Slashdot Mirror

This refers to more primary scholastic algebra of course. It is not the same as linear algebra but in basic ways that earliest form is closer to algebra.

Certainly this is not unique to China or a new practice to recruit from schools for armies around the world. What then is the purpose of this pair of stories, one overrun by trolls, and this one vaguely repeating some of the usual xenophobic fears? One was an accidental honey trap that will allows tracking influence networks on Slashdot, and this one fits into the old tapestry of fear-based propaganda.

Fuck off Nazi.

https://www.tandfonline.com/do...

Men are penalized more for being late. Women are forgiven tardiness more readily. Yes, it is sexist - but not in the way you think it is.

Any group with disproportional representation of any race is — by the progressive definition racist. Blacks in the US comprise about 12% of the population, so it may be excusable for a group of fewer than 10 to not have any. But Whites are a majority, so any group of two or more without a single White person is racist. Case closed.

Now, as we also know from the same progressive teachers of the people, denial of racism is in itself racist. Yes, I'm looking sternly at you, racist, you have been exposed.

https://nrcgt.uconn.edu/newsle...
https://tspace.library.utoront...
https://www.tandfonline.com/do...

The last one is the most directly applicable but requires access to the journal to read it.

In essence, having been asked to choose the child more likely to be gifted from two profiles, a teacher will, in statistically significant degree select the male student.

In most school districts the selection criteria for choosing a student for further testing is that the teacher refers the student, and then a screening test is administered (e.g. CCAT) to confirm the teacher's initial assessment. Then a full spectrum IQ test is administered - typically a WISC V at the moment.

If you pre-select at the first gate, your overall statistics will be skewed at the last gate.

Add onto this the social issues cited in the other two papers, (e.g. a social predisposition away from competitive activities (I'll leave nature vs nature discussions aside as 1) they're not germane to the discussion, and 2) I'm unaware of any well regarded research on the matter) influencing the result of most(*) testing situations.

(* This can be reduced through a testing environment divorced from the classroom environment with an appropriately trained test administer, but these aren't available to most parents as typically such testing is provided through the school system)

If you have appropriate evidence to support your implied position, I'd be interested in reading them.

Thanks/Min

Sure. In general phone use and especially internet smart phone use is detrimental for children. Some examples (easy to find if you do actually look at health journals) https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/p... and https://www.sciencedirect.com/... And especially so for students in class. https://www.tandfonline.com/do... If you don't have access just read all of the abstract, since it is the summary. For more easy to find papers check the links on the hosting pages and especially in the references provided in these papers.

> ...don't compare the behaviour of Russia or China to US-Israel-stuxnet.

The attack that legitimized cyber-war, for which the most vulnerable country is the US, and which did not significantly slow down Iranian uranium enrichment for very long ( https://www.tandfonline.com/do... ) ?

Please point to a single sterile GMO seed. You can't because they do not exist. Also please show a single proper peer-reviewed study from a respectible journal that shows that GMO:s are dangerous to humans, a single one would suffice out of your millions.

Yes GMO crops can lead to less use of pesticides: https://www.tandfonline.com/do...

The evidence shows that use of the technology has resulted in a net reduction in both the amount of herbicide used and the associated environmental impact, as measured by the EIQ indicator when compared to what can reasonably be expected if the area planted to GM HT crops reverted to conventional production methods

Claims with no citations? You're either an idiot or an outright troll/liar.

A small sampling of the citations linked in the post in question:
http://www.city-journal.org/20...
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi...
http://www.umass.edu/legal/Ben...
http://www.jstor.org/discover/...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R...
https://www.ncjrs.gov/App/Publ...
http://www.bjs.gov/content/pub...
http://www.motherjones.com/pol...
https://www.ncjrs.gov/App/abst...
https://www.ncjrs.gov/App/abst...
http://www.jstor.org/discover/...
http://psycnet.apa.org/psycinf...
http://www.jstor.org/discover/...
https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles...
https://www.ncjrs.gov/app/abst...
http://qje.oxfordjournals.org/...
http://www.sentencingproject.o...
http://online.wsj.com/articles...
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/pa...
https://www.law.upenn.edu/live...
That's enough citations that I then have to add in this line because the stupid post filter thinks the average line length is too short. That's enough citations that I then have to add in this line because the stupid post filter thinks the average line length is too short. That's enough citations that I then have to add in this line because the stupid post filter thinks the average line length is too short. That's enough citations that I then have to add in this line because the stupid post filter thinks the average line length is too short. That's enough citations that I then have to add in this line because the stupid post filter thinks the average line length is too short.

For better or worse, that readiness to devastate the attacker has never been tested. Worse, the very concept is being chipped away by movies and other art, which mocks it, and glorifies dissenters, leakers, and outright traitors, who either refuse to follow orders, or subtly sabotage them out of concern for collateral damage.

If/when push comes to shove one day, some officers may decide to not push the button. Something like this for example: "Our firing back now will not protect those already doomed to die in Guam. Why kill millions of innocent on their side?" See? It is so convincing...

Especially, if the base is not tightly run, and/or he has a cute Chinese wife/girlfriend and is well-versed in the rich and enlightening Chinese culture.

Re: "Piers Corbyn does not make the kind of predictions you claim. You're putting forth something he has not done as factual."

Corbyn is an astrophysicist who makes his money by making long-range forecasts about extreme weather events -- predictions which are then literally purchased by the people who need to know this information in the regions in which he currently covers. He literally sells predictions for a living, and people continue to buy them for the very reason that they are accurate. From his website:

WeatherAction will develop and extend Piers Corbyn's revolutionary world-leading Solar based method* of Long Range forecasting to include all countries of the world months and years ahead particularly for extreme and dangerous events. The background physics principles behind the method are available in presentations** and will be published in full in due course.

*Solar-Lunar-Action-Technique
**see eg PiersCorbyn Uni Exeter Go Green Week 25 Feb 2016 http://bit.ly/1LLdfuf

The quote which contains the claims which you suggest have been made up come from a paper which appeared in Proc. Eighth Intl. Conf. on Risk and Gambling, London, July 1990, and was apparently republished later in a journal named Social Epistemology: A Journal of Knowledge, Culture and Policy. The author, Robin Dale Hanson, is an associate professor of economics at George Mason University and a research associate at the Future of Humanity Institute of Oxford University. He received his degree from Caltech.

Which part of this are you claiming has been made up?

"Global warming" does not mean everywhere on Earth gets uniformly warmer by some number.

I never claimed that. But it's clear at this point that continued warming will negatively affect the amount of arable land and food output in regions like sub-saharan Africa that are already suffering from shortages of quality land. Further up north some places will actually see an increase in arable land, but it's clear that for a chunk of the poorest people in the world the situation will get even worse increasing instability and conflicts.

Except they're starving because of assholes like Robert Mugabe not because of climate anything (or weather, for that matter.

I never said the climate is the only reason they're starving, nor the primary reason right now. But again, there's no doubt that continued warming will make the starvation worse in developing economies, areas that are already having difficulties feeding themselves.

Considering those brown people caused their own state of anarchy, Europeans are perfectly justified in demanding they stay the hell home and fix their own problems. A mass migration of millions is totally unjustified by any climate rhetoric,

Again, as I said to a previous poster who made the same mistake: I wasn't making an argument for (or against) immigration, but pointing out precisely that if we want to avoid triggering further massive movements of people, then the climate issue has to be taken seriously.

Africa has had more than enough food to feed itself, and not enough, and good years or bad, the worst problem is politics, not climate.

Even if one agrees with this 100 %, that still doesn't mean the climate will not be an issue that will become even worse than politics in the future, and while bad politics can be mitigated over time (and there are some African countries that are doing this and actually seeing progress), the climate cannot be reverted back.

You almost had me fooled until the "Perdue" part. Chickens don't go into (aero)space, silly. And you can't "focus" on "multidiscipline" because they inherently contradict each other. Besides, Purdue University's school of "engineering education" is now waging war on rigorous engineering (because it "demonstrat[es] white male heterosexual privilege", they think we must "relinquish" it), which suggests a degree from there is about as useful as toilet paper.

I don't know every country which has it, but I can tell you that it's that way here in Iceland, too. And Finland. Denmark is the only Nordic which doesn't use it.

After Sweden introduced their ban on purchasing sex, violence against sex workers reportedly went up

This is a lie based around this report. The short of it: Since the law passed, the following reports of changes have occurred:

Verbal abuse: +17%
Hair pulling: +167% (but still only a third of those surveyed reported any hair pulling)
Being struck with a fist: -38%
Rape: -48%.

Because when you consider them all together and equal, it's a net increase of 7% (52% to 59%), that's "violence is up". But most of those cases are verbal abuse. The most extreme examples, such as rape, went down by half.

Street prostitution decreased by 50% and indoor prostitution by 16% since the law was passed. The rate of prostitutes seeking help from the police decreased by 41%, but rather than this being some sort of "afraid of the police" situation (they're not legally liable for anything), rates of seeking help from ProSentret decreased by 54% - an even greater amount. The simple fact is, severe violence dramatically decreased since the Nordic Model was adopted.

The estimates on the number of prostitutes operating in Sweden dropped significantly after the law was passed, and are 1/10th the number as in (lower population) Denmark. A study by Durex found that Sweden had the lowest percentage of the population (among 34 countries surveyed) of men paying for sex, at 3%. But as for:

as did the number of "johns" going to Denmark for sex.

Obviously, just on the face of this, this is stupid. The concept that you'll get the same rate of people visiting prostitutes when they can get it where they live vs. where they have to drive for hours (Stockholm to Copenhagen = 10 hours round trip) and pay ~$50 each way to cross the bridge (let alone the super-expensive Nordic gas prices) is nonsense. Furthermore, the rate of people going to Denmark to buy prostitutes has not increased. A large majority of the population in countries with the Nordic model strongly support it, not just "politicians". Only 25% of Swedish men and 7% of Swedish women support repealing it.

I lacks rigorous nature necessary to truly show someone was CS really is.

Because... rigor "(demonstrates) white male heterosexual privilege." STEM educators must "(look) to alternative conceptualizations for evaluating knowledge, welcoming diverse ways of knowing, doing, and being, and moving from compliance to engagement, from rigor to vigor."

This is why Western Civilization is collapsing.

The statement that in order to implement his program of maritime discovery, Prince Henry of Portugal (1394—1460) had founded at Sagres in the early fifteenth century a nautical school to which he attracted experts in astronomy, navigation and cartography, has appeared in recent works published in connection with the quincentenary of Columbus' first voyage. The assertion has already for long been the subject of heated controversy among Portuguese historians of which the best and most authoritative have amassed respectable evidence to show that no such institution ever existed.

Or are you referring to some other institution?

"Neuroticism (higher anxiety, lower stress tolerance)"

What's your point?

Lynn, Richard, and Terence Martin. "Gender differences in extraversion, neuroticism, and psychoticism in 37 nations." The Journal of social psychology 137.3 (1997): 369-373.

Mean gender differences on Eysenck's three personality traits of extraversion, neuroticism, and psychoticism were collated for 37 nations. Women obtained higher means than men on neuroticism in all countries, and men obtained higher means than women on psychoticism in 34 countries and on extraversion in 30 countries. The relation between the magnitude of the gender differences and per capita incomes was not significant for any of the three traits.

If you are contesting this research, you have to cite better research that does not replicate these findings. We'll wait.

That's not even necessary. Journals have conflict of interest disclosure rules; any potential conflict such as funding from an interested party is disclosed when the paper is published, and everything is kosher.

In fact if you go to the paper itself, here's the relevant bit from the disclosure statement:

The Expert Panelists were engaged by, and acted as consultants to, Intertek, and were not directly contacted by the Monsanto Company. Funding for this evaluation was provided to Intertek by the Monsanto Company which is a primary producer of glyphosate and products containing this active ingredient. Neither any Monsanto company employees nor any attorneys reviewed any of the Expert Panel's manuscripts prior to submission to the journal.

[emphasis mine]

The bit I've highlighted is the crux of this matter. The accusation was that those bits were false.

Deliberately misrepresentation on a conflict of interest statement constitutes scientific fraud.

An earlier study, cited in this one, looked at this issue: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi...

They made identical pitches and found that the gender of the person making the pitch affected the outcome. Both male and female investors were affected in the same way, biased against women making the pitch.

It's what is known as institutional sexism. The individual investors are not necessarily sexist or consciously biased, it's a more general bias in a society that portrays masculinity as stronger and more reliable or desirable.

In other news, women are attracted to more masculine men. Well, no shit sherlock. Its called biology, look it up.

An earlier study, cited in this one, looked at this issue: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi...

They made identical pitches and found that the gender of the person making the pitch affected the outcome. Both male and female investors were affected in the same way, biased against women making the pitch.

It's what is known as institutional sexism. The individual investors are not necessarily sexist or consciously biased, it's a more general bias in a society that portrays masculinity as stronger and more reliable or desirable.

Notice what *all three* have in common- selfishness.

Which is also the real reason behind water fluoridation. Cut back on that surplus population so you can grab more stuff.

And yes, it did (been studied over and over and over and over):
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8169995
https://www.nhmrc.gov.au/health-topics/health-effects-water-fluoridation
http://fluoridealert.org/studies/fertility01/
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/15287399409531866

And that's just the top 4 in a google search....

This is the perfect tomato for human health. This research extends to tomatoes the same concept Norman Borlaug used to optimize the production of wheat and rice in the 60s. You know, the Green Revolution that legitimately kept the world from starving itself to death and decreased warfare. There are major health benefits from consuming tomatoes in any form, and this research increases production and descreases costs in a way that will increase tomato availability.

The "sensitivity of the nose" is measured by odor detection thresholds.

Here are some values for humans:

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi...

And here are some values for dogs:

http://www.barksar.org/K-9_Det...

As you can see, both dogs and humans can detect some chemicals at below one part per billion. So, it's hard to say conclusively that dogs have "more sensitive noses" than humans. Humans and dogs are probably just sensitive to different compounds because we use smell differently. So, humans can't track prey by smell, but humans may be better at detecting dangerous chemical compounds and pathogens, something dogs often seem oblivious to.

Racial bias in police behavior (in the USA) is extremely well established pretty much across the board (as is gendered gaps in pay, promotion, evaluation, etc).

http://amstat.tandfonline.com/...
http://journals.plos.org/ploso...

... and so many more

Your extraordinary claims needs extraordinary proof. Because that contradict what research show; the correlation between crime and immigration is a society net positive (of course anything involving humans is never a 100% anything, so there will always be exceptions, e.g. some persons result in a society net negative, but the overall effect is positive).

From the abstract of the paper Urban crime rates and the changing face of immigration: Evidence across four decades:

Research has shown little support for the enduring proposition that increases in immigration are associated with increases in crime. Although classical criminological and neoclassical economic theories would predict immigration to increase crime, most empirical research shows quite the opposite. We investigate the immigration-crime relationship among metropolitan areas over a 40 year period from 1970 to 2010. Our goal is to describe the ongoing and changing association between immigration and a broad range of violent and property crimes. Our results indicate that immigration is consistently linked to decreases in violent (e.g., murder) and property (e.g., burglary) crime throughout the time period.

The Keystone Center is only an hour from Baltimore:

Computer-Assisted Sensate Focus: Integrating Technology with Sex Therapy Practice by CM Coren.

Even then, green houses are warmer due to thermal radiance from the sun captured by the enclosed structure.

Bingo. Visible light in. IR blocked on the way out.

Some slight misunderstandings here.

A physical greenhouse-- the kind made with glass-- works by the principle of the glass admitting light, but suppressing loss of heat via convection. The "greenhouse effect"-- in the atmosphere-- works by the principle of the atmosphere transparent in the visible admits light, but the loss of heat is suppressed by outgoing IR being absorbed by trace gasses. The two work by different mechanisms.

So the first statement ("green houses are warmer due to thermal radiance from the sun captured by the enclosed structure") is right, but the second statement ("Visible light in. IR blocked on the way out.") is true for the atmosphere, but not for a greenhouse.

Although glass is opaque to IR, blocking IR isn't important in the operation of real greenhouses, since convection is a much more important heat transfer mechanism than radiation at the surface.

You should know that the term Green House was coined by the AGW crowd as a way to explain to the great unwashed masses why the are destroying the earth.

The term "greenhouse effect" to describe atmospheric heating from IR absorption by trace gasses predates the discovery of anthropogenic global warming-- the metaphor was in use by the late 1800s, and term "greenhouse effect" itself was apparently coined in 1907 by Pointing (discussing the calculation of planetary surface temperatures, not the effect of anthropogenic gasses on the Earth's atmosphere: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi... .)

Because that would mean turning off power, water, sewer, phone, and cable services to a large number of people pretty much on a daily basis

No, it wouldn't.

Also...it would drive up the price of rent to where the people you are concerned about could not afford it.

Irrelevant.

It's not a market failure...

Information asymmetry is a market failure.

I was asking for a citation; clearly, you believe your words to be true, but I'm asking you to prove it.

As requested.

Show me a law requiring a two car garage at the end of anyone's driveway, then we'll talk.

As requested, 2 required parking spaces per single-family home.

You're also ignoring that a neighborhood full of houses only poor people would want would, intrinsically, be a poor neighborhood; that's what you're trying to eliminate here, right?

That won't happen, because developers don't build neighborhoods for what poor people want.

So if 400 of 450 residents in that building [with 12 spaces] have a car...

That won't happen, because how can everyone who lives there all have cars if there's no place to park them all?

In San Francisco, parking could easily equal rent if priced above equilibrium...nobody is going to pay $6192/mo for rent and parking.

If those spaces go empty because nobody is paying to park there, then the price is way too far above market equilibrium. The price should be only slightly above market equilibrium at most, so that the parking spaces are only mostly full and nobody who is willing to pay is ever turned away because the spaces are all taken.

You can't "convert" someone to become a lesbian. Or straight, for that matter. Sexual attraction is fixed before birth.

Of all the bizarre ideas you have about gender and sexuality, that one is weirdest. Even Kinsey suggested otherwise.

http://link.springer.com/artic...

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com...

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi...

Your argument has been made much of by people seeking legal change in the status of gays/lesbians but it has shall we say a more complicated relation with actual scientific fact.

the projection though no doubt well-sourced is no more accurate than the models that it is based off

Naturally, though those same sources have been through rigorous peer review, and have been widely accepted by most fellow experts in the field. Again I'm not seeing you cite any evidence like peer-reviewed studies finding those models to be "deeply broken" - only the usual unsourced claims cribbed from the standard rabble of denialist blogs. Plenty of studies supporting them, though. And of course real life.

A key bit of evidence is that the IPCC backpedaled significantly from the Third Assessment Report to the Fifth Assessment Report. For example, here's a collection of weak remarks from the IPCC's latest report on the connection to extreme weather.

Now, let's look at your links. The first link is to a computer model description with no actual data to support the model aside from what they used in the first place. Second, you link to a single bit of extreme weather. One point is not evidence. These two examples show common fallacies associated with extreme weather claims. First, conflating a model with reality. Second, confirmation bias. Even in the complete absence of global warming, we would expect to continue to see "strongest ever" storms.

you don't understand my position

Unsurprisingly, since it's a position you've adopted with no actual evidence. Despite your use of the present tense, you've not shown any examples of said industry "milking the public teat" over climate change (though I can provide many examples of e.g. fossil fuel industries milking away).

Assertions aren't automatically true. Let's look at recent actions that SunCorp Group, the sponsor of the original research claiming elevated claims payouts from certain unproven models of extreme weather, is seeking a huge rate hikes in flood insurance for certain locations that had payouts in recent years:

Suncorp has confirmed that new policies will not be offered in Emerald and Roma - two of the towns worst affected by recent years of flooding.

Existing policyholders face hikes of up to 10-fold.

Suncorp has a reputation for being the only insurer left in some towns abandoned by southern-based companies who are wary of massive payouts.

But Suncorp chief executive Mark Milliner said Queensland's biggest insurer had taken $4 million in premiums in Emerald and Roma in the past two years and paid out $150 million in claims.

Notice the bolded paragraph? Right there we have my original assertion, an insurance company rationalizing after-the-fact rate hikes for making bad risk decisions. They also got burned by recent drought in Australia.

While the outlook is challenging for life insurance, Suncorp says relatively benign weather has so far kept general insurance claims around $25 million below expectations.

However, drought conditions, particularly in north-west Queensland, have resulted in an increase in loan loss provisions, and the bank's holdings of impaired assets rose to $485 million.

I haven't yet figured out what Suncorp's investments are in. But right here we have a reason for the research article - to CYA in a couple of significant losses which otherwise would reflect poorly on management.

the projection though no doubt well-sourced is no more accurate than the models that it is based off

Naturally, though those same sources have been through rigorous peer review, and have been widely accepted by most fellow experts in the field. Again I'm not seeing you cite any evidence like peer-reviewed studies finding those models to be "deeply broken" - only the usual unsourced claims cribbed from the standard rabble of denialist blogs. Plenty of studies supporting them, though. And of course real life.

you don't understand my position

Unsurprisingly, since it's a position you've adopted with no actual evidence. Despite your use of the present tense, you've not shown any examples of said industry "milking the public teat" over climate change (though I can provide many examples of e.g. fossil fuel industries milking away).

And if that were the case, there would be documented accidents.

Not sure why I'm feeding the troll,* but here goes: There are. Thousands of them. Educate yourself.

* That's the most charitable explanation I can muster for your (1) playing dumb that speeding cars hurting/killing pedestrians are a significant problem, and (2) presenting a generic Wikipedia cite as "peer-reviewed literature." But on the other hand, after reading one of your other comments in this thread -- "I ignore speed signs. I drive as fast as I want and seem to have managed to get by without any major accidents in nearly 30 years of driving/riding." -- the more likely explanation is that you're just a selfish asshole desperately trying to twist science and logic to justify your selfish choices.

Computer use at home linked to school failure, increased drug use
Ipad initiative failure
Why the computer is not dominating schools
Why has the computer failed in schools and universities - 20 years later, the "solutions" outlined at the end are still not workable, because, ironically, they need much more individual teacher input than was realized at the time.
There are no technology shortcuts for good education

The history of electronic technologies in schools is fraught with failures.
Computers are no exception, and rigorous studies show that it is incredibly difficult to have positive educational impact with computers. Technology at best only amplifies the pedagogical capacity of educational systems; it can make good schools better, but it makes bad schools worse.
Technology has a huge opportunity cost in the form of more effective non-technology interventions.
Many good school systems excel without much technology.

The inescapable conclusion is that significant investments in computers, mobile phones, and other electronic gadgets in education are neither necessary nor warranted for most school systems. In particular, the attempt to use technology to fix underperforming classrooms (or to replace non-existent ones) is futile. And, for all but wealthy, well-run schools, one-to-one computer programs cannot be recommended in good conscience.

How many schools can even afford one-on-one computer classes, even in the industrialized nations? Because it doesn't work when you try to do it in bulk, as if the kids were computers to be programmed.

Report Finds K-12 Computer Science Education Declining; Most Schools Teach How To Use Computers, But Nothing Deeper

A search for "double-blind experiment computer use in schools" doesn't produce anything apparently relevant. Why are there no hard data available on something that's gobbling up $10 billion a year out of school budgets? The simplest answer is, as always, follow the money.

There is no conflict between the two (sensible) requirements that:
        (A) The router's source code should be freely inspectable
AND
        (B) The router should have strong technological measures to prevent users from using it in a way that violates the terms, for instance by transmitting on a band that is not licensed in that country.

This is also a very good model for the automotive industry -- another place where there is laughable security that merits some real auditing, but at the same time it would be ridiculous to allow any kid with a $50 flasher to get a few more horsepower by emitting particulates that are known health risks.

Certainly there is no technical reason that "I can view the source" must mean "I can modify and recompile the source and have the system accept the binary as authentic". TiVo (much to RMS' chagrin) adopted the model, as does Android (for some models, other's advertise open bootloaders, consumers chose between them).

Admittedly, this won't satisfy the software-freedom purists, but at the same time we have to have some logical partitioning between a home computer (that you should control down tot he metal) and a computer that controls particulate emissions that harm others' health or a router firmware that can block others' usage of our shared airwaves.

[ And to that point, it would be great if there was software partitioning such that I could tweak my car's systems but not the ECU portions that control emissions. Or modify the router's linux base to add features (disclosure:I do run DD-WRT actually, but not on a WiFi device) but lock the radio in such a fashion that I don't interfere with my neighbors' networks. There's certainly no technical reason this can't be accomplished. ]

The article highlights an interesting idea. However, one concern is that most sunscreens (except total blocks like zinc oxide and titanium dioxide-pasty stuff) are composed of biologically active compounds that absorb photons. They degrade quite quickly in a hot environment (typical advice is reapply every 2 hours in the sun-mostly for wearing off). For most cosmetically acceptable sunscreens they would need an environmentally protective device to keep them from degrading quite quickly. You probably shouldn't leave sunblock in a car on a hot day, or use them past expiration as they are in the unusual group of topicals that really do loose potency.

To get to your comments... Well, I'm not so sure Google is the best way to get medical info, but here's what I came up with (I'm not a dermatologist, but I am an MD).

These studies looked to see how much of the TiO2 penetrated the skin and got into blood (none to very little), but only after relatively short exposures (paywalls ahead):
https://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/a...
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi...
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pu...
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com...
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi...
http://toxsci.oxfordjournals.o...
http://toxsci.oxfordjournals.o...

This one looked at "sub-chronic" exposure (2, 4, and 8 weeks):
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com...

Lastly, this one looked at the effects from TiO2 in makeup and while TiO2 wasn't toxic to cells, hitting it with UV radiation caused some free radical formation, whatever that means for tumorogenesis:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pu...

Bottom line: Sunblock is probably safe and at this point is definitely better for you than constant sunburns.

The article highlights an interesting idea. However, one concern is that most sunscreens (except total blocks like zinc oxide and titanium dioxide-pasty stuff) are composed of biologically active compounds that absorb photons. They degrade quite quickly in a hot environment (typical advice is reapply every 2 hours in the sun-mostly for wearing off). For most cosmetically acceptable sunscreens they would need an environmentally protective device to keep them from degrading quite quickly. You probably shouldn't leave sunblock in a car on a hot day, or use them past expiration as they are in the unusual group of topicals that really do loose potency.

To get to your comments... Well, I'm not so sure Google is the best way to get medical info, but here's what I came up with (I'm not a dermatologist, but I am an MD).

These studies looked to see how much of the TiO2 penetrated the skin and got into blood (none to very little), but only after relatively short exposures (paywalls ahead):
https://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/a...
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi...
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pu...
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com...
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi...
http://toxsci.oxfordjournals.o...
http://toxsci.oxfordjournals.o...

This one looked at "sub-chronic" exposure (2, 4, and 8 weeks):
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com...

Lastly, this one looked at the effects from TiO2 in makeup and while TiO2 wasn't toxic to cells, hitting it with UV radiation caused some free radical formation, whatever that means for tumorogenesis:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pu...

Bottom line: Sunblock is probably safe and at this point is definitely better for you than constant sunburns.

On that basis you can't tax me. You need CAUSATION.

Ah, and it comes out. You're coal power. Gotcha. No, I don't need 'causation' to tax you, no more than Uncle Sam needs causation to tax my income.

On that basis you can't tax me. You need CAUSATION.

Let's see. We have studies that:
1. Show emissions from coal power plants. We know what they are, quantities, etc...
2. Show air samples in communities around said plants containing elevated amounts of said emissions.
3. Show elevated amounts of illness

At this point, yeah, it could still be considered correlation. However, that's not all
4. Laboratory tests of said emissions, in the amounts experienced by the communities, have shown that the lab animals exposed suffer higher rates of illness/death
5. Biological studies have even identified the mechanisms involved in creating many of the illnesses.

Face it dude, you're a tobacco exective saying that the increased incidences of lung cancer among smokers is 'only correlation'.

People that don't grasp the distinction between correlation and causation shouldn't cite statistics AT ALL.

Well, it's a good thing you don't cite any, now is it?

As to power plants being dangerous to workers etc... don't be obtuse. It makes you sound petty and quarrelsome which is not helping you.

I thought it was a valid arguing tactic going by your example.

As to internalizing costs, you cannot do that unless you can nail down causation on a case by case basis.

You may not be able to be precise about it, but you can get it in the ballpark.

As to 29%... we're talking about PM2.5 in San Francisco actually if you read the source. And the amount of air pollution in San Francisco is pretty fucking low.

Compared to China, yes. They still have problems with it.

Let me make this clear, you know there is arsenic in many natural water sources right? That's something we often use as RAT POISON.

There's also Uranium in my water. Do I need to point out why I don't need to worry about having a functioning nuclear reactor for a body anytime soon? Man, you assume all sorts of ignorance on my part. And then you go on and on and on about it...

Yes, dosage is incredibly important. But the point is - there's enough pollution from coal power plants, combined with other pollution sources, to cause serious negative health benefits. Remember how I mentioned taxing gasoline for it's pollution as well? You're ALL responsible.

As to the geo engineering... if you're not familiar with the proposed methods of geo engineering than you're not well read on climate change. Period.

And this matters why when my point was only tangently related to climate change? Again, reading your sources, these are not 'shovel ready' proposals.

The cost structure for these plans is well under a billion dollars for either one. And either would entirely negate the effect of global warming. Understand... ENTIRELY negate the warming. ALL of it.

If that was true, I'd expect a lot more scientists to be jumping on it.

Instead, from the articles it's made very clear that there remains a LOT of research left on the Sulfur Dioxide problem, and the second points out that it'd only be a partial solution, and reducing CO2 emissions would still be needed.

The carbon credit scheme will do nothing of the kind whilst costing trillions.

if you want the warming to stop, support a plan that will ACTUALLY work.

Which is all well and good when you realize that I never supported carbon credits. I viewed them as an over-co

I'll believe it's tested when the CEO eats it for a year (as part of their regular diet).

I grew up eating beans and rice (with a bit of meat for flavor when my mother could afford it) and I bet many of the cultures this will be recommended to will consume it daily as well, so you'd do well to not tell me this is an unreasonable request.

That said I also recognize that genetic engineering isn't completely magic, I assume that the scientists who selected this barley gene know how it will change the expression of other genes in the rice plant and won't add gluten production or introduce other unwanted genes from the barley plant.

Your faith in the testing regimen is kinda cute. The fact is that it isn't rigorous by any measure. E.g., no human trial has ever been conducted on the safety of GMO foods. And, GMO testing has been completely non-existent for long-term effects.

This is me calling you out for just inventing your concerns out of shear blind ignorance. Here's just a couple results from a quick look with google you could've done too if you cared about the issue like you seem to.
A 38-d feeding study evaluated whether standard broiler diets prepared with transgenic Event 176-derived "Bt" corn (maize) grain had any adverse effects on male or female broiler chickens as compared to diets prepared with nontransgenic (isogenic) control corn grain... it was clear that the transgenic corn had no deleterious effects in this study.

That led to a 3 generation study in rats: ...long-term consumption of transgenic Bt corn throughout three generation did not cause severe health concerns on rats. Therefore, long-term feeding studies with GM crops should be performed on other species...

Followed on by a 10 generation study of quail:
A ten-generation experiment with growing and laying quails were carried out to test diets with 40 (starter) or 50% (grower, layer) isogenic or transgenic (Bt 176) corn. Feeding of diets containing genetically-modified corn did not significantly influence health and performance of quails nor did it affect DNA-transfer and quality of meat and eggs of quails compared with the isogenic counterpart.

But I'm sure you'll come right back declaring see, no long term human studies, to which I might observe that a 10 generation human study doesn't look much different than an outright eternal and perpetual ban for no reason at all except your own fear born of the ignorant belief that specifically choosing a mutation by hand is somehow terrifically more dangerous than the more traditional use of entirely random mutations instead.

BT corn, potatoes, etc. have every cell in the "food" containing the BT toxin (these "foods" must be registered with the FDA as pesticides).

But, then why did the FDA state on their site: FDA has concluded that the presence of Bt 10 corn in the food and feed supply poses no safety concerns. and Foods from genetically engineered plants that have been evaluated by FDA through the consultation process have not gone on the market until the FDA’s questions about the safety of such products have been resolved.

Wait a minute, are you just making stuff up again?

We also know that herbicides like Roundup are carcinogens, and that GMO is mostly used to spray larger volumes of herbicides on crops. And, that record quantities of herbicides are now being sprayed throughout the life cycle of these crops.

Quick question for you, don't worry I'll provide answers for you too. First, kudos for having heard someone pass on to you that studies did find that eating pure roundup for generations DID increase the risk of certain cancers in rats.
Q. When Roundup is sprayed on a crop, how long does the residue last before newly planted crops won't die?
A. Many seeds can be planted the day after, some more sensitive ones though you might be better to wait 3 days though.

Q.How many insects and animals in the field die?
A.Only the ones that were caught under the sprayer's tires.

Q.How much roundup is still present in the crop when it comes off the field?
A.It's already virtually unmeasurable.

Q.How much is still left when the product hits the market?
A.See above.

Oh and the fear of record quantities of herbicides being sprayed on farms? Sorry, that's more F

DUI laws being a classic example: studies show the majority of people are NOT significantly impaired at 0.08%).

Nope.

http://psycnet.apa.org/psycinf...

>10 21–35 yr old male moderate drinkers were tested on divided-attention and information-processing tasks at blood alcohol levels (BALs) of 0, 15, 30, 45 and 60 mg/dl. All response measures showed evidence of impairment beginning at 15 mg/dl and increasing impairment with increasing BALs. Findings provide no evidence that low BALs improve performance on driving-related skills, as has sometimes been suggested

http://ajph.aphapublications.o...

>CONCLUSIONS: It all states adopted 0.08% legal blood alcohol limits, at least 500 to 600 fewer fatal crashes would occur annually.

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi...

>There is no evidence of a threshold blood alcohol (BAC) below which impairment does not occur, and there is no defined category of drivers who will not be impaired by alcohol....These more sophisticated studies show that significant impairment occurs at very low BACs ( http://www.sciencedirect.com/s...

>results from the pooled analyses were clear and consistent. Changes in legal BAC limits significantly affected alcohol-related fatal crash involvement for both the SVN and BAC test result measures, and the laws affected drivers at all drinking levels.

Extremes that would have happened about 2% of the time in the 30 years prior to the 80's were happening about 6% of the time in the 30 years prior to 2010.

No reliable records exist beyond 1-2 centuries back. Today's data — with climate science being run by government officials and scientists alike with an enormous conflict of interest — can not be trusted either. It can be manipulated too easily ("hide the decline") and even raw unaltered data would depend greatly on where the sensors are placed. Temperature inside a city park can differ from the surrounding streets by as much as 5C, for example!

No, we do not have irrefutable scientific evidence of anthropogenic global warming — what we are told is to act "just in case" it is true.

cohesive if you look at the temperature trend in the context of radiative physics

"Cohesive", huh? It is fairly simple to come up with a theory explaining the past. The global warming alarmists, however, are yet to come up with a theory predicting the future.

But I like your style — when it is cold in North America, well, that's a fluke. But when it is hot in Australia — that's evidence of Global Warming.

what we know about the atmospheric CO2 trend

What do we know about it? CO2 concentration helps plants grow — and is thus a self-regulating problem. What else do we know?

I could've sworn I've seen videos of big warehouses that are mainly automated, with footage that looked pretty '80s at the latest. And looking around at what's been written about the topic, people as far back as the '70s were already writing algorithms to optimize movement of the robots up and down the warehouse aisles. Maybe that was just in Japan?

I don't think Amazon is really ahead of the curve here either way, just implementing what's pretty standard warehouse technology by now.

Nuclear generated electricity is expensive.

Depends on type, project and installation. The utilities building them seem quite content to keep going, as they see them being competitive with current baseload sources.

Thorium nuclear generated electricity is even more expensive due to the reactor design needing to be more robust.

Actually, in most Thorium molten-salt designs, the reactor is a lot less robust (in terms of raw materials, at least), because molten-salt isn't pressurized, so there's no need for a big heavy pressure vessel and an enormous containment building around it. But it really depends on the exact design you are talking about - perhaps clarify and we can have a more informed discussion. In any case, I'd contend your blanket statement of "Thorium nuclear generated electricity is even more expensive". That claim requires access to broad knowledge of the cost structure of Thorium power reactor designs and as far as I know, those aren't available yet.

Citation needed, the articles I've read claimed $1000 to $2000 per kilo.

You are correct, *at present* it is indeed pretty high (which would mean we'd just favor mining). The cost reduction into the $300/kg category would require some advances in the material properties of the absorbent used: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi...
So consider ~$1500/kg the top-end estimate should uranium mining become completely unviable (we've again got thousands upon thousands of years of mineable Uranium at $500/kg, so I'm hopeful the absorbent properties can be sorted by then; or indeed we might finally crack fusion - that'd be the coolest of all prospects). In any case, thanks for the heads up on the present-day costs.

If these new designs are so great then why does the nuclear industry keep going with the old designs?

A few points to this:
1) Give them some time, they are slowly coming along. Anything nuclear is needs to be approached very carefully. If all goes well, we should see the pilot plants coming online in the early 2020s.
2) By and large the new nuclear construction projects are building Gen III units such as the AP1000, EPR, ABWR and VVER-1200, all of which have much improved on the light-water concept (though they aren't strictly revolutionary - well, perhaps the AP1000 is a bit closer to being a significant departure). 3) There is, in fact, one pilot Gen IV plant already built and about to be commissioned (the Beloyarsk 4 unit), running a BN-800 reactor, a pool-type liquid sodium-cooled fast breeder. I don't think it's the best design, but it's a step in the right direction. It will be a proving ground and a learning platform for their mass-production units (BN-1200). We'll have to wait and see.

Positive Mood and Susceptibility to False Advertising

Even though you're more aware of the fact that the advertising is false, you're still more likely to form a positive image of the brand as a result of being happy. I have, without being fully informed about "true" advertising, mentally extrapolated that to apply to all advertisements.

This idea is at least a little corroborated by this older study which suggests happier moods implies a greater uptake on simple advertising messages.

a cite

Now, while happiness does help us catch lies in advertising, we're also more likely to react positively to advertising in general when we're happy. Thus google's mission should be to make people happy at the expense of news quality, since they're in the advertising business.

There is zero connection between autism and vaccines.

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi...

There **may** or **may not** be a link. Bottom line is, we really don't know, because we don't know what DOES cause the condition.

There's some research to support that taking vacations is beneficial - see http://www.tandfonline.com/doi... (paywalled, sorry) and http://joh.sanei.or.jp/pdf/E51... (pdf alert) - but I get the feeling that the debate is not about whether vacations are good or not but rather about if it' should be the government that gets to dictate that vacation time should be granted.

In the following, I will make some assumptions:

1) Taking vacations reduces stress and provides health benefits (sort of based on the research cited above).
2) If the reduced stress and the health gains are significant enough, the government will either have to spend less on health care or social benefits, or the government will earn more in the form of taxes.
3) The employers are willing to exploit lower paid workers for short-term financial benefit.
4) The government is willing to act in the interest of the citizens.

Granted, the second assumption is the weakest one but at least it sounds logical to me. The time that a person spends being sick or recovering from a sickness is time the person will not (or cannot) spend working / earning money. Less money earned should directly correlate to less taxes paid which of course means less money for the government. Furthermore, less time being sick probably means less money spent on medical assistance (be it financed by the person, an insurance company or by the government).

The fact that employers are willing to exploit workers is in my opinion quite clear. There are quite a few regulations put in place by the government to minimize that - for example regulations requiring protective clothing when handling hazardous materials. A better example is probably the minimum salary, which (at least in theory) should provide all workers well enough remuneration to survive on it. If there's a guy willing to work 60 hours per week for $200 per week flipping burgers and an employer willing to hire that person, should it be in discretion of the employer and employee only to decide if that is acceptable?

Based on the previous points it is my opinion that the government should get to mandate a number of paid vacation days because it provides substantial enough benefits for the citizens. Since the employers would not otherwise provide the paid vacation, a law stating such a requirement should considerably increase the number of employers offering paid vacations, assuming that penalties of not doing so were sufficiently high.

Abstract: An examination of the effects of concealed weapons laws and assault weapons bans on state-level murder rates. Like many papers published in academic journals you would have to pay to see the whole thing, although you can preview it.

You can read a news story about it here:

Study shows concealed-carry laws result in fewer murders

Similar work:

An interview with John R. Lott, Jr.

You may find this interesting as well.

Detroit police chief: More legally armed citizens deter crime

Here is one of them:

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13504851.2013.854294#.Urh7a_ZRYvR

If you'd like me to link you to summaries or commentary then I can do that though appreciate those will be from blogs and so forth. If you want to read the actual study you'll have to get it from those fellows.

If you want to save yourself some time, here is a quote:

""It was also found that assault weapons bans did not significantly affect murder rates at the state level.""

So there you go. Why are we fighting about this issue?

The gun people want to keep their guns. Why are the anti gun people fighting them? They say it is to save lives. But that might be a mistake on their part.

For the sake argument, assuming these laws don't reduce murder, do we still want to ban guns?

It just seems so needlessly confrontational. Leave people alone. If they want to carry guns let them do so. Does that mean every so often a crazy person will kill some people with such a weapon? Possibly but they're crazy and honestly could probably find something to do their deed. Remember, the 9/11 hijackers killed over 3000 people with a collection of box cutters.

If you have a will to kill then you really don't need a gun. And I'll be honest... I like the idea of NORMAL non-criminal people that aren't crazy having access to guns. I think that's a good thing. I think society is most secure when the most reasonable people have the trump card on violence.

My neighbors are mostly good people. If things get crazy the idea of us all popping up with a gun seems like a good check against anarchy.

Also... zombies can't use guns... so take that zombie uprising. The robot uprising might be more of a problem. After all those bastards can use guns.