You should read The Psychology of Security. It has nothing to do with programming or computers.

As I post this, I'm still reading it. I recommend it before finishing because it's just that good.

It might be interesting to have a discussion about practical techniques for mitigating fallacious risk assessments in real life. One I've noticed w.r.t. Prospect Theory is that if I have two choices, one phrased in terms of loss, and another in terms of gain, I try to convert them both into the same domain (both loss or both gain); I never would have explained it as the essay did, but my reasoning is definitely covered by the prospect theory discussion. For example, putting something on sale is not a "savings". Buying something on sale is a lesser cost than buying it not on sale, but at no point do you "gain" or "save" anything.

And the winner of this year's Superbowl is... the rain.

Comments and other text you can post on iRi use standard HTML, with some helpful additions. I'll start with a quick primer on HTML, then tell you what you can use on iRi.

iRi uses HTML despite the fact it's not the easiest language, because it's the only standard language you may be able to carry your knowledge of elsewhere; see Please Stop with the HTML Replacements for more on that.

I've wanted to write something similar to this: The trajectory of a society matters. (I've retitled it for my link as I don't think the original really captures the point.)

I'm fairly confident that one of the reasons why my political views differ from others is the firm belief that what we have here in the US and civilized world, where we don't worry about where our next meal is coming from or whether we'll have good water to drink and that sort of thing, is more fragile than most people think. Things that we take for granted like a certain degree of trust in the government, the ability to trust our business associates (and we all have hundreds of business associates), and the reasonable expectation that nobody is going to point a gun at me today, are all vitally important components of our society. No matter how strong those characteristics might become, we can never afford to be blasé about them, because the "tipping point" where it all comes apart can come upon you faster than you think.

Of all the problems facing the United States, and the civilized world in general, I would pick this as the most important:

...the anger that lately pervades our politics is more than just an aftereffect of six years of Democratic setbacks... Our political anger is only the most impressive expression of a much wider cultural transformation. In politics, in music, in sports, on the web, in our families, and in the relations between the sexes, American anger has come into its own. Wood says we’re living in an era of “New Anger,” and regardless of who becomes our next president, New Anger isn’t going away anytime soon.... Anger has turned into a coping mechanism, something to get in touch with, a prize to exhibit in public, and a proof of righteous sincerity. - Stanley Kurtz's review of "A Bee in the Mouth"

Emphasis mine.

A classic example of why legislation shouldn't involve technology, only effects: If you record MP3s off of your satellite radio, are you infringing a right belonging to the copyright owner, given a law that says it is legal to record music from a radio? That is, do one or both of the definitions of "radio" or "record" as used in the law somehow not apply in this case?

You can see the technology-based arguments fly in the inevitable Slashdot article: "It's the same." "No it's not." "It depends on the definition."

This article has spawned a lot of discussion about the "gender gap" in programming.

What bothers me about the discussion is that nobody ever states a goal. What is the ideal outcome?

I think the ideal reads something like this: "For any person, they will have some degree of happiness with a given job. Society also has some degree of need for a given job. The best job for the person is the one that best balances their happiness with society's need." You need the clause about society to keep the problem grounded; we can't all be Hedonism-Bot, because the societal demand for that just isn't there. The exact balance is, of course, up for debate.

I've been watching some of the television-season DVDs we've collected over the years again, and once again I can't help but notice how much nicer the TV-DVD experience is over real TV.

The only minor complaint is the occasional commercial break that feels forced, but that's not too big a deal compared to the fun. Along with the audio-visual advantages of watching TV on my laptop (at 1650x1050, it's basically an HDTV that fits on my lap), the lack of commercial interruptions and the fact that TV shows have to be written very tightly to work around that means you end up with a very concentrated experience that has to be seen to be believed.

So, if the only valid thing left for modern art to do is hold up a mirror to the viewer, does that make people who spend a lot of time looking at and talking about modern art narcissists?

Bonus: The heuristic works!

(Proximate trigger: This quality art "criticism".)

Well, that was fast.

UPDATE: So far the big announcement is that new Bravia TVs will stream HD content via the Internet, in partnership with Yahoo, AOL, and Grouper. The "Bravia Internet Video Link" will be a small module that will fit to the back of the TV, and connect directly to the Internet without a PC. And the service is free. - Instapundit

Not even two weeks have gone by since I predicted set top boxes would do just that. (It may be quasi-integrated into the TV but it's probably basically a set-top box inside; I can't think of any technical reason why such a box wouldn't work on other televisions. It must be a branding thing.)