Thanks, that was well put (as was the original post). I don't disagree with any of this, but wanted to point out that the hardwired results of evolution often can't be counteracted simply by explaining to the meat-brain that they are no longer adaptive.

I think that Luke's post would have been better served by an example in which the barrier to experimentation was, in fact, an irrational fear of something what won't really happen, rather than a rational fear of an irrational (but hardwired) negative emotional experience.

Let's not forget the converse: Fear that the other person will be creeped out. No, you'll never see them again, but you still don't want to make a random person's day more creepy.

(This I have recently learned seems to be actually largely unjustified, but it was a big thing stopping me from doing this until then...)

Great post. A useful followup might be "Just try what?", which would address how to generate and weigh ideas to be tested. Like you mention, scientifically established (or at least supported) ideas are usually the best starting point, but how do we fill in the gaps in this knowledge that you alluded to?

I mention this because there's no way "drink spoonfuls of vegetable oil" would have even occurred to me as a hypothesis, and if it had I would surely have laughed it away.

Thinking allows us to anticipate ill consequences without suffering them.

Roger Peters, Practical Intelligence

What government attack vectors against Bitcoin do you deem most likely to work? (There is probably a discussion thread on the Bitcoin forums on this matter.)

One obvious (and rather covert) method to undermine Bitcoin is to apply sufficient computational power before the computational power of honest users becomes prohibitive. This would permit a wealthy government to perhaps double-spend bitcoins, undermining the entire network.

An overt method would be to join, and then try to track down (via ISPs) the user associated with every public key.

Please, please, please, I beg you:

Learn to touch-type. Learn to type with ten fingers.

Computer programs and websites to do this abound. If you find one that's horrible to use, find another. But persist until you do.

I am appalled at how many people I know who use computers typing for hours a day, and never learned how to drive a keyboard. They insist they're just as fast as they would be touch-typing (they're not), and then complain of sore fingers from doing weird stuff to adapt to their inability to type properly.

Anyone reading this site uses computers enough they should know how to type. I would estimate (based on my geeky friends I've seen at a keyboard) less than 20% of you can touch-type properly.

Set up your desk, chair etc per the handy how-to-avoid-RSI diagrams that one can hardly get away from in any setting. Then LEARN HOW TO TYPE. And don't make an excuse for why you're a special snowflake who doesn't need to.

By the way, when I discovered IRC big time (1996), it took my speed from 60wpm to 90wpm. Complete sentences, they're your friend.

My daughter is three and a half. She is already more skilled with the computers at nursery than the staff are. (Can get from the CBeebies games to watching Octonauts on the iPlayer in the blink of an eye!) I'm going to make sure she learns to type properly as soon as possible after she learns to read, dexterity allowing.

This weekend I finally finished my compass anklet. It's pretty impressive how quickly the human brain can include a new sense. I'm looking forward to taking it geocaching!

Do you know of a modern recording technology that would make this kind of recording convenient? An iOS app would be best, I think; alternatively a computer software.

I can well imagine recording myself reading the poems with a cassette recorder, but not with any software that I know.

I use my thinkpad tablet--my main computer--for reading anything I can manage to get in .pdf, but I do really envy the Kindle screen. And battery life. I keep checking back to the PixelQi site hopefully...

I read paper books because 1) I can get them really cheap used (cheaper than the library fines I always get from borrowing them...), 2) they require no batteries, 3) dropping them or stepping on them will not damage them irreparably, and 4) they are not likely to attract unwelcome attention on the buses through the rougher parts of town.

English speakers ought to know that its is the possessive adjective and it's is the contraction for 'it is'. It drives me crazy when people use it's to mean its, and I do not understand why they do it. Do people not learn how to write by reading? (I certainly did, and I don't see how else you could do it, but I realise I'm somewhat abnormal.) Or is the incorrect use of it's so ubiquitous now that even if people learn to write by reading, unless they read mostly stuff more than ten years old they aren't being exposed to a data set from which they can infer the correct rule? Or is it more a question of being published on paper than of age? And incidentally, does anyone know if schools have stopped teaching this and similar rules? (And if so, why?)

ETA: At least two people downvoted this, so perhaps I should make the following two points more explicit.

1. My comment was not intended to be censorious in tone (and rereading it I still don't think it is). The bulk of what I wrote takes the form of wondering about the cause of this, to me particularly irritating, phenomenon. (Thanks to Vladimir M, I am a little less confused now.)

2. The reason why I find the phenomenon so irritating is primarily that I value my ability to effortlessly produce correct grammar, spelling, etc., and seeing the same mistake consistently a large enough fraction of the time bollixes up my machinery, tending to decrease the effortlessness with which I can perform correctly. Also, I fear that others are subject to the same effect, and that there could be a threshold of criticality, and even that that threshold may already have been reached. So it's a (fairly minor) group rationality issue.