"crash too frequently"? What are you talking about? Computer hardware these days runs years without crashing. It's fantastically reliable.
Maybe you need to upgrade your OS.
Personally, my dual slocket celeron 300A's have been running smoothly at 450 for a couple years now. No crashes. Reboot for kernel upgrades a couple times a year.
> Watch out that you don't confuse motive and intent.
Interesting point. In the case of hate crimes, the point seems to be that the "intent" is to kill members of a sub-population generically, or to harrass or intimidate them into leaving.
So perhaps the question is, should intent to drive a group away through killing, assault, bombing, etc., be a crime.
If you were plotting a military takeover of the government, for example, and you killed someone, you would be tried not only for the murder, but for treason (or whatever it was John Brown was hanged for).
It's not dangerous and foolish, and it's been a part of our legal system for at least hundreds of years.
Broadly speaking, you can't have effective law *at all* without considering "why" something was done. At the most basic level, you have to know whether a trigger was pulled accidentally, or on purpose. That's a "why" that is only answered by trying to get into the mind of the accused.
At a higher level, we distinguish degrees of crime (1st degree, 2nd degree, etc.), also based on "why".
As an "Orwellian prediction", this is pretty lame, considering how many centuries its been with us.
It has never been the case that murder is murder, regardless of intent. A murder in a fit of rage is treated differently than a murder that is mulled over and planned over a period of time. And so forth. The reasons for the crime have always been central to the charge, and the punishment.
It is entirely appropriate that a murder directed toward a group be handled much differently than a murder directed toward an individual. A person who kills his neighbor over a common fence is a menace to his neighbors. A person who kills a jew because he's a jew is a menace to millions of people, and his intent to kill doesn't go away when the first victim is dead. He is also capable of much greater carnage -- no one who is pissed at their neighbor is going to blow up a hundred people because of it. But people driven to hate crimes can, and do target hundreds of people.
The "number of genes" they are calculating could be wrong. These are based on gene predictors, right? Which are just statistical models that try to guess where genes are. These thousands of genes have not actually been verified in a wet lab, and there could be many that aren't being seen by the predictors.
>The tests are not perfect, of course they have flaws, but they are better than anything else out there.
They are not "better" in terms of accurate predictors of success in college, and they are not "better" in terms of what tests are possible.
In what sense are they "better"? If all the schools admitted based on the number of push-ups the student could do, you could say that was "better" if the other option was using a dart board to select students. But it'd still be a really stupid measure, like the SAT.
Testing and assessment is a huge and complex topic. Knowing what you're measuring, and even what you *want* to measure are difficult tasks. But the SAT is so full of holes it's a joke.
Remember, this is the test that was billed as an "apptitude" test -- it measured something innate about the student, according to the marketing bullshit. They claimed you couldn't prepare for it, or teach to the test. Whoops! They couldn't have been more wrong.
Since then they've changed the name to "achievement", rather than "apptitude". Only, whoops!, none of the test prep programs that dramatically increase your SAT score actually teach you the material on the test. So it's not measuring "achievement", either.
Mostly, it's measuring whether you took a test prep class. Which mostly depends on your income. The SAT is a *really* good measure of your parent's income. It predicts that much, much better than it predicts your future success in college.
Errr.. well, except for the fact that the best way to do well on standardized tests is to study the *test*, not the material. Check out the (fantastically successful, and effective) test prep courses. They don't teach the material. They teach how to take the test without knowing the material. They work *really* well, and the "High Standards" craze which is sweeping the nation is forcing teachers to adopt the same method -- it's either that, or they lose their funding or their job.
You end up with people admitted to university without understanding *at all* the material the test is supposed to assess. Woohoo!
Where do you folk get your information about education? Newspapers? TV? Journals? Rumor?
There is such a gulf between the reality of the American educational system, and public perception of it, that it's nearly impossible to have a meaningful conversation on the topic these days.
Like in this post, ChuckFlynn is going on about "modern teaching methodologies", while in the real world the techniques he's bashing have barely been implemented anywhere. Lots of school boards have written curriculum documents *saying* they're going to use some new method. But in practice, teachers get NO training in them (or in anything else). The curriculum documents sit on the shelf, unused.
Then critics come along a couple years later saying "Well, this method was a complete failure."
>Kids are being taught how to think, instead of what to think, out of some liberal notion that we shouldn't make their beliefs conform to our own experienced ones.
Though to be completely correct, it would be "some liberal notion that understanding logic, reasoning, and how to do your own research is more important than being able to recite 'facts' that someone else presents to you".
Having attended schools that were on opposite extremes of this -- a state school (where everything was "fact", "skill and drill"), and Caltech, where, everything very heavily emphasized understanding basic principles, I can say with some experience that "skill and drill", and memorizing "facts" is a total crock.
The "tough" problems at the state school were the ones where they used variable "x", instead of variable "z" (like in the book). This would complete mystify most of the class, because they'd "learned" to recite "facts", instead of understanding principles. At Caltech, after having one problem during the term emphasizing a basic principle, you'd be expected to be able to apply that principle to novel problems for the rest of the course. You were never expect to regurgitate it as some "fact".
There are volumes of research, now, backing this. Not only do more comprehensive teaching techniques produce students that are better able to apply their knowledge to novel problems, it turns out they also enjoy it much more, and are more interested in pursuing education.
For a more general look at competition, and its supposed benefits, check out _No_Contest_ by Alfie Kohn.
Most ideas about the positive effects of competition are not based on any evidence whatever, and those who have gone looking for the evidence have largely failed to find it.
It's one of those broadly accepted assumptions that turns out to be unsupported.
(btw, read anything you can find by Kohn. He's always interesting, though he sometimes documents in such detail that it becomes tedious)
I use it for coding. With (shameless plug) xvoice & the ViaVoice engine. When my elbows and wristing were screaming in pain from typing, it was about the only way I could do my job.
Vim is great for coding by voice, if you take advantage of all the keyword completion option. You do have to spell stuff (with a phonetic alphabet), but usually not very many characters per keyword.
With some effort, I suspect I could make it much faster. Code is really a VERY low bitrate signal. There's a LOT of redundancy. With effective tools, much of it can be eliminated, meaning you shouldn't have to say much to write code.
If conservatives hadn't scrapped funding for alternative fuels, OR hadn't scrapped conservation measures, OR hadn't deregulated, we wouldn't be in this mess. But since they've had their collective heads 10 miles up their asses for the last two decades on all things related to energy and environment, well... Here we are, in a completely predictable energy crunch that could have been avoided at any time by simply voting for people who have a clue about energy, and who don't have a vested interest in fossil fuels.
Re:5 BILLion dollars!?!?! I'M THE CA... oops, sorr
on
Racism At Microsoft?
·
· Score: 1
> No latinos? Where the heck are you writing from, Maine?
I work for one of the largest tech employers in the Valley. Open your eyes once in a while.
> The hiring based on race is racism of another form -- which is exactly what they're trying to stomp out. It seems like a vicious circle to me.
So... when you're leveling your pool table, you never adjust just one leg of it, right? Because that would be treating one differently, and you want them all to be the same, right?
Well... hopefully not, because it won't work.
Racism in the workplace has been studied to death, and the result is always the same: it's there. As others have pointed out, it will be there as long as people are there, because no one is perfectly pure in heart and spirit. What's more, people can't accurately report whether they make racist decisions. Most people unconsciously seek people that seem familiar, even if they have no explicitly racist feelings.
When discrimination is shown over, and over, and over again to both exist, and be widespread, you can't make it more balanced by doing nothing, any more than you can balance your pool table by adjusting every leg in exactly the same fashion.
Re:5 BILLion dollars!?!?! I'M THE CA... oops, sorr
on
Racism At Microsoft?
·
· Score: 1
> Down the coast, where Mr. Jesse Jackson raised a big stink, in Silicon Valley, you will find ethnic diversity is the rule.
Well, this is just incorrect. There are some groups that are represented in the Valley, and some that aren't. The ones that aren't are the ones that have been stigmatized by Americans for centuries: blacks and latinos.
People are the largest producers of some greenhouse gasses. We know these gasses will heat up the planet, the same way we know a rock will hit the ground if we drop it. It's a question of when, not if.
The comparison to Pittsburg is completely irrelevant. In the 1890's global industry was many orders of magnitude smaller. They could be much, much more dirty without approaching the scale of global climate. Today, people regularly generate pollution on the same scale as the global climate.
Good 19th century thinking, when population was low & we (for the most part) did things on a scale that couldn't have significant impact on the earth (one exception being lead). These days people are frequently pouring stuff into the environment on global scales.
People don't seem to get the concept of "order of magnitude". This isn't 1850. If we're the major producer of a toxin, there's nothing magic about the earth that will make it just go away.
The ozone problem hasn't just gone away. It's decreased precisely because of the environmentalists you're whining about.
Re:The problem is in the dependency database
on
An RPM Port Of APT
·
· Score: 2
Creating RPM files is pathetically easy & takes about 2 minutes after you learn to do it. After building a few, you can copy & edit a spec file for a new project trivially.
I build rpms for *everything* I install, if it's not already available as rpm, because it takes only slightly more time than./configure; make; make install, and having the database is so convenient.
I remembered seeing it off www.raenterprises.com, but their site was so cheesy I didn't follow up on it. Guess I'll have to check it out.
instant run-off voting
on
eLection '04
·
· Score: 1
Don't overlook the bigger picture in this election: if we used a more representative voting mechanism, like instant run-off, we wouldn't have this mess. There is a clear majority of people who don't want Bush in office (Gore + Nader voters), but Bush is likely to end up there. We had a similar situation a few years ago with Perot. With instant run-off, your votes go to your 2nd choice if your first choice is going to lose. Most would go Nader->Gore in this election, and probably Perot->Bush in the 92 election.
A voting scheme that does the opposite of what the majority of voters want can not be called representative, even if it's idiot proof, and technologically perfect.
Slashdot Mirror
Maybe you need to upgrade your OS.
Personally, my dual slocket celeron 300A's have been running smoothly at 450 for a couple years now. No crashes. Reboot for kernel upgrades a couple times a year.
> Watch out that you don't confuse motive and intent.
Interesting point. In the case of hate crimes, the point seems to be that the "intent" is to kill members of a sub-population generically, or to harrass or intimidate them into leaving.
So perhaps the question is, should intent to drive a group away through killing, assault, bombing, etc., be a crime.
If you were plotting a military takeover of the government, for example, and you killed someone, you would be tried not only for the murder, but for treason (or whatever it was John Brown was hanged for).
It's not dangerous and foolish, and it's been a part of our legal system for at least hundreds of years.
Broadly speaking, you can't have effective law *at all* without considering "why" something was done. At the most basic level, you have to know whether a trigger was pulled accidentally, or on purpose. That's a "why" that is only answered by trying to get into the mind of the accused.
At a higher level, we distinguish degrees of crime (1st degree, 2nd degree, etc.), also based on "why".
As an "Orwellian prediction", this is pretty lame, considering how many centuries its been with us.
It is entirely appropriate that a murder directed toward a group be handled much differently than a murder directed toward an individual. A person who kills his neighbor over a common fence is a menace to his neighbors. A person who kills a jew because he's a jew is a menace to millions of people, and his intent to kill doesn't go away when the first victim is dead. He is also capable of much greater carnage -- no one who is pissed at their neighbor is going to blow up a hundred people because of it. But people driven to hate crimes can, and do target hundreds of people.
The "number of genes" they are calculating could be wrong. These are based on gene predictors, right? Which are just statistical models that try to guess where genes are. These thousands of genes have not actually been verified in a wet lab, and there could be many that aren't being seen by the predictors.
>The tests are not perfect, of course they have flaws, but they are better than anything else out there.
They are not "better" in terms of accurate predictors of success in college, and they are not "better" in terms of what tests are possible.
In what sense are they "better"? If all the schools admitted based on the number of push-ups the student could do, you could say that was "better" if the other option was using a dart board to select students. But it'd still be a really stupid measure, like the SAT.
Testing and assessment is a huge and complex topic. Knowing what you're measuring, and even what you *want* to measure are difficult tasks. But the SAT is so full of holes it's a joke.
Remember, this is the test that was billed as an "apptitude" test -- it measured something innate about the student, according to the marketing bullshit. They claimed you couldn't prepare for it, or teach to the test. Whoops! They couldn't have been more wrong.
Since then they've changed the name to "achievement", rather than "apptitude". Only, whoops!, none of the test prep programs that dramatically increase your SAT score actually teach you the material on the test. So it's not measuring "achievement", either.
Mostly, it's measuring whether you took a test prep class. Which mostly depends on your income. The SAT is a *really* good measure of your parent's income. It predicts that much, much better than it predicts your future success in college.
Errr.. well, except for the fact that the best way to do well on standardized tests is to study the *test*, not the material. Check out the (fantastically successful, and effective) test prep courses. They don't teach the material. They teach how to take the test without knowing the material. They work *really* well, and the "High Standards" craze which is sweeping the nation is forcing teachers to adopt the same method -- it's either that, or they lose their funding or their job.
You end up with people admitted to university without understanding *at all* the material the test is supposed to assess. Woohoo!
>Blanket regection of standarized tests is stupid, for the simple reason that they provide a useful predictor of the likely success of a student.
... though worse than most measures, including GPA, when these measure have been compared to success in college.
http://theconnection.org
(no sarcasm intended here)
Where do you folk get your information about education? Newspapers? TV? Journals? Rumor?
There is such a gulf between the reality of the American educational system, and public perception of it, that it's nearly impossible to have a meaningful conversation on the topic these days.
Like in this post, ChuckFlynn is going on about "modern teaching methodologies", while in the real world the techniques he's bashing have barely been implemented anywhere. Lots of school boards have written curriculum documents *saying* they're going to use some new method. But in practice, teachers get NO training in them (or in anything else). The curriculum documents sit on the shelf, unused.
Then critics come along a couple years later saying "Well, this method was a complete failure."
Well, at least you got this part almost right:
>Kids are being taught how to think, instead of what to think, out of some liberal notion that we shouldn't make their beliefs conform to our own experienced ones.
Though to be completely correct, it would be "some liberal notion that understanding logic, reasoning, and how to do your own research is more important than being able to recite 'facts' that someone else presents to you".
Having attended schools that were on opposite extremes of this -- a state school (where everything was "fact", "skill and drill"), and Caltech, where, everything very heavily emphasized understanding basic principles, I can say with some experience that "skill and drill", and memorizing "facts" is a total crock.
The "tough" problems at the state school were the ones where they used variable "x", instead of variable "z" (like in the book). This would complete mystify most of the class, because they'd "learned" to recite "facts", instead of understanding principles. At Caltech, after having one problem during the term emphasizing a basic principle, you'd be expected to be able to apply that principle to novel problems for the rest of the course. You were never expect to regurgitate it as some "fact".
There are volumes of research, now, backing this. Not only do more comprehensive teaching techniques produce students that are better able to apply their knowledge to novel problems, it turns out they also enjoy it much more, and are more interested in pursuing education.
For a more general look at competition, and its supposed benefits, check out _No_Contest_ by Alfie Kohn.
Most ideas about the positive effects of competition are not based on any evidence whatever, and those who have gone looking for the evidence have largely failed to find it.
It's one of those broadly accepted assumptions that turns out to be unsupported.
(btw, read anything you can find by Kohn. He's always interesting, though he sometimes documents in such detail that it becomes tedious)
I use it for coding. With (shameless plug) xvoice & the ViaVoice engine. When my elbows and wristing were screaming in pain from typing, it was about the only way I could do my job.
Vim is great for coding by voice, if you take advantage of all the keyword completion option. You do have to spell stuff (with a phonetic alphabet), but usually not very many characters per keyword.
With some effort, I suspect I could make it much faster. Code is really a VERY low bitrate signal. There's a LOT of redundancy. With effective tools, much of it can be eliminated, meaning you shouldn't have to say much to write code.
I disagree, when RSI's are epidemic in the valley.
Your choice: voice control (slower than typing), or permanent nerve damage.
Forget photo-voltaic? So the people I know with a solar house, that are selling power back to PG&E, I just hallucinated them?
That was insightful?
That was moronic.
If conservatives hadn't scrapped funding for alternative fuels, OR hadn't scrapped conservation measures, OR hadn't deregulated, we wouldn't be in this mess. But since they've had their collective heads 10 miles up their asses for the last two decades on all things related to energy and environment, well... Here we are, in a completely predictable energy crunch that could have been avoided at any time by simply voting for people who have a clue about energy, and who don't have a vested interest in fossil fuels.
> No latinos? Where the heck are you writing from, Maine?
I work for one of the largest tech employers in the Valley. Open your eyes once in a while.
> The hiring based on race is racism of another form -- which is exactly what they're trying to stomp out. It seems like a vicious circle to me.
So... when you're leveling your pool table, you never adjust just one leg of it, right? Because that would be treating one differently, and you want them all to be the same, right?
Well... hopefully not, because it won't work.
Racism in the workplace has been studied to death, and the result is always the same: it's there. As others have pointed out, it will be there as long as people are there, because no one is perfectly pure in heart and spirit. What's more, people can't accurately report whether they make racist decisions. Most people unconsciously seek people that seem familiar, even if they have no explicitly racist feelings.
When discrimination is shown over, and over, and over again to both exist, and be widespread, you can't make it more balanced by doing nothing, any more than you can balance your pool table by adjusting every leg in exactly the same fashion.
> Down the coast, where Mr. Jesse Jackson raised a big stink, in Silicon Valley, you will find ethnic diversity is the rule.
Well, this is just incorrect. There are some groups that are represented in the Valley, and some that aren't. The ones that aren't are the ones that have been stigmatized by Americans for centuries: blacks and latinos.
People are the largest producers of some greenhouse gasses. We know these gasses will heat up the planet, the same way we know a rock will hit the ground if we drop it. It's a question of when, not if.
The comparison to Pittsburg is completely irrelevant. In the 1890's global industry was many orders of magnitude smaller. They could be much, much more dirty without approaching the scale of global climate. Today, people regularly generate pollution on the same scale as the global climate.
Good 19th century thinking, when population was low & we (for the most part) did things on a scale that couldn't have significant impact on the earth (one exception being lead). These days people are frequently pouring stuff into the environment on global scales.
People don't seem to get the concept of "order of magnitude". This isn't 1850. If we're the major producer of a toxin, there's nothing magic about the earth that will make it just go away.
The ozone problem hasn't just gone away. It's decreased precisely because of the environmentalists you're whining about.
I build rpms for *everything* I install, if it's not already available as rpm, because it takes only slightly more time than ./configure; make; make install, and having the database is so convenient.
From caltech, east on colorado, on the right hand side. A google search turned up this:
2176 E. Colorado Blvd.
(626)796-2628
It's been years since I was there.
maybe this place?
http://www.weirdstuff.com/
I remembered seeing it off www.raenterprises.com, but their site was so cheesy I didn't follow up on it. Guess I'll have to check it out.
A voting scheme that does the opposite of what the majority of voters want can not be called representative, even if it's idiot proof, and technologically perfect.