There are a lot of causes of cancer - both known and unkonown. While smoking and poor diet are the most common causes, they are both unlikely in this case. As a non-smoker, it wasn't smoking that did her in. Simmilarly as a very healthy eater, it wasn't diet that did her in either (unless she lived on pork rinds and asbestos as a child?). The type of dietary changes that are reccommened to reduce cancer risk are things like: don't eat too much fat, eat lots of fiber, eat lots of crucifers (eg. broccoli), drink lots of water, don't overdo the processed foods, avoid nitrates and other carcinogenic preservatives. According to her cookbook, IIRC, she focused on eating organic whole vegan foods, which fit into the anti-cancer recommendations.
Actually, there have been recent studies linking breast cancer to environmental toxins, which are probably overlooked as a major cause of cancer (and one has little control over whether they grew up in the path airborn carinogens). Moreover, I belive that Linda McCartney was a photographer for much of her life, and since photographers spend as many late nights in the developing lab as geeks spend on the computer, I wouldn't be suprised if all those chemicals had something to do with it.
For all we know, she spent her teenage years slathered in baby oil, religiously sun-tanning herself into melainoma.
Bottom line, 2 celebrities make a pretty small sample
Prior experience in computer science is not and has never been an entrance requiement at CMU SCS. It may seem that way because it has gotten increasingly competitive over the years and the incomming freshmen know more every year (and think they know even more than that - incuding the ability to jude the qualifications of their peers - without the benifit of any of the information in thier applications;) But the intention has always been that a smart, creative person should be able to do well in the program - even if they weren't hacking 8086 in the womb. How do I know this? Because I've discussed this very topic with the undergraduate dean!
But ask yourself, honestly, if this percieved injustice doesn't affect your treatment of female classmates. As a woman who was admitted to CMU SCS on *excellent* qualifications, I had no time for those boys in my class who had snotty shitty attitudes for no good reason. However, some of the egos one encounters can be a blow to the self-esteem, and it can take some time and support to realize that it's all just hot air.
Sorry if this is a bit harsh, I'm in a hurry, no time to "nice it up"
User: I need this feature, can you do this for me?
Commerical software company: Sorry, no, that's not on our release schedule.
Open source software developer: Take the source and fix it yourself you idiot!
The end result in both cases? Same. Both say : Screw you, the user.
The big difference is that there isn't just one person/entitiy capable of making the code changes in the open source case. You can pay/pursuade any of thousands of individual developers (quality and price may vary), infuence/pressure the company you buy releases and support from, make your case to the general community or fix it yourself.
If the changes are truly general and worthwhile, a big/wealthy company who $pends on support should be able to get fixes/features from distributors like RedHat, and the fixes would be done responsibly. If the features/fixes suck, no one will adopt them and the user can keep their crappy code.
The small, idependent and/or poor will have to rely on the interest/kindness of others or learn to do it themselves, but at least they've got more options than trying to get the one owner of the closed source to hook them up.
Websites that are totally unusable without scripting will begin to feel some pressure to clean up their acts.
Obviously most "major" sites don't give a rat's ass if they piss off or exclude a few geeks who get all 'paranoied' about security - or worse yet, run some non Win OS or some non IE/NS browser. (OT: don't get me started on the ones that require flash)
We can only hope that if 'joe average' starts disabiling scripting and complaing about all the sites that no longer work, maybe, just maybe, the web will become a bit more 'geek-friendly'
That's still insulting, to claim that being non-white has the same effect on your college preparations that not having books as a kid does.
They didn't claim that it has the same effect, just that both can have a negative affect.
An upper-middle class black kid will have many advantages over a dirt-poor white kid in the college admissions game. But given a white and a minority kid of the same economic class, the white kid might be better off in some ways. Having been one of the few brown faces in mostly white schools, I can tell you first hand that being in the minority gets you noticed, for better or for worse. If you do well they notice right away, but if you slack off, that gets noticed immediately too.
Ummm, if you really don't want to offend anyone, you might want to back off of attributing a "ghetto" attiude to minorities. There are white, non-white, homogonous and diverse ghettos and there are bad attitudes in every economic class.
The study in the article was looking for ways to provide opportunities to disadvantaged and minority kids. One's economic class and parental education level are the greatest indicators of one's success on the SATs. There are many reasons for this, but the greatest infuence is quality of your schooling. Generally this is determined by the neighborhood you live in (schools are funded by property tax), mom and dad's ability to pay for private school and/or the education level of your parents (figure out how to get you into a better school against the odds, or homeschool you).
Moreover, in a really good school, the teachers and advisors tell you how important the SAT's are and how you should prepare, college educated parents would also inform their kids. In lesser schools and with uneducated parents, kids often have no clue about college or the college admissions process. Some kids know to explicitly study for the SATs and others don't.
But the big issue isn't the really smart kids with a good vocabulary who study really hard . They will get very high scores anyway, even if they do miss a few biased questions. Kids with 1400+ SAT's and high GPA's probably won't suffer from 20 points here or there. It's the kids in the 900-1200 range who could miss out on something if they miss a few extra questions.
Are you joking about the advantage of a larger sample group? It's not like only 5 black kids take the SAT on any given year:)
I can't think of any highschool english lit book that uses the word regatta, certianly not any on the AP english exam. Nor can I recall seeing it in any news or academic articles (except the ones that use it as an exapmle of a biased SAT word and local news in Boston during the big regatta). In which book would a highschooler pick this up? Most SAT words are fairly general purpose and can be seen frequently literature and non-fiction: superflous, penultimate, garrolus etc. Regatta is specialized sporting term and as such has limmited use anyway. I can't think of any instance in college (other than at crew practice) where I have ever used or witnessed the use of the word regatta.
Since sailing and rowing are sports who's participants and spectators are largely upper-middle class, it isn't suprising that a lot kids from weathy backgrounds know the word with no effort while few kids from poorer backrougnds know the word without a decent ammount of effort. Only the smartest, most well read land-locked poor kids would get the correct answer while even the dummest most un-educated rich kids would know it. How is that fair? So are we supposed to study boating, golf and tennis terms in our junior years to learn the valuble culture of the elites (if we weren't already raised with it)? Perhaps we should also incude hand ball, monster truck racing and pro-wrestling terms on the SAT as well?
You know what a regatta is, congrats, perhaps you're very smart and well read, how many other kids in your highschool class also knew/know what a regatta is? EVERYONE in my highschool class did, EVERYONE, even the kids who *never* read, the kids who skipped class to screw/drink/smoke in the cemetary, the dumbest of the dumb jocks, the nerdiest of the nerds... absolutely everyone knew and with zero effort!
The only math biasaes I can think of have to do with primary and secondary schools, not the actual test. Some schools have crappy math programs and others have 'tracking' where some students are encouraged to to take advanced math classes and others are sometimes discouraged. My husband went to a rual school in West Virgina where they didn't offer calculus at all. He had a really fucking hard time in his freshman engineering program. I had to fight and argue (and make my parents fight and argue) to get the chance to be in the top math classes (and no, the descision wasn't based on grades or test scores). And lets not forget that chicks and anyone who isn't confident of thier background are often very freaked out by the "smart-ass-obnoxious-know-it-alls" in the techie classes who routinely interup and demean their classmates. It takes a while to realize that they aren't nessecarily as smart as they think they are.
I have read things about some groups doing better on some kinds of problems than others, like chicks going better with word problems and guys doing better with fractions and asians doing better with abstract problems than with real life examples, but it seems that none of the math problems are inherently biased so, to me it isn't as much of an issue. I guess the word problems and anything involving measurement units could have some cultural bias.
Oh, and a breakhead is an off-shore pile of stones that protects the shore from big waves (i think).
And remember -- we did nothing to improve the chance of the kid's success in college -- only his chance of getting in. We didn't make them smarter, only better test takers.
Actually, you may have done more than you thought. For some of those kids, seeing successful adults up close, seeing that said adults are actually willing to make time for them, seeing that they have actually have the ability to affect their educational oppertunities... this impact on self-esteem on study-habits... knowldge that one can "work the system" if one learns the rules... exposure to people of a culture simmilar to the academics they'll encounter in school, in a more firendly, less intimidating context... all of this can have a meaningful impact on future success, perhaps more than you realize
I agree that quality primary and secondary education is the larger issue - which, given current funding models boils down to a class/ecomomic issue.
But since you've asked here are a few examples of race/class/gender/regional bias in the SAT:
In the vocabulary tests, like analogies, there are often words that have a distinct social class bias, such as regatta. Now, crew is a very expensive sport so poor kids are far less likely to know what a regatta is, even if they are extremely well read. But even the dumbest kids at my prep school knew about regattas. I think I've seen saling examples as well. I remember reading about one for castleing, and guys are far more likly to play chess, yet playing chess isn't a great college admissions standard. There have also been arguments about words w/ a regional bias, some kids never experience a snow drift or a breakhead.
To take it to an extreme, think about what would happen if football, hockey, stockmarket, basketball or sewing vocabulary, or words related to different music genres were on the tests. (guitar is to pedal as:)
There is decent linux support for HP's NETWORK printers.
The LJ4000 supports PS and PCL so I have no idea why you must resort to ascii. If you have a JetDirect card, you should be able to configure it under linux with WebJetAdmin. I don't know why someone would want to put a high end laser printer on a paralel port anyway. At any rate, your LJ4000 problems should be fixable.
The 697C is only supported for the desk top, it's lame that you can't get good *NIX support for the lower end printers, but the network printer software only supports network printers.
The article stated that there was a 2 year old Phillips CD player that wouldn't play the protected CD's. More than 1.5% of all CD users must have CD players that are more than a few years old. Especially since (non-portable) CD players don't wear out and there really havn't been any major advances in technology since the CD changers. If you bought a 5-100 disk changer CD player with remote control 5-10 years ago, malfunction would be the only reason to replace it. The number of non-compliant CD players must be at least 10%.
If new but really cheap CD players won't play them either, then maybe Wal-Mart will refuse to sell the protected CD's, "Hey, they piss off our el cheapo CD vendors", and then BMG will be really really sorry.
Since it remains to be seen whether GM will prove more dangerous that the usual assorment of pesticides, herbicides, preservatives, artifical flavors, colors and sweeteners, nitrates, hodrogenated fats, and random bits of pests found in our food supply - requireing lableing would be harsher than usual FDA behavior.
However, when they were forbiding labeling, that was a very scary and wierd thing. If Ben & Jerry want to state that their stuff is BGH free, why should our government stop them? That benefits no one but the BGH producers. What right does the government have to forbid truthful disclosure of ingredients and production methods?
There is no way that anyone can know what the long term affects, if any, will be. The technology simply hasn't been around long enough to know for sure. Some people feel the risk is negligable, others would prefer to use natural products (for some, such as rastas, it could be a religious nessecity), some people will enjoy the lower prices that this technology is supposed to bring, others would rather not support the GM companies. No matter what, if a vendor is willing to discose honest information about the production methods, the consumers have a right to hear it.
Since you mention transportation, I feel compelled to mention that Pittsburgh is a horrible city to bike in (2nd only to Manhattan in dangerous bikeing). They *never* fix the potholes, they are really slow about plowing the snow, and don't do the side streets (especially considering that there is both a state and *county* income tax).
I once got a $300 citation for riding my bicycle on the sidewalk outside of University of Pittsburgh (Pitt)!
Pitt was forced to discontinue their student shuttle because it "competed with the city bus".
And IIRC they have stupid anti-skateboarding laws as well.
(o.k. I posted it above, but it's releveant here as well)
Since you mention transportation, I feel compelled to mention that Pittsburgh is a horrible city to bike in (2nd only to Manhattan in dangerous bikeing). They *never* fix the potholes, they are really slow about plowing the snow, and don't do the side streets (especially considering that there is both a state and *city* income tax). And I once got a $300 citation for riding my bicycle on the sidewalk outside of University of Pittsburgh (Pitt)!
Pitt was forced to discontinue their student shuttle because it "competed with the city bus".
They can't fuck with the light/electric supply or else *we* won't be able to *see* them. They will have to have enough gas powered generators to last for the duration of the experiments. Moreover, the subjects really can't have access to the cameras and generators if there is an end-of-the-world-sim since the cast could mess up the broadcast or realize that it's a hoax, while trying to do something useful. Then again, I doubt that anyone in the cast will be the Proffessor. It's all Gilligan and Mary-Ann.
How do you know that her managers are male?
on
Medium Rare Quickies
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· Score: 2
I saw no mention of gender of the management or ownership of the phone sex company.
But whether she earned her $400 a week doing phone sex, data entry, as an entry level techie grunt, as a hair dresser or as a freakin' superhero, if she was sincerly injured on the job then the worker's comp insurance should cover her expenses. Or are only classy, intelectuals entitled to protection under the labor laws?
Note that I admit that I don't have any way of knowing whether her injuries are real, that's for the insurance company to debate. I still don't believe that they really mastrubate on the phone!
As someone else pointed out, they claim to have spent thousands of hours on what is essentially a fairly simple feature - adding the "one click" button to the UI and using cookies to determine the user (assuming the guts of "multi-click" shopping were already there). This makes it very likely that either their progammers aren't very good or their project management isn't very good, or both. And if so, the software's quality is questionable and therefore difficult to sell.
Then again, since their success isn't measured in actual profit, but rather in "percieved mindshare" inflating the stock price, they would prefer eliminating competitors to mearly making money off of them.
BTW, I totally agree that this patent mess is a Very Bad Thing(c). Moreover, I don't understand how or why these "concept" patents are granted in the first place. It's one thing to copyright the phrase "One click shopping" but it's another thing to patent the concept of not requiring a login to make an online purchase. It's equivalent to McDonalds not being content with copyrighting "SuperSize" and instead patenting the concept of offering food in a greater quantity for an small additional fee.
FYI... Adbusters was started by an ad-man who wanted to use his talents for "good" instead of "evil". A big part of their philosophy is using the tools of the dominant culture - advertising - to communicate progressive messages. Basically, if slick advertising is the "Lingua Franca" of our society, then slick ads are the best way to influence and impact the populus.
My favorite ad campaign is the one where they post billboards of in the style of the Marlbrough Man, where one rugged cowboy says to the other "I miss my lung, Bob."
BTW, Adbusters has had trouble buying air time, even when they have enough contributions to pay the fees. Many stations won't run their ads at any price, because they are "too anti-capitalist".
You might want to look at their site, it's really quite interesting.
because they focus on in-depth nity-gritty technical articles that one must take time to read and comprehend. Moreover, "how-to-code" info dosen't become stale over the course of a month or 2. That's why I prefer reading the DDJ stuff in print, just like I prefer reading textbooks in print. The mags that consist of "trend-spotting" and product reviews are better on-line where they are searchable and current. Especially since it only takes moment to skim the content out of them.
I took a class through SITN and while you can earn a degree that way, it does have some serious limmitations.
I took an OS class, which is very project oriented - group project oriented. There was no one in my town taking the class remotely at the time, so it was difficult to find a project group. Eventually I found one other person a few timezones away. He didn't have to pass the class, which can be a real motivation sink with such time consuming projects (to say the least).
Of course, taking an intense class like OS while working full time can get pretty miserable, especially if you work on most of the projects by yourself.
The TA's were very inaccessable, to the point where I had to complain to the program administrator (i.e. not responding to email within a week). If you're on campus, you can corner the TA's after class or stake out their offices, when you're a few hundred miles away, you're SOL.
I took my class through my job, which had a full time distance learning administrator to proctor exams, I'm not sure how that would work out if you were doing the classes independently.
It is more expensive than taking the class in person, you pay additional fees for the webcasts, administration, video tapes and priority shipping of tapes, exams etc (why they couldn't just e-mail me a damn ps file, i'll never know).
The webcasts were kinda lame, the "whiteboard" would be a copy of the class notes - which I had already downloaded a printed out anyway. And the video section was usually a 2" headshot of the proffessor, the videotapes were much better IMHO.
If you're gonna do the distance learning thing, NTU is another option. They offer distance learning classes from numerous universities, so you might get better class variety. You can also avoid classes with any universities that make distance learning a pain in the ass. They are also more expirienced with distance learning and (I think) a bit cheaper that Stanford.
http://www.ntu.edu/ntunew.html
Stanford is a great school, but one of the big advantages that you get going to a big name school is the research oppertunities. Since you won't be on campus, and won't be a full time student, you probably won't get to work in a proffessors research lab.
If you want to teach at the University level, you will eventually have to get a Phd. While you can get a BS or an MS online, you'll really have to show up in person for the Phd. One possiblity would be to do the MS at a school that you'd like to attend for the Phd, that may make things easier.
You could also consider doing a part time degree at a local school, even if it's not a great school. You'll be graded easier, have more slack for your work schedule and actually get individual attention form you profs and TA's. Having killer grades, reseach and recommendations from a podunk college might help you get into the grad school of your choice more than having o.k. grades, no research and no recommendations from a top shcool.
If that's the case, why don't they make a commitment to only using these "safer" mines, as a weaker form of the land mine ban?
If the US military is only using "smart" mines, they could easily make that idea clear, even in a 15 second sound bite. My guess is that our armed forces would like to have the option of using "dumb" mines, since they must be cheaper and certianly make a psycological impression on the civilians.
There is a big jump between the ability to make a "smart" mine and a committment to use it exclusively. Moreover, just because we can avoid civilian targets and deactivate mines after the war, dosen't mean that we will... it doesn't mean that we won't either... any treaty making exceptions for "smart" mines would have to spell out those terms.
Anyway, if you know of any committment to only using "smart" mines by the US armed forces, or know of any proposals for a land mine treaty revision that makes allowances for smart mines, I'd be interested in hearing about it.
btw... i never said that they ought to be banned, personally i'd prefer that all weapons be banned, but that ain't gonna happen anytime soon.
the whole concept of geneva conventions is kinda lost on me, in the revolutionary war, we're taught that the patriots were clever to adopt geurilla warfare against the antiquated, redcoats. our current M.O. is to bomb the living sh*t out of everything in our path (civillians and all) and then we complain that terrorism is unfair. like some little country is gonna out-bomb us or invade. i don't like terrorism, land mines or any other kind of warfare any more or less than any others, i pretty much dislike them all equally (well except for nukes and biological weapons, which can affect the entire population)
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There are a lot of causes of cancer - both known and unkonown. While smoking and poor diet are the most common causes, they are both unlikely in this case. As a non-smoker, it wasn't smoking that did her in. Simmilarly as a very healthy eater, it wasn't diet that did her in either (unless she lived on pork rinds and asbestos as a child?). The type of dietary changes that are reccommened to reduce cancer risk are things like: don't eat too much fat, eat lots of fiber, eat lots of crucifers (eg. broccoli), drink lots of water, don't overdo the processed foods, avoid nitrates and other carcinogenic preservatives. According to her cookbook, IIRC, she focused on eating organic whole vegan foods, which fit into the anti-cancer recommendations.
Actually, there have been recent studies linking breast cancer to environmental toxins, which are probably overlooked as a major cause of cancer (and one has little control over whether they grew up in the path airborn carinogens). Moreover, I belive that Linda McCartney was a photographer for much of her life, and since photographers spend as many late nights in the developing lab as geeks spend on the computer, I wouldn't be suprised if all those chemicals had something to do with it.
For all we know, she spent her teenage years slathered in baby oil, religiously sun-tanning herself into melainoma.
Bottom line, 2 celebrities make a pretty small sample
Prior experience in computer science is not and has never been an entrance requiement at CMU SCS. It may seem that way because it has gotten increasingly competitive over the years and the incomming freshmen know more every year (and think they know even more than that - incuding the ability to jude the qualifications of their peers - without the benifit of any of the information in thier applications ;) But the intention has always been that a smart, creative person should be able to do well in the program - even if they weren't hacking 8086 in the womb. How do I know this? Because I've discussed this very topic with the undergraduate dean!
But ask yourself, honestly, if this percieved injustice doesn't affect your treatment of female classmates. As a woman who was admitted to CMU SCS on *excellent* qualifications, I had no time for those boys in my class who had snotty shitty attitudes for no good reason. However, some of the egos one encounters can be a blow to the self-esteem, and it can take some time and support to realize that it's all just hot air.
Sorry if this is a bit harsh, I'm in a hurry, no time to "nice it up"
Commerical software company: Sorry, no, that's not on our release schedule.
Open source software developer: Take the source and fix it yourself you idiot!
The end result in both cases? Same. Both say : Screw you, the user.
The big difference is that there isn't just one person/entitiy capable of making the code changes in the open source case. You can pay/pursuade any of thousands of individual developers (quality and price may vary), infuence/pressure the company you buy releases and support from, make your case to the general community or fix it yourself.
If the changes are truly general and worthwhile, a big/wealthy company who $pends on support should be able to get fixes/features from distributors like RedHat, and the fixes would be done responsibly. If the features/fixes suck, no one will adopt them and the user can keep their crappy code.
The small, idependent and/or poor will have to rely on the interest/kindness of others or learn to do it themselves, but at least they've got more options than trying to get the one owner of the closed source to hook them up.
I'll be riding shotgun for LIFE!
"you can't call shotgun, i hold that trademark"
MWHOOHAHAHAA
Websites that are totally unusable without scripting will begin to feel some pressure to clean up their acts.
Obviously most "major" sites don't give a rat's ass if they piss off or exclude a few geeks who get all 'paranoied' about security - or worse yet, run some non Win OS or some non IE/NS browser. (OT: don't get me started on the ones that require flash)
We can only hope that if 'joe average' starts disabiling scripting and complaing about all the sites that no longer work, maybe, just maybe, the web will become a bit more 'geek-friendly'
EOR
They didn't claim that it has the same effect, just that both can have a negative affect.
An upper-middle class black kid will have many advantages over a dirt-poor white kid in the college admissions game. But given a white and a minority kid of the same economic class, the white kid might be better off in some ways. Having been one of the few brown faces in mostly white schools, I can tell you first hand that being in the minority gets you noticed, for better or for worse. If you do well they notice right away, but if you slack off, that gets noticed immediately too.
Ummm, if you really don't want to offend anyone, you might want to back off of attributing a "ghetto" attiude to minorities. There are white, non-white, homogonous and diverse ghettos and there are bad attitudes in every economic class.
:)
The study in the article was looking for ways to provide opportunities to disadvantaged and minority kids. One's economic class and parental education level are the greatest indicators of one's success on the SATs. There are many reasons for this, but the greatest infuence is quality of your schooling. Generally this is determined by the neighborhood you live in (schools are funded by property tax), mom and dad's ability to pay for private school and/or the education level of your parents (figure out how to get you into a better school against the odds, or homeschool you).
Moreover, in a really good school, the teachers and advisors tell you how important the SAT's are and how you should prepare, college educated parents would also inform their kids. In lesser schools and with uneducated parents, kids often have no clue about college or the college admissions process. Some kids know to explicitly study for the SATs and others don't.
But the big issue isn't the really smart kids with a good vocabulary who study really hard . They will get very high scores anyway, even if they do miss a few biased questions. Kids with 1400+ SAT's and high GPA's probably won't suffer from 20 points here or there. It's the kids in the 900-1200 range who could miss out on something if they miss a few extra questions.
Are you joking about the advantage of a larger sample group? It's not like only 5 black kids take the SAT on any given year
I can't think of any highschool english lit book that uses the word regatta, certianly not any on the AP english exam. Nor can I recall seeing it in any news or academic articles (except the ones that use it as an exapmle of a biased SAT word and local news in Boston during the big regatta). In which book would a highschooler pick this up? Most SAT words are fairly general purpose and can be seen frequently literature and non-fiction: superflous, penultimate, garrolus etc. Regatta is specialized sporting term and as such has limmited use anyway. I can't think of any instance in college (other than at crew practice) where I have ever used or witnessed the use of the word regatta.
... absolutely everyone knew and with zero effort!
Since sailing and rowing are sports who's participants and spectators are largely upper-middle class, it isn't suprising that a lot kids from weathy backgrounds know the word with no effort while few kids from poorer backrougnds know the word without a decent ammount of effort. Only the smartest, most well read land-locked poor kids would get the correct answer while even the dummest most un-educated rich kids would know it. How is that fair? So are we supposed to study boating, golf and tennis terms in our junior years to learn the valuble culture of the elites (if we weren't already raised with it)? Perhaps we should also incude hand ball, monster truck racing and pro-wrestling terms on the SAT as well?
You know what a regatta is, congrats, perhaps you're very smart and well read, how many other kids in your highschool class also knew/know what a regatta is? EVERYONE in my highschool class did, EVERYONE, even the kids who *never* read, the kids who skipped class to screw/drink/smoke in the cemetary, the dumbest of the dumb jocks, the nerdiest of the nerds
The only math biasaes I can think of have to do with primary and secondary schools, not the actual test. Some schools have crappy math programs and others have 'tracking' where some students are encouraged to to take advanced math classes and others are sometimes discouraged. My husband went to a rual school in West Virgina where they didn't offer calculus at all. He had a really fucking hard time in his freshman engineering program. I had to fight and argue (and make my parents fight and argue) to get the chance to be in the top math classes (and no, the descision wasn't based on grades or test scores). And lets not forget that chicks and anyone who isn't confident of thier background are often very freaked out by the "smart-ass-obnoxious-know-it-alls" in the techie classes who routinely interup and demean their classmates. It takes a while to realize that they aren't nessecarily as smart as they think they are.
I have read things about some groups doing better on some kinds of problems than others, like chicks going better with word problems and guys doing better with fractions and asians doing better with abstract problems than with real life examples, but it seems that none of the math problems are inherently biased so, to me it isn't as much of an issue. I guess the word problems and anything involving measurement units could have some cultural bias.
Oh, and a breakhead is an off-shore pile of stones that protects the shore from big waves (i think).
Actually, you may have done more than you thought. For some of those kids, seeing successful adults up close, seeing that said adults are actually willing to make time for them, seeing that they have actually have the ability to affect their educational oppertunities
I agree that quality primary and secondary education is the larger issue - which, given current funding models boils down to a class/ecomomic issue.
But since you've asked here are a few examples of race/class/gender/regional bias in the SAT:
In the vocabulary tests, like analogies, there are often words that have a distinct social class bias, such as regatta. Now, crew is a very expensive sport so poor kids are far less likely to know what a regatta is, even if they are extremely well read. But even the dumbest kids at my prep school knew about regattas. I think I've seen saling examples as well. I remember reading about one for castleing, and guys are far more likly to play chess, yet playing chess isn't a great college admissions standard. There have also been arguments about words w/ a regional bias, some kids never experience a snow drift or a breakhead.
To take it to an extreme, think about what would happen if football, hockey, stockmarket, basketball or sewing vocabulary, or words related to different music genres were on the tests. (guitar is to pedal as:)
There is decent linux support for HP's NETWORK printers.
The LJ4000 supports PS and PCL so I have no idea why you must resort to ascii. If you have a JetDirect card, you should be able to configure it under linux with WebJetAdmin. I don't know why someone would want to put a high end laser printer on a paralel port anyway. At any rate, your LJ4000 problems should be fixable.
The 697C is only supported for the desk top, it's lame that you can't get good *NIX support for the lower end printers, but the network printer software only supports network printers.
HP's WebJetAdmin is network printer config/management software that supports RedHat.
Actually, HP's base network printer drivers are mostly shell scripts - which are perfectly readable. Copyrighted, but readable and editable.
Last time I checked, you could download them for free off of the HP site.
Local print drivers are another story, but any printer with really really cool features should be networked anyway.
The article stated that there was a 2 year old Phillips CD player that wouldn't play the protected CD's. More than 1.5% of all CD users must have CD players that are more than a few years old. Especially since (non-portable) CD players don't wear out and there really havn't been any major advances in technology since the CD changers. If you bought a 5-100 disk changer CD player with remote control 5-10 years ago, malfunction would be the only reason to replace it. The number of non-compliant CD players must be at least 10%.
If new but really cheap CD players won't play them either, then maybe Wal-Mart will refuse to sell the protected CD's, "Hey, they piss off our el cheapo CD vendors", and then BMG will be really really sorry.
Since it remains to be seen whether GM will prove more dangerous that the usual assorment of pesticides, herbicides, preservatives, artifical flavors, colors and sweeteners, nitrates, hodrogenated fats, and random bits of pests found in our food supply - requireing lableing would be harsher than usual FDA behavior.
However, when they were forbiding labeling, that was a very scary and wierd thing. If Ben & Jerry want to state that their stuff is BGH free, why should our government stop them? That benefits no one but the BGH producers. What right does the government have to forbid truthful disclosure of ingredients and production methods?
There is no way that anyone can know what the long term affects, if any, will be. The technology simply hasn't been around long enough to know for sure. Some people feel the risk is negligable, others would prefer to use natural products (for some, such as rastas, it could be a religious nessecity), some people will enjoy the lower prices that this technology is supposed to bring, others would rather not support the GM companies. No matter what, if a vendor is willing to discose honest information about the production methods, the consumers have a right to hear it.
Since you mention transportation, I feel compelled to mention that Pittsburgh is a horrible city to bike in (2nd only to Manhattan in dangerous bikeing). They *never* fix the potholes, they are really slow about plowing the snow, and don't do the side streets (especially considering that there is both a state and *county* income tax).
I once got a $300 citation for riding my bicycle on the sidewalk outside of University of Pittsburgh (Pitt)!
Pitt was forced to discontinue their student shuttle because it "competed with the city bus".
And IIRC they have stupid anti-skateboarding laws as well.
(o.k. I posted it above, but it's releveant here as well)
Since you mention transportation, I feel compelled to mention that Pittsburgh is a horrible city to bike in (2nd only to Manhattan in dangerous bikeing). They *never* fix the potholes, they are really slow about plowing the snow, and don't do the side streets (especially considering that there is both a state and *city* income tax). And I once got a $300 citation for riding my bicycle on the sidewalk outside of University of Pittsburgh (Pitt)!
Pitt was forced to discontinue their student shuttle because it "competed with the city bus".
They can't fuck with the light/electric supply or else *we* won't be able to *see* them. They will have to have enough gas powered generators to last for the duration of the experiments. Moreover, the subjects really can't have access to the cameras and generators if there is an end-of-the-world-sim since the cast could mess up the broadcast or realize that it's a hoax, while trying to do something useful. Then again, I doubt that anyone in the cast will be the Proffessor. It's all Gilligan and Mary-Ann.
I saw no mention of gender of the management or ownership of the phone sex company.
But whether she earned her $400 a week doing phone sex, data entry, as an entry level techie grunt, as a hair dresser or as a freakin' superhero, if she was sincerly injured on the job then the worker's comp insurance should cover her expenses. Or are only classy, intelectuals entitled to protection under the labor laws?
Note that I admit that I don't have any way of knowing whether her injuries are real, that's for the insurance company to debate. I still don't believe that they really mastrubate on the phone!
As someone else pointed out, they claim to have spent thousands of hours on what is essentially a fairly simple feature - adding the "one click" button to the UI and using cookies to determine the user (assuming the guts of "multi-click" shopping were already there). This makes it very likely that either their progammers aren't very good or their project management isn't very good, or both. And if so, the software's quality is questionable and therefore difficult to sell.
Then again, since their success isn't measured in actual profit, but rather in "percieved mindshare" inflating the stock price, they would prefer eliminating competitors to mearly making money off of them.
BTW, I totally agree that this patent mess is a Very Bad Thing(c). Moreover, I don't understand how or why these "concept" patents are granted in the first place. It's one thing to copyright the phrase "One click shopping" but it's another thing to patent the concept of not requiring a login to make an online purchase. It's equivalent to McDonalds not being content with copyrighting "SuperSize" and instead patenting the concept of offering food in a greater quantity for an small additional fee.
FYI ... Adbusters was started by an ad-man who wanted to use his talents for "good" instead of "evil". A big part of their philosophy is using the tools of the dominant culture - advertising - to communicate progressive messages. Basically, if slick advertising is the "Lingua Franca" of our society, then slick ads are the best way to influence and impact the populus.
My favorite ad campaign is the one where they post billboards of in the style of the Marlbrough Man, where one rugged cowboy says to the other "I miss my lung, Bob."
BTW, Adbusters has had trouble buying air time, even when they have enough contributions to pay the fees. Many stations won't run their ads at any price, because they are "too anti-capitalist".
You might want to look at their site, it's really quite interesting.
because they focus on in-depth nity-gritty technical articles that one must take time to read and comprehend. Moreover, "how-to-code" info dosen't become stale over the course of a month or 2. That's why I prefer reading the DDJ stuff in print, just like I prefer reading textbooks in print. The mags that consist of "trend-spotting" and product reviews are better on-line where they are searchable and current. Especially since it only takes moment to skim the content out of them.
I took a class through SITN and while you can earn a degree that way, it does have some serious limmitations.
I took an OS class, which is very project oriented - group project oriented. There was no one in my town taking the class remotely at the time, so it was difficult to find a project group. Eventually I found one other person a few timezones away. He didn't have to pass the class, which can be a real motivation sink with such time consuming projects (to say the least).
Of course, taking an intense class like OS while working full time can get pretty miserable, especially if you work on most of the projects by yourself.
The TA's were very inaccessable, to the point where I had to complain to the program administrator (i.e. not responding to email within a week). If you're on campus, you can corner the TA's after class or stake out their offices, when you're a few hundred miles away, you're SOL.
I took my class through my job, which had a full time distance learning administrator to proctor exams, I'm not sure how that would work out if you were doing the classes independently.
It is more expensive than taking the class in person, you pay additional fees for the webcasts, administration, video tapes and priority shipping of tapes, exams etc (why they couldn't just e-mail me a damn ps file, i'll never know).
The webcasts were kinda lame, the "whiteboard" would be a copy of the class notes - which I had already downloaded a printed out anyway. And the video section was usually a 2" headshot of the proffessor, the videotapes were much better IMHO.
If you're gonna do the distance learning thing, NTU is another option. They offer distance learning classes from numerous universities, so you might get better class variety. You can also avoid classes with any universities that make distance learning a pain in the ass. They are also more expirienced with distance learning and (I think) a bit cheaper that Stanford.
http://www.ntu.edu/ntunew.html
Stanford is a great school, but one of the big advantages that you get going to a big name school is the research oppertunities. Since you won't be on campus, and won't be a full time student, you probably won't get to work in a proffessors research lab.
If you want to teach at the University level, you will eventually have to get a Phd. While you can get a BS or an MS online, you'll really have to show up in person for the Phd. One possiblity would be to do the MS at a school that you'd like to attend for the Phd, that may make things easier.
You could also consider doing a part time degree at a local school, even if it's not a great school. You'll be graded easier, have more slack for your work schedule and actually get individual attention form you profs and TA's. Having killer grades, reseach and recommendations from a podunk college might help you get into the grad school of your choice more than having o.k. grades, no research and no recommendations from a top shcool.
Good Luck!
If that's the case, why don't they make a commitment to only using these "safer" mines, as a weaker form of the land mine ban?
... it doesn't mean that we won't either ... any treaty making exceptions for "smart" mines would have to spell out those terms.
... i never said that they ought to be banned, personally i'd prefer that all weapons be banned, but that ain't gonna happen anytime soon.
If the US military is only using "smart" mines, they could easily make that idea clear, even in a 15 second sound bite. My guess is that our armed forces would like to have the option of using "dumb" mines, since they must be cheaper and certianly make a psycological impression on the civilians.
There is a big jump between the ability to make a "smart" mine and a committment to use it exclusively. Moreover, just because we can avoid civilian targets and deactivate mines after the war, dosen't mean that we will
Anyway, if you know of any committment to only using "smart" mines by the US armed forces, or know of any proposals for a land mine treaty revision that makes allowances for smart mines, I'd be interested in hearing about it.
btw
the whole concept of geneva conventions is kinda lost on me, in the revolutionary war, we're taught that the patriots were clever to adopt geurilla warfare against the antiquated, redcoats. our current M.O. is to bomb the living sh*t out of everything in our path (civillians and all) and then we complain that terrorism is unfair. like some little country is gonna out-bomb us or invade. i don't like terrorism, land mines or any other kind of warfare any more or less than any others, i pretty much dislike them all equally (well except for nukes and biological weapons, which can affect the entire population)