(Disclaimer: While I do not work on that project, I am a member of the department)
You seriously underestimate the limitations of neural network modeling on current hardware. Rate based models, in which each neuron is defined by a few differential equations, practically max out (meaning a basic parameter test takes over an hour) at about 1 million neurons. The most accurate models of neurons, which often have 10k+ compartments, max out under 10 neurons. Understanding the detailed dynamics of large, accurate neural networks is going to require specialized hardware. Since the current HP hardware needs neural network like behavior to handle manufacturing defects, it's a win-win research situation. One other note about the memory and bandwidth issues: remember that its hard to beat the bandwidth of a backpack full of hard drives over most distances. The memristor based architecture is similar, in that the memristor part of the chip will be running at a few hundred hertz (any faster than that and you blow up the chip) but if you can modify every 'synapse' in every cycle, it gives you killer bandwidth for simulating things like large scale neural networks.
Well, of course, he did win the Richard W. Hamming Medal 16 years later. I think the issue with Hamming is that he was so productive, and at the forefront of the field for so long, that he never settled into the "grand old man" role that tends to attract awards. I have a pet theory that for most researchers, winning big awards is a signal of their decline, because the politics of award committees means that its rare for somebody who still publishes controversial and original research to survive the nomination process. I mean, he wasn't even voted to be an IEEE fellow until 18 years after he published the Hamming code! His career was so successful in so many areas that it took some time for the applied mathematics community that all these really interesting little ideas in their own fields were the result of an avalanche of singular proportions.
Hamming clearly intended to do this, and often contrasted himself with Shannon. He categorized his approach in a talk called "You and Your research" delivered at Bell labs in 1986, which I'd highly recommend to any researcher who hasn't seen it.
Teenagers who have a social life that is driven by peer validation, rather than, say, quality of social interaction or deep interest in a certain activity, are more likely to have sex and/or engage in risk taking behaviors in an attempt to impress those peers. I remember when I was growing up, parents were being warned about teenagers spending more than an hour a night on the phone being the cause of all types of 'naughty' 'nefarious' activity. In previous decades it was probably the kids who went to outdoor concerts, or the kids always heading up to a lovers lane or old quarry to drink. In the Victorian era these people were called dandies. The technology is essentially irrelevant, so long as that segment of the population exists, they'll do whatever is 'in thing.'
A 'social life' is not a one size fits all label. There are very, very few non-social people in the world, which is the main reason solitary confinement drives people nuts--it's that the value each person places on different types of social interaction varies enormously.
That reminds me of an anecdote about genetic algorithms that Rick Riolo (U. Michigan) told during a complex systems seminar. He was part of a team in the 80s that was trying to use GA's to find the most fuel efficient autopilot possible for a specific airplane. They configured an industry standard simulation environment with a realistic gamut of weather conditions, etc etc. and left the GA running for a few weeks. When they came back, they were surprised to find all the surviving autopilots had more fuel than the plane started with: the GA had found a bug in the simulator.
Pawan Sinha runs Project Prakash which goes into rural areas of India where treatment for congenital cataracts is not generally available. They do the surgery, for free, and in some cases ask the recipient whether they would like to contribute to the research program, which tracks how patients learn to see after the surgery [pdf]. The oldest person to receive the surgery was 29, and has had limited recovery of visual acuity. Children under the age of 6 typically have excellent prognoses following the surgery. See Pawan's TED talk here.
Well, thanks to the extra information, you've brought to light police overstepping their authority twice, rather than once, if "wearing a backpack and having a lawyer's number written on her arm" is cause for arrest.
As is mentioned in your second link, the only party with the standing to challenge a President Elect's eligibility is Congress, who get to decide what makes a natural born citizen in the first place, so the whole issue is basically moot. The clause was originally intended to prevent roving cadet branches of European royal families from trying to set up shop in the US (see eg: the Second Mexican Empire). Given the minuscule chance of that type of situation arising in the present day, I'm personally in favor of replacing the natural born citizen requirement with 20 years of citizenship and let the people decide if native birth matters.
Arbitration is useful in many circumstances.. just not when it's in one-sided contracts. My grandfather, for example, served as an arbiter for quite a few years after he retired. Most of the disputes he presided over had to do with local business disputes over payment, quality of goods, etc.. they were too large to be adjudicated in small claims court, and too small for it to make sense paying lawyers for full blown civil litigation. Sometimes there initially would be a court filing, and the judge would recommend the parties go to arbitration instead since it would be cheaper for both, in which case most of the time the parties both go and select a mutually acceptable arbiter.
The main problem with arbitration occurs when one party gets to choose the arbiter, which leads to moral hazards and conflicts of interest. Even consumer-corporation binding arbitration would not ipso-facto be a bad thing, so long as the consumer had equal say in choosing the arbiter (which would tend towards local arbiters). The two problems with binding arbitration in the consumer contract world is that the corporation chooses the arbitration firm, and the locale. This means that it's often no cheaper for the consumer to go into arbitration than it would be for them to sue (since say, they live in Kansas and the arbitration firm is in California), while the corporation can put a lot of pressure on the arbitration firm to find in their favor as the price of continued business.
As long as arbitration remains essentially local, and the arbiter is mutually acceptable to both parties, it's often a lot cheaper while being just as equitable as a civil tort (more so in some cases, since you can pick an arbiter that has expert field knowledge, rather than hoping the judge is a quick learner).
A point which I haven't seen mentioned: This guy (according to the Olbermann interview) HAS homeowners insurance, including fire coverage! Why wasn't the insurance company allowed to pay the fee for him? (or, if they were why didn't they?) And why wasn't the insurance company allowed to separately contract with the city fire department to provide fire-fighting services for their policy holders (this is the way firefighting was funded in most of the US prior to the civil war)?
Setting up a situation where somebody (intentionally or inadvertently) not paying a $75 fee can cause tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars in damage and fees for themselves, their neighbors (at least one had direct property damage) and the other policy holders of the insurance company is stupid and unjustifiable regardless of moral, political or economic perspective.
You might want to check out: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_firefighting Publicly funded firefighting has been a comparatively recent idea, especially in the US (Cincinnati established the first funded, full-time professional brigade in 1853) . And the extension of professional firefighting brigades to non-urban areas in the US has happened mostly post-WWII.
There is no significant difference in latency or duration for vertical vs. horizontal saccades (eg: see ), and you're dead wrong about reading speed: In English, the optimal column width for fast reading is somewhere between 50 and 100 characters per line, depending on exact circumstances.
However, there are two other relevant facts: 1) The lower visual hemifield has a larger cortical representation than the upper visual hemifield, and shows modest improvements in visual performance (this is unsurprising, since our hands/tools/ground near us is usually in our lower hemifield) and 2) We can move our head side-to-side more rapidly, and with a larger range of motion than we can up and down, which changes some saccade distributions.
Irregardless of the mechanics of the situation, reading is a highly trained activity, and direction of reading is not universal. Chinese, for instance, can be read top-to-bottom, or with either horizontal possibility as the initial direction, with the reader cued by slightly differing strokes and punctuation . I'm not aware of any bottom-to-top sequential reading in any culture, which is probably due to the above mentioned processing differences. However, there are also mixed reading sequences that use multiple horizontal and vertical elements in a single block, like Mayan hieroglyphs (2x2 blocks LR->TB within block, blocks are read TB->LR ) or the Korean Hangul system (variety of block sizes, read TB->RL). Arguably, the latter systems are most efficient in terms of leveraging the early geometry of the visual system (log-polar, with resolution dropping exponentially with distance from the fovea.
I assume what the original poster means by pseudo-capitalism is that there is state control over certain sectors of the economy, and intervention in others (often at the whim of party officials with greased palms). In particular, this means that China has systematically undervalued their currency by ~20-40% against the dollar. This has several effects, the most obvious being that it substantially increases the competitiveness of China's exports (and cost of imports). This benefits a specific group of well connected industries in China, which among others are the mining and dirty manufacturing industries that are depleting China's natural resources and exporting them as quickly as they can. The trade-off domestically however, is that it decreases the buying power of the average worker considerably and leads to inflation. It leads to inflation because to maintain the undervaluation, China's central bank has to intervene in the currency markets and buy dollars to prevent the Yuan from appreciating, which increases the domestic money supply. By having to buy dollars (ie: US treasuries) China is essentially stuck buying huge amounts of US debt as long as it wants to maintain the export edge from having an undervalued currency (which is causing huge domestic pressures within China, there have been quite a few labor riots and urban-rural tension in the past few years). This has two effects on the US: one is that it keeps interest rates low and our debt cheap, the other is that it makes our exports 20-40% more expensive, costing the US at least a million jobs (most estimates are about 1.2m) at present.
So China is stuck with a dilemma: they can't become a first world country until they let their currency float, because their average citizens have reduced buying power. But they can't let their currency float until they have an economy that is sufficiently robust that it doesn't require a 20-40% import tariff/export subsidy (which is what the currency manipulation is doing), which means developing a domestic market under conditions of high inflation (currently ~8%) and high interest rates (currently 5.3%). And they have to do it before resource pressure (particularly food, water and pollution) overcomes economic growth, while funding a large chunk of the US current account deficit in the mean time. If China doesn't manage that, then both the current government and the economy collapses, and China goes through another cycle of regionalism and stagnation (and if China does manage it, we're probably looking at a world war over scarce resources).
It depends on your definition of phalanx.. is the key factor the overlapping shields, many ranks deep with close order, fighting in a single line or using spears? In the classical hoplite phalanx met all four criteria, with everybody fully armored in bronze, each soldier had a spear (~10ft) and short thrusting sword, and were typically arranged between 6 and 24 men deep with the most experienced soldiers in the front and the back rows (to prevent less experienced soldiers from fleeing). Battles were typically decided by whose front rank broke first, which was more a function of pushing from behind than individual skill up front. It was not uncommon for bodies to be wedged upright from the pressure until one side broke. The spears were essentially double tipped, which would give you two shots if you're spear broke, which was fairly common. The hoplite was named for his shield, the hoplon, which was large, and and designed to overlap with his neighbors, making a shield wall. As the Greek empires expanded into Thrace and Asia minor, where most of the soldiers were likely to be professional rather than land-owning citizens, the amount of armor was decreased while the spear grew in length. This made the formation cheaper and more maneuverable, but these phalanxes had to be supported by sling and javelin equipped auxiliary troops since there armor wasn't sufficient to protect against ranged attack.
That eventually evolved into the Macedonian phalanx (by way of Thebes), where professional, drilled soldiers wearing breastplates and chain skirts, who carried ~18ft pikes and short swords in an 8-deep formation. They were drilled to not let opposing infantry close under their pikes, and as long as they could do this, they were extremely effective. However, due to the size of their spears, they used much smaller shields, which did not fully overlap (so fit 3 of the 4 possible criteria). Back rank soldiers holding their pikes upright or at an angle also served to break up incoming missile fire. The problem with these formations was they were not very maneuverable, and their cohesion could be broken up by rough terrain. This was fine for the Macedonians, who used phalanxes to hold enemy infantry in place while their cavalry flanked it, but ran into problems when they were used by Greek armies without excellent cavalry or skirmisher support.
The early roman legions were essentially an evolution against phalanx and shield wall formations employed by the Italian tribes. Originally legions were arranged into three cohorts: hastati (poorest, youngest and least experienced, with usually without full armor), principes (prime troops, usually equipped with chain mail) and triarii (veteran solders, all excellently equipped). Prior to the Polybian reforms, all these troops fought with hastae (short spears, ~7ft) and the gladius short swords. The main difference was the organization: instead of having one line of phalanx, the Roman formation was organized into three lines (hastati, principes, triarii) in which each line was further subdivided into 60 or 120 man units who fought as shallow (6 ranks) phalanxes, with large overlapping 'scuta' shields (this also fits 3 of the 4 criteria). The enemy would first have to fight through the hastati, who retired behind the principes, and then if necessary the triarii. The main advantage of this formation was that the front-line of troops didn't have to fight throughout the battle, and it was easier to keep small units together while maneuvering. These formations turned out to be ineffective against Macedonian and Carthaginian phalanxes, so Polybius reformed them so that the hastati and principes carried several pilums (throwing javelins) rather than thrusting spears, which could break up the Macedonian phalanxes from beyond the range of their pikes and allow the shallow Roman formations to close quickly, or flank as required. The Triarii still fought as a traditional phalanx. This essentially replaced the pike with a longer ranged weapon, without changing the essence of the close order form
You're description of debt is incredibly small minded. Ever heard the expression: "If you owe the bank $100, the bank owns you. If you owe the bank $100,000,000, you own the bank."? It's essentially true. Right now and in the mid-term, we have China over a barrel because of how much we owe them, in dollar denominated debt. They can't stop lending to us or the renminbi appreciates against the dollar they lose economic competitiveness while we gain it (same thing with the Euro, since Germany is also an export economy). Why did Wall Street get bailed out without the bond holders taking a haircut? Because the bond-holders generally are pension funds (public and private), large mutual funds etc. i.e: the retirement funds for the middle-class. Wall street has Main street over the barrel in exactly the same way: once you lend too much, you lose control of the borrower.
Debt is certainly a domestic problem in the US, in the sense that until mortgage debt overhang in particular diminishes there won't be a robust upswing in demand. But US sovereign debt level is not going to be a problem for a long time, if ever. About the most realistic (e.g. considers the macro effects, financial system stability, currency and capital flow issues) estimate I've seen comes from Harold James' book, and boils down to many decades in the worst case. As such, it would be a smart idea to alleviate the domestic personal debt problem by transferring it into sovereign debt, to get demand and economic growth and employment back on track. But unfortunately the debate is dominated in Washington by people who can't understand debt beyond of the context of their credit card and/or are more concerned about moralizing the personal responsibility to repay than they are with fixing the economy.
Where are the "general" conclusions mentioned? One great thing about PNAS is that it's free, so no issues with the pdf (which hasn't stopped strange speculation).
The study makes limited claims which are consistent with the experimental approach, which is "within population."
Yes, they are 'biased' in the sense that they ask a 'within population' rather than 'whole population' question. There seems to be this idea percolating around/. that 'perfect studies' are possible (demanding TOTAL explanation of the variance). They are not. This study, analyzes the sample: Players of the game "Pardus" on "Artemis" who have interacted with at least one other player during the first 445 days of the game's existence. They make no claim about the general population, but merely remark upon the social interactions measurable within the population of their data set. The specious speculation you provide is outside of the purview of the study.
Ignoring the theoretical issues, which have been addressed above, I'd like to point out that US warships have defense-in-depth. Anything with a chrome, or other reflective coating is going to be extremely easy to detect and track using radar at long range, and therefore be engaged by the warship's surface to air missiles long before point-defense lasers like this are going to be useful.
Thanks for the explanation. I'm fairly sure your detailed numbers are wrong, but the crux of the point is clear: blood comes back to the heart relatively deoxygenated. If there less oxygen than is normal (or predicted?) enters the blood at that point, then deoxygenated blood goes immediately to the brain, which is under the level needed to support a conscious state and leads to rapid blackout within seconds.
Indeed. Luckily for both liberals and libertarians, Fascism never got the type of credible intellectual backing necessary to take off in the US initially. But at some point the libertarian instincts and political conservatism clashed I quote:
Buckley wrote that Republicans "will have to support large armies and air forces, atomic energy, central intelligence, war production boards, and the attendant centralization of power in Washington -- even with Truman at the reins of it all." Buckley's National Review became a central outlet for such opinions. In response to libertarian critics, Buckley explained, "National security is a proper concern for the libertarian because without it he stands to lose -- in this case -- all his freedom."
Once that link was made, between the military-industrial complex and 'conservative' ideology in the US, they produced a synergistic and mature version of Fascism that still guides the Republican party in the US. They learned how to make voters ignore their economic interests through, to quote you:
us[ing] nationalism and a myth of peoples to reject rationalism and use a spirit of the people to achieve greatness.
To me, this seems to be a very mature and sophisticated form of Fascism, that certainly is consistent with the idea of 'corporate rule'. As an example, I would hold up the United States Chamber of Commerce, a lobbying organization that used to work with State and Local Chambers to support small business. Now, when small business throughout the country are experiencing severe problems, they trot out this [pdf], which includes tax breaks for corporations who offshore jobs, and nothing to get banks lending to small business.
Are democrats the answer to this? No, since they specialize in spending billions to shoot themselves in the foot, repeatedly, with a shotgun. But until the Republicans have cut spending (never done in my lifetime) I'll choose spending for the little guy over the big guy.
Under the right conditions, a lung-full of zero (or less than 12%) oxygen gas will ensure that you are unconscious before you hit the ground.
I've heard quotes like this quite often, but don't understand the mechanism. I can hold my breath in excess of a minute. Residual blood oxygen supplies can keep the brain alive for about 15 minutes with CPR. How is it that breathing in a breath of 'bad air' that has low oxygen content causes loss consciousness so quickly?
I think it's a bit more insidious than you describe. The problem is that various entities (starting with cigarette companies) realized that they could lobby and shape public opinion more effectively if they sponsored ostensibly scientific research. It's difficult enough to describe complicated scientific ideas in simple language by omitting the complexities without saying anything that is wrong -- and when you're suddenly competing with 'scientists' who have no such compunctions and are willing to lie to espouse a single point it becomes impossible. And this is before we consider the complexity of modern public relations and media dynamics, which require a whole different set of expertise to navigate, much less exploit.
So now we're in this strange environment, where real science speaks through the public defender.. erm, I mean science journalist.. and the pseudo-scientific special interests groom the 'data' and the message together. So, what does the American Academy (which was specifically founded to deal with this type of issue) have to say about it?
Scientists and the public both share a responsibility for the divide. Scientists and technical experts sometimes take for granted that their work will be viewed as ultimately serving the public good. Members of the public can react viscerally and along ideological lines, but they can also raise important issues that deserve consideration.
Mostly irrelevant.. How does this attention from the public arise without special interests and the media who caters to them? At that point pseudo-intellectual confusion has been deliberately produced by special interests to feed a visceral reaction regardless of veracity of the science involved.
Scientific issues require an “anticipatory approach.” A diverse group of stakeholders — research scientists, social scientists, public engagement experts, and skilled communicators — should collaborate early to identify potential scientific controversies and the best method to address resulting public concerns.
Taken at face value, this is a great idea. But where's the funding? Simply because the group of stakeholders is so diverse, and the opposition for any "specific controversy" (eg. smoking and cancer) so specific and intense, is this at all practical? Especially given the fact that once it's a "potential" controversy, special interests will be spending like crazy?
Communications solutions differ significantly depending on whether a scientific issue has been around for a long time (e.g., how to dispose of nuclear waste) or is relatively new (e.g., the spread of personal genetic information). In the case of longstanding controversies, social scientists may have had the opportunity to conduct research on public views that can inform communication strategies. For emerging technologies, there will be less reliable analysis available of public attitudes.
This highlights the problem that science has: any new finding that conflicts with a current industry is going to be subjected to withering, ostensibly scientific criticism, until it is controversial regardless of the fields previous status. The current interests will try to re-frame the debate into language that has not been previously studied by social scientists, which if successful supersedes their research. In the case of emerging technologies of course, there nothing stopping industry or other special interests from running amok until they get caught.
Since the current conundrum is due in large part to the vigorous and successful attack by the post-Nixon republican party over the last 40 years in the US (and yes, I'm fully aware the left cherry picks data all over the place, but they don't pay as many people to make it up), I doubt there is a simple way of reconstituting trust of scientists in general within the current media environment. But the great thing about science, is that it always has a potential to push the reset button on the status-quo through a massive discovery.
As an academic, the first place I look in a paper with which I lack familiarity is the bibliography. It tells me what issues the authors feel they can confidently comment or revise upon in the text.
You cite the paper as a debunking of Keynesian theories. But they do not cite any of the relevant literature: therefore, the authors do not feel that their results support a direct critical comment on Keynes (else they would have cited him).
Peer review means only that. And when the peers are chasing unicorns, it's wise to be skeptical... Which is why I though it pertinent to mention that they are BSchool people.
But to address your specific point: when short term interests rates are at 0, few of the generally accepted economic equilibria hold true. Any policy papers that don't address that rare condition are irrelevant at this time BECAUSE ZERO INTEREST FUCKS NEARLY ANY ECONOMIC EQUILIBRIUM EQUATION EVER DEVISED. And thus, you're peer reviewed paper is irrelevant to the current situation.
Slashdot Mirror
(Disclaimer: While I do not work on that project, I am a member of the department)
You seriously underestimate the limitations of neural network modeling on current hardware. Rate based models, in which each neuron is defined by a few differential equations, practically max out (meaning a basic parameter test takes over an hour) at about 1 million neurons. The most accurate models of neurons, which often have 10k+ compartments, max out under 10 neurons. Understanding the detailed dynamics of large, accurate neural networks is going to require specialized hardware. Since the current HP hardware needs neural network like behavior to handle manufacturing defects, it's a win-win research situation. One other note about the memory and bandwidth issues: remember that its hard to beat the bandwidth of a backpack full of hard drives over most distances. The memristor based architecture is similar, in that the memristor part of the chip will be running at a few hundred hertz (any faster than that and you blow up the chip) but if you can modify every 'synapse' in every cycle, it gives you killer bandwidth for simulating things like large scale neural networks.
Well, of course, he did win the Richard W. Hamming Medal 16 years later. I think the issue with Hamming is that he was so productive, and at the forefront of the field for so long, that he never settled into the "grand old man" role that tends to attract awards. I have a pet theory that for most researchers, winning big awards is a signal of their decline, because the politics of award committees means that its rare for somebody who still publishes controversial and original research to survive the nomination process. I mean, he wasn't even voted to be an IEEE fellow until 18 years after he published the Hamming code! His career was so successful in so many areas that it took some time for the applied mathematics community that all these really interesting little ideas in their own fields were the result of an avalanche of singular proportions.
Hamming clearly intended to do this, and often contrasted himself with Shannon. He categorized his approach in a talk called "You and Your research" delivered at Bell labs in 1986, which I'd highly recommend to any researcher who hasn't seen it.
The problem isn't sex, it's the risky behavior.
Teenagers who have a social life that is driven by peer validation, rather than, say, quality of social interaction or deep interest in a certain activity, are more likely to have sex and/or engage in risk taking behaviors in an attempt to impress those peers. I remember when I was growing up, parents were being warned about teenagers spending more than an hour a night on the phone being the cause of all types of 'naughty' 'nefarious' activity. In previous decades it was probably the kids who went to outdoor concerts, or the kids always heading up to a lovers lane or old quarry to drink. In the Victorian era these people were called dandies. The technology is essentially irrelevant, so long as that segment of the population exists, they'll do whatever is 'in thing.'
A 'social life' is not a one size fits all label. There are very, very few non-social people in the world, which is the main reason solitary confinement drives people nuts--it's that the value each person places on different types of social interaction varies enormously.
That reminds me of an anecdote about genetic algorithms that Rick Riolo (U. Michigan) told during a complex systems seminar. He was part of a team in the 80s that was trying to use GA's to find the most fuel efficient autopilot possible for a specific airplane. They configured an industry standard simulation environment with a realistic gamut of weather conditions, etc etc. and left the GA running for a few weeks. When they came back, they were surprised to find all the surviving autopilots had more fuel than the plane started with: the GA had found a bug in the simulator.
Pawan Sinha runs Project Prakash which goes into rural areas of India where treatment for congenital cataracts is not generally available. They do the surgery, for free, and in some cases ask the recipient whether they would like to contribute to the research program, which tracks how patients learn to see after the surgery [pdf]. The oldest person to receive the surgery was 29, and has had limited recovery of visual acuity. Children under the age of 6 typically have excellent prognoses following the surgery. See Pawan's TED talk here.
Well, thanks to the extra information, you've brought to light police overstepping their authority twice, rather than once, if "wearing a backpack and having a lawyer's number written on her arm" is cause for arrest.
As is mentioned in your second link, the only party with the standing to challenge a President Elect's eligibility is Congress, who get to decide what makes a natural born citizen in the first place, so the whole issue is basically moot. The clause was originally intended to prevent roving cadet branches of European royal families from trying to set up shop in the US (see eg: the Second Mexican Empire). Given the minuscule chance of that type of situation arising in the present day, I'm personally in favor of replacing the natural born citizen requirement with 20 years of citizenship and let the people decide if native birth matters.
Arbitration is useful in many circumstances.. just not when it's in one-sided contracts. My grandfather, for example, served as an arbiter for quite a few years after he retired. Most of the disputes he presided over had to do with local business disputes over payment, quality of goods, etc.. they were too large to be adjudicated in small claims court, and too small for it to make sense paying lawyers for full blown civil litigation. Sometimes there initially would be a court filing, and the judge would recommend the parties go to arbitration instead since it would be cheaper for both, in which case most of the time the parties both go and select a mutually acceptable arbiter.
The main problem with arbitration occurs when one party gets to choose the arbiter, which leads to moral hazards and conflicts of interest. Even consumer-corporation binding arbitration would not ipso-facto be a bad thing, so long as the consumer had equal say in choosing the arbiter (which would tend towards local arbiters). The two problems with binding arbitration in the consumer contract world is that the corporation chooses the arbitration firm, and the locale. This means that it's often no cheaper for the consumer to go into arbitration than it would be for them to sue (since say, they live in Kansas and the arbitration firm is in California), while the corporation can put a lot of pressure on the arbitration firm to find in their favor as the price of continued business.
As long as arbitration remains essentially local, and the arbiter is mutually acceptable to both parties, it's often a lot cheaper while being just as equitable as a civil tort (more so in some cases, since you can pick an arbiter that has expert field knowledge, rather than hoping the judge is a quick learner).
A point which I haven't seen mentioned: This guy (according to the Olbermann interview) HAS homeowners insurance, including fire coverage! Why wasn't the insurance company allowed to pay the fee for him? (or, if they were why didn't they?) And why wasn't the insurance company allowed to separately contract with the city fire department to provide fire-fighting services for their policy holders (this is the way firefighting was funded in most of the US prior to the civil war)?
Setting up a situation where somebody (intentionally or inadvertently) not paying a $75 fee can cause tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars in damage and fees for themselves, their neighbors (at least one had direct property damage) and the other policy holders of the insurance company is stupid and unjustifiable regardless of moral, political or economic perspective.
You might want to check out:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_firefighting
Publicly funded firefighting has been a comparatively recent idea, especially in the US (Cincinnati established the first funded, full-time professional brigade in 1853) . And the extension of professional firefighting brigades to non-urban areas in the US has happened mostly post-WWII.
There is no significant difference in latency or duration for vertical vs. horizontal saccades (eg: see ), and you're dead wrong about reading speed: In English, the optimal column width for fast reading is somewhere between 50 and 100 characters per line, depending on exact circumstances.
However, there are two other relevant facts: 1) The lower visual hemifield has a larger cortical representation than the upper visual hemifield, and shows modest improvements in visual performance (this is unsurprising, since our hands/tools/ground near us is usually in our lower hemifield) and 2) We can move our head side-to-side more rapidly, and with a larger range of motion than we can up and down, which changes some saccade distributions.
Irregardless of the mechanics of the situation, reading is a highly trained activity, and direction of reading is not universal. Chinese, for instance, can be read top-to-bottom, or with either horizontal possibility as the initial direction, with the reader cued by slightly differing strokes and punctuation . I'm not aware of any bottom-to-top sequential reading in any culture, which is probably due to the above mentioned processing differences. However, there are also mixed reading sequences that use multiple horizontal and vertical elements in a single block, like Mayan hieroglyphs (2x2 blocks LR->TB within block, blocks are read TB->LR ) or the Korean Hangul system (variety of block sizes, read TB->RL). Arguably, the latter systems are most efficient in terms of leveraging the early geometry of the visual system (log-polar, with resolution dropping exponentially with distance from the fovea.
I assume what the original poster means by pseudo-capitalism is that there is state control over certain sectors of the economy, and intervention in others (often at the whim of party officials with greased palms). In particular, this means that China has systematically undervalued their currency by ~20-40% against the dollar. This has several effects, the most obvious being that it substantially increases the competitiveness of China's exports (and cost of imports). This benefits a specific group of well connected industries in China, which among others are the mining and dirty manufacturing industries that are depleting China's natural resources and exporting them as quickly as they can. The trade-off domestically however, is that it decreases the buying power of the average worker considerably and leads to inflation. It leads to inflation because to maintain the undervaluation, China's central bank has to intervene in the currency markets and buy dollars to prevent the Yuan from appreciating, which increases the domestic money supply. By having to buy dollars (ie: US treasuries) China is essentially stuck buying huge amounts of US debt as long as it wants to maintain the export edge from having an undervalued currency (which is causing huge domestic pressures within China, there have been quite a few labor riots and urban-rural tension in the past few years). This has two effects on the US: one is that it keeps interest rates low and our debt cheap, the other is that it makes our exports 20-40% more expensive, costing the US at least a million jobs (most estimates are about 1.2m) at present.
So China is stuck with a dilemma: they can't become a first world country until they let their currency float, because their average citizens have reduced buying power. But they can't let their currency float until they have an economy that is sufficiently robust that it doesn't require a 20-40% import tariff/export subsidy (which is what the currency manipulation is doing), which means developing a domestic market under conditions of high inflation (currently ~8%) and high interest rates (currently 5.3%). And they have to do it before resource pressure (particularly food, water and pollution) overcomes economic growth, while funding a large chunk of the US current account deficit in the mean time. If China doesn't manage that, then both the current government and the economy collapses, and China goes through another cycle of regionalism and stagnation (and if China does manage it, we're probably looking at a world war over scarce resources).
It depends on your definition of phalanx.. is the key factor the overlapping shields, many ranks deep with close order, fighting in a single line or using spears? In the classical hoplite phalanx met all four criteria, with everybody fully armored in bronze, each soldier had a spear (~10ft) and short thrusting sword, and were typically arranged between 6 and 24 men deep with the most experienced soldiers in the front and the back rows (to prevent less experienced soldiers from fleeing). Battles were typically decided by whose front rank broke first, which was more a function of pushing from behind than individual skill up front. It was not uncommon for bodies to be wedged upright from the pressure until one side broke. The spears were essentially double tipped, which would give you two shots if you're spear broke, which was fairly common. The hoplite was named for his shield, the hoplon, which was large, and and designed to overlap with his neighbors, making a shield wall. As the Greek empires expanded into Thrace and Asia minor, where most of the soldiers were likely to be professional rather than land-owning citizens, the amount of armor was decreased while the spear grew in length. This made the formation cheaper and more maneuverable, but these phalanxes had to be supported by sling and javelin equipped auxiliary troops since there armor wasn't sufficient to protect against ranged attack.
That eventually evolved into the Macedonian phalanx (by way of Thebes), where professional, drilled soldiers wearing breastplates and chain skirts, who carried ~18ft pikes and short swords in an 8-deep formation. They were drilled to not let opposing infantry close under their pikes, and as long as they could do this, they were extremely effective. However, due to the size of their spears, they used much smaller shields, which did not fully overlap (so fit 3 of the 4 possible criteria). Back rank soldiers holding their pikes upright or at an angle also served to break up incoming missile fire. The problem with these formations was they were not very maneuverable, and their cohesion could be broken up by rough terrain. This was fine for the Macedonians, who used phalanxes to hold enemy infantry in place while their cavalry flanked it, but ran into problems when they were used by Greek armies without excellent cavalry or skirmisher support.
The early roman legions were essentially an evolution against phalanx and shield wall formations employed by the Italian tribes. Originally legions were arranged into three cohorts: hastati (poorest, youngest and least experienced, with usually without full armor), principes (prime troops, usually equipped with chain mail) and triarii (veteran solders, all excellently equipped). Prior to the Polybian reforms, all these troops fought with hastae (short spears, ~7ft) and the gladius short swords. The main difference was the organization: instead of having one line of phalanx, the Roman formation was organized into three lines (hastati, principes, triarii) in which each line was further subdivided into 60 or 120 man units who fought as shallow (6 ranks) phalanxes, with large overlapping 'scuta' shields (this also fits 3 of the 4 criteria). The enemy would first have to fight through the hastati, who retired behind the principes, and then if necessary the triarii. The main advantage of this formation was that the front-line of troops didn't have to fight throughout the battle, and it was easier to keep small units together while maneuvering. These formations turned out to be ineffective against Macedonian and Carthaginian phalanxes, so Polybius reformed them so that the hastati and principes carried several pilums (throwing javelins) rather than thrusting spears, which could break up the Macedonian phalanxes from beyond the range of their pikes and allow the shallow Roman formations to close quickly, or flank as required. The Triarii still fought as a traditional phalanx. This essentially replaced the pike with a longer ranged weapon, without changing the essence of the close order form
You're description of debt is incredibly small minded. Ever heard the expression: "If you owe the bank $100, the bank owns you. If you owe the bank $100,000,000, you own the bank."? It's essentially true. Right now and in the mid-term, we have China over a barrel because of how much we owe them, in dollar denominated debt. They can't stop lending to us or the renminbi appreciates against the dollar they lose economic competitiveness while we gain it (same thing with the Euro, since Germany is also an export economy). Why did Wall Street get bailed out without the bond holders taking a haircut? Because the bond-holders generally are pension funds (public and private), large mutual funds etc. i.e: the retirement funds for the middle-class. Wall street has Main street over the barrel in exactly the same way: once you lend too much, you lose control of the borrower.
Debt is certainly a domestic problem in the US, in the sense that until mortgage debt overhang in particular diminishes there won't be a robust upswing in demand. But US sovereign debt level is not going to be a problem for a long time, if ever. About the most realistic (e.g. considers the macro effects, financial system stability, currency and capital flow issues) estimate I've seen comes from Harold James' book, and boils down to many decades in the worst case. As such, it would be a smart idea to alleviate the domestic personal debt problem by transferring it into sovereign debt, to get demand and economic growth and employment back on track. But unfortunately the debate is dominated in Washington by people who can't understand debt beyond of the context of their credit card and/or are more concerned about moralizing the personal responsibility to repay than they are with fixing the economy.
Where are the "general" conclusions mentioned? One great thing about PNAS is that it's free, so no issues with the pdf (which hasn't stopped strange speculation).
The study makes limited claims which are consistent with the experimental approach, which is "within population."
Indeed, but until we get a decent picture of the correlations, we can't create a robust procedure to tease out more elusive, possibly causal issues...
Yes, they are 'biased' in the sense that they ask a 'within population' rather than 'whole population' question. There seems to be this idea percolating around /. that 'perfect studies' are possible (demanding TOTAL explanation of the variance). They are not. This study, analyzes the sample: Players of the game "Pardus" on "Artemis" who have interacted with at least one other player during the first 445 days of the game's existence. They make no claim about the general population, but merely remark upon the social interactions measurable within the population of their data set. The specious speculation you provide is outside of the purview of the study.
Ignoring the theoretical issues, which have been addressed above, I'd like to point out that US warships have defense-in-depth. Anything with a chrome, or other reflective coating is going to be extremely easy to detect and track using radar at long range, and therefore be engaged by the warship's surface to air missiles long before point-defense lasers like this are going to be useful.
Thanks for the explanation. I'm fairly sure your detailed numbers are wrong, but the crux of the point is clear: blood comes back to the heart relatively deoxygenated. If there less oxygen than is normal (or predicted?) enters the blood at that point, then deoxygenated blood goes immediately to the brain, which is under the level needed to support a conscious state and leads to rapid blackout within seconds.
Indeed. Luckily for both liberals and libertarians, Fascism never got the type of credible intellectual backing necessary to take off in the US initially. But at some point the libertarian instincts and political conservatism clashed I quote:
Buckley wrote that Republicans "will have to support large armies and air forces, atomic energy, central intelligence, war production boards, and the attendant centralization of power in Washington -- even with Truman at the reins of it all." Buckley's National Review became a central outlet for such opinions. In response to libertarian critics, Buckley explained, "National security is a proper concern for the libertarian because without it he stands to lose -- in this case -- all his freedom."
from a CNN piece.
Once that link was made, between the military-industrial complex and 'conservative' ideology in the US, they produced a synergistic and mature version of Fascism that still guides the Republican party in the US. They learned how to make voters ignore their economic interests through, to quote you:
us[ing] nationalism and a myth of peoples to reject rationalism and use a spirit of the people to achieve greatness.
To me, this seems to be a very mature and sophisticated form of Fascism, that certainly is consistent with the idea of 'corporate rule'. As an example, I would hold up the United States Chamber of Commerce, a lobbying organization that used to work with State and Local Chambers to support small business. Now, when small business throughout the country are experiencing severe problems, they trot out this [pdf], which includes tax breaks for corporations who offshore jobs, and nothing to get banks lending to small business.
Are democrats the answer to this? No, since they specialize in spending billions to shoot themselves in the foot, repeatedly, with a shotgun. But until the Republicans have cut spending (never done in my lifetime) I'll choose spending for the little guy over the big guy.
Under the right conditions, a lung-full of zero (or less than 12%) oxygen gas will ensure that you are unconscious before you hit the ground.
I've heard quotes like this quite often, but don't understand the mechanism. I can hold my breath in excess of a minute. Residual blood oxygen supplies can keep the brain alive for about 15 minutes with CPR. How is it that breathing in a breath of 'bad air' that has low oxygen content causes loss consciousness so quickly?
The above was not meant to be posted anon.. must have mis-clicked.
I think it's a bit more insidious than you describe. The problem is that various entities (starting with cigarette companies) realized that they could lobby and shape public opinion more effectively if they sponsored ostensibly scientific research. It's difficult enough to describe complicated scientific ideas in simple language by omitting the complexities without saying anything that is wrong -- and when you're suddenly competing with 'scientists' who have no such compunctions and are willing to lie to espouse a single point it becomes impossible. And this is before we consider the complexity of modern public relations and media dynamics, which require a whole different set of expertise to navigate, much less exploit.
So now we're in this strange environment, where real science speaks through the public defender.. erm, I mean science journalist.. and the pseudo-scientific special interests groom the 'data' and the message together. So, what does the American Academy (which was specifically founded to deal with this type of issue) have to say about it?
Scientists and the public both share a responsibility for the divide. Scientists and technical experts sometimes take for granted that their work will be viewed as ultimately serving the public good. Members of the public can react viscerally and along ideological lines, but they can also raise important issues that deserve consideration.
Mostly irrelevant.. How does this attention from the public arise without special interests and the media who caters to them? At that point pseudo-intellectual confusion has been deliberately produced by special interests to feed a visceral reaction regardless of veracity of the science involved.
Scientific issues require an “anticipatory approach.” A diverse group of stakeholders — research scientists, social scientists, public engagement experts, and skilled communicators — should collaborate early to identify potential scientific controversies and the best method to address resulting public concerns.
Taken at face value, this is a great idea. But where's the funding? Simply because the group of stakeholders is so diverse, and the opposition for any "specific controversy" (eg. smoking and cancer) so specific and intense, is this at all practical? Especially given the fact that once it's a "potential" controversy, special interests will be spending like crazy?
Communications solutions differ significantly depending on whether a scientific issue has been around for a long time (e.g., how to dispose of nuclear waste) or is relatively new (e.g., the spread of personal genetic information). In the case of longstanding controversies, social scientists may have had the opportunity to conduct research on public views that can inform communication strategies. For emerging technologies, there will be less reliable analysis available of public attitudes.
This highlights the problem that science has: any new finding that conflicts with a current industry is going to be subjected to withering, ostensibly scientific criticism, until it is controversial regardless of the fields previous status. The current interests will try to re-frame the debate into language that has not been previously studied by social scientists, which if successful supersedes their research. In the case of emerging technologies of course, there nothing stopping industry or other special interests from running amok until they get caught.
Since the current conundrum is due in large part to the vigorous and successful attack by the post-Nixon republican party over the last 40 years in the US (and yes, I'm fully aware the left cherry picks data all over the place, but they don't pay as many people to make it up), I doubt there is a simple way of reconstituting trust of scientists in general within the current media environment. But the great thing about science, is that it always has a potential to push the reset button on the status-quo through a massive discovery.
As an academic, the first place I look in a paper with which I lack familiarity is the bibliography. It tells me what issues the authors feel they can confidently comment or revise upon in the text.
You cite the paper as a debunking of Keynesian theories. But they do not cite any of the relevant literature: therefore, the authors do not feel that their results support a direct critical comment on Keynes (else they would have cited him).
Peer review means only that. And when the peers are chasing unicorns, it's wise to be skeptical... Which is why I though it pertinent to mention that they are BSchool people.
But to address your specific point: when short term interests rates are at 0, few of the generally accepted economic equilibria hold true. Any policy papers that don't address that rare condition are irrelevant at this time BECAUSE ZERO INTEREST FUCKS NEARLY ANY ECONOMIC EQUILIBRIUM EQUATION EVER DEVISED. And thus, you're peer reviewed paper is irrelevant to the current situation.