Liberty

Google working on a censored search in China: https://theintercept.com/2018/08/01/google-china-search-engine-censorship/

https://www.iata.org/pressroom/pr/Pages/2018-07-31-01.aspx

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2018-07-31/inside-the-life-of-waymo-s-driverless-test-family "Inside the Life of Waymo's Driverless Test Family"

Your number might look high because of rounding. The actual average price that they gave is $290.11:

Interesting piece on FB: https://www.gurufocus.com/news/714561/thinking-about-facebook

CHTR Q2: http://ir.charter.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=112298&p=irol-newsArticle&ID=2360886

Feature about Gwynne Shotwell of SpaceX: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2018-07-26/she-launches-spaceships-sells-rockets-and-deals-with-elon-musk

This is how real stories are pulled apart by people like Alex Jones and his conspiracy theorists. Someone's describing a complex thing as best as they can with only a few details, people try to picture that in their head (sometimes the wrong way, because maybe the car couldn't move forward very fast because of traffic/pedestrians crossing, maybe they got in from driver side or passenger side, maybe the parked cars we spaced wide apart with lots of space, maybe if you saw a photo of the street where it happened it would completely change your mental picture, maybe she's assuming things about the others in the group - ie. why they didn't see, but in fact they were just distracted and not expecting this -, or other important details that weren't included or even noticed by the person, etc) and it doesn't quite work in their mental picture built on sparse details from a witness's memory (which we know isn't like a photo or video when it comes to details, even if what they describe actually happened), so they call BS. I'm still in the "I don't know, but probably" camp. Equating my skepticism to a man who creates his own news (he simply makes stuff up) is interesting. You ask people to believe a story online from some random anonymous person, but don't believe another guy doing the exact same thing. I'll just write it how I see it: I don't believe the news story until I've read perspectives from both sides of the aisle (I read the WSJ, WaPo, NYT, National Post, G&M, etc.). We all believe stories that fit our personal narrative. As an example, you simply wrote Alex Jones' name in responding to my comment to dismiss my skepticism. I wouldn't say you're in the "I don't know, but probably" camp due to the dismissive nature of your comment. I am in the "it didn't happen, but made a good story to get a lot of Reddit followers" camp. I didn't go on and on explaining my skepticism, but it seems interesting that the narrator wrote about talking to the bouncer after the incident about cameras at the club, and the fact there were parked cars, etc., knew that the bouncer talked to the manager of the club, yet, after gathering all the facts, she both still had time to leave a scene of the crime before the police arrived and chose to, given, in literally any city in North America a large number of police officers would be due to the large gathering of inebriated people. Usually I don't believe what's written by random anonymous people online. I think it's usually best. I won't be posting on this topic further, but look forward to your insights on CSU and other investment ideas in the future, Liberty (insights which I respect and appreciate for that matter). Good day. To be clear, I didn't equate what you wrote with Alex Jones. I said it's a tactic used by conspiracy theorists, and it's the first name that comes to mind when I think about these guys. Jones does a lot more than just use that tactic. It's like when some woman accused Trump of sexually assaulting her in a plane years ago (I know, now people will get on my case for mentioning Trump again -- but it's the availability bias, a lot of the craziest stories in the past couple years have had to do with him, so it's fresh in memory, and most people have followed them, so they know what I'm talking about without having to give a thousand details). She mentioned him raising the armrest in the seat. Then the crowd dug up details of plane seats in those years and found that the seat might not have had a retractable armrest, so they said her story was obviously untrue because of it and she was making it up. I'm pointing out that knowledge of how human psychology and memory works means that these types of details - missing details, or present details that are wrong - don't make stories untrue. Everybody is trying to have a "gotcha" with some minor detail like it's some episode of CSI or whatever, but our brains (mine and yours too) remember the big things that stand out and fill in lots of other small details, or create narratives from fragmented details because "it has to have happened something like this to make sense". If you spend a lot of your life sitting in certain types of airplanes seats, you'll probably fill in the detail that the seat at the time was like that, or just get it wrong. It doesn't mean that someone grabbing your breasts and putting his hand up your skirt wasn't something you'd remember on a different level than the kind of seat you were sitting in. I think the same applies with a lot of these stories. It's fine for you not to believe it. I'm just pointing out that the way you described it not being credible (imagining it exactly as only the details that were used in the telling and seeing mechanical challenges with it) has some flaws. I know mentioning Jones probably shut down thinking because it creates an emotional response, so it probably wasn't a wise choice, but I think my points about witness accounts stand. The anonymous account was created on July 28 to post that story and only has posted three comments ever. I think it's a throwaway account that might not be used again. Not much to gain, here. Someone else mentioned the yellow license plate. Ever thought that maybe guys who were going to do a kidnapping unscrewed the real license plate, put in a fake one for their drive, and then swapped them again? Or who knows, just saying that reality is always full of unexpected things like this and finding a weird thing in a story doesn't make it untrue. That's why we often hear something along the lines of "if this had happened in a movie, it wouldn't seem credible" after a real event. Cheers.

John Malone interview in the Irish Times: https://www.irishtimes.com/business/media-and-marketing/i-love-the-place-us-billionaire-john-malone-on-his-300m-irish-portfolio-1.3578321

This is how real stories are pulled apart by people like Alex Jones and his conspiracy theorists. Someone's describing a complex thing as best as they can with only a few details, people try to picture that in their head (sometimes the wrong way, because maybe the car couldn't move forward very fast because of traffic/pedestrians crossing, maybe they got in from driver side or passenger side, maybe the parked cars we spaced wide apart with lots of space, maybe if you saw a photo of the street where it happened it would completely change your mental picture, maybe she's assuming things about the others in the group - ie. why they didn't see, but in fact they were just distracted and not expecting this -, or other important details that weren't included or even noticed by the person, etc) and it doesn't quite work in their mental picture built on sparse details from a witness's memory (which we know isn't like a photo or video when it comes to details, even if what they describe actually happened), so they call BS. I'm still in the "I don't know, but probably" camp.

Ben Thompson on the recent Q: https://stratechery.com/2018/facebook-lenses/

No, I've already shared way more thoughts on this story than my share. But since you brought it up, I'd love to see your numbers and assumptions on it.

I agree. If I had to put a probability on it being true with the info I have, it would be around 70%. but that's just based on priors + a few hundred words of writing, so of course it's a weakly held belief. I think there's always been a lot of stories like that that we never heard about before and were never otherwise reported, especially if it's a near-miss, but now with the internet, more are brought to attention because anyone can tell their story. There's fakes too, of course. But I posted it as a mini-horror story, one event that happened to one person at one time. Just a "oh crap, imagine what that would be like". Just like when I read about anything else I haven't personally experienced, like marines on Peleliu or Rwanda genocide victims and perpetrators (Google "Night of the Machete") or sailing across the Atlantic, to broaden my mind to more than just my own experiences. You guys turned it into a congressional hearing.

Holy crap. Can't imagine the weigth of some of the glass that was required to get some of those shots... Must've looked like this:

Of course it matters, reality always matters. But if we can only post things that we are 100% sure are true and personally verified, 99.9% of posts on this forum, and on the internet as a whole, would vanish. It's fine to post something and say "I don't know if this is true but I think it was worth a read, take it for what it is". It also matters what the stakes are: I'd have a much higher threshold for posting health recommendations than for posting a random human interest story. If we learn more about it later in either direction, we update our belief, but we don't have to put everything in the "I know it's 100% true" or "I know it's 100% false" bucket right away based on little info. Most things are somewhere in the middle. And when you learn something later, it's like with investing, it's possible to have been right for the wrong reasons or vice versa. The people who have the right process were those who were calibrated well based on the evidence (or lack of) at the time, not those who gambled on red or black and were lucky to be shown right by facts that only came out later and that they didn't have at the time.

Its not my attention on this thread to be an asshole here or mean. There is a definite predictable pattern on these stories but its goes both ways. Here are some threads which exemplify it: http://www.cornerofberkshireandfairfax.ca/forum/general-discussion/this-girl-is-really-amazing!/msg226754/#msg226754 http://www.cornerofberkshireandfairfax.ca/forum/personal-finance/the-28-year-old-retiree/ The pattern here is: 1) Someone posts a somewhat unusual story relating to a woman (or something else) 2) Board strongly doubts the story 3) Posters claim the board is being sexist and only being overly doubtful because they are women There are a few possibilities here: 1) The board is sexist and overly skeptical of women 2) Society and some posters on this board tend to be overly credulous regarding stories the fit a certain typical feminist type narrative or just generally credulous when it come to stories that fit their already pre-existing beliefs The one things I would note is that the skeptics on this board generally don't have a bad record either regarding women or other things. They are often right to doubt. Emotionally if you identify with the story it doesn't feel good to have them attacked but some detachment here is necessary. I know there is often an emotional charge to these arguments because when someone attacks something associated with a belief you have...you end up feeling like they are attacking you. I've been guilty of not listening to the board in these situations and its definitely been detrimental to me. Let me catalog a good example which I'm embarrassed about. I'm the poster that posted the 28 year old retiree thread. I definitely believed the board was being overly skeptical and negative. And the story connected with my pre-existing prejudices because I am a huge fan of the concept of early retirement. I bought two books off her site based on her recommendation which were terrible. I realized but never said that writser was right. I'll post a few comments from writser: Skepticism is my default setting when people try to sell me things,because I am frugal. And given the affiliate links, books and seminars on most of the ERE blogs these gurus are definitely trying to sell me something. Writser.....you were right!!! I didn't lose much money here but I did learn an important lesson!! And Rb, you were right. I should have realize what I was being sold and the trick that was being played. It's called sample bias, or cherry picking in this case. There are countless posts about men on this board, a lot of them turn out to be wrong or money losing, but you're not coming out "people post about men and they turn out to be wrong, here's two examples". Elizabeth Holmes says something about women, but Jacob Wohl or Martin Shkreli isn't seen as being about men... I said over and over again that I don't know if the story is true and posted it as is. My problem is with the objections. I think they're weak, and part of a double-standard that isn't being applied evenly. I live near the border of two canadian provinces. I see something happen all the time (on both sides, as a mirror image): People say that the drivers from the other province are bad drivers. The reason? Because if someone cuts you off or drives badly but they have a license plate from your province, you don't notice anything special and go "that's a bad driver". But if they have a plate from the other side, you go "that's a bad ontarian/quebec driver". And it happens over and over until you see a pattern and it seems like people from the other side constantly drive badly, because our brains don't count actual frequency, they just notice what stands out. So there's countless examples all around the net and this forum of stories about men turing out to be untrue. And since women are just people, there's plenty of those too. But stories about women seem to stand out to you as saying something specifically about women. Maybe you ought to question that. As for the quote from me, there's a lot more context to it that I got into at the time: http://www.cornerofberkshireandfairfax.ca/forum/personal-finance/the-28-year-old-retiree/msg308379/#msg308379 http://www.cornerofberkshireandfairfax.ca/forum/personal-finance/the-28-year-old-retiree/msg308390/#msg308390 I'm not against being skeptical or whatever. This is a strawman. I'm against what I see as weak arguments. To me the story is in the "interesting, but I don't know if true" pile, like a lot of other stuff in life. I'm fine with putting things in the gray zone. When I see people wanting to dismiss it outright, I look at their reasons, and in this case, find them to be weak and double-standards and things I don't get when I post similar things about men ("she didn't write it how I think she should've, there's no date and police record on this anonymous story, people don't make movie reference when telling the truth" (seriously, you know that out of 7 billion people nobody references movies when something movie-like happens to them?), etc). That's all I'm saying.

The main point is to include it in the search feed rather than have it hidden, and to have a better name that will resonate with more people. The fact that there's more than just science in there is a good thing, not a bad thing, and figuring out how to work that into the idea is what needs to be done, not throwing out the baby with the bathwater, IMO. Right now Scholar is kind of off to the side. I think pretty much 100% of power users (scientists, technical people, academics, etc) who should use it already know about it and use it. But there's a much larger group of people who might use it once in a while if it was presented to them in the right context, but they just don't know about it or don't think to go do a search in it when they're looking for something. This group is so much larger than the academics and power users that even if just a very small fraction of it was pushed to Google Scholar, it would probably increase the reads and reach on most papers (or at least the abstracts) by a lot, and some people might get hooked into these sources or develop into scientists or technical people later on (I know that if I hadn't had access to the internet growing up there's a lot of things I'd never have learned and my life would be a lot different).

That's true, and that would be a downside to this. Even putting it in the normal feed without a name change would be good, though I think Scholar is not a good name for 99% of people, they'll never click on it even if you put it in the feed. "Science" makes people think "I wonder what the scientific sources say about it" and "Scholar" makes most people think "I'm not a university professor or a PHD student so I guess this isn't for me." So either they could find another alternative to Scholar that works (I can't think of one at the moment, but I'm sure there's something), or scholars looking for non-scientific things will get used to the new name and know that it's where they can find their stuff. Either way, even if it needs further tweaking, I think this idea is marvellous and would expose more people to better quality sources -- never underestimate removing friction and making things convenient and visible.

Maybe it depends on the field, but I've found more and more free-access journals in my searches in the past few years. Also, if you find something really interesting, you can usually email the researcher and asked for a copy of the paper. They get zero money from the paywalled journals and are usually happy to have more people read their work, so they're usually happy to help.

".@Google could dramatically increase worldwide science literacy overnight by simply renaming "Google Scholar" to "Google Science" and adding a link to it from the main search box, encouraging people to search it. The word "Scholar" is Ivory Tower. "Science" is Bill Nye." Sometimes the best ideas are simple. I thought this was brilliant. Hopefully it gets to the right people at Google... If you're not already using it, Google Scholar is great: https://scholar.google.com *I know it's not literally "no cost" because of the opportunity cost of that real estate of screen, but it's still totally worth it and the kind of thing that the old Google would've done in a heartbeat. I hope the modern Google still has some of that in it...

The bird of prey shots are beautiful. He has a good eye in general, very nice.

A couple more comments by the original poster of the story:

I love it when people go "things should have happened the way I imagine it, and it didn't, therefore it's not true". That's not how life works. I could tell you a bunch of stuff that happened to me or friends of mine that don't fit neatly into "what should've happened" or "what usually happens" and yet it's true stuff. The pattern I'm noticing is of a huge double standard with these kinds of stories. If some random dude online tells a story of almost being robbed and maybe killed or badly hurt by a bunch of guys and getting away or whatever, it's like, "oh man, glad you're ok, that sucks", but if a woman tells a story of almost being attacked/raped/etc, it's suddenly the Spanish inquisition and none of it is credible because all of a sudden everybody's an expert in how real stories should be told. I just shared a story I saw for what it is. I'm not asking you to make an investment decision based on it. I don't know if it's true, but I find the opposition to it to be pretty weak, yet along predictable lines.

::)

You don't think they all talked about what happened afterwards? Or maybe you're imagining her writing this as it happens?