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Personally, I do not even have a particularly solid opinion on the matter that he was discussing in that memo. But I find it quite telling that one side (Mr. Damore) cites studies and such (as biased and wrong as they might be), while all the other side does is whine and say "it can't be true". Well, if the latter is the case, go right ahead and cite some studies that clearly show Mr. Damore is wrong. Or shut the fuck up.

Challenge accepted! :-)

First, contrary to what you state, there are many people pointing out that the "science" behind the memo is hokum.

Indeed, the main problem with Mr. Damore's memo is that the science he cites, insofar as it is taken to support his claims about sex differences, is complete and utter bullshit. I mean, just look at the methodology section of these "scientific studies", for Christ's sake!

One such study I've read recently claimed trans-cultural (independent of culture) sex differences. With such a strong claim, you would think they made a huge, transcontinental and anthropologically sophisticated (including some "exotic" cultures) experiment, right? Not even close. The experiment was made in a single U.S. city with around 400 subjects, "from different ethnic backgrounds"! Seriously?!

To be fair, this was just a particularly bad example. The most robust study, the one actually cited by Mr. Damore, is the one by Mr. Smith and his colleagues (the methodology is actually explained in another paper). Now, even discounting any reasonable qualms we may have about "The Big Five", if you understand a little bit about statistics and causality, there are some things you notice as soon as you read the methodology:

- the subjects are not a representative sample of the population of the countries (the subjects were basically just college kids, which, in no country, is representative of the larger population and, in some countries, account for less than 10% of the population)

- the sample size varied from country to country

- there were exceptions to the correlation between the personality traits and sex (as described in the conclusion)

- the data was collected via self-reported surveys (if you are familiar with experimental research in psychology, you would know what this means...)

- the return rates for the surveys varied wildly between samples (from as high as 95% to as low as 50%)

Now, differently from Mr. Damore, Mr. Smith is not calling for the abolition of diversity programs in Google on the basis of his findings. And this is usually the case with researchers in "sex differences": most of them are very careful not to draw unwarranted conclusion from their experiments and to point out the exceptions and methodological difficulties.

For anyone interested, I recommend Rebecca Jordan-Young's book, "Brain Storm - The Flaws in the Science of Sex Differences". It contains a huge survey of the scientific literature on this topic which is fascinating.

Anyway, have you read many scientific studies lately? Most of it is just garbage, some are even laughable. And I am not talking only about psychology. Medical sciences, social sciences, economics and, sometimes, even physics. And it doesn't help that people and the media do not read the fine print and tend to draw unwarranted conclusions. And scientists know this! Many even try to stretch their conclusions in order to maximize the popular impact of their work in the eyes of non-specialists (funding agencies and the general public included). So, all in all, I think scientific studies are hugely overrated. You can cherry pick so-called scientific literature to fit almost any agenda.

Actually, it doesn't. It turns out that this is a known phenomenon.

"Previous research suggested that sex differences in personality traits are larger in prosperous, healthy, and egalitarian cultures in which women have more opportunities equal with those of men. In this article, the authors report cross-cultural findings in which this unintuitive result was replicated across samples from 55 nations"

http://www.bradley.edu/dotAsse...

He actually didn't use any citations of scientific publications, that may be where some quotes originated but no sources are shown.

Perhaps you read one of the early, incomplete copies of the document that circulated late last week, rather than the original, full document that he published internally (it wasn't an e-mail), which contained footnotes and citations? In just a quick skim, I found that he linked to at least five separate papers in the first six pages alone, as well as including numerous additional links to articles, Wikipedia, and other sources that he used to back up his points or clarify the way he was using various phrases.

Moreover, he recommended against Google continuing what he is saying are illegal hiring practices that, contrary to California laws against affirmative action, disproportionately favor minorities. He's calling for the same standard to be applied to all candidates, rather than for some to be measured against a more lenient standard, as he's suggesting is currently the case. That, in and of itself, is not a bigoted statement, since calling for equal treatment is not bigotry, though I'll agree with what I assume would be your viewpoint that a bigot would use those same arguments as a guise to push their agenda.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... Cited Directly

http://www.professormarkvanvug... http://www.bradley.edu/dotAsse... Two of the papers cited in the Wikipedia Article.

This stuff is fairly well established. Don't be a science denier.

This particular class (found the syllabus here) did have some textbooks, but I don't really remember them playing a large role. Granted, my memory is hazy, 17 years later. The stuff the professor was most interested in us learning was delivered in lecture. If you didn't take good notes, you didn't stand a chance on the exams or writing your essays. Attendance was mandatory, and for very good reason.

Being a 300-level class (ie. 3rd year, aka. Junior Year), the class really didn't focus on rote memorization. Rather, the professor wanted to us to think about the material at a higher level than that, understanding the social contexts, and drawing deeper conclusions about the relationships between the different religions. For me, it was quite the wild ride. Yeah, we needed to remember the facts, but he also wanted us to move beyond basic comprehension and toward analysis and synthesis.

It helped that Dr. Fuller was (and I imagine still is) an entertaining, knowledgeable and energetic professor that genuinely wanted to be there teaching. (If you watch the vid at that page, understand that he gets even more animated when he's giving lecture, and crams those 55 minutes absolutely full.) I'm not religious or really into religions at all, but I enjoyed the class and actually learned something. Maybe I don't remember the books because they were dull and uninteresting, comparatively. :-)

I only pulled a B+ in that course. It was the only course I ever took at the same time as my (then future) wife. She got an A with far less apparent effort than I put into it. (Of course, I suspect her larger background and personal interest in mythologies from around the world was an asset here.) Ah well... I have my engineering and she has her geology. It's all good.

This particular class (found the syllabus here) did have some textbooks, but I don't really remember them playing a large role. Granted, my memory is hazy, 17 years later. The stuff the professor was most interested in us learning was delivered in lecture. If you didn't take good notes, you didn't stand a chance on the exams or writing your essays. Attendance was mandatory, and for very good reason.

Being a 300-level class (ie. 3rd year, aka. Junior Year), the class really didn't focus on rote memorization. Rather, the professor wanted to us to think about the material at a higher level than that, understanding the social contexts, and drawing deeper conclusions about the relationships between the different religions. For me, it was quite the wild ride. Yeah, we needed to remember the facts, but he also wanted us to move beyond basic comprehension and toward analysis and synthesis.

It helped that Dr. Fuller was (and I imagine still is) an entertaining, knowledgeable and energetic professor that genuinely wanted to be there teaching. (If you watch the vid at that page, understand that he gets even more animated when he's giving lecture, and crams those 55 minutes absolutely full.) I'm not religious or really into religions at all, but I enjoyed the class and actually learned something. Maybe I don't remember the books because they were dull and uninteresting, comparatively. :-)

I only pulled a B+ in that course. It was the only course I ever took at the same time as my (then future) wife. She got an A with far less apparent effort than I put into it. (Of course, I suspect her larger background and personal interest in mythologies from around the world was an asset here.) Ah well... I have my engineering and she has her geology. It's all good.

You obviously wouldn't.

However, there are people out there who make it their goal to understand the inner workings of all sorts of interesting technology, including mainstream video game consoles. The best way to understand a system is to re-implement it, even if only in software. For example, there's really no good reason one would one to implement an NES on a FPGA, but someone has done it anyhow. It's simply the hacker mentality at work.

I attended MIT and a state school. Most courses, especially on the bottom rungs, were taught much better at the state school. MIT, like many engineering schools, focuses on its professors' research more than their teaching skills.

Yeah. I attended Bradley's EE program for just these reasons. It was a small enough school where class sizes were moderate (~25 students in most courses, except for the occasional freshman-level survey course), and all the courses are taught directly by professors rather than TAs. Professors got to know all the students individually. And, while some of the professors had pet research interests, it isn't a research-driven school. It's an undergrad teaching-focused institution. I loved it.

I did briefly consider MIT for undergrad, and probably could have gotten scholarships to afford it. (That's how I afforded Bradley.) I went to one of their "open houses" that was near me, that featured local alumi of MIT. Based on their stories, I decided against it for undergrad. It seems more like it'd be appropriate for grad school. In the end, undergrad was all I needed and I've had a happy 12 year career as an engineer since!

I echo the "two year mark" sentiment. My GPA shot markedly upwards once I got to the two year mark and all the actual engineering kicked in. I loved it. This was my experience at Bradley University.

As for 6 figures being paltry, and staring at 7 figure slackers? I think that's a California thing.

For my landline, I still use a 2500 phone that's about 25 years old. It's a bit more advanced than in the picture since it has redial, hold, and flash buttons, but it's not complicated. However it *is* rugged (dropped it off a table a few times with no ill effects), sounds better than most "modern" phones, and is easy to use. Not to mention having a really cool sounding mechanical bell in the base.

As you add more features, you have to skimp on quality to get the price point of the product the same. That 2500 phone would probably cost $100+ on the market today - there are cheaply-made phones with more features selling for $20 now.

-b.

My guess is that they will most likely use The Black-Scholes Option pricing model with a few refinements.

An Option gives someone the right to buy at a certain price for a certain time period - agreed?
So, the way I would approach it (simply) would be to say that the option gives you the right to buy 1,000 shares at $1 - so, I would expense $1,000.00.
You could get more sophisticated and plug those values into the Balck-Scholes option model to get a more "accurate" value.

We *have* one. It was even linked to in the story.

Welcome to Earth

Looks like the old contender for biggest model is so big that they lost it track of it...

At forty miles from Pluto to Sun, the largest complete three-dimensional scale model of the Solar System in the World.

• Database Journal has an article comparing SQL Server 2000 and Access 2000, but the feature list shouldn't have changed much. The charts that you are interested in are at the bottom right before the conclusion.
• Here's a speed comparison between MySQL and Access.
• Here's a great comparison of many SQL technologies including Access.

(check out the route on mapquest, nice curving path, not a straight line.)

why do i say this?

cuz lakeview website says it themselves! look at the link i had again and notice in the " SCALE DISTANCE
FROM LAKEVIEW" entry for Pluto the words "64 km (40 miles)"

I'm sorry, but the Peoria model of the solar system doesn't count. The Sun and possibly Mecury (it's hard to tell from the photo) are not truly modeled. The sun is just a partial yellow disc painted on a building and Mecury might be just a plaque. The winner should have to be a 3D, true to scale, physical model. It is cool that they include the Asteroid Belt, though.

I'm a recovery workaholic, but doing well... haven't worked a day in over a year! I'm so proud.

I'm sorry, but the Peoria model of the solar system doesn't count. The Sun and possibly Mecury (it's hard to tell from the photo) are not truly modeled. The sun is just a partial yellow disc painted on a building and Mecury might be just a plaque. The winner should have to be a 3D, true to scale, physical model. It is cool that they include the Asteroid Belt, though.

I'm a recovery workaholic, but doing well... haven't worked a day in over a year! I'm so proud.

I'm sorry, but the Peoria model of the solar system doesn't count. The Sun and possibly Mecury (it's hard to tell from the photo) are not truly modeled. The sun is just a partial yellow disc painted on a building and Mecury might be just a plaque. The winner should have to be a 3D, true to scale, physical model. It is cool that they include the Asteroid Belt, though.

I'm a recovery workaholic, but doing well... haven't worked a day in over a year! I'm so proud.

"The Maine model is not the largest, and Peoria, IL, my hometown, has had the largest model for many years now, the Pluto model (in Kewanee, IL) being over 60 miles away from the sun model."

***
Maybe 60 **km**, but *not* 60 miles.
***

Both the Lakeview IL model and the Maine model have SunPluto distances of about 40 miles. (64km).

Lakeview Jupiter: 45" diameter
Maine Jupiter: 61.4" diameter
Lakeview Scale: 1:140,000,000
Maine Scale: 1:93,000,000
Lakeview Earth: 4" diameter
Maine Earth: 5.5" diameter

Go Maine!
Go Illinois!
Go Sweden!

Plus while the first post only claimed (correctly) that it was North America's largest model, the second post claimed it's the World's largest, which as many other posters have pointed out, is wrong.

Guess they are going to have to change the heading on their website.

Bradley's Solar System

This one is headquartered at Peoria, IL.. I don't think this one is in 3d.

Since when did math become unethical?

1. Current price is essentially irrelevant to the value of an option. The difference between the option price and the current price is the relevant measure.

The option price has nothing to do with it (I think you mean the strike price.) See the math

2. Volatility is NOT good for stock options, or for stocks i n general--except in one, unethical scenario, i.e. when you absolutely no faith in your company and are waiting for the right moment to sell all your shares to suckers who don't know any better. When one exercises one's option, more often than not, given the AMT and other archaic tax rules, one will be paying TAX on the difference between the option price and the current stock price. If volatility is high, and the stock later drops (and volatility, of course, implies big movement in BOTH directions), you STILL foot the tax bill--resulting in the possibility of a huge LOSS on the option (say the company's stock price dips into the penny stock range), but ALSO an ONEROUS tax bill (say, at the time of exercise, you made a killing -- but a killing in stock assets that are now worthless).

The price of an option clearly depends on volatility. Consider a option with a strike price of $10 on a stock trading at $10. If the stock has very low volatility (e.g. it will end at either $9.99 or $10.01) the option is clearly worth very little. If, on the other hand, the stock will end at either $1 or $100, then the option is worth quite a lot of money. This isn't ethics, it's math.

Why do these supposed 'experts' on 'Wall Street' always presume to know better than tenured faculty members at one of the best (if not the best) b-schools in the country? If anything, this fellow proves the Wharton profs' point -- people do NOT understand how options work....

I said the article sucked, I didn't say I'm an expert.

Got Google? The paper linked includes the formula itself, as well as information about its assumptions and justifications.

I use a very simple, lightly ANSI-fied /etc/issue. It says, in red, blinking letters, "Go Away".

Plain, simple, effective.

Once upon a time, I put up a web simulation of my machine's login sequence. At the time, the machine was named Asylum. You can find the web simulation here, at my old college account. You can read more about the Asylum here. (It's fun, click the link.) Ahh the memories...

I use a very simple, lightly ANSI-fied /etc/issue. It says, in red, blinking letters, "Go Away".

Plain, simple, effective.

Once upon a time, I put up a web simulation of my machine's login sequence. At the time, the machine was named Asylum. You can find the web simulation here, at my old college account. You can read more about the Asylum here. (It's fun, click the link.) Ahh the memories...

Attention, I bear news which may affect the life of every man and woman who values free speech:
Bob Schmanski's Home Page has MOVED!
His web page is now at:
http://cegt201.bradley.edu/~bschmans/ind ex.html
You should be transferred there automatically, or you can go there manually. Please update your links.