Butter is good for you provided you don't fry with it. If overheated it supplies more than the usual amount of inflammatory compounds. Instead, fry with ghee (clarified butter) or tallow.

Is there any evidence that people frying with butter actually damage themselves?

Repetition of a true message to a variety of audiences may be valuable because one gains a better understanding of the common misconceptions and opposing arguments. Which leads to subtly improved arguments and rhetoric. Also there's always the possibility that the message is in fact wrong and that this may be brought to light by new criticism or fresh evidence.

Having heard this idea many times I remain unpersuaded so far (!) because I haven't heard an explanation for it. Anyone know one?

The principle battle with printers as I see it is getting them to accept a third party print cartridge.

'7. Pity the readers' follows from the curse of knowledge, namely that's it's hard to imagine what it's like not to know what you know. This applies in novels as much as in technical writing. For example, descriptions of landscapes are often ambiguous because the writer already has a picture of the landscape in mind.

I agree. Yet scientific and/or moral discussions of depression and other mental disorders are becoming increasingly taboo.

It's about shared negative emotional experiences, of which their are more when one is young e.g. school, leaving home. It follows that if you wish to befriend adults you need to share a rock climbing accident, get stuck together in an airport for 72 hours, or similar.

Increase sales tax on status/luxury items. Decrease sales tax on long-life products.

I don't see how the latter would help - "long-life" products would break anyway.

OTOH, if we could get minimum warranties from the EU's standard 2 years to something like 20 years for appliances and 10+ years for digital electronics... maybe then companies would start to care.

The idea is to give companies an incentive to make tough stuff by increasing their revenue for such products. But let's do both!

Yes, more than that: if robot cars could be made incapable of hitting pedestrians, then children might start to roam again. It would be a marvellous unintended consequence...

No, from talking with some of these engineers, I'm pretty sure it's completely intended.

that is impossible in real world. if you go 50 kmh in 50 kmh zone, and small kid jumps 2m in front of your car suddenly, there is nothing anybody or any software can do. if it's 5m, would you rather crash and kill the parents than the kid? what about 2 kids?

it's dangerous direction of thoughts, meaning kids won't have to be careful when outside. but you have bikes, you have tons of other dangers.

Take an evasive maneuver at the very limits of the car's handling, brought to you by the speed of computers, while all the other cars around you adjust at similarly lightning-fast speeds?

Plus kids seldom appear completely out of nowhere. They will be tracked even when they are just on the side of the road.

It will still be possible to hit a pedestrian, but much less likely.

Well yes, we can't eliminate all dangers, but we can bring them down significantly and the rest is covered by teaching our children basic self-preservation practices. Like don't run out on to the street without looking even if cars can stop automatically.

This is the common sense view. But I think it's mistaken, which is what makes the article surprising and interesting.

People can learn and adapt to alcohol consumption and use it to get more work done, especially unpleasant work, just as they do with coffee. Not necessarily their best work, but work nonetheless. Some function very effectively on it, even intellectually e.g. Christopher Hitchens.