ab9's comments

Thanks. I really enjoy what I've read so far.

No, Card does not explicitly declare that in the quotation I posted. (Did you mean elsewhere in his review?) He's saying: It's a hostile reading if it's skeptical rather than "with belief". It's also a hostile reading if it's forced rather than voluntary.

You probe his definition by asking, If someone reads it skeptically but voluntarily, does that count as hostile? That's a good question. I don't think we have enough information to answer it, because Card does not state how to weigh skepticism and forcedness against each other.

I'm understanding the term "hostile reading" as Card defines it in the above quotation. A hostile reader is one who approaches a book skeptically or is forced to read it (in the sense of being required to read it to complete a class). A hostile reading is what he does.

That's not how I interpret him. Here's the quotation with more context:

"Of course, those who approached Ender's Game skeptically or because they were 'forced' to read it can hardly imagine their response is valid for those who read it as volunteers or with belief: No book, however good, can survive a hostile reading."

"No book, however good, can survive a hostile reading."

Is that really true? The first Orwell book I read (Homage to Catalonia) was required for a history class -- a class that had previously assigned some truly awful literature. So I was pessimistic and I read it grudgingly at first. But halfway through the book, I realized I loved it.

NearlyFreeSpeech.NET, a popular web host, has recommended this for years.

http://faq.nearlyfreespeech.net/section/domainnameservice/ba...

Because that's the context of the article and HN users might want to know that. It's not clear in the original title.

Yes, I mentioned the Taliban simply because that's what I had read about. I don't know much about Al Qaeda, so I couldn't say much about that group in particular. I was not conflating the two groups; rather, I was using the Taliban as an example to make a broad point about Pakistan: that it is not simply "America's ally in the war on terror." It's also a quasi-ally of the Taliban (and Al Qaeda, Lashkar-e-Taiba, and other terrorist groups). "It's complicated," as they say.

The relationship between Al Qaeda and the Taliban is also complicated, and I'm probably in the dark as much as you are. My understanding is that they've never seen eye-to-eye, but apparently bin Laden was responsible for bringing the groups closer together. Al Qaeda has often resided in Taliban territory, with the latter's permission and protection.

"Just amazing - harbored by friends in the Pakistani military for years while they received billions in aid from the US."

This is completely normal, and it's long been the case for the Taliban too. The Taliban operate, and sometimes govern, fearlessly and openly in parts of Pakistan. This includes proper towns and city districts, not just remote regions in the mountains. The old guard of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence is largely pro-Taliban and provides political protection, funding, supplies, training, etc. Other parts of the Pakistani government help them too.

It's interesting that Wilson says "Etsy" doesn't mean anything. I assumed it was a phoneticization of "etc.".

It's a vote of confidence, yes, but insurgents look at more than just reliability when making their purchasing decisions. They also like the fact that Hilux-specific spare parts and expertise are relatively common in Afghanistan. And they like that they can add machine-gun turrets to it. Presumably you don't care about a truck's performance on those dimensions.

That's a common sentiment. Indeed, I hear people liken "I'm not on Facebook" to "I don't watch TV" more often than I hear people say "I'm not on Facebook."

From the article: "The irony is that The Exile was always far harder on America than Russia and, by the end, was probably more widely read by Russians than Americans."

Perhaps that's part of the reason The Exile was allowed to continue for so long.

True. But it's worth noting that those predictions are sufficient for a slow, partially-working substring search. Gmail could search for the n most likely completions of your query terms in addition to the normal search, and collate the results.

Gmail doesn't even have substring search (e.g. searching for "hack" will not find instances of "hacker"). I think that would be a prerequisite for Instant-style searching.

I think you overestimate how well we can predict the effects of a sudden extinction. From the Nature article:

"Views differ on what would happen if that biomass [of mosquitoes in the Arctic tundra] vanished. Bruce Harrison... estimates that the number of migratory birds that nest in the tundra could drop by more than 50% without mosquitoes to eat. Other researchers disagree...."

We're seeing disagreement on a hypothetical mosquito extinction's effect on the number of nesting birds in a certain area. If the experts are unsure of this, then it's fair to say that the total, detailed ecological impact is not precisely understood.

Also from the Nature article:

"Without mosquitoes, thousands of plant species would lose a group of pollinators. Yet McAllister says that their pollination isn't crucial for crops on which humans depend. 'If there was a benefit to having them around, we would have found a way to exploit them,' she says."

So if mosquitoes disappeared, thousands of plant species could be threatened. The researcher says that's probably okay, because if humans aren't directly using those plants, they're probably not important to us. But what about indirect benefits of those plants? Would the effects on those plant species have significant ripple effects on other species? I don't know. The Nature article doesn't talk about that.

Does this seem like the rigor necessary to justify a sudden ecological change in an extremely complex system on which billions of human lives depend? I don't think you can call this a sure thing.

"We can always keep some mosquitoes in a cage in the CDC in the unlikely event that they do turn out to be useful."

Say we kill all mosquitoes in the wild, and then discover that they were in fact protecting us from some Awful Thing. By the time we become aware of this, it may be too late to eliminate the problem by simply reintroducing caged mosquitoes to the wild, because some irreversible critical mass or adaptation may have happened in the meantime. (This is a Black Swan argument; it's a vaguely-defined scenario that seems very unlikely but potentially catastrophic.)

"The cost of these infections is immense, both economically and in terms of human suffering."

No doubt. But what we want is a cost-benefit analysis of removing mosquitoes from the ecosystem. Pointing to one large and obvious benefit does not help us calculate the costs.

No. That's only part of the analysis. Mosquitoes may benefit, as well as harm, humans. For example, they may be keeping more dangerous animals or diseases in check in extremely subtle ways.

"I agree with the author, but there is one point he seems to have overlooked; brand."

That's exactly what I was thinking. Users have to learn, through repeated use, to trust automation. They might take a chance and buy an intelligent sensor-equipped washing machine, but only if they can control it manually if the intelligence turns out to suck. This is one reason why they appear to prefer complex products.

But there's a way around that: get a reputation for really good automation. (Yes, it's a chicken-and-egg problem, but I'm sure it's doable for consumer electronics.) Where users are confident that automation will work well, I predict we'll find that "users prefer complex products" is less true.

Thanks, I've edited my comment. You're right that it's less an issue of underpricing per se, and more that she had complementary skills that she wasn't taking advantage of. The fact remains that working less did not, in itself, add value for the customers.