As much as I hate the 'make out results look better' argument, the concept of pruning the mathimatically inept out of the advanced math classes. Not just the inept, if the UK is anything to go by. All of those who they are not certain will get top grades. They're cutting out a lot of damn good mathematicians.
I propably would be modded troll, but I would like to say that parents, who are specially looking for schools for their children without asking kids themselves, and looks for schools who produces "perfect people", are stupid.
I think that's fair. Whenever a school told us about their spectacularly high pass rates I would ask "So you're not willing to take a chance on marginal students, then?" which usually silenced them.
The evening before my daughter was due to take her grade 1 recorder exam, her teacher called to ask us not to send her to the exam because she might not pass, which would pull the teacher's performance rating down, whereas a no-show wouldn't. We politely told the teacher where to put her recorder, and sent our daughter anyway. She passed comfortably.
In math, unless the question is worded poorly or they are trying to pull some sort of trick on you, there is exactly one right answer (though that answer may be that there is more than one answer). Therefore, as the guy from India says, it ought to be easier to score highly in math than in some subjects where there is more subjectivity. It used to be easy for me to get above 95% on any given math assignment, and that was because I was too lazy to go back and check my answers for silly mistakes. Really, there was no excuse for me not to get 100%, since the right answer is absolutely the right answer, and can be logically, mathematically derived. I once managed to get 102% on a math[s] exam. Actually it was marked out of 104, and the setter thought it was so difficult that there was no need to normalise it. Wrong! One other kid in the class actually got the full 104.
Math still has its place. If you want to go to graduate school in humanities, then you may still need some advanced math. In particular, many students from medicine, political science, humanities, and the arts, do advanced multi-variate statistical studies as part of their post-graduate studies. As an example, I'm doing an English language degree for fun (already having degrees in Electronics and Computing, for my career). One aspect of my (undergraduate) course is corpus linguistics, which involves multivariate statistical analysis. Another area is trend analysis in type-token ratios to identify critical points in texts. I've rather enjoyed seeing how maths applies to linguistics (and my tutors are bewildered by how quickly I can whip up a Python script to do some esoteric analysis:-)
What we should NOT do is abandon the whole premise of measuring progress just because the tests could be better. Measuring is good. The issue is what you do with the measurements. If they're out of parameter then they should be investigated; there may be good reason, in which perhaps you refine the tests to take that reason into account, or there may not be, in which case you intervene. I don't know about the NCLB situation, but all too often here in the UK the measurement is tied automatically to the measurement, with nobody actually looking at why the measurement is the way it is: management is replaced with administration; it's cheaper and you can always blame somebody else. And the results are disastrous, because the measurements end up rewarding people who are good at manipulating the measurements, and penalising those who focus on the job. Anybody who looks can see it happening, but those who set the targets choose not to look, and the whole performance indicator tied to reward/punishment system doesn't have anybody whose job it is to look.
Of course, in a more general sense, there's probably some flaws with approval voting, in that nothing's perfect. But still, approval voting seems pretty good, while also being fairly simple to implement. Specifically, it fails to meet the Condorcet criterion (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Condorcet_criterion) even if a Condorcet winner exists. Does that matter? Let's vote on it...
The trouble is that there is no way to decide what is better. Every voting system has at least one serious flaw (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrow's_Theorem), so deciding which voting system is better comes down to deciding which deficiencies don't matter so much. But different people are going to have different views on that (depending in part on how their candidate is placed). How are we to decide between these different preferences? Vote on it? But every voting system has at least one serious flaw (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrow's_Theorem), so deciding which voting system is better... and so on.
According to gmail help, it guarantees to keep it out of the spam box -- I'll see, although for me contact lists and whitelists are two different things and I don't like to see them merged.
The ones I have most trouble with are mailing list digests that do contain spam, but mixed in with legitimate content. Until the filters learn how to take apart the digest this looks set to remain an issue.
I get maybe one spam a week in my inbox in gmail. That's my experience too. Unfortunately, I get three or four legitimate emails a day in my spam box. And even though those legitimate emails are from mailing lists I have subscribed to, and I have set up filters to label them, and I keep clicking the "not spam" button, gmail spam filtering overides my filter, doesn't learn to recognise the origin as legitimate, and doesn't seem to have the facility to whitelist them:-(
There's such a thing as a patient, kind, humble or scrupulous lawyer? Or one that at least has one of the mentioned qualities? I think you'll find that they can be very patient indeed, provided the meter is running. And scrupulous in their search for anything that can be charged.
Isn't there something more worth while that scientists could be researching? More worthwhile than a technique that can be used for monitoring the structural health of bridges? Hey, there must be; it's not as if structural health of bridges is a significant issue anywhere at the moment, is it?
I read it just fine. He said he was in favor of a "free market", but he didn't denounce the idea of patents altogether - just software patents/algorithms. So? You didn't denounce Hitler, but I don't assume you're a nazi. An argument from silence isn't worth the pixels it doesn't occupy.
That's a common linguistic fallacy, comparable to anthropologists who decided that some peoples didn't experience grief because they didn't have a word for it (they described physical symptoms of grief, but the anthropologists latched on to the lack of a word for the emotional state, ignoring the fact that the physical symptoms could only reasonably be caused by the emotional state). Just because no word existed in the English language for the colour "orange" doesn't mean that the colour was invented then (although arguably the category was invented then, but that's a different thing).
because software patents can still be filed in Europe Well, I interpret the treaty as saying they aren't valid, and when they try using the patents the courts may well take the same view Which way does the treaty work? Is it saying that national s/w patents can't be applied across the EU (in which case the national s/w patent legislation would still stand) or is it saying that s/w patents can't be a barrier to EU trade (in which case national s/w patent legislation would/not/ stand)?
if implemented according to the standard, may cause loss of life, property, and capital... Where is that quote from anyway? I can't find it in the RA.
Anyone who is using software for a safety-of-life application when the software has not been validated for that specific application [1] is not competent to do the job, irrespective of what's in the EULA.
[1] Or whoever authorised the software for that application, at least.
I agree with lots of the posts from Americans I have seen here in slashdot before that state that if USA is *this* terrible why are people still willing to live there? I really can not understand it, what is it there in the USA that people, even some Britons (I live in Britain today) want to live there?? Well, we have to put up with the PRS hassling anybody and everybody for royalties in just the same way as the OP describes (eg, http://www.journalonline.co.uk/news/1004283.aspx), so this issue would be no grounds for them to move here!
Of course my boss still got the last laugh. He gave me a Blackberry. Now I take a dump while my computer boots up, but I use the extra time to get a jump start on my emails using the Blackberry. Drat, foiled again... One more nail in the coffin of widespread adoption of mobile video conferencing.
In fact, I see no reason not to blacklist anything that has an @hotmail domain. Once upon a time, about 10 years ago I guess, most people I knew used hotmail. Nowadays, no-one does. I can think of no legitimate mail I've received from an hotmail account in the past couple of years. I still get legitimate email from hotmail accounts. Mainly friends and family who are not so IT aware, but I want to stay in touch with them anyway.
Slashdot Mirror
I think that's fair. Whenever a school told us about their spectacularly high pass rates I would ask "So you're not willing to take a chance on marginal students, then?" which usually silenced them.
The evening before my daughter was due to take her grade 1 recorder exam, her teacher called to ask us not to send her to the exam because she might not pass, which would pull the teacher's performance rating down, whereas a no-show wouldn't. We politely told the teacher where to put her recorder, and sent our daughter anyway. She passed comfortably.
I can now confirm that despite the Gmail documentation (http://mail.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answ er=9009&topic=1520), adding an address to one's contact list does not stop Gmail moving email from that address to the spam folder.
The trouble is that there is no way to decide what is better. Every voting system has at least one serious flaw (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrow's_Theorem), so deciding which voting system is better comes down to deciding which deficiencies don't matter so much. But different people are going to have different views on that (depending in part on how their candidate is placed). How are we to decide between these different preferences? Vote on it? But every voting system has at least one serious flaw (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrow's_Theorem), so deciding which voting system is better ... and so on.
According to gmail help, it guarantees to keep it out of the spam box -- I'll see, although for me contact lists and whitelists are two different things and I don't like to see them merged.
Ask your friends to stop using subjects like:
"You will be able to penetrate deeper"
"15% discount automatically on BOTH watches!"
I once had to email a copy of Arnold's poem "Dover Beach" (http://www.victorianweb.org/authors/arnold/writin gs/doverbeach.html) to somebody, and a Bayesian spam filter bounced it. Go figure.
The ones I have most trouble with are mailing list digests that do contain spam, but mixed in with legitimate content. Until the filters learn how to take apart the digest this looks set to remain an issue.
If they want a picture of the inside of my pocket, or a closeup of my temple when I'm using the phone, they're welcome.
Somebody didn't read the post they were replying to!
That's a common linguistic fallacy, comparable to anthropologists who decided that some peoples didn't experience grief because they didn't have a word for it (they described physical symptoms of grief, but the anthropologists latched on to the lack of a word for the emotional state, ignoring the fact that the physical symptoms could only reasonably be caused by the emotional state). Just because no word existed in the English language for the colour "orange" doesn't mean that the colour was invented then (although arguably the category was invented then, but that's a different thing).
Anyone who is using software for a safety-of-life application when the software has not been validated for that specific application [1] is not competent to do the job, irrespective of what's in the EULA.
[1] Or whoever authorised the software for that application, at least.