Got a job offer today, which is great after being out of work for a couple of months. Its a senior product role within a software company. They seemed really keen which is reassuring and I will have moved into my preferred sector without taking a pay cut. The only downside is the commute (only 12 miles but can easily take over an hour).

There are lots of things that could save lives if banned. Driving for example. However, we have to way up the benefits that those things provide us.

To pick your example. Drinking alcohol forms a key aspect of many of my social activities, such as going to the pub with friends, which I may do once or twice a week. Generally our towns and cities are set up so I don't have to drive home afterwards (tube & train ride) and drink driving is very frowned upon here. I also don't drink excessively and never get violent towards others etc. It wouldn't be the same to go to the pub to watch the football and just have the same soft drinks week in week out (although often someone isn't drinking due to work etc. which is perfectly fine).

It's a really important social activity in our culture and helps people maintain their networks (including older people in local pubs in some rural communities). I don't believe the net impact of banning alcohol would be beneficial and I'm sure it would create many of the problems associated with illegal drugs.

In the UK it is already illegal to take drugs and drive, much like it is illegal to drink and drive. But it's a good point, I think we'd need some new laws to protect other people much like those brought in to protect children from passive smoking etc.

The current state of US politics (and other leading western democracies) is really disappointing. It certainly feels like politics was far more progressive in the second half of the 20th century - whether it leaned right or left it usually did so for a purpose and with conviction. Now the entire political landscape seems to have stagnated and we have a culture of loathing, fear and self interest.

From an international perspective, I wish the Republicans had a really strong candidate, to at least promote some sensible debates about the direction America wants to take in the next ten years.

Wow that's actually quite scary, particularly being able to read security tokens. Does anyone know if this is specific to Chrome or does the same apply to Firefox/Edge extensions? I don't use Chrome any more as it seemed to becoming slower and slower over the last few years.

Will this have serious consequences? I can't see this having a significant impact, with all sides keen to avoid any further escalation, while at the same time recognising Russia's need to provide a very strong narrative for their domestic audience.

I used to love this book when I was a kid http://www.amazon.com/Stephen-Biestys-Incredible-Cross-Sections-Richard/dp/0679814116/

I read a good comment on reddit the other day that compared asking Muslim community leaders to apologise for these attacks to asking the Pope to apologise for the activities of the Westboro Baptist Church. I hope that you don't experience any backlash as a result, although I fear that this tragic event coupled with the refugee crisis will make life more difficult for the existing Muslims in Europe.

the supreme demonstration of why academic books matter

Matter or mattered? We're talking about a book that was written 150 years ago. I can't think of a time when I thought, 'oh I'm going to read an entire book on astrophysics'. Like most of the population I don't have the patience or basic understanding to digest that much technical content. While I'm clearly not the target audience for such books, in today's age are academic books still just as important?

Review of the camel burger please.

Firstly, glad you're okay and are putting a positive spin on things.

Secondly, I can't believe people risk getting caught for armed robbery, over robbery, when the maximum they are getting is a phone and a wallet. I don't know how it works where you live, but I think this automatically increases the standard minimum sentence in the UK from 1 year to 4 years - and it doesn't matter if it's a real or imitation firearm. Also, the level of police response and effort is going to be significantly different so they are far more likely to get caught.

I have always wanted a dog, but as I'm unemployed at the moment it would be even better. I would make a great owner until the point I find a new job and abandon it at home for 12 hours a day. I would seriously take a job on significantly less money if it gave me the flexibility to have a dog.

Yeah that's a good point. I was trying to think of a more generic and word for 'agree' - maybe 'endorse'. I see it as a tool to be able to quickly engage in a thread when someone has made a valuable post, but you don't either have anything further to add or don't have time to add it. Likewise, I think it's useful to be able to know when people don't endorse something you have posted so you can reflect. There's obviously nothing wrong with having an idea or opinion that people disagree with, and so long as it isn't tied to magic profile points I don't see it preventing people from posting minority/controversial opinions. As you say, it's effectively a simple rating system. I personally don't like five star rating systems because I don't think they reflect human behaviour.

Here's a couple of examples. There may be a comment thread with a high child count, then with each comment below making valid counterpoints and receiving high endorsements, highlighting a great quality of conversation. Or maybe I post something creative and I get a low number of endorsements and receive various critiques below, of which one comment has very low endorsements but another has high endorsements. I can then focus my attention on the points made in the highly endorsed comment to challenge my thinking.

It would definitely need testing to see how people interact.

The space for links may encourage people not to only post links as a response. I've seen on a few occasions (not that I can see any now) where someone has just posted a link as a comment. That's fine, but I usually want to know what you think about the content in the link.

I'm currently looking for a new job after being made redundant and it's proving an absolute nightmare figuring out the level of position being advertised. We've got to the point in the UK where an 'executive' (historically a Board level title) can now be given to a call centre worker, a 'director' (again a senior level title often on the board) refers to the tea boy and a 'manager'/'engineer' title can be anything from a low level supervisor to a head of a global department.

I know this is a little bit traditional, but there should be a standard global ranking system for job adverts that indicates the approximate pay grade.

Do that many people use the personal mod tools? I have never had a situation where I have had to mute anyone.

Here's a very quick concept of some possible additions to the comments section.

The 'discuss' counter could count up based on the number of child comments there are. A high number at the top of the chain would indicate that there's a good discussion below. For me, this is the most important indicator that it is worth reading on and more useful than seeing how many people have 'shared' at the comment level.

I know the second has purposely not been included in the site, but being able to agree/disagree is a good micro-transaction that allows people to quickly engage in the conversation without having to spend time formulating responses or simply stating agreement. I personally don't think this will water down the quality of the comments and I think it could help strengthen the community and discussions.

There may be room for more than one type of badge? Maybe one each for quality content / creative thought / hubski community. I'm not really sure where this idea came from or the purpose of it, but I didn't want to throw it in the trash.

I only put links to the side because sometimes I feel they get in the way of discussion and interpretation, decreasing the quality of their application and original thought.

I'd like to increase transactions and have more discussion about the content that is posted.

At the moment, loads of interesting articles and links get posted, but there are often no comments or little discussion arising as a result. I think the desire for 'thoughtful interaction' is preventing people from expressing less 'thoughtful' ideas (e.g. how a post makes them feel or maybe raising a small somewhat unrelated issue). However, I often find some of the best discussions that I have within good communities on reddit start from a really small idea or comment.

As an observation, I think this may be in part driven by culture (the community seems to be a relatively narrow demographic) and in part due to design (the only way to interact with content is to share or write comments as opposed to interact in other ways). The share functionality doesn't seem that relevant to me, as there is still relatively little content being submitted, so I just use the global feed to find new interesting things. But beyond being able to share, there is no other forms of interaction I can have with posts/comments other than write something intelligent, which I often don't have time for or my limited knowledge may prevent (even though I might still have an opinion).

It would be interesting to know the number of shares vs. the number of views for a post? Not always visible but just to see if people are interacting with the share button.

I realise this has turned into a bit of a ramble without actually coming up with anything specific, but hopefully it's of some use.

Sometimes you have to wonder how the USA is one of the most developed countries in the world, when the political system often appears full of complete clowns. It could be scarey how quickly progress could be made in a true democracy full of intelligent and honest politicians - or maybe the clowns are what keeps the fairground running. I doubt we will ever have the chance to find out.

Stuff that gets a good discussion going, particularly when I get to look at something from other peoples perspective.