So my friend and I go to the park a bit after midnight and play frisbee for a bit, but it's kinda too dark, so we get tired of it. But then some cops come and shine a really bright light on us (the park was closed, but the gate was open, so *shrug*). So my friend is like, "Hey, we have light now, lets play frisbee more!" I think that's one of the most brilliant ideas I've ever heard. So we did play more frisbee....for about 30 seconds. Then the cops used a loudspeaker to tell us to leave. So then we start leaving, and the cops drive over to us and want to ask us for ID and stuff. Then one asks why we started playing frisbee in the light. So we told them because we could see the frisbee! Then they looked at us funny. Cops are amusing.

dan posts a nice point about radio stations giving gifts on 9/11. namely that if WTC was a symbol of capitalism, we shouldn't give stuff away in its memory.

UPDATE: Gil commented on Dan's blog that giving stuff away is promotion and *makes money* or they wouldn't be doing it. He's right.

"Formal education is so flawed a blind man picking scrabble pieces in the dark could write a true argument against it." -- curi

What is sarah on?

"The way to create new knowledge is to resolve the disagreement by finding a proposal that each person prefers ' a common preference." (source)

CPs are for not hurting each other. they aren't the method by which we create knowledge. (new knowledge? wtf does that mean?) we create knowledge via conjectures and refutations. as written, it sounds like "we create new knowledge by agreeing on stuff". (finding a proposal each person prefers = finding a single proposal about what everyone does that everyone agrees-on/consents-to)

one thing about questions is: if the person has all this knowledge you don't (ie what you're trying to ask about) they're prolly good at figuring out the point of questions even if the questions are badly flawed

this applies to like generally wise people, who are smart at lozza stuff, not one-sphere-wonders.

if you screw a palestinian, you risk the screw killing a jew as shrapnel later

There is less agreement about what uncommon words mean than about common ones. This is part of why pretty, arcane-word-riddled writing tends to be more confusing. Also note this effect: words sometimes become less common because people don't agree on their use.

so i was watching Dr Phil (*puke*), and he said something like "i've been doing this 30 years, and i've never run into a kid where finding the right lever to control his behavior didn't work". and what's worse is I believe him. *shudder* (lever as in something child cares about to use to blackmail/manipulate with punishment and/or reward)