David: I used to be like that, coming up with all sorts of strategies for getting up on time. Loud alarms, hard to find ones, multiple alarms. Eventually I ended up with your solution: going to be so that I wake up naturally when I need to.

The drawback is now that I have a regular sleep schedule, it's much harder to stay up crazy late on occasion. And if I do, I still wake up at my normal time, so I can't really sleep late anymore. I miss sleeping until 2 on weekends!

Derren Brown is pretty frank that he uses a variety of techniques for what he does, including outright trickery. He is intentionally vague on when he's using which technique.

Those who are interested can, with sufficient research, figure out how his stuff is done. (I'd start with Corinda's 13 Steps to Mentalism.) Those who aren't interested in the details should still remember that he is an entertainer, and you should not take his entertainments as proof of anything, any more than the Iron Man movie proves that you can put on a flying suit and go race with jets.

@Nobody Special: The guy drops five large on delicate gear that arrives poorly packed. He lets the public know, probably after Amazon asks him to give feedback.

You come out of nowhere, not knowing him or anything more than what you've read, create an account, and make your first an only comment on Boing Boing one that calls him "pissy" and an "asshole". What does that make you, exactly?

My guess: an employee of a dodgy Brooklyn camera company.

For those wondering how moral behavior fits well with evolution, take a look at Good Natured by Franz de Waal. It's a readable exploration of how a moral sense appears to be a natural phenomenon.

Wait, the TSA has privacy rules?

Poor, sad sugar addict.

This is just the "parts of the elephant" thing in a new guise. In the DSM they have separate entries for the trunk, the ears, the tail, the legs, and the tusks. But it's all one thing.

In my view, anything that is initially pleasurable and makes you forget your worries is potentially addictive. The cycle:
* you have problems that trouble you
* you avoid the pain using X
* too much X makes your problems worse
* repeat until you hit bottom

Some things on the Internet definitely qualify, like Warcraft. I agree that calling it "internet addiction" is faintly ridiculous, like calling alcoholism "bottle addiction".

But if you look at the DSM more as a catalog of treatable symptom clusters than a work of philosophy, that makes some sense. If most people didn't know anything about alcohol, but did easily recognize addictive behavior associated with a lot of empty bottles and a few full ones, then calling it "bottle addiction" would make some sense for two reasons.

First, friends of the addicted might see a lot of bottles and say, "Hey, I wonder if bottle addiction is involved." And secondly, people buying things in bottles might stop to think about addiction when they wouldn't have before.

And yes, this is all terribly annoying to people who buy milk in bottles. Or even who buy vodka but can handle it. But please don't mistake your personal lack of problem with bottles for a universal lack of problem.

Wow! I have been involved in on-line communities for a long time, and this is one of the best moderator explanations I've seen. I'm definitely saving a copy for future reference and possible pilfering.

One suggestion: at the top, put a short, catch-all question with an answer that summarizes and conveys the spirit. E.g.:

Q: Moderation? What's this all about?

A: We want the forum to be valuable to our readers. We moderate by removing or dismemvowelling posts that reduce that value, mainly ones that are spammy, snotty, jerky, or create excess drama. Focus on contributing to the conversation, and you'll be fine.

Speaking of Derren Brown, this is the segment where he talks people out of watches, wallets, and phones:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=f-TURhK90_8

A magician of my acquaintance tells me that Brown is on the level when he says he doesn't use stooges. I ache to try this on strangers to see if I can get it to work.