of why I'm
                    still boggling. You're right, but that scares the hell
                    out of me. From here to "weighs the same as a duck"
                    is not a large leap.
                    \_ Causation is harder than it looks.  For example, is the
                       converse of above true (e.g., does lack of correlation
                       imply lack of causation?)  Or how about this: "when
                       DOES correlation imply causation?" -- ilyas
                       \_ Statistics attempts to answer these questions. I
                          took an econometrics class at Cal which
                          attempted to answer similar questions w.r.t.
                          economic data. That's probably more useful than
                          Freakonomics.
                          \_ So are you suggesting 'people on the street'
                             should read statistics literature in order to
                             gain an understanding of causality issues?
                             What DO you suggest they read? -- ilyas
                             \_ I suggest they go home and have a beer and
                                not worry themselves about it. Otherwise,
                                go take a stats class.
                                \_ Despite you dismissing the entire genre of
                                   popular science books in a single stroke, I
                                   am glad the scientific establishment
                                   continues to produce them, and the general
                                   public continues to read them.  Maybe you
                                   should have a beer, and stop commenting on
                                   things you don't understand. -- ilyas
                                   \_ I didn't dismiss the entire genre. I
                                      just said that if someone really
                                      wants to learn then they take a
                                      class. Otherwise, it's not clear
                                      what they might be getting. Some
                                      popular science books are great and
                                      some are garbage. If you don't care
                                      then it doesn't matter, I guess.
                       \_ I am going to assume that you are not asking me
                          to recount the scientific method here.
        \_ I enjoyed it.
        \_ Some topics were surprising to me, but over all I now use it as
           tool for explaning causation and correlation to others who are
           not as experienced with science as I.  Freakonomics is great
           a great popular science.  As with all popular science, there is
           cost involved when explaining the complex to the dull minded.

1/10    Did anyone watch MonsterQuest on History Channel last night about
        "Rods".  That was the most stupid show on History Channel I've ever
        watched!  It looked more like a parody to science shows than a real
        science show.  I felt like I was cheated at the end.  (I usually like
        the science shows on History Channel.)

1/10    RIP Sir Edmund Hillary
        \_ The one Clinton was named after?

1/10    I'm looking for a javascript library that makes it easy to load
        and parse XML files. There seem to be LOTS of choices out there.
        Any specific recomendations as to which is the best?

1/10    reiffin is full of shit.
        \_ Most of us are. -dans
           \_ I'm mostly water -eric
                \_ So is shit.
        \_ Funny that you'd say that now since I haven't posted anything
           exciting in months.  Please go troll someone who cares.
           \_ How is that War in Iraq working out? Did you guys ever find
              the WMD you kept harping on about?
              \_ Trollboy, you're barking up the wrong tree.  Your troll
                 score is: 0.
                 \_ Actually it is one. Well, what happened to it? Did
                    it get buried in the Syrian desert somewhere? Didn't
                    you tell us that "even the French" believed that SH
                    has WMD? Where is your Mea Culpa?