My kids love Starfall. They read with me, they read by themselves, they read everywhere, but they also love to go to Starfall and play with it. The younger one (4 years old) gets reinforcement (whe knows them all now) with letter and sounds (that's level 1 on the screen) and is playing with level 2. The older one (6 years old) has pretty much outgrown it, but it was good in helping her.
The fact that it's flash means that it's interactive. The fact that it looks like a dog's breakfast means that kids are interested in it. The layout of the letters and stories is very intuitive (you just pick one!) and the green arrows is blindingly obvious. But it's the little features like the ability to click on the individual words and have them pronounced, or the animations of what to do next that really make it work.
For example, go to: http://www.starfall.com/n/short-u/su/load.htm?f Yes, it's childish, but for heavens sake, it's for a child! It makes it clear what to do, and how to do it, and it emphasizes what it's trying to teach (the sound of the letter 'u'). So, it's a very good educational site.
Do you have a citation or link for these claims, or are you just making it up as you go along?
Yes, there are a number of executive orders that modern presidents sign on Day 1. It's both symbolic of the direction they want to go, and to get things moving in their direction.
"billions each for free abortions and voter fraud groups."
Executive orders are official documents of the United States, and are recorded. I realize that it's almost certainly out of date, but something similar to what is at: http://www.archives.gov/federal-register/executive-orders/2009-obama.html might be useful. Which one of these gave billions for the subjects above?
Everything he did, whether you agree with his tactics or not, was to fight terrorism/protect the country.
No, this is incorrect. He did a great deal that had nothing to do with terrorism / protect the country. He screwed up environmental regulations, politicized the judiciary and US attorneys, mismanaged the economy badly, screwed the budgets, totally bungled the response to Katrina, destroyed our foreign policy, entangled church and state, and reduced human rights in the US and abroad.
I don't think he was evil as much as he was incompetent, short-sighted, and selfish. He put the priorities of a select few (his friends, both political, personal, and financial) far and away before the priorities of the country.
I expect Obama to be confronted by the same conflicts, doubts, and difficulties faced by Bush. But I expect him to make far better decisions and implement them in far better fashion. He could hardly do worse.
And why does anyone have a problem with evolution's "strengths and weaknesses" being taught?
1. there is an absurd fixation on teaching evolution's weaknesses on the part of religiously motivated people that belies the underlying purpose: to encourage disbelief of evolution. If people were clamoring for teaching the strengths and weaknesses of Newton's theory of gravity, then maybe it would not be so obvious, but they don't. Only evolution gets this treatment.
2. the so-called weaknesses that creationists and IDers try to point out are not so, and have been thoroughly debunked by real scientists. The arguments have been hashed over a million times, and creationism / ID have failed.
I say to be truly objective, teach evolution's strengths and weaknesses and put ID in the curriculum (strengths and weaknesses) too.
3. ID is not a theory, and has no place in the science classroom. Please, please tell me what was created^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hdesigned and when, even approximately. The mammalian immune system? The blood clotting system? When did these appear? How did they appear? ID doesn't even try to answer these questions, has no desire to try to answer them because it doesn't work.
It would be good to discuss issues with all theories. The problem is that only evolution has been marked as needing this discussion, and specifically with the intent to cause disbelief in the students. The issues that are normally listed are those dreamed up by creationists and IDers, and are not considered to be problem by biologists.
How did the original story come out about the wiretaps? Someone (namely, this guy) leaked.
Why do people believe him rather than thinking that he's a raving lunatic? Because other people started digging, calls were made, Congress got off their ass and started looking around, and the story eventually held up.
The question is whether this story will hold up. A FOIA request is a way of asking the government for information, and in such a way that they pretty much have to respond one way or another. If they lie, then we probably won't know about it at first, but these things have a way of eventually leaking out. And a blatent lie about a FOIA is a crime that is prosecutable, in a way that wiretapping with the Administration's say-so probably isn't.
I would guess that an analyst is likely to keep their mouth shut when told to spy on Americans when when the President has told them to; that's a crime of ommission. But, with a new administration in town, the analyst is less likely to lie in response to a direct question; that's a crime of commission, and without the top cover.
I'm not putting a lot of faith in this guys accusations for three reasons: 1) coming out with it now rather than earlier and 2) releasing it to KO and 3) no backup or supporting evidence. It's when KO or other journalists really start digging, calling their contacts on the inside, and get corroboration _or_ when a FOIA or other document surfaces that the likelihood of this being correct goes way up.
The problem is that people don't understand how their energy is being used.
I get a bill and it says that I used X kwh last month. Ok, but how much of that was really wasted, and how much of it was stuff that I really wanted? Maybe last month was hotter / colder, or grandma visited and left the TV on all the time (she does, too, and it pisses me off. She actually sleeps with the TV on.) How can you tell where the energy is going? It's opaque to the consumer.
You could make it 'simpler' by listing the amount of energy used per device in the house. Then the consumer could look at it like they do with their phone bill, and say 'crap, I spent $5 last month on that TV in the spare bedroom and nobody was even in there!'. No, I don't expect this to happen but it would be nice. The best we have right now is the kill-a-watt, and, frankly, that's a pain in the ass to put everywhere. So, the consumer has to fall back on reading the labels, and if they are lying, then we have no idea at all where the energy is going.
Here's an idea: make all devices produce a unique signal (like ethernet over powerline) that transmits their current energy consumption? And your circuit breaker box could have a kill-a-watt-like device that sums it up for you? Well, that would sort of defeat sleep mode, since it would require all devices to be active enough to be sending signals.
You should do some 'Exploratory Data Visualization'. Use GGobi (http://www.ggobi.org/) it's free, works fast, can handle lots of data, lots of different formats.
There are a bunch of different options, but when I'm trying to figure out what some basic data relationships, I use the scatterplot matrix (2D matrix of 2D plots) or the 2D tour.
But you can do that already. MIT has been going through the process of putting their courses online (see OpenCourseWare).
So, at this point, what does it mean that you went to MIT? That they graded your papers? That their professor read you the course notes? No, anybody could do that.
The only advantages to going to a school like MIT versus a generic school are 1) getting the name on your diploma and 2) experiencing the supposedly mind expanding ambiance there. IMHO the best thing about MIT is #1 above, and the hardest part about that (above and beyond other schools) is getting into it in the first place. #2 is pretty good, but not noticably better than, say, VaTech. There are brilliant people, the facilities are good, but the teaching itself isn't spectacular and quite uneven.
(And, yes, I went to MIT. Course 16-2; took Unified with Shiela Widnall; walked across the damn bridge every day from the fraternity, all 364.4 smoots and one ear; took 18.03 from a professor from Ukraine who learned English in Scotland, could not understand a word the man said).
Why does everybody equate solar with photovoltaic?
Solar thermal is in place, working, and is fairly reasonably priced (though more than coal or gas). Look up Nevada Solar One or the Kramer Junction site in the Mojave.
Yes, it takes a lot of space. A shitload of space. But, have you seen the size of farms? Plus, it's in the middle of the desert! There's almost nothing out there. And, yes, they don't do the baseline power, but work great for handling peaks, since their power output matches usage (lots of sun means lots of A/C).
I agree that we are not that different. We're all animals, and studying them (and ourselves) is useful.
Orangutans mate in monogamous pairs. Gorillas have a dominant male, with a harem of females, and the other males don't get any. Chimpanzees live in a large group and mate a lot, but there is a hierarchy of males where the more dominant ones get more. If you didn't know any of this, you could guess it based on sexual dimorphism (male/female size ratio) and sex organ sizes. For example, chimpanzees have small penises but huge testicles: the better to compete at the semen level with the other chimpanzees that have mated with a female. Humans are an interesting mix: we live in large groups, supposedly mate monogamously, but don't really, and our tackle has large penises but (relatively) small testicles. And we usually mate in private.
In "Making Sense of Sex", the authors discuss how a female bonobo will observe a male eating something good, and then go to them to offer sex. While the male is getting busy, the female will take the food. But unfortunately, I didn't see anything about mating privately.
I'm sorry I don't have a reference, but I remember a discussion of the sexual habits of chimpanzees, where a female that wants to mate with a lower ranked male will sneak off with him to have sex. It would be interesting to try to study this more, in relation to our own mating and social habits and when people have sex in private or public.
I believe that you made an accurate summary of what is point was, and IMHO it is incorrect. Let me reiterate: Before we (meaning humans, Homo sapiens) had culture and before we had religion, we could not just fuck each other because there was an issue.
People mate in a supposedly monogomous way, and then we cheat. There are good biological reasons for it. Men look to marry women who look a particular way (young, fertile), and women look to marry men who have certain things (power, money, social standing). On the other hand, they try to get some on the side from someone else. Did you know that women are actually more fertile with men that are not their husbands? That men produce more ejaculate with women they are not married to? That a significant (>5%) of children born to wedlock are not the products of their mother's husband? Why? Because that's the way that we're wired. Husbands are jealous and try to keep their wive(s) from cheating on them. Women try to marry rich and then sleep with the pool boy.
Culture and religion have exacerbated an already difficult issue, and Christianity in particular. But, we were in kind of difficult straights to begin with. It's 'good' from an evolutionary point of view to do things that are 'bad' from a moral point of view.
Along comes Christianity (and other religions), asserting, contrary to all evidence, that sex is an intimate act between two individuals. Since it's so obviously not, society needs laws so that people who want to maintain their personal delusions about sex can legally threaten and harass anyone who provides evidence to the contrary.
I call bullshit. I'm no fan of Christianity, or of religion in general, but I don't see this at all.
Yes, Christianity has massive hangups about sex. But, I'm not buying that sex is not an intimate act because Christianity has issues with it. It was an intimate act before Christianity. Based on what I've read of other cultures, it's a pretty universal human trait. Based on what I've read about evolutionary biology, it makes sense for human sex (vice sex between two gorillas, or two chimpanzees) would be an intimate act. But, feel free to educate me otherwise.
It used to be just about procreation and there was zero emotion or intimacy attached, do you see monkeys having trouble with sexual acts in public?
This argument doesn't quite work, because we're humans and not monkeys. What does that have to do with it? It has to do with our evolutionary legacy. Humans are different when it comes to sex than most other creatures. We have sex when the woman is not in estrous, you can't even tell when a woman is in estrous, woman have orgasms (well, the one's with _me_ do, anyway, can't say for you), and males and females are supposedly monogomous, but are not really.
Human society is largely a result of our sexual history and tendencies. People are jealous, they cheat, and they don't have sex in public in general. Compare human mating habits to our close relatives (orangutans, chimpanzees, bonobos, and gorillas); it is a fascinating topic (see The Third Chimpanzee).
Anyway, the result is that sex is a private thing. Feeding is not. It's stupid to pretend otherwise.
The way to make it safe is to close it. See? Problem solved.
There's a balance between making it safe and making it useful. How about a different metric, such as number of cars that go through the intersection per accident.
The best roads I've been on are the ones that have lights that are timed to turn green as you get to the next one if you drive the speed limit. There is then zero incentive to speed, no stop and start, and the resulting trip is much faster, which is what (almost) everyone is trying to do anyway. An alternative approach that I have seen is a speed camera that turns the light ahead of you red if you speed.
The majority of the issues with traffic, lights, and such are not technical problems. They are people problems. Get to the root of the issue (people want to get where they are going as quickly and efficiently as possible) and keep it 'fair' then the problems are far less.
With that said, you do realize that you are stealing from your landlord, right?
Well, that depends on the lease doesn't it? Is there a clause that discusses what the utilities cover? Does it discuss vehicles? Maybe and maybe not.
If it does not cover vehicles currently, expect leases to start covering them very soon. With the advent of plug-in hybrids, you have to wonder if the electricity for the hybrid should be paid for above and beyond the normal expenses. If electricity is directly billed, then it would not be a problem, but in my experience that's only about 50% of the time.
From gut feeling I would expect 30:20 to be much preferable to 3:2. It depends on how the combat system is implemented of course, but if I am told that my odds are 30:20 I interpret that as telling me something about the granularity of the combat system.
I would expect a confrontation (especially in modern civ, with hit points rather than win/lose) to bea series of rounds. I would expect losing one round of 30:20 to cause the loss of some portion of strength, perhaps 3 points, and trigger another round at the new rate of 27:20 - still highly in my favour. Losing at 3:2 sounds much more likely to reduce the odds to 2:2 for the next round, which is merely even!
In the system I imagine, battles with high values (30:20) will be much more likely to have the odds-on victor because losing one round merely triggers another round with slightly reduced positive odds. A low value battle (3:2) could be lost by one unlucky roll (now 2:2), a slightly unlucky roll (1:2) and then not being very lucky (0:2, dead)
In the board game Risk, the odds change drastically with the number of units even when the ratios are the same. Attacking at 3:2 wins 36% of the time (due to defenders winning tie) but 6:4 wins 64% of the time; 30:20 wins 94% of the time.
As for the Madison quote, the Constitution LIMITS the power of the government, it does not GRANT power to the government. But in any case the issue is state vs. federal rights, not the idea that we have a nationwide ID card.
No, that's completely wrong:
Amendment 10 - Powers of the States and People.
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
The Constitution does not limit the power of the government, it grants certain powers and only those powers.
Sort of, but only in the sense that the evaluation function was intelligently created.
In real evolution, the evaluation function is built into reality. If you want to consider that intelligently designed, then it's a metaphysical issue and you would not be alone. But, it doesn't look like the evaluation function (reproductive fitness) or generation process (reproduction) are directly intelligently designed.
GA's can find some very bad solutions to poorly created problems. I once used a GA to solve a combat problem where the problem, meaning the evaluation function, was largely based on the length of the combat. Unfortunately, the solution it found was to kill it's own side, and the combat was over almost immediately.
There's usually a simple heuristic (for example, nearest neighbor for TSP) that does better than a random. You should check your GA solution compared to the heuristic to make sure that it's not doing something completely stupid.
Slashdot Mirror
My kids love Starfall. They read with me, they read by themselves, they read everywhere, but they also love to go to Starfall and play with it. The younger one (4 years old) gets reinforcement (whe knows them all now) with letter and sounds (that's level 1 on the screen) and is playing with level 2. The older one (6 years old) has pretty much outgrown it, but it was good in helping her.
The fact that it's flash means that it's interactive. The fact that it looks like a dog's breakfast means that kids are interested in it. The layout of the letters and stories is very intuitive (you just pick one!) and the green arrows is blindingly obvious. But it's the little features like the ability to click on the individual words and have them pronounced, or the animations of what to do next that really make it work.
For example, go to: http://www.starfall.com/n/short-u/su/load.htm?f Yes, it's childish, but for heavens sake, it's for a child! It makes it clear what to do, and how to do it, and it emphasizes what it's trying to teach (the sound of the letter 'u'). So, it's a very good educational site.
Do you have a citation or link for these claims, or are you just making it up as you go along?
Yes, there are a number of executive orders that modern presidents sign on Day 1. It's both symbolic of the direction they want to go, and to get things moving in their direction.
"billions each for free abortions and voter fraud groups."
Executive orders are official documents of the United States, and are recorded. I realize that it's almost certainly out of date, but something similar to what is at: http://www.archives.gov/federal-register/executive-orders/2009-obama.html might be useful. Which one of these gave billions for the subjects above?
Everything he did, whether you agree with his tactics or not, was to fight terrorism/protect the country.
No, this is incorrect. He did a great deal that had nothing to do with terrorism / protect the country. He screwed up environmental regulations, politicized the judiciary and US attorneys, mismanaged the economy badly, screwed the budgets, totally bungled the response to Katrina, destroyed our foreign policy, entangled church and state, and reduced human rights in the US and abroad.
I don't think he was evil as much as he was incompetent, short-sighted, and selfish. He put the priorities of a select few (his friends, both political, personal, and financial) far and away before the priorities of the country.
I expect Obama to be confronted by the same conflicts, doubts, and difficulties faced by Bush. But I expect him to make far better decisions and implement them in far better fashion. He could hardly do worse.
And why does anyone have a problem with evolution's "strengths and weaknesses" being taught?
1. there is an absurd fixation on teaching evolution's weaknesses on the part of religiously motivated people that belies the underlying purpose: to encourage disbelief of evolution. If people were clamoring for teaching the strengths and weaknesses of Newton's theory of gravity, then maybe it would not be so obvious, but they don't. Only evolution gets this treatment.
2. the so-called weaknesses that creationists and IDers try to point out are not so, and have been thoroughly debunked by real scientists. The arguments have been hashed over a million times, and creationism / ID have failed.
I say to be truly objective, teach evolution's strengths and weaknesses and put ID in the curriculum (strengths and weaknesses) too.
3. ID is not a theory, and has no place in the science classroom. Please, please tell me what was created^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hdesigned and when, even approximately. The mammalian immune system? The blood clotting system? When did these appear? How did they appear? ID doesn't even try to answer these questions, has no desire to try to answer them because it doesn't work.
It would be good to discuss issues with all theories. The problem is that only evolution has been marked as needing this discussion, and specifically with the intent to cause disbelief in the students. The issues that are normally listed are those dreamed up by creationists and IDers, and are not considered to be problem by biologists.
How did the original story come out about the wiretaps? Someone (namely, this guy) leaked.
Why do people believe him rather than thinking that he's a raving lunatic? Because other people started digging, calls were made, Congress got off their ass and started looking around, and the story eventually held up.
The question is whether this story will hold up. A FOIA request is a way of asking the government for information, and in such a way that they pretty much have to respond one way or another. If they lie, then we probably won't know about it at first, but these things have a way of eventually leaking out. And a blatent lie about a FOIA is a crime that is prosecutable, in a way that wiretapping with the Administration's say-so probably isn't.
I would guess that an analyst is likely to keep their mouth shut when told to spy on Americans when when the President has told them to; that's a crime of ommission. But, with a new administration in town, the analyst is less likely to lie in response to a direct question; that's a crime of commission, and without the top cover.
I'm not putting a lot of faith in this guys accusations for three reasons: 1) coming out with it now rather than earlier and 2) releasing it to KO and 3) no backup or supporting evidence. It's when KO or other journalists really start digging, calling their contacts on the inside, and get corroboration _or_ when a FOIA or other document surfaces that the likelihood of this being correct goes way up.
The problem is that people don't understand how their energy is being used.
I get a bill and it says that I used X kwh last month. Ok, but how much of that was really wasted, and how much of it was stuff that I really wanted? Maybe last month was hotter / colder, or grandma visited and left the TV on all the time (she does, too, and it pisses me off. She actually sleeps with the TV on.) How can you tell where the energy is going? It's opaque to the consumer.
You could make it 'simpler' by listing the amount of energy used per device in the house. Then the consumer could look at it like they do with their phone bill, and say 'crap, I spent $5 last month on that TV in the spare bedroom and nobody was even in there!'. No, I don't expect this to happen but it would be nice. The best we have right now is the kill-a-watt, and, frankly, that's a pain in the ass to put everywhere. So, the consumer has to fall back on reading the labels, and if they are lying, then we have no idea at all where the energy is going.
Here's an idea: make all devices produce a unique signal (like ethernet over powerline) that transmits their current energy consumption? And your circuit breaker box could have a kill-a-watt-like device that sums it up for you? Well, that would sort of defeat sleep mode, since it would require all devices to be active enough to be sending signals.
You should do some 'Exploratory Data Visualization'. Use GGobi (http://www.ggobi.org/) it's free, works fast, can handle lots of data, lots of different formats.
There are a bunch of different options, but when I'm trying to figure out what some basic data relationships, I use the scatterplot matrix (2D matrix of 2D plots) or the 2D tour.
But you can do that already. MIT has been going through the process of putting their courses online (see OpenCourseWare).
So, at this point, what does it mean that you went to MIT? That they graded your papers? That their professor read you the course notes? No, anybody could do that.
The only advantages to going to a school like MIT versus a generic school are 1) getting the name on your diploma and 2) experiencing the supposedly mind expanding ambiance there. IMHO the best thing about MIT is #1 above, and the hardest part about that (above and beyond other schools) is getting into it in the first place. #2 is pretty good, but not noticably better than, say, VaTech. There are brilliant people, the facilities are good, but the teaching itself isn't spectacular and quite uneven.
(And, yes, I went to MIT. Course 16-2; took Unified with Shiela Widnall; walked across the damn bridge every day from the fraternity, all 364.4 smoots and one ear; took 18.03 from a professor from Ukraine who learned English in Scotland, could not understand a word the man said).
Solar - takes lots of space and panels are costly
Why does everybody equate solar with photovoltaic?
Solar thermal is in place, working, and is fairly reasonably priced (though more than coal or gas). Look up Nevada Solar One or the Kramer Junction site in the Mojave.
Yes, it takes a lot of space. A shitload of space. But, have you seen the size of farms? Plus, it's in the middle of the desert! There's almost nothing out there. And, yes, they don't do the baseline power, but work great for handling peaks, since their power output matches usage (lots of sun means lots of A/C).
If I write a poem, then I copyright it, then I accuse person X of violating the copyright. Easy.
I agree that we are not that different. We're all animals, and studying them (and ourselves) is useful.
Orangutans mate in monogamous pairs. Gorillas have a dominant male, with a harem of females, and the other males don't get any. Chimpanzees live in a large group and mate a lot, but there is a hierarchy of males where the more dominant ones get more. If you didn't know any of this, you could guess it based on sexual dimorphism (male/female size ratio) and sex organ sizes. For example, chimpanzees have small penises but huge testicles: the better to compete at the semen level with the other chimpanzees that have mated with a female. Humans are an interesting mix: we live in large groups, supposedly mate monogamously, but don't really, and our tackle has large penises but (relatively) small testicles. And we usually mate in private.
In "Making Sense of Sex", the authors discuss how a female bonobo will observe a male eating something good, and then go to them to offer sex. While the male is getting busy, the female will take the food. But unfortunately, I didn't see anything about mating privately.
I'm sorry I don't have a reference, but I remember a discussion of the sexual habits of chimpanzees, where a female that wants to mate with a lower ranked male will sneak off with him to have sex. It would be interesting to try to study this more, in relation to our own mating and social habits and when people have sex in private or public.
I believe that you made an accurate summary of what is point was, and IMHO it is incorrect. Let me reiterate: Before we (meaning humans, Homo sapiens) had culture and before we had religion, we could not just fuck each other because there was an issue.
People mate in a supposedly monogomous way, and then we cheat. There are good biological reasons for it. Men look to marry women who look a particular way (young, fertile), and women look to marry men who have certain things (power, money, social standing). On the other hand, they try to get some on the side from someone else. Did you know that women are actually more fertile with men that are not their husbands? That men produce more ejaculate with women they are not married to? That a significant (>5%) of children born to wedlock are not the products of their mother's husband? Why? Because that's the way that we're wired. Husbands are jealous and try to keep their wive(s) from cheating on them. Women try to marry rich and then sleep with the pool boy.
Culture and religion have exacerbated an already difficult issue, and Christianity in particular. But, we were in kind of difficult straights to begin with. It's 'good' from an evolutionary point of view to do things that are 'bad' from a moral point of view.
Along comes Christianity (and other religions), asserting, contrary to all evidence, that sex is an intimate act between two individuals. Since it's so obviously not, society needs laws so that people who want to maintain their personal delusions about sex can legally threaten and harass anyone who provides evidence to the contrary.
I call bullshit. I'm no fan of Christianity, or of religion in general, but I don't see this at all.
Yes, Christianity has massive hangups about sex. But, I'm not buying that sex is not an intimate act because Christianity has issues with it. It was an intimate act before Christianity. Based on what I've read of other cultures, it's a pretty universal human trait. Based on what I've read about evolutionary biology, it makes sense for human sex (vice sex between two gorillas, or two chimpanzees) would be an intimate act. But, feel free to educate me otherwise.
It used to be just about procreation and there was zero emotion or intimacy attached, do you see monkeys having trouble with sexual acts in public?
This argument doesn't quite work, because we're humans and not monkeys. What does that have to do with it? It has to do with our evolutionary legacy. Humans are different when it comes to sex than most other creatures. We have sex when the woman is not in estrous, you can't even tell when a woman is in estrous, woman have orgasms (well, the one's with _me_ do, anyway, can't say for you), and males and females are supposedly monogomous, but are not really.
Human society is largely a result of our sexual history and tendencies. People are jealous, they cheat, and they don't have sex in public in general. Compare human mating habits to our close relatives (orangutans, chimpanzees, bonobos, and gorillas); it is a fascinating topic (see The Third Chimpanzee).
Anyway, the result is that sex is a private thing. Feeding is not. It's stupid to pretend otherwise.
Clearly, an honest mistake.
The way to make it safe is to close it. See? Problem solved.
There's a balance between making it safe and making it useful. How about a different metric, such as number of cars that go through the intersection per accident.
The best roads I've been on are the ones that have lights that are timed to turn green as you get to the next one if you drive the speed limit. There is then zero incentive to speed, no stop and start, and the resulting trip is much faster, which is what (almost) everyone is trying to do anyway. An alternative approach that I have seen is a speed camera that turns the light ahead of you red if you speed.
The majority of the issues with traffic, lights, and such are not technical problems. They are people problems. Get to the root of the issue (people want to get where they are going as quickly and efficiently as possible) and keep it 'fair' then the problems are far less.
With that said, you do realize that you are stealing from your landlord, right?
Well, that depends on the lease doesn't it? Is there a clause that discusses what the utilities cover? Does it discuss vehicles? Maybe and maybe not.
If it does not cover vehicles currently, expect leases to start covering them very soon. With the advent of plug-in hybrids, you have to wonder if the electricity for the hybrid should be paid for above and beyond the normal expenses. If electricity is directly billed, then it would not be a problem, but in my experience that's only about 50% of the time.
From gut feeling I would expect 30:20 to be much preferable to 3:2. It depends on how the combat system is implemented of course, but if I am told that my odds are 30:20 I interpret that as telling me something about the granularity of the combat system.
I would expect a confrontation (especially in modern civ, with hit points rather than win/lose) to bea series of rounds. I would expect losing one round of 30:20 to cause the loss of some portion of strength, perhaps 3 points, and trigger another round at the new rate of 27:20 - still highly in my favour. Losing at 3:2 sounds much more likely to reduce the odds to 2:2 for the next round, which is merely even!
In the system I imagine, battles with high values (30:20) will be much more likely to have the odds-on victor because losing one round merely triggers another round with slightly reduced positive odds. A low value battle (3:2) could be lost by one unlucky roll (now 2:2), a slightly unlucky roll (1:2) and then not being very lucky (0:2, dead)
In the board game Risk, the odds change drastically with the number of units even when the ratios are the same. Attacking at 3:2 wins 36% of the time (due to defenders winning tie) but 6:4 wins 64% of the time; 30:20 wins 94% of the time.
Not Bdellid rotifers. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bdelloid
Actually, it's fascinating that they have lost sexual reproduction and probably indicates something important, we just don't know what yet.
As for the Madison quote, the Constitution LIMITS the power of the government, it does not GRANT power to the government. But in any case the issue is state vs. federal rights, not the idea that we have a nationwide ID card.
No, that's completely wrong:
Amendment 10 - Powers of the States and People.
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
The Constitution does not limit the power of the government, it grants certain powers and only those powers.
Your state consititution, of course, will vary.
There was a great study that put up plain charity boxes with various simple images above them. The boxes with the eyes above them got the most money.
Sort of, but only in the sense that the evaluation function was intelligently created.
In real evolution, the evaluation function is built into reality. If you want to consider that intelligently designed, then it's a metaphysical issue and you would not be alone. But, it doesn't look like the evaluation function (reproductive fitness) or generation process (reproduction) are directly intelligently designed.
GA's can find some very bad solutions to poorly created problems. I once used a GA to solve a combat problem where the problem, meaning the evaluation function, was largely based on the length of the combat. Unfortunately, the solution it found was to kill it's own side, and the combat was over almost immediately.
There's usually a simple heuristic (for example, nearest neighbor for TSP) that does better than a random. You should check your GA solution compared to the heuristic to make sure that it's not doing something completely stupid.
I, for one, am amazed at your persistence. Do you have a macro for that?