• Candidate A wins an election with 51% while candidate B gets 49% - it looks as though candidate A won by 2% (51 - 49) but then just take that 1% from candidate A's 51% and give it to candidate B : and they both have 50%

-joiwind (November 20, 2012, 05:42 AM)

How is that a mystery?

Win = more than the other guy
Draw = equal second place
Lose = less than the winner

Who cares what the numbers are  ;)

-4wd (November 20, 2012, 06:28 AM)

I think the "mystery" there is different than what you're thinking, and that it relies on how muddled most people's thoughts are. e.g.

1) The difference is "2"
2) Transfer 1
3) Now the difference is 0
4) Oh, wow. Magic! :P

-Renegade (November 20, 2012, 06:38 AM)

It's a very good interview, lots of interesting aspects to it.

On a very practical note:

DCJ: We pay four times what the French do for a triple play package of cable, Internet and telephone — and they get worldwide TV, not just domestic; their Internet is ten times faster and instead of two country calling, they get long-distance to 70 countries at no extra charge. All that for $38 compared to the U.S. average of $160 including taxes. By one measure we pay 38 times as much as the Japanese per bit of information on the Internet. In states where the electric utilities were broken up so power generation could be a competitive business prices did not fall. Instead since 1999 they rose 48% more than inflation, compared to just 8 percent in states that retained traditional regulation. Everywhere there is a lack of competition, or only the appearance of competition, we pay way too much.

SP: In your book, you single out telephone carriers — is it really in their interests to hold back universal broadband services? Can you quantify the impact? DCJ: Remarkably we have created a system in which the AT&T - Verizon duopoly makes bigger profits by holding back the Internet. Verizon will make fiber optic service, the Information Superhighway, available to just 16 million households, not all of whom will buy. AT&T provides fiber to the street, then old-fashioned coaxial cable to your home or business. And if you live in a rural area or even cities like Rochester, where I live in Western New York, your region is never scheduled to get fiber optic service. Building the universal fiber optic service out economic competitors are all building or have built would encourage the invention of new services and products in America, but instead those will be developed in other countries. After all, if there is no way to use a service why would it be invented? ... One study, and it is only one study, says that a universal Information Superhighway at the fastest speeds in the world (we average about 5 percent of the top speeds) would increase economic output by two-thirds.

-tomos (November 18, 2012, 10:18 AM)