Random links
- Al Jazeera English Blacked Out Across Most Of U.S.
- That they compared the Egyptian government disconnecting the country's internet to Al Jazeera not being carried by most US cable and satellite companies is a bit of a stretch consider, as the article notes, that the network can be streamed online. One interesting claim: "The network ... now has more bureaus in Latin America than CNN and the BBC". If you've got Netflix access I'd also reccomend the documentary Control Room examining the network.
- Cracking the Scratch Lottery Code
- It seems that there may be exploitable patterns in scratch and win tickets, to allow lots of near-misses. Reminded me of a documentary I watched a long time ago dealing with a bunch of people trying to buy every single ticket in a lottery, after the jackpot climbed high enough to make that potentially profitable.
- Hitler vs. Stalin: Who Was Worse?
- "Today, after two decades of access to Eastern European archives, and thanks to the work of German, Russian, Israeli, and other scholars, we can resolve the question of numbers. The total number of noncombatants killed by the Germans—about 11 million—is roughly what we had thought. The total number of civilians killed by the Soviets, however, is considerably less than we had believed. We know now that the Germans killed more people than the Soviets did. That said, the issue of quality is more complex than was once thought. Mass murder in the Soviet Union sometimes involved motivations, especially national and ethnic ones, that can be disconcertingly close to Nazi motivations."
- Bribing kids to eat their greens really does work
- "At one- and three-month follow-up, the intervention children's increased liking of their target vegetable was sustained regardless of the specific condition they'd been in. However, in terms of increased consumption (when given the opportunity to eat their target vegetable, knowing no reward would be forthcoming), only the sticker and verbal praise children showed sustained increases."