QI did end up having quite a lot of rather dubious facts in the end (or at the very least, a lot of the answers given as correct on the show required a very unintuitive interpretation of the question, despite the nature of the show).
But given that this seems to have continued well after Fry left the show, I can only assume it’s the researchers on the show making the errors, not Fry himself.
"a very un-intuitive interpretation of the question" is often part of the game on QI.
As for the researchers, yes, QI has little to do with the knowledge of the host. The researchers actually got to present their own (extremely low budget) show for a while - it was quite quirky and fun, but you should take QI and their other show more as a bunch of geeks talking about fun stuff and frequently getting caught up in juggling technicalities and stuff they don't necessarily know all that much about.
> "a very un-intuitive interpretation of the question" is often part of the game on QI.
Hence my clarification that this was despite it being the nature of the show.
The question about “who was the first president of the United States” really annoys me, because the definition of ‘president' was so poorly explained on the show yet the (incorrect) answer has probably now become a dinner party anecdote for lots of people.
> you should take QI and their other show more as a bunch of geeks talking about fun stuff and frequently getting caught up in juggling technicalities and stuff they don't necessarily know all that much about.
Which I do, but I’m also aware that it presents itself as being a factual quiz and so I do think there should be some level of fact-checking (or clarification). Random QI Elves writing complex questions on topics they know very little about without consulting experts doesn’t make good TV.
> It's entertainment, after all, not documentaries.
I’m aware it’s for entertainment, but lots of people take everything that’s said on QI at face value and don’t try to find things out for themselves, which is sad.
He presented the show for 13 years, obviously he's going to say something wrong once in a while. Nobody could possibly know every single topic they cover.
For model rockets at least, if the center of pressure is lower than the center of gravity, lift from the fins will straighten up the rocket. it can be confusing because the lift is pushing sideways (aligned with the fin) rather than up. Probably doesn't matter at all for a Saturn 5.
Fins provide drag which moves the center of drag behind the center of gravity. I guess they could provide lift to spin the rocket, but I don't think I've ever seen that on a model that works that way.
> The only reason dogs are domesticated is because we've been inbreeding their species for thousands of years and they literally can no longer live in nature because of how we've bred them.
This is false. The accepted mechanism is that wolves self-domesticated, and that humans and dogs co-evolved.
FYI dealers do this because they want to be able to offer you financing if your check bounces. It's also a way to ensure that you go through with the transaction because now your credit is worse and going somewhere else would lead to worse financing. Put a freeze on your accounts with the credit bureaus before you get serious about buying a car with cash. Tell them that they may not do a "hard pull" against your credit. If they try, complain to the appropriate government officials (not sure who this would be, some consumer protection agency) and take your cash elsewhere. It's a scam to lock you in to buying from them. I brought my own financing to a dealership and they wanted me to sign a thing which among other things authorized a credit check. I crossed that part out and signed it. This caused some back and forth with someone who was not in the room (basically my salesman had to go "get it approved") but they really wanted the sale because I drove a rental car down from 6 hours away just to buy this specific car (I had set the sale up ahead of time over email). I was very close to walking out and they probably knew it, and figured that they'd rather make the sale vs trying to sell me on their financing vs mine (I happened to get an extremely low rate from a credit union).
> It's also a way to ensure that you go through with the transaction because now your credit is worse and going somewhere else would lead to worse financing.
There is no need to spread misinformation. While it is true that a hard inquiry will have a minor effect on your credit score (less than a 5 point hit), multiple hard credit inquiries from car dealerships or mortgage lenders within a period of 45 days only count as a single inquiry.
You're not at all disadvantaged by taking your business elsewhere, you're just making things up to furnish your dubious story.
No it doesn't. It could easily result in less social utility by promoting self-segregation and the concentration of funding into high achievement schools where the marginal utility of each additional dollar is substantially diminished at the outset.
The reason why kids from poor families do poorly in school is also the reason why those families are _least_ likely to be selective in their choice of schools. These are not independent phenomena.
So unless the only utility function that matters is freedom to choose your school, approaches like vouchers are unlikely to improve things and could easily not only perpetuate but exacerbate achievement gaps and derivative social issues, like crime.
The evidence indicates that voucher systems improve test scores, graduation rates, and other aspects of both public and private schools, not just the latter:
Scaled-up voucher programs like those previously advocated
by Secretary DeVos show the worst effects. There have
recently been four statewide voucher programs: Florida,
Indiana, Louisiana, and Ohio. The Florida study is
inconclusive, and the others show large negative effects. In
some respects, the Louisiana results are more convincing
because the results have been corroborated by two different
sets of researchers and students were assigned to vouchers
by lottery—the most rigorous way to evaluate vouchers. In
terms of providing convincing results, the Indiana and
Ohio programs, are somewhere in between, but these show
negative results as well.
Voucher supporters argue that the results have been worse in
the recent statewide programs because they have been
“heavily regulated,” by which they mean the requirements
that students be tested, that these results be made publicly
available, and that schools must let in any student who is
eligible for the voucher. The fact that this fairly minimal
oversight is considered controversial or heavy-handed,
however, only reinforces that private schools are designed
to be exclusive and have little interest in external
accountability.
I wouldn't expect charter schools to actually change much because the evidence is very clear that the most important factor in achievement, overwhelmingly, is the child's home environment.
So how long until SF and the Bay Area's anti-development, anti-improvement ethos causes some other place (Austin/Denver)? to replace Silicon Valley.
For me, I'm only here for the money I get to keep after expenses. Once somewhere else matches that and without the crazy whining about gentrification and privilege, and the extreme NIMBYism, I'm gone. I suspect the same is true for many others.
> So how long until SF and the Bay Area's anti-development, anti-improvement ethos causes some other place (Austin/Denver)? to replace Silicon Valley.
> For me, I'm only here for the money I get to keep after expenses. Once somewhere else matches that and without the crazy whining about gentrification and privilege, and the extreme NIMBYism, I'm gone. I suspect the same is true for many others.
Can't comment on Austin, but having lived in the Bay and Denver, there is just as much gnashing of teeth and nativism in Denver (let alone Boulder, my god). Same goes for Portland, Seattle, hell, even NYC. Locales like to act like they are the only city in the states undergoing demographic shifts.
Simple. Express in your will that you wish your social media account credentials to be posted to 4chan, or whatever the equivalent of the day is, with instructions to 'have at it, jerks'.
That way, your online identity gets to be like Jim Morrison's grave.
Click throughs aren't necessary for advertising to work. A lot of it is to prime your subconscious, or strengthen associations. This is why Coca Cola doesn't care if you click through. Same with car companies. When most Americans think of soda, they think of coke. If you prime their subconscious to associate soda positively with thirst, and soda is similarly associated with Coke, you've got them.
Yep. In this case one is really in another league than the other.
We are not talking about the Russian. We are not talking about the Arabs. We are talking about the Anders Bering Breiviks, the Timothy McVeighs, the real nazis of 2017 and of course ISIS.
I'm not disputing that the US didn't ask him to commit an act of terror against itself. but it did ask him to do terrible things. in the context of the post we are replying to ("YouTube is a private organization that _is_ being used as a platform by organizations like ISIS to radicalize random individuals who then go out and kill innocent people"), I think it's a bit reductionist to put too much value in military vs. paramilitary or "the military told him to do X." all I mean is that in the quoted post, "ISIS" can be replaced with a number of military and paramilitary forces throughout the world and the statement will still ring true in different populations. youtube shouldn't target specific organizations that they think are bad. they should apply more general rules that also apply to organizations that they think are good.
and no, mcveigh did not act alone. he conspired with terry nichols and michael fortier, who also served and met in the military. according to his biography, mcveigh took joy in being ordered to slaughter surrendered prisoners. did the military radicalize him?
further: did it train him in the skills he needed to successfully carry out such an atrocious act? was he provided adequate care when he returned home from iraq and kuwait, broken? to what extent is the military responsible? should youtube ban anti-US videos in general? does an organization need to be on a particular US government-sanctioned list to be considered a terrorist organization by youtube? the list of questions goes on.
overall, what I'm trying to express is that it is bad for youtube to make decisions based on politics. if they want to make decisions on morals, that's fine, but apply it to everyone, not just ISIS. either that, or allow them all.
I keep seeing the fallacy that all currency value is based on future expectations.
Here's a thought experiment... in the US, work full time while getting paid in Bitcoin. Make all transactions in Bitcoin. At the end of the year you'll need to file a tax return. Your final options are:
1. Buy some USD to pay your taxes.
2. Go to jail.
Demand for fiat currencies is ultimately underpinned by them being the only instrument accepted for payment of taxes.
Here you describe a good reason why people need USD - indeed another currency or asset class cannot be used to pay US taxes. But its not clear to me why this means valuing currencies on future expectations is a fallacy? It just means that US taxpayers will need US dollars at tax payment time.
You have a third option: 3. Don't pay taxes. Live like an outlaw. Shoot the tax collector.
You're driving at an important point that I want to take a bit further. Ultimately, the "backing" of a fiat currency comes from the barrel of a gun. People continue to use U.S. dollars because the U.S. has the strongest military on earth right now. Same throughout history - the backing of the British pound came from the British Navy, and when the British military collapsed post-WW2, the pound sterling didn't last much longer.
A major adoption driver for cryptocurrencies has been the weakness of central governments. We've seen this most with China, where wealthy Chinese businessmen are eager to take money out of the country in any way possible. But the most likely tipping point that would drive widespread adoption of cryptocurrencies would be if the perception became widespread that the U.S. government could no longer guarantee physical security; if, for example, we "lost" the war on terrorism. You could easily imagine people "hiring" personal drones or robots for protection with BitCoin if this came to pass, to fill the vacuum of the state security apparatus.
If the US and other national governments collapsed then every cryptocurrency would become worthless (Gas Town isn't going to accept your "money") or less than worthless (Thunderdome is going to eliminate you because your mining rig wastes valuable electricity).
Maybe. My bet is that economic activity wouldn't cease in the absence of nation-states, but rather some other institution(s) would arise that currently perform the function of nation-states: physical security, dispute resolution, identity symbolism, monetary authority, etc. Cryptocurrencies have the advantage of already existing here, but there's certainly the possibility that it could be some yet-to-be-invented institution.
