As in, "Fig Leaf UGLY." Has anyone actually bothered to look at the image in the article? Seriously? A fig-leaf design for men and "clasped hands" for women? WTF?
Dude. I'd sooner let the agent grope me than be caught wearing something like that. Especially if he's cute. (I kid, I kid)
I think the solution is simple--force everyone to wear a standard skintight full-body lycra uniform prior to entering the security area, and have designated changing areas once past security. Sure, the TSA agents would eventually go blind from the abject horror that is American obesity, but hey, that's their problem, not ours.
To be sure, not all American universities use publisher-created test banks. At the university I attended, such a practice would have been considered laughable, not to mention completely unsuitable for the nature and level of the coursework. For nearly all the courses, exams were take-home and free response. That is to say, you would sit in your dorm room or some other isolated environment, no proctor, and you'd crack open the test and for however many hours set forth by the professor, you timed yourself and solved the problems. In my math classes, they questions would require you to write all calculations or furnish complete proofs. For some courses, the professors wrote their own texts, or simply drew from a list of suggested readings, and it was your responsibility to figure out where to look.
Do I think that there were some students that took advantage of the university's honor system and found ways to cheat? Absolutely. But the professors were generally very good at writing the exams in such a way that in order for you to receive full credit, you had to demonstrate some form of original problem-solving ability, short of having someone else solve it for you. A few of my exams were open-book and "unlimited" time--I could spend a whole week thinking about the problems, I could go to the library and consult whatever books I wanted. In the end, those were the most challenging, rewarding, and enjoyable exams I've ever taken.
You're absolutely correct, but at the same time, let's not forget that such abuses occur because those in power deliberately lie to the people. That is what the Gizmodo article proves--that the public is intentionally told falsehoods so that the government can continue their abuse. It isn't the individual screener or machine that is the root of corruption. Rather, the corruption is systematic, in the form of a security agency that tells people that their privacy is assured when it is not. They do this because it makes their task more expedient, and gives the impression of effectiveness. Much the same can be said of the deliberate provocation of fear as a means of gaining more power and control.
I repeat: the corruption is systematic. Yes, you can remove the opportunity to exploit weaknesses and the lack of accountability, but this is a piecemeal approach to fixing the larger underlying problem, which is that we have a system that is accountable to no one, that is fundamentally disinterested in serving its stated purpose, and exists for the sole purpose of allowing those in power to concentrate their influence through the use of scare tactics and lies. In other words, we wouldn't need to stop individual enforcement officers from violating people's privacy, and we wouldn't need the regulations to do so, if we didn't need to subject people to these scans in the first place. This technology didn't always exist, yet people weren't being blown out of the skies every day for the lack of it. There's an unspoken, and therefore largely unchallenged, assumption that this kind of screening is necessary--which on the face of it is an absurd claim, for if it were, the only rational way to use it would be to apply it to everybody. And I need not state the myriad ways in which someone with half a brain would still find it trivial to circumvent it.
What is needed is a drastic change, one in which the people reassert their control over the government that purports to serve them. I doubt this will happen, but nevertheless it is the only viable solution.
Exactly! If I had to pick the biggest threats, I'd say most any telecom company or the recording/media companies would be up there. How can someone who coined the word "net neutrality" conveniently ignore the threat that these companies pose by wanting to control who gets to have access?
I also count Facebook among the more significant threats to internet freedom, simply because they have achieved an enormous amount of power through the data its users have stupidly provided them. Google has done similar, but Facebook is especially strident in the way they exploit their users. That the internet has evolved so that Facebook has become so big is enough reason to consider them a threat.
Meanwhile, Johannes Mehserle, a former BART police officer, shoots and kills an unarmed, restrained man while in custody in view of numerous eyewitnesses, and gets two years in prison minus time already served. Even if we take the defense's word on the matter and accept that it was completely accidental, does it really make sense to punish one person so much more severely for a crime that did not result in anyone's death?
Yes, I am well aware that in the US, those in positions of power--whether through political or financial means--are treated with leniency, and the unwashed masses suffer.
We don't need to be better people or to have a life with meaning.
What? Then why would you need to learn anything at all? I think you misspoke, and intended to write "We don't need mathematics to be better people...."
And even if that is what you intended, you have still made an illogical argument, one that I would not have expected a PhD in math to make. People are resilient and absolutely can have productive lives without having learned any particular subject. We don't NEED to know calculus to be happy, no. But that is NOT the question at hand. What we should be asking instead is, "Would people on average make better-informed decisions if they developed a higher level of critical thinking skills that a solid mathematics education can provide?" And the answer to that is a resounding yes.
In short, this has nothing to do with individual productivity or happiness in life. It has everything to do with social progress. Ramanathan's position is tantamount to a sort of intellectual elitism. An uneducated public is an unquestioning public. Throughout history, we have seen those in power exploit the disenfranchised through a variety of means; but the first step to doing this has always been to keep the masses stupid. This is ultimately why we need to teach EVERYONE mathematics, as well as literature, history, and science. Math is no more or less special than these other disciplines. Otherwise, society may as well revert back to the times when pharaohs and shamans talked of sacrificing virgins to the sun god. Or if that seems too extreme, consider the sacrifice of constitutional rights in the name of national security.
Then the problem lies not in whether one should teach mathematics, but rather, how one teaches mathematics.
For example, I can't speak for others, but when I was in high school algebra and learned about the quadratic formula, I wasn't just told what it was. The proof of the quadratic formula, namely, how it arises from completing the square of a general quadratic polynomial, was taught to me. Later, in my second high school algebra course, we discussed why the same approach does not work for polynomials of higher degree, and the question of whether the roots of polynomials of higher degree are expressible in radicals.
I think what Ramanathan is really trying to say (but saying it quite poorly) is that mathematics education should not contrive examples to make itself appear more relevant. And I agree with that to a certain extent. But like I noted previously, there are many real-world examples in which people's intuitions are wrong. If the public understood compound interest, not so many of them would be so eager to max out their credit cards. If they understood basic probability and statistics, they would not be so easily cowed into believing that terrorists are around every corner. If they understood risk management, they wouldn't be so cavalier about filing claims on their insured property, and they wouldn't be driving insurance rates up quite so much. What is so ironic is that Ramanathan TEACHES these very same concepts to actuarial candidates yet apparently sees no need to say to the general public, "hey, if you knew about some of this stuff, maybe you'd be better off than if you remained ignorant and let my students become the future actuaries who create the very same models that increase your rates year after year."
Ramanathan, to my dismay, confuses the need for teaching mathematics with the proper teaching of mathematics. And my point is that as a mathematician, he should know better.
I know Ramanathan as the author of a series of study manuals for the preliminary examinations for actuarial science in the US. It honestly surprises me that someone of that level of mathematical knowledge would make such a poorly reasoned argument. As such I must consider the possibility that this is some kind of cynical elitist ploy to retain mathematics as the language of the privileged and well-educated, much like Latin hundreds of years ago. But this too seems too sinister a line of thought to entertain--and somewhat contradictory, given what I know of him.
Nevertheless, the logic is unsound. Mathematics is not merely computation or abstract manipulation of symbols. It is a way of thinking that not only fosters an understanding of the importance of logical reasoning, but also the necessity to substantiate and quantify one's empirical observations. That is to say, mathematics is the foundation of science. To say that most people don't need anything more than the most basic knowledge of math is like saying people don't need the ability to think critically.
The reason why we learn mathematics is not just to perform work with it, but to learn how to think logically and behave rationally. If there should be any doubt about this, just look at the state of mathematics education in the US today, and compare that to how appropriately we assess things like the relative risk of terrorist threats versus being in a car accident; or how well people understand what happened with the Wall Street bailouts; or even something as basic as compound interest as it applies to making payments on credit cards. I think the evidence is overwhelming to support the notion that people suffer from innumeracy, not too much mathematics. And given that Ramanathan writes study manuals for actuarial candidates, I find his lack of understanding of this point to be all the more remarkable.
Seriously. Have you ever been to a (real) Chinese restaurant? It's louder than a rock concert. Diners practically shout at each other across large round tables that I am convinced were arranged in various approximate solutions to the circle-packing problem. Sometimes I wonder what it would be like to eat har gow without the sensation that someone is screeching in my ear in Cantonese. Given recent research on the impact of ambient sound levels on the perceived intensity of food flavor, I imagine the experience might not be quite the same.
The key insight conveyed in the parent post is that the real reason why Facebook violates its users' privacy is not merely because that is part of its business model, but because its users are either too ignorant to understand what such violations actually entail, or if they know, they don't care because they feel Facebook offers them sufficient value in exchange for that data.
What makes Facebook successful is that EVERYBODY seems to be on it. As long as people collectively think they get some kind of social benefit to being on the site, they will gladly hand over all kinds of private information. That's the root of why Facebook will continue to do what they do--its users let it; the ones who don't, leave, creating a self-selecting pool of attention whores prostituting their privacy for their next hit of status updates.
We didn't always have multi-peril homeowner's insurance. Insuring your home typically involved separate policies on specific named perils, and fire insurance was in its earliest days a mutual agreement between insureds to pool the risk. A community typically established a volunteer firefighting force using funds set aside by the undersigned parties. You would put a plaque on your home that indicated you were covered under such an agreement.
Clearly, this arrangement was inefficient and led to organizational issues, which is why firefighting--especially in urbanized areas--quickly became incorporated under the umbrella of public services, so that nowadays, we think of firefighting as a public good paid through taxes. But we should be reminded that this was not always the case. In rural areas, such agreements between the homeowner and the fire department are still prevalent.
Incidentally, the life insurance analogy is not really valid because there are numerous variations on the type of policy offered, with different pricing structures. For example, some life insurance policies are structured such that the failure to pay the premium merely reduces the benefit according to an actuarially determined formula. But in a situation like this, there is no option to fight x% of the fire--you either fight to eliminate it entirely, or you let it burn. This is precisely why fire insurance moved to an agreement between the insurer and insured, and left the firefighting to a third party. You wouldn't want your doctor to only treat half of your disease because you only paid half your premium. That doesn't make any sense. Instead, you have the doctor bill your insurer, and your insurer determines your financial responsibility based on your level of coverage.
Look toward standardized testing practices for how to conduct tests in a rigorous and fair manner. Quite simply, the rules and expectations for the course should be clearly stated at the outset. Don't wait until the exams come around to drop the bomb. Tell them that you expect them to use a calculator that is on an approved list. No other electronic devices will be permitted. All other possessions not explicitly allowed must be placed at the front of the room, and any mobile devices must be turned OFF. No "vibrate." Watches are permitted but cannot have an alarm function. If they need translation, that's too bad; the ETS does not offer to administer mathematics tests in the language of the examinee's choosing. This is a college level course, with lectures in English. You don't provide lecture notes in twenty languages. It is the student's responsibility to become sufficiently proficient in the English language in order to continue their studies. That may put them at a disadvantage, but we don't try to equalize the playing field for someone who hasn't learned calculus.
Education necessarily requires that some students have to work harder--sometimes, much harder--than others to achieve the same proficiency level as others. That is not being unfair, that is just the way life is.
One could argue that adult stem cell research has been spurred because of restrictions on embryonic stem cell research. But that view fails to recognize that in order to obtain adult stem cells, one has to go through more involved processes just to get the cells in a potentially useful state--in fact, that is what makes the approach discussed in TFA interesting (that one has a better chance of getting such cells from the root pulp in teeth, than say, skin cells).
Thus, restrictions on embryonic stem cells have seriously slowed down research into how we can use stem cells (of any kind) to treat disease, because not only do scientists have to figure out how to get adult stem cells to do what they want, they also have to GET TO THEM. We would know more about all kinds of stem cells if public funding existed for embryonic stem cell research. Instead, researchers have to expend extra effort getting adult cells to revert to a pluripotent state, instead of being able to concentrate on understanding how such cells could be used to treat disease. We are nowhere near solving the problems of how to get these cells to do what we would like them to do, because it is so insanely fucking difficult to get them to begin with, and if you think that this has nothing to do with the religious nutcases, you are oblivious to reality.
At least, most people do. The root pulp cells being converted to stem cells are not unique to the wisdom teeth. I presume they are also present in other teeth; it's just that the third molars are usually extracted anyway (though some people do retain them, provided there's enough space in the dentition for them). If we're talking about choosing to treat a life-threatening disease versus keeping a tooth, I would think most people would choose the former--of course, we aren't quite at the point where such procedures are beyond the research stage (thanks to the religious nutcases).
You've pretty much managed to miss the whole tone of my post. It was not about elevating China--far from it. I despise their model of government, their Machiavellian approach to foreign policy, and their suffocatingly conformist society. I know all too well what it is like to live under Confucian principles so don't presume to lecture me about Confucianism.
But as a people, the Chinese are incredibly ambitious, much more so than Americans. They also have a long view of history, and do not easily forget the atrocities and humiliation they suffered under Western imperialism and the war atrocities committed by the Japanese. They will do whatever it takes to get to the top and if that means allowing the American public to become enslaved by their own cycle of debt, they hardly have a problem with that. And so far, the US has been all too happy to go along with their plan for global economic dominance.
The copying phase is common to all developing nations. The Japanese copied American technology post-WWII, and eventually surpassed the US in most electronics. South Korea did a lot of copying too. And so has China. They only copy up to the point where they begin exceeding the capabilities of those nations they copied. US companies have only made it easier for China to do so by outsourcing all their production processes, in a short-sighted desire to make goods as cheaply as possible. The US has long since lost their innovative streak. Americans have become consumers of technology, not producers of it. About the only thing the US still does produce is knowledge, in the form of private and public university education and research, and the anti-science religious nutjobs are hellbent on taking that away because their "rights" to practice their faith are being "threatened" by honest scientific progress. So of course China is going to fill the void.
You see, you read my words as "good old-fashioned America-bashing." If only it were so simple. America is stupid, yes, but I'd MUCH rather have the US or Europe at the forefront of scientific research. China as a source of RELIEF? FUCK that. If China becomes the dominant global power, the rest of the world is FUCKED. This is economic warfare and the American public is blissfully unaware, too busy keeping track of Lindsay Lohan's latest escapades while trying to pay the minimum on their CC bill for all the cheap Chinese crap they bought at Wal-Mart.
Very soon--perhaps even already--China will be the premier center of stem cell research in the world. They are making enormous advances, due to their strong economic position and their lack of being hindered by religious conservatives or a two-party system. Researchers will go there, all the intellectual work will flock to China because they can get their funding and have the collaboration they need. And the US will become a short-lived historical footnote, an intellectual backwater led by a corrupt plutocracy, filled with ignorant evangelical nutjobs and greedy corporatists. Americans are stupid, greedy, short-sighted, superstitious, easily cowed, lazy, obsessed with violence and sex, and fiscally irresponsible.
Make no mistake: I do not condone China's abhorrent record on human rights, politics, foreign policy, censorship, or the environment. I especially despise the way they have so brilliantly manipulated the US into conflicts with other countries and have essentially commandeered the global economy. But they have only done this because, again, Americans are too stupid and played right into the trap.
I don't know where you live, but where I live, public transit is chock full of cameras everywhere you look. On every bus and train, and in every station. How is that any less intrusive than GPS? They not only know where you are at any time, they can watch you pick your nose.
On the other hand, public transit being what it is, I am actually *glad* to have those cameras. There are a lot of crazies using the system. But if you think that taking public transit gives you more privacy as to your whereabouts than taking your own vehicle, you might want to invest in some prosthetic makeup.
And yes, people do pick their noses on the subway. Even the non-crazy ones.
There's no shame in reading into something and finding meaning where none was intended. That is how humans discover new ideas and relationships. Granted, sometimes the whole critical analysis thing can go really overboard and get tiresome to listen to, but if every creative effort had to explicitly include every possible interpretation of its meaning, and if its creator had to intentionally express it, we wouldn't have art or literature.
Sure, the design decisions that went into making Portal may have been superficial, or subconscious--but the result is a game that can be understood and enjoyed within a much larger context than what it was intended for. If it helps to serve as a vehicle for introspection and stimulate interest in philosophy and the humanities, then all the better.
The greater Los Angeles area is huge. If you looked up "urban sprawl" in the dictionary, you'd find a picture of LA. Consequently, services like WiFi and GSM/CDMA are not as heavily concentrated as they are in cities like San Francisco or New York, where the population density is higher. In general, I find the idea of being able to drive around the city and expect to find open access points to be laughable. So where does that leave those annoying Hollywood hipsters and aspiring screenwriters? They can't be "discovered" if they stay at home, but they can't write their next big screenplay if they go out. That's why you see them crowding around the Starbucks and Coffee Beans plaguing nearly every street corner, trying to strike some self-imagined balance of trendiness and importance.
If more shops shut down their WiFi, that would further concentrate these pretentious jerks in those shops that still offer a connection. Maybe that's not such a bad thing--you'd know which places to avoid. There's nothing wrong with spending a half hour in your local coffee shop having a drink and a snack while checking up on news or whatever floats your online boat. But really, who has nothing better to do with their day than to spend all of it huddled over their laptop, browsing the web, in a noisy and crowded coffee shop? I see students use coffee shops like it was an annex to their dorm room--wearing pajamas, headphones on, textbooks sprawled everywhere. That's just beyond sad.
There are a number of possibilities but I think the top two reasons are that the board is either (1) unable to find a replacement who can do better, or (2) unwilling to risk what little competence Ballmer has for someone who is untested.
Ballmer is a delusional jackass. He knows nothing about innovation because Microsoft's modus operandi for nearly all of its existence has been to let other entities do the innovation, then buy them up, or copy them, or intimidate them into submission. I mean, just look at the guy--wheezing, red-faced, and full of fat. That describes Microsoft just as well as it describes him.
The saddest part of it all is that back in the 90s, I wanted Microsoft to fail. I hated their anti-competitiveness, their belligerence and arrogance. I still do. But now that anger has been largely replaced by pity. I see them as pathetic, a technology dinosaur on a long, slow decline toward irrelevance, as other companies have taken over as the driving force in the tech sector. And I find myself in the rather uncomfortable position of wishing they would WAKE THE FUCK UP so that they (1) don't bring down everyone else, and/or (2) prevent some other company--Apple or Google, for instance--from becoming the very same monster they once were.
They are very much stuck in that bygone era, and the mentality that goes with it. We saw this with Zune, and Kin, and we will see it again with their tablet effort. It's not just that they are playing follow the leader, it's also that they can't even make a good copy. In other words: too little, too late, but most importantly, too lame.
The title says it all. What is the purpose of employing a CC license and publishing the content if you are not prepared to defend the licensing terms against violations? The license can only discourage other entities from exploiting your work. The only way to enforce the terms you have chosen is to, well, ENFORCE it. Otherwise, don't publish it online and don't CC it, and your problem is solved.
Slashdot Mirror
As in, "Fig Leaf UGLY." Has anyone actually bothered to look at the image in the article? Seriously? A fig-leaf design for men and "clasped hands" for women? WTF?
Dude. I'd sooner let the agent grope me than be caught wearing something like that. Especially if he's cute. (I kid, I kid)
I think the solution is simple--force everyone to wear a standard skintight full-body lycra uniform prior to entering the security area, and have designated changing areas once past security. Sure, the TSA agents would eventually go blind from the abject horror that is American obesity, but hey, that's their problem, not ours.
To be sure, not all American universities use publisher-created test banks. At the university I attended, such a practice would have been considered laughable, not to mention completely unsuitable for the nature and level of the coursework. For nearly all the courses, exams were take-home and free response. That is to say, you would sit in your dorm room or some other isolated environment, no proctor, and you'd crack open the test and for however many hours set forth by the professor, you timed yourself and solved the problems. In my math classes, they questions would require you to write all calculations or furnish complete proofs. For some courses, the professors wrote their own texts, or simply drew from a list of suggested readings, and it was your responsibility to figure out where to look.
Do I think that there were some students that took advantage of the university's honor system and found ways to cheat? Absolutely. But the professors were generally very good at writing the exams in such a way that in order for you to receive full credit, you had to demonstrate some form of original problem-solving ability, short of having someone else solve it for you. A few of my exams were open-book and "unlimited" time--I could spend a whole week thinking about the problems, I could go to the library and consult whatever books I wanted. In the end, those were the most challenging, rewarding, and enjoyable exams I've ever taken.
You're absolutely correct, but at the same time, let's not forget that such abuses occur because those in power deliberately lie to the people. That is what the Gizmodo article proves--that the public is intentionally told falsehoods so that the government can continue their abuse. It isn't the individual screener or machine that is the root of corruption. Rather, the corruption is systematic, in the form of a security agency that tells people that their privacy is assured when it is not. They do this because it makes their task more expedient, and gives the impression of effectiveness. Much the same can be said of the deliberate provocation of fear as a means of gaining more power and control.
I repeat: the corruption is systematic. Yes, you can remove the opportunity to exploit weaknesses and the lack of accountability, but this is a piecemeal approach to fixing the larger underlying problem, which is that we have a system that is accountable to no one, that is fundamentally disinterested in serving its stated purpose, and exists for the sole purpose of allowing those in power to concentrate their influence through the use of scare tactics and lies. In other words, we wouldn't need to stop individual enforcement officers from violating people's privacy, and we wouldn't need the regulations to do so, if we didn't need to subject people to these scans in the first place. This technology didn't always exist, yet people weren't being blown out of the skies every day for the lack of it. There's an unspoken, and therefore largely unchallenged, assumption that this kind of screening is necessary--which on the face of it is an absurd claim, for if it were, the only rational way to use it would be to apply it to everybody. And I need not state the myriad ways in which someone with half a brain would still find it trivial to circumvent it.
What is needed is a drastic change, one in which the people reassert their control over the government that purports to serve them. I doubt this will happen, but nevertheless it is the only viable solution.
Exactly! If I had to pick the biggest threats, I'd say most any telecom company or the recording/media companies would be up there. How can someone who coined the word "net neutrality" conveniently ignore the threat that these companies pose by wanting to control who gets to have access?
I also count Facebook among the more significant threats to internet freedom, simply because they have achieved an enormous amount of power through the data its users have stupidly provided them. Google has done similar, but Facebook is especially strident in the way they exploit their users. That the internet has evolved so that Facebook has become so big is enough reason to consider them a threat.
Oh I *so* wish I had mod points today. I just about died laughing.
Meanwhile, Johannes Mehserle, a former BART police officer, shoots and kills an unarmed, restrained man while in custody in view of numerous eyewitnesses, and gets two years in prison minus time already served. Even if we take the defense's word on the matter and accept that it was completely accidental, does it really make sense to punish one person so much more severely for a crime that did not result in anyone's death?
Yes, I am well aware that in the US, those in positions of power--whether through political or financial means--are treated with leniency, and the unwashed masses suffer.
YES, a thousand times YES.
We don't need to be better people or to have a life with meaning.
What? Then why would you need to learn anything at all? I think you misspoke, and intended to write "We don't need mathematics to be better people...."
And even if that is what you intended, you have still made an illogical argument, one that I would not have expected a PhD in math to make. People are resilient and absolutely can have productive lives without having learned any particular subject. We don't NEED to know calculus to be happy, no. But that is NOT the question at hand. What we should be asking instead is, "Would people on average make better-informed decisions if they developed a higher level of critical thinking skills that a solid mathematics education can provide?" And the answer to that is a resounding yes.
In short, this has nothing to do with individual productivity or happiness in life. It has everything to do with social progress. Ramanathan's position is tantamount to a sort of intellectual elitism. An uneducated public is an unquestioning public. Throughout history, we have seen those in power exploit the disenfranchised through a variety of means; but the first step to doing this has always been to keep the masses stupid. This is ultimately why we need to teach EVERYONE mathematics, as well as literature, history, and science. Math is no more or less special than these other disciplines. Otherwise, society may as well revert back to the times when pharaohs and shamans talked of sacrificing virgins to the sun god. Or if that seems too extreme, consider the sacrifice of constitutional rights in the name of national security.
Then the problem lies not in whether one should teach mathematics, but rather, how one teaches mathematics.
For example, I can't speak for others, but when I was in high school algebra and learned about the quadratic formula, I wasn't just told what it was. The proof of the quadratic formula, namely, how it arises from completing the square of a general quadratic polynomial, was taught to me. Later, in my second high school algebra course, we discussed why the same approach does not work for polynomials of higher degree, and the question of whether the roots of polynomials of higher degree are expressible in radicals.
I think what Ramanathan is really trying to say (but saying it quite poorly) is that mathematics education should not contrive examples to make itself appear more relevant. And I agree with that to a certain extent. But like I noted previously, there are many real-world examples in which people's intuitions are wrong. If the public understood compound interest, not so many of them would be so eager to max out their credit cards. If they understood basic probability and statistics, they would not be so easily cowed into believing that terrorists are around every corner. If they understood risk management, they wouldn't be so cavalier about filing claims on their insured property, and they wouldn't be driving insurance rates up quite so much. What is so ironic is that Ramanathan TEACHES these very same concepts to actuarial candidates yet apparently sees no need to say to the general public, "hey, if you knew about some of this stuff, maybe you'd be better off than if you remained ignorant and let my students become the future actuaries who create the very same models that increase your rates year after year."
Ramanathan, to my dismay, confuses the need for teaching mathematics with the proper teaching of mathematics. And my point is that as a mathematician, he should know better.
I know Ramanathan as the author of a series of study manuals for the preliminary examinations for actuarial science in the US. It honestly surprises me that someone of that level of mathematical knowledge would make such a poorly reasoned argument. As such I must consider the possibility that this is some kind of cynical elitist ploy to retain mathematics as the language of the privileged and well-educated, much like Latin hundreds of years ago. But this too seems too sinister a line of thought to entertain--and somewhat contradictory, given what I know of him.
Nevertheless, the logic is unsound. Mathematics is not merely computation or abstract manipulation of symbols. It is a way of thinking that not only fosters an understanding of the importance of logical reasoning, but also the necessity to substantiate and quantify one's empirical observations. That is to say, mathematics is the foundation of science. To say that most people don't need anything more than the most basic knowledge of math is like saying people don't need the ability to think critically.
The reason why we learn mathematics is not just to perform work with it, but to learn how to think logically and behave rationally. If there should be any doubt about this, just look at the state of mathematics education in the US today, and compare that to how appropriately we assess things like the relative risk of terrorist threats versus being in a car accident; or how well people understand what happened with the Wall Street bailouts; or even something as basic as compound interest as it applies to making payments on credit cards. I think the evidence is overwhelming to support the notion that people suffer from innumeracy, not too much mathematics. And given that Ramanathan writes study manuals for actuarial candidates, I find his lack of understanding of this point to be all the more remarkable.
Seriously. Have you ever been to a (real) Chinese restaurant? It's louder than a rock concert. Diners practically shout at each other across large round tables that I am convinced were arranged in various approximate solutions to the circle-packing problem. Sometimes I wonder what it would be like to eat har gow without the sensation that someone is screeching in my ear in Cantonese. Given recent research on the impact of ambient sound levels on the perceived intensity of food flavor, I imagine the experience might not be quite the same.
The key insight conveyed in the parent post is that the real reason why Facebook violates its users' privacy is not merely because that is part of its business model, but because its users are either too ignorant to understand what such violations actually entail, or if they know, they don't care because they feel Facebook offers them sufficient value in exchange for that data.
What makes Facebook successful is that EVERYBODY seems to be on it. As long as people collectively think they get some kind of social benefit to being on the site, they will gladly hand over all kinds of private information. That's the root of why Facebook will continue to do what they do--its users let it; the ones who don't, leave, creating a self-selecting pool of attention whores prostituting their privacy for their next hit of status updates.
We didn't always have multi-peril homeowner's insurance. Insuring your home typically involved separate policies on specific named perils, and fire insurance was in its earliest days a mutual agreement between insureds to pool the risk. A community typically established a volunteer firefighting force using funds set aside by the undersigned parties. You would put a plaque on your home that indicated you were covered under such an agreement.
Clearly, this arrangement was inefficient and led to organizational issues, which is why firefighting--especially in urbanized areas--quickly became incorporated under the umbrella of public services, so that nowadays, we think of firefighting as a public good paid through taxes. But we should be reminded that this was not always the case. In rural areas, such agreements between the homeowner and the fire department are still prevalent.
Incidentally, the life insurance analogy is not really valid because there are numerous variations on the type of policy offered, with different pricing structures. For example, some life insurance policies are structured such that the failure to pay the premium merely reduces the benefit according to an actuarially determined formula. But in a situation like this, there is no option to fight x% of the fire--you either fight to eliminate it entirely, or you let it burn. This is precisely why fire insurance moved to an agreement between the insurer and insured, and left the firefighting to a third party. You wouldn't want your doctor to only treat half of your disease because you only paid half your premium. That doesn't make any sense. Instead, you have the doctor bill your insurer, and your insurer determines your financial responsibility based on your level of coverage.
Look toward standardized testing practices for how to conduct tests in a rigorous and fair manner. Quite simply, the rules and expectations for the course should be clearly stated at the outset. Don't wait until the exams come around to drop the bomb. Tell them that you expect them to use a calculator that is on an approved list. No other electronic devices will be permitted. All other possessions not explicitly allowed must be placed at the front of the room, and any mobile devices must be turned OFF. No "vibrate." Watches are permitted but cannot have an alarm function. If they need translation, that's too bad; the ETS does not offer to administer mathematics tests in the language of the examinee's choosing. This is a college level course, with lectures in English. You don't provide lecture notes in twenty languages. It is the student's responsibility to become sufficiently proficient in the English language in order to continue their studies. That may put them at a disadvantage, but we don't try to equalize the playing field for someone who hasn't learned calculus.
Education necessarily requires that some students have to work harder--sometimes, much harder--than others to achieve the same proficiency level as others. That is not being unfair, that is just the way life is.
One could argue that adult stem cell research has been spurred because of restrictions on embryonic stem cell research. But that view fails to recognize that in order to obtain adult stem cells, one has to go through more involved processes just to get the cells in a potentially useful state--in fact, that is what makes the approach discussed in TFA interesting (that one has a better chance of getting such cells from the root pulp in teeth, than say, skin cells).
Thus, restrictions on embryonic stem cells have seriously slowed down research into how we can use stem cells (of any kind) to treat disease, because not only do scientists have to figure out how to get adult stem cells to do what they want, they also have to GET TO THEM. We would know more about all kinds of stem cells if public funding existed for embryonic stem cell research. Instead, researchers have to expend extra effort getting adult cells to revert to a pluripotent state, instead of being able to concentrate on understanding how such cells could be used to treat disease. We are nowhere near solving the problems of how to get these cells to do what we would like them to do, because it is so insanely fucking difficult to get them to begin with, and if you think that this has nothing to do with the religious nutcases, you are oblivious to reality.
At least, most people do. The root pulp cells being converted to stem cells are not unique to the wisdom teeth. I presume they are also present in other teeth; it's just that the third molars are usually extracted anyway (though some people do retain them, provided there's enough space in the dentition for them). If we're talking about choosing to treat a life-threatening disease versus keeping a tooth, I would think most people would choose the former--of course, we aren't quite at the point where such procedures are beyond the research stage (thanks to the religious nutcases).
You've pretty much managed to miss the whole tone of my post. It was not about elevating China--far from it. I despise their model of government, their Machiavellian approach to foreign policy, and their suffocatingly conformist society. I know all too well what it is like to live under Confucian principles so don't presume to lecture me about Confucianism.
But as a people, the Chinese are incredibly ambitious, much more so than Americans. They also have a long view of history, and do not easily forget the atrocities and humiliation they suffered under Western imperialism and the war atrocities committed by the Japanese. They will do whatever it takes to get to the top and if that means allowing the American public to become enslaved by their own cycle of debt, they hardly have a problem with that. And so far, the US has been all too happy to go along with their plan for global economic dominance.
The copying phase is common to all developing nations. The Japanese copied American technology post-WWII, and eventually surpassed the US in most electronics. South Korea did a lot of copying too. And so has China. They only copy up to the point where they begin exceeding the capabilities of those nations they copied. US companies have only made it easier for China to do so by outsourcing all their production processes, in a short-sighted desire to make goods as cheaply as possible. The US has long since lost their innovative streak. Americans have become consumers of technology, not producers of it. About the only thing the US still does produce is knowledge, in the form of private and public university education and research, and the anti-science religious nutjobs are hellbent on taking that away because their "rights" to practice their faith are being "threatened" by honest scientific progress. So of course China is going to fill the void.
You see, you read my words as "good old-fashioned America-bashing." If only it were so simple. America is stupid, yes, but I'd MUCH rather have the US or Europe at the forefront of scientific research. China as a source of RELIEF? FUCK that. If China becomes the dominant global power, the rest of the world is FUCKED. This is economic warfare and the American public is blissfully unaware, too busy keeping track of Lindsay Lohan's latest escapades while trying to pay the minimum on their CC bill for all the cheap Chinese crap they bought at Wal-Mart.
Very soon--perhaps even already--China will be the premier center of stem cell research in the world. They are making enormous advances, due to their strong economic position and their lack of being hindered by religious conservatives or a two-party system. Researchers will go there, all the intellectual work will flock to China because they can get their funding and have the collaboration they need. And the US will become a short-lived historical footnote, an intellectual backwater led by a corrupt plutocracy, filled with ignorant evangelical nutjobs and greedy corporatists. Americans are stupid, greedy, short-sighted, superstitious, easily cowed, lazy, obsessed with violence and sex, and fiscally irresponsible.
Make no mistake: I do not condone China's abhorrent record on human rights, politics, foreign policy, censorship, or the environment. I especially despise the way they have so brilliantly manipulated the US into conflicts with other countries and have essentially commandeered the global economy. But they have only done this because, again, Americans are too stupid and played right into the trap.
So then, how is that any different than taking the car, parking some distance away, then walking to your destination?
I don't know where you live, but where I live, public transit is chock full of cameras everywhere you look. On every bus and train, and in every station. How is that any less intrusive than GPS? They not only know where you are at any time, they can watch you pick your nose.
On the other hand, public transit being what it is, I am actually *glad* to have those cameras. There are a lot of crazies using the system. But if you think that taking public transit gives you more privacy as to your whereabouts than taking your own vehicle, you might want to invest in some prosthetic makeup.
And yes, people do pick their noses on the subway. Even the non-crazy ones.
There's no shame in reading into something and finding meaning where none was intended. That is how humans discover new ideas and relationships. Granted, sometimes the whole critical analysis thing can go really overboard and get tiresome to listen to, but if every creative effort had to explicitly include every possible interpretation of its meaning, and if its creator had to intentionally express it, we wouldn't have art or literature.
Sure, the design decisions that went into making Portal may have been superficial, or subconscious--but the result is a game that can be understood and enjoyed within a much larger context than what it was intended for. If it helps to serve as a vehicle for introspection and stimulate interest in philosophy and the humanities, then all the better.
have to take it to the logical extreme:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_r6ltUgtFWI
Pretty soon, all stock Toyotas and Hondas will look like this! XD
The greater Los Angeles area is huge. If you looked up "urban sprawl" in the dictionary, you'd find a picture of LA. Consequently, services like WiFi and GSM/CDMA are not as heavily concentrated as they are in cities like San Francisco or New York, where the population density is higher. In general, I find the idea of being able to drive around the city and expect to find open access points to be laughable. So where does that leave those annoying Hollywood hipsters and aspiring screenwriters? They can't be "discovered" if they stay at home, but they can't write their next big screenplay if they go out. That's why you see them crowding around the Starbucks and Coffee Beans plaguing nearly every street corner, trying to strike some self-imagined balance of trendiness and importance.
If more shops shut down their WiFi, that would further concentrate these pretentious jerks in those shops that still offer a connection. Maybe that's not such a bad thing--you'd know which places to avoid. There's nothing wrong with spending a half hour in your local coffee shop having a drink and a snack while checking up on news or whatever floats your online boat. But really, who has nothing better to do with their day than to spend all of it huddled over their laptop, browsing the web, in a noisy and crowded coffee shop? I see students use coffee shops like it was an annex to their dorm room--wearing pajamas, headphones on, textbooks sprawled everywhere. That's just beyond sad.
There are a number of possibilities but I think the top two reasons are that the board is either (1) unable to find a replacement who can do better, or (2) unwilling to risk what little competence Ballmer has for someone who is untested.
Ballmer is a delusional jackass. He knows nothing about innovation because Microsoft's modus operandi for nearly all of its existence has been to let other entities do the innovation, then buy them up, or copy them, or intimidate them into submission. I mean, just look at the guy--wheezing, red-faced, and full of fat. That describes Microsoft just as well as it describes him.
The saddest part of it all is that back in the 90s, I wanted Microsoft to fail. I hated their anti-competitiveness, their belligerence and arrogance. I still do. But now that anger has been largely replaced by pity. I see them as pathetic, a technology dinosaur on a long, slow decline toward irrelevance, as other companies have taken over as the driving force in the tech sector. And I find myself in the rather uncomfortable position of wishing they would WAKE THE FUCK UP so that they (1) don't bring down everyone else, and/or (2) prevent some other company--Apple or Google, for instance--from becoming the very same monster they once were.
They are very much stuck in that bygone era, and the mentality that goes with it. We saw this with Zune, and Kin, and we will see it again with their tablet effort. It's not just that they are playing follow the leader, it's also that they can't even make a good copy. In other words: too little, too late, but most importantly, too lame.
The title says it all. What is the purpose of employing a CC license and publishing the content if you are not prepared to defend the licensing terms against violations? The license can only discourage other entities from exploiting your work. The only way to enforce the terms you have chosen is to, well, ENFORCE it. Otherwise, don't publish it online and don't CC it, and your problem is solved.