Fluid Intelligence has Made the Most Gains

So which kinds of intellectual performance have been pushed upward by the better environments of recent decades? Surprisingly, the steepest gains have not been found in the concrete skills that are directly taught in school, such as general knowledge, arithmetic, and vocabulary. They have been found in the abstract, fluid kinds of intelligence, the ones tapped by similarity questions (“What do an hour and a year have in common?”), analogies (“BIRD is to EGG as TREE is to what?”), and ...

 Philip K Dick's Perception of Fate

Phillip Dick was intrigued by devices that allowed him to examine the mechanisms by which life unfolds. I think he voted for free will in the short run (the span of intelligent life on Earth, say), evolution for the middle distance (things develop according to underlying principles) and predestination in the long run (the universe will entropy and cease). A man and a woman whose eyes Meet Cute need only be concerned about the very short run.

 ISPs Can Be Regulated Like Banks

The closest analogy to how ISPs operate on the Net is how banks operate on the terrestrial plane today. In most countries, banks are highly regulated, and they have a duty (in most countries) to know their customers. Although their primary mission is to serve their customers, to some extent they operate as (sometimes reluctant) arms of government. They are supposed to report not just illegal transaction, but also questionable ones--whenever someone shows up with more than $10,000 in cash, for...