I recall a study comparing the rates of people getting off drugs while on psychotherapy with those getting off drugs on their own.
I also recall a study where completely sane people were checked into a mental institution (under a false name, as a test case) with instructions to pretend symptoms for awhile, but then pretend to be completely cured. Their status was never set to "cured", rather it was "condition, under remission".
So have there been any studies showing that mental health treatment is effective, or is psychotherapy more akin to lie detectors and phrenology?
(A related question, is there good sensitivity between the various mental health diagnoses with different treatments? Meaning, if the condition A treatment is different from condition B, is there a sharp, easily-recognized distinction between the symptoms for A and B?)
You might try starting with: http://cratermatic.sourceforge.net/ (disclaimer... this was written by my son some years ago as a NASA intern). It is nothing like AI, but is a classical topography algorithm (basin filling).
Your son is the one who sent me the data:-)
The online project does not have the dataset, and the dataset links on that page are broken. After talking with your son a bit he agreed to send me the data.
Looking at the cratermatic results, I notice that the algorithm has problems with certain situations, mistakes that a human analyst wouldn't make(*). This is what piqued my interest in the project - what is it about the human algorithm that does so much better?
The recognition feature is relatively simple (circles or basins), so this dataset makes a much better meal for analysis than something more complex like "is there a dog in this picture?".
Thank your son for me. The data is a unique blend of simplicity (of feature), volume (lots of data), and clear standard for comparison (the cratermatic output). Everything a researcher could want.
(*) The algorithm seems to have problems(**) with intersecting craters, craters contained within craters, and partial craters (incomplete arc of lip visible). It detects many "tiny" irregular craters which seem at first glance to not be actual craters.
(**) This is against a background of many craters correctly recognized. The program is quite useful, I'm just wondering if there is a better technique
So how about some examples, then? There are "so many cases", after all, so you should have no problem giving us 10 or 20 of the most convincing examples.
It would be more convincing if you limited them to contributions to well-established fields, as well. There's nothing impressive about basic discoveries made in the infancy of a new field of study, when EVERYBODY involved is essentially an amateur.
I research hard AI. In my view thinking through and tackling example problems is the best way to explore a topic. If you require your system to mirror our current understanding of neuroscience, then you're essentially researching the algorithms of the brain.
If you're specifically looking into epilepsy and related, consider checking out William Calvin's website. He's an experimental neuroscientist from University of Washington, who wrote many books that explain the neurological foundations of the brain in readable form with good detail.
(1) What are some interesting computational neuroscience simulation problems
Pretty much anything AI falls under that category. Go over to Kaggle.com and check out some of their competitions, including their past competitions. Check out the Google AI lab and see what they're doing, and check out recent publications to see what people are trying to solve. Ask yourself: Are humans better than the computer, and can it be done better?
Here's a video of a system that uses neuron simulation (of a sort) to recognize hand-written digits. A hand-written digits dataset is in the UCI archive below.
(2) Is it easy for a non-academic to get the required data?
Generally, yes. UCI has a repository of machine-learning datasets. The researchers supporting Kaggle competitions frequently release their data.
I've found that researchers are generally approachable, and will give away copies of their data (I have 4 datasets from researchers). As a personal anecdote, last week a researcher from this very forum sent me his dataset of Mars altitude images - I'm trying to come up with an algorithm to recognize craters.
(3) I am familiar with (but not used extensively) simulators like Neuron, Genesis etc. Other than these and Matlab, what other software should I get?
In my view, pick a computer language that has a wide support network of libraries, and code things from scratch.Something like Perl or R. At some point you will want to break open the box and see what's actually happening inside, and familiarity with the system (having constructed it) is key. You will want to insert trace statements, print out intermediate results, and so on. Most of the pre-built systems don't have what you will ultimately want, and building simulation objects isn't terribly hard.
(4) Where online or offline, can I network with other DIY Computational Neuroscience enthusiasts?
Please let me know if you find any (by posting a response).
I've found that most AI enthusiasts are really "big data" enthusiasts, and most of them are all about business rather than AI. The IRC AI chatrooms are all but dead, and most of what is there are students asking for help with their homework. (Although to be fair, the lurkers there know everything about AI and can answer questions and make suggestions if you're stuck.)
The NEAI meetup in Cambridge is mostly spectators - people who want to find out about AI or how to use AI ("how can I use AI to improve the performance of my financial company?"). I hear there's an AI meetup out on the West coast that's pretty good.
See if there's a meetup in your area for something related, or start one and see if anyone shows up.
We need to have a discussion about what we feel should be blocked in this society. Nuclear bomb plans, CP, 3D printed guns, zero-day hacks, drug deals, etc...
So, who wants odds on how long it'll take before this becomes a haven for pæderasts to swap kiddie porn? Anyone? I'm guessing about six months..
How could you tell? For that matter, would you want to tell?
Quick question: would you support banning CP if it resulted in more children getting molested?
I only ask because the best evidence we have indicates that it does. The website will change a legal framework that, despite the best intentions, promotes child abuse.
And this will not inconvenience the police in any way. If they have evidence of wrong-doing, they can get a "sneak and peek" warrant and install a bug on the suspect's computer.
This system only ensures that the police get judicial oversight, which they needed anyway.
And recently, the The New England Journal of Medicine reported depression meds have no effect.
That's patently untrue. The Huffingtonpost article you link to is wildly inaccurate, self-contradictory and much more about sensationalism than the actual NEJoM article.
I'm just pointing out what doctors are saying. If they are wrong, please tell us what the study actually means. In particular, this line from the NEJM study:
According to the FDA, 38 of the 74 registered studies had positive results (51%; 95% CI, 39 to 63)
Doctors, including the one in the linked HufPo article, are stating specifically that antidepressants don't work base don this study. In so many words, directly from the article.
Since doctors are wrong, presumably because they don't have meaningful training in science or statistics, who then should be the go-to expert to interpret these findings?
Evidence-based medicine is valuable to the extent that the evidence base is complete and unbiased. Selective publication of clinical trials — and the outcomes within those trials — can lead to unrealistic estimates of drug effectiveness and alter the apparent risk–benefit ratio.
(**) Also, I have no meaningful training in science or statistics. If you want, you can win the argument by pointing this out in your response.
I just now hopped over to the CTA website and checked out their budget.
In broad terms, they take in about $650 million from fares, $650 million in public funding (from taxes), and an operating budget of $1.3 billion.
Hypothetically speaking, what would the budget be if they eliminated fares? The budget doesn't break out the expenses in a way to examine this (at least - I couldn't find it), but it would eliminate a big chunk of the expenses. Not only are there turnstyles and fare sellers, but collection and counting of the money, maintenance on the styles and ticket machines, and so on. Even the financial cost of maintaining a bank account and driving the money to the bank for deposit could be eliminated.
On the flip side, a person making $15/hr delayed by waiting in line at the turnstyle or purchasing tokens/tickets loses $0.25 worth of time for each minute of delay. A commuter would lose this much twice a day, and the loss would be more valuable if the commuter made more money.
And this change would benefit poor people the most. It's an efficient way to preferentially give them the benefit of a public service.
It seems like a more efficient method might be to eliminate the fares and increase public support to cover the difference. The net gain in customer time plus eliminating the fare network might be more than the increase in taxes. Just eliminating the fare mechanisms alone might reduce expenses enough to cover the loss of revenue.
I couldn't remember for the longest time, or I would have put it in the original post. It's just now come to me.
It was "Disciplined Minds" by Jeff Schmidt. Reading it is 'kinda like slogging through wet cement - get it on audio tape instead.
Among the interesting bits is the story of Theodore Streleski, a mathematics grad-student who bludgeoned his faculty adviser to death with a hammer.
From the wikipedia article:
...claiming he [Streleski] felt the murder was justifiable homicide because de Leeuw had withheld departmental awards from him, demeaned Streleski in front of his peers, and refused his requests for financial support. Streleski was in his 16th year pursuing his doctorate in the mathematics department, alternating with low-paying jobs to support himself.
I suppose it depends partly on your definition of science.
Take for example this post: a method for electroless copper plating which is easily in the realm of the home experimenter.
The video was not published in a journal, didn't have a write-up, and wasn't an accredited researcher - just some kid who thought things through, tried it, and it worked. I admire the presentation format - the video gives complete details of the process without a standard writeup (abstract/background/procedure/results/discussion). I think that's pretty neat. And there's no paywall. It doesn't need peer review, either.
Is it useful? I dunno. Even if this particular process is already discovered (it's not in Henley's, at least not my copy), it probably wasn't known by the kid doing it. Couple with inkjet deposition of conductive ink with poor conductivity, it might lead to a system for direct-deposit circuit boards.
And, if you think publishing "has no benefit," why are you doing this anyway?
a) The original reason people become scientists is to do interesting research. Publishing isn't as interesting as doing. (And scientific publishing has it's own style of nonsense.) b) I'm working with a professional magician who's interested in effects that are based on science, but uncommon enough that people wouldn't recognize them as such (unrelated example). c) If I can find a measurable effect, it can be used to make products. This is more likely beneficial than publishing.
No link? At least say what type of detection method (and corresponding range of DM possibilities) you're using! Is there a particular section of parameter space that you think you can access that's not solidly covered by existing academic DM experiments? Sounds like fun in any case.
Nope, sorry - not this one. It's a "lottery ticket". It's looking for something that isn't forbidden by current theory, but unlikely to be true. It requires a careful analysis to see that it doesn't violate basic principles, so I don't want to be judged before I have data. My analysis might be wrong in any event.
If I get results, maybe. Publishing takes time and has no benefit.
I recently finished a book where the author analyzes the entire process of getting a PhD in physics. For various reasons, it's not at all worthwhile. You will never be in a position to realize your dream of doing interesting research or becoming a professor. I'll let others describe the various problems, but they're fairly self-evident.
So let's think out of the box. Is there a way to do interesting research without the PhD?
It turns out there's a ton of interesting things being done by home experimentation nowadays. Actually, this used to be common - a gentleman scientist was someone with an independent income who tinkered with home research. Many had quite elaborate laboratories and discovered useful things.
If you want to be a researcher, you could approach the problem intellectually. Establish a steady income from which you can support yourself and family, allocate some time and money to setting up a lab, and do your own research.
Ben Krasnow built an electron microscope (!), and is experimenting with vapor-phase deposition of conductive traces. Robert Murray Smith makes graphene and conductive ink, Brad Graham built a rock disaggregator (which is, incidentally, totally frightening), Lindsay Wilson built an untrasonic drill, Timothy Ferriss is scientifically studying of nutrition, I am trying to detect dark matter (no link - sorry)
... the list goes on and on.
Lots of people are doing interesting research at home with a modest budget. If you can give up the big questions (Higgs Boson, Penicillin replacement, Egyptian archaeology), there's a wide swath of interesting areas just waiting to be explored.
So a bunch of un-elected bureaucrats decided whether same un-elected bureaucrats had the power to regulate a product or service? Mind you, I'm not questioning whether this is a good product or not-- just whether the FDA should be deciding what's in its jurisdiction. Where are the progressives clamoring for "checks and balances"?
The FDA bears the brunt of all public outrage of anything even tangentially related to medicine. They are bureaucrats who want to avoid responsibility at any cost. The FDA also bears none of the costs of testing new products.
What outcome did you expect?
A different model might take the utility of public safety into account. Instead of "safety at any cost", it might be "more good than harm".
The current diagnosis model is probabilistic fitting, where a self-confessed list of symptoms is matched against a list of possible conditions. The doctor starts with "try this, see if it clears up" and moves to the next condition if it doesn't. (And heaven help you if you get a rare condition.)
I don't see how a diagnostic test, even an inaccurate one, could be worse than what we have now. A false positive would have to be confirmed by more accurate testing, and a false negative wouldn't be any different from not taking the test (ie - you'd wait for symptoms to appear). Maybe instead of the FDA requiring companies to prove perfection, it should be up to the FDA to prove that something *doesn't* work. They would eliminate all the obvious scams and swindles, and allow companies to try new things(*).
(*) With normal legal protections - companies would still be liable for damages.
What's the problem with Hollywood Accounting? Do you have any actual complaint here? The way writers are paid for work is completely regular and legal, and all people outside the business ever hear are the stories, heavily promoted, of certain individuals who thought they could get a better deal by taking their case to the press.
Hollywood accounting is essentially lying about profits so that the producers don't have to pay "percent of profit" agreements. I think the best example is Forrest Gump, about a year after release it was the third-highest-grossing movie of all time, having taken in around $661 million against a $55 million cost to produce and (at that time) still sitting at a $65 million loss.
Winston Groom [writer of "Forrest Gump"] was only made whole because he had you guys over a barrel: you couldn't make the sequel without his blessing, and he had been burned by the original movie.
Producers have a well-earned reputation as predatory, greedy, grasping, and immoral. I can remember reading occasional accounts of producer behaviour starting with the Three Stooges, with occasional first-hand and investigatory reports ever since with no change in perspective. A simple Google search exposes your history for all to see. You are widely regarded as bad people.
How is Hollywood Accounting more fair than, say, the common dot-com tactic of paying an employee with stock options and then diluting them? Or the technology company policy of paying a patent filer with a flat bonus? The difference is moral opprobrium and marketing, nothing more.
I think you meant to say "less fair".
We don't support companies that screw with employees either, we're pretty consistent about the "fairness" issue.
When a large insurance payout goes to someone of something ridiculous like $50 million, to people who would be lucky to make a million in their lifetime, people cheer, yet complain when it means their medical costs go up to cover the doctors insurance premiums.
It is good that the correct source was found and that he won the court case but this is not the correct way to solve these problems.
You make a good point, but I'm not sure what can be done about it. Others would use that same point to defuse righteous cheering and encourage solemnity at the outcome, and maybe imply that it is in our best interest *not* to encourage such outcomes. Not holding the perpetrators' feet to the fire would be a worse alternative.
I eagerly awate assemblerex's demand for Voltage Pictures to be compensated millions of dollars for the bittorrented distribution of The Hurt Locker. I bring this up as someone who was employed on that film, and note that that money pays my salary on the next film...
You seem to be implying that we have a double standard in judging the moral position of copyright litigants.
Let me ask you something: do the "Voltage Pictures" standard contracts in any way, shape, or form conform to the common definition of Hollywood Accounting?
It's not that we always side with "the little guy" - we frequently side against small vendors making money off of illegal copying, such as Chinese illegal DVD vendors or businesses who sell open-source software.
The rule is this: we generally side against evil, in all its predatory, corrupt, and dishonourable ways.
What's your take on the "Voltage Pictures" contracts, BTW? I think people here would enjoy your views.
What's this got to do with Cary Elwes character from "The Princess Bride"?
In the novel (and movie), it was discovered that the "Dread Pirate Roberts" was not a single person.
One person started the legend, got rich and retired. His replacement kept the name in order to take advantage of the reputation, got rich, and retired... and this continued for several generations of the name.
From Wikipedia: "It is revealed during the course of the story that Roberts is not one man, but a series of individuals who periodically pass the name and reputation to a chosen successor. Everyone except the successor and the former Roberts is then released at a convenient port, and a new crew is hired. The former Roberts stays aboard as first mate, referring to his successor as "Captain Roberts", and thereby establishing the new Roberts' persona. After the crew is convinced, the former Roberts leaves the ship and retires on his earnings."
The original SilkRoad founder used the pseudonym "Dread Pirate Roberts", got rich, and turned over the name to his successor (who was sloppy and got arrested). The original founder's choice of name was probably an homage to a popular character, but it has mirrored the backstory of the book character with some measure of irony. (Or maybe it's not irony, it's just unexpected - I can't really tell.)
If we were to take it as given that psychopathy is a good thing for a leader to have -- not just good for him but good for those led -- then how ought a person to vote informed by that knowledge?
Should I uniformly vote for the most ruthless person in every race? Or should I identify the most ruthless person at the highest level and then vote for him and the people he will most readily use to accomplish his purposes?
That's an insightful question, this discussion has taken an interesting twist.
Distinguish the attributes of leadership from the goals of leadership. We can rate everyone in the political arena on a scale of ruthlessness (where would Dick Cheney be?), but by itself that's not a useful guide for our decisions. First choose the leaders whose goals are the same as yours, or whose goals will benefit you the most. Once you have winnowed down the candidates, the one that's the most ruthless will likely be the most effective. Vote for that one.
The problem with federal government right now is that political goals only benefit small subsets of the population, most often a "boost" to a specific company or industry, and most likely in the guise of "job creation". You can vote for those people if you think you're a member of the subset, or even if you're a member of the subset "most of the time", but in reality such thinking only leads to income inequality, class envy, and revolt (as outlined by this previous post).
If the actions of the federal government were to always benefit wide swatches of the people, we would be much better off. Things like the interstate highway system, the Hoover dam, and "universal health care" (just pick someone else's solution and duplicate it) have a beneficial effect on large sections (if not all) of the population. Loopholes that allow GE to pay no taxes benefits a tiny subset, and over time subsets overlap subsets, which leads to the exponential model.
(As a practical matter, since the federal government seems entrenched in "boost a small subset", my advice is to always vote against the incumbent. This minimizes their opportunity to accrue political power, and sends a message of "change, or be kicked out".)
That and not exhibiting psychopathic-like tendancies in the maximum degree.
From the article: “I’m obnoxiously competitive. I won’t let my grandchildren win games. I’m kind of an asshole, and I do jerky things that piss people off,” he says. “But while I’m aggressive, but my aggression is sublimated. I’d rather beat someone in an argument than beat them up.”
Oh my god... you're right! I'm a complete psychopath!
Since gays have never had a natural way to produce biological descendants, I would say the fact that they appear now and again is a side effect of some other, useful trait, not a useful trait in itself.
Consider evolution from the point of view of the genes, not the organism.
In the case of gays, the occasional uncle that doesn't start a family works for the success of the bloodline without sharing that success with other clans. It's effectively "drone labor" for the genes involved. The adage "rich uncle left me his fortune" has its roots in evolutionary survival.
With this adaptation the genes are more likely to propagate, but not the particular combination that makes up the individual.
Slashdot Mirror
Apropos of nothing, let me ask a question.
Can people be cured of mental health problems?
I recall a study comparing the rates of people getting off drugs while on psychotherapy with those getting off drugs on their own.
I also recall a study where completely sane people were checked into a mental institution (under a false name, as a test case) with instructions to pretend symptoms for awhile, but then pretend to be completely cured. Their status was never set to "cured", rather it was "condition, under remission".
So have there been any studies showing that mental health treatment is effective, or is psychotherapy more akin to lie detectors and phrenology?
(A related question, is there good sensitivity between the various mental health diagnoses with different treatments? Meaning, if the condition A treatment is different from condition B, is there a sharp, easily-recognized distinction between the symptoms for A and B?)
You might try starting with: http://cratermatic.sourceforge.net/ (disclaimer... this was written by my son some years ago as a NASA intern). It is nothing like AI, but is a classical topography algorithm (basin filling).
Your son is the one who sent me the data :-)
The online project does not have the dataset, and the dataset links on that page are broken. After talking with your son a bit he agreed to send me the data.
Looking at the cratermatic results, I notice that the algorithm has problems with certain situations, mistakes that a human analyst wouldn't make(*). This is what piqued my interest in the project - what is it about the human algorithm that does so much better?
The recognition feature is relatively simple (circles or basins), so this dataset makes a much better meal for analysis than something more complex like "is there a dog in this picture?".
Thank your son for me. The data is a unique blend of simplicity (of feature), volume (lots of data), and clear standard for comparison (the cratermatic output). Everything a researcher could want.
(*) The algorithm seems to have problems(**) with intersecting craters, craters contained within craters, and partial craters (incomplete arc of lip visible). It detects many "tiny" irregular craters which seem at first glance to not be actual craters.
(**) This is against a background of many craters correctly recognized. The program is quite useful, I'm just wondering if there is a better technique
So how about some examples, then? There are "so many cases", after all, so you should have no problem giving us 10 or 20 of the most convincing examples.
It would be more convincing if you limited them to contributions to well-established fields, as well. There's nothing impressive about basic discoveries made in the infancy of a new field of study, when EVERYBODY involved is essentially an amateur.
Richard Feynman is one of the few people to have decoded/translated a Mayan heiroglyphic codex.
He did this as an amateur without anything close to a related degree.
This kid discovered a new dinosaur,
Just google "high school student makes scientific discovery" or "college student makes scientific discovery" for a big list.
I research hard AI. In my view thinking through and tackling example problems is the best way to explore a topic. If you require your system to mirror our current understanding of neuroscience, then you're essentially researching the algorithms of the brain.
If you're specifically looking into epilepsy and related, consider checking out William Calvin's website. He's an experimental neuroscientist from University of Washington, who wrote many books that explain the neurological foundations of the brain in readable form with good detail.
(1) What are some interesting computational neuroscience simulation problems
Pretty much anything AI falls under that category. Go over to Kaggle.com and check out some of their competitions, including their past competitions. Check out the Google AI lab and see what they're doing, and check out recent publications to see what people are trying to solve. Ask yourself: Are humans better than the computer, and can it be done better?
Here's a video of a system that uses neuron simulation (of a sort) to recognize hand-written digits. A hand-written digits dataset is in the UCI archive below.
(2) Is it easy for a non-academic to get the required data?
Generally, yes. UCI has a repository of machine-learning datasets. The researchers supporting Kaggle competitions frequently release their data.
I've found that researchers are generally approachable, and will give away copies of their data (I have 4 datasets from researchers). As a personal anecdote, last week a researcher from this very forum sent me his dataset of Mars altitude images - I'm trying to come up with an algorithm to recognize craters.
(3) I am familiar with (but not used extensively) simulators like Neuron, Genesis etc. Other than these and Matlab, what other software should I get?
In my view, pick a computer language that has a wide support network of libraries, and code things from scratch.Something like Perl or R. At some point you will want to break open the box and see what's actually happening inside, and familiarity with the system (having constructed it) is key. You will want to insert trace statements, print out intermediate results, and so on. Most of the pre-built systems don't have what you will ultimately want, and building simulation objects isn't terribly hard.
(4) Where online or offline, can I network with other DIY Computational Neuroscience enthusiasts?
Please let me know if you find any (by posting a response).
I've found that most AI enthusiasts are really "big data" enthusiasts, and most of them are all about business rather than AI. The IRC AI chatrooms are all but dead, and most of what is there are students asking for help with their homework. (Although to be fair, the lurkers there know everything about AI and can answer questions and make suggestions if you're stuck.)
The NEAI meetup in Cambridge is mostly spectators - people who want to find out about AI or how to use AI ("how can I use AI to improve the performance of my financial company?"). I hear there's an AI meetup out on the West coast that's pretty good.
See if there's a meetup in your area for something related, or start one and see if anyone shows up.
We need to have a discussion about what we feel should be blocked in this society. Nuclear bomb plans, CP, 3D printed guns, zero-day hacks, drug deals, etc...
I agree completely. Here's my position.
What's yours?
So, who wants odds on how long it'll take before this becomes a haven for pæderasts to swap kiddie porn? Anyone?
I'm guessing about six months..
How could you tell? For that matter, would you want to tell?
Quick question: would you support banning CP if it resulted in more children getting molested?
I only ask because the best evidence we have indicates that it does. The website will change a legal framework that, despite the best intentions, promotes child abuse.
And this will not inconvenience the police in any way. If they have evidence of wrong-doing, they can get a "sneak and peek" warrant and install a bug on the suspect's computer.
This system only ensures that the police get judicial oversight, which they needed anyway.
That's patently untrue. The Huffingtonpost article you link to is wildly inaccurate, self-contradictory and much more about sensationalism than the actual NEJoM article.
I'm just pointing out what doctors are saying. If they are wrong, please tell us what the study actually means. In particular, this line from the NEJM study:
According to the FDA, 38 of the 74 registered studies had positive results (51%; 95% CI, 39 to 63)
Doctors, including the one in the linked HufPo article, are stating specifically that antidepressants don't work base don this study. In so many words, directly from the article.
Since doctors are wrong, presumably because they don't have meaningful training in science or statistics, who then should be the go-to expert to interpret these findings?
The original model held that psychotherapy could cure depression. Talk to your analyst once a week and after years of treatment you got better.
Then it was discovered that low norepinephrine caused depression, and tricyclics fixed that and cured depression.
Then it was discovered that low serotonin caused depression, and SSRIs fixed that and cured depression.
Then it was discovered that low dopamine caused depression, and MAOIs fixed that and cured depression.
And recently, the The New England Journal of Medicine reported depression meds have no effect.
One last question... just one*.
Is psychology evidence-driven, or belief-driven?
(*) This isn't just me asking. Here's a quote from the The New England Journal of Medicine article:
Evidence-based medicine is valuable to the extent that the evidence base is complete and unbiased. Selective publication of clinical trials — and the outcomes within those trials — can lead to unrealistic estimates of drug effectiveness and alter the apparent risk–benefit ratio.
(**) Also, I have no meaningful training in science or statistics. If you want, you can win the argument by pointing this out in your response.
I just now hopped over to the CTA website and checked out their budget.
In broad terms, they take in about $650 million from fares, $650 million in public funding (from taxes), and an operating budget of $1.3 billion.
Hypothetically speaking, what would the budget be if they eliminated fares? The budget doesn't break out the expenses in a way to examine this (at least - I couldn't find it), but it would eliminate a big chunk of the expenses. Not only are there turnstyles and fare sellers, but collection and counting of the money, maintenance on the styles and ticket machines, and so on. Even the financial cost of maintaining a bank account and driving the money to the bank for deposit could be eliminated.
On the flip side, a person making $15/hr delayed by waiting in line at the turnstyle or purchasing tokens/tickets loses $0.25 worth of time for each minute of delay. A commuter would lose this much twice a day, and the loss would be more valuable if the commuter made more money.
And this change would benefit poor people the most. It's an efficient way to preferentially give them the benefit of a public service.
It seems like a more efficient method might be to eliminate the fares and increase public support to cover the difference. The net gain in customer time plus eliminating the fare network might be more than the increase in taxes. Just eliminating the fare mechanisms alone might reduce expenses enough to cover the loss of revenue.
Has anyone looked into this?
I couldn't remember for the longest time, or I would have put it in the original post. It's just now come to me.
It was "Disciplined Minds" by Jeff Schmidt. Reading it is 'kinda like slogging through wet cement - get it on audio tape instead.
Among the interesting bits is the story of Theodore Streleski, a mathematics grad-student who bludgeoned his faculty adviser to death with a hammer.
From the wikipedia article:
...claiming he [Streleski] felt the murder was justifiable homicide because de Leeuw had withheld departmental awards from him, demeaned Streleski in front of his peers, and refused his requests for financial support. Streleski was in his 16th year pursuing his doctorate in the mathematics department, alternating with low-paying jobs to support himself.
Sixteenth year pursuing a doctorate indeed...
Damn! I wish slashdot had a way to contact other users.
Drop me a note. If and when the experiment is finished (several months of data gathering) I'll let you know the results.
reolh at beddly dot com
(That's a temporary E-mail - I'll respond from a permanent address.)
I suppose it depends partly on your definition of science.
Take for example this post: a method for electroless copper plating which is easily in the realm of the home experimenter.
The video was not published in a journal, didn't have a write-up, and wasn't an accredited researcher - just some kid who thought things through, tried it, and it worked. I admire the presentation format - the video gives complete details of the process without a standard writeup (abstract/background/procedure/results/discussion). I think that's pretty neat. And there's no paywall. It doesn't need peer review, either.
Is it useful? I dunno. Even if this particular process is already discovered (it's not in Henley's, at least not my copy), it probably wasn't known by the kid doing it. Couple with inkjet deposition of conductive ink with poor conductivity, it might lead to a system for direct-deposit circuit boards.
Is it science? That depends on your definition.
And, if you think publishing "has no benefit," why are you doing this anyway?
a) The original reason people become scientists is to do interesting research. Publishing isn't as interesting as doing. (And scientific publishing has it's own style of nonsense.)
b) I'm working with a professional magician who's interested in effects that are based on science, but uncommon enough that people wouldn't recognize them as such (unrelated example).
c) If I can find a measurable effect, it can be used to make products. This is more likely beneficial than publishing.
No link? At least say what type of detection method (and corresponding range of DM possibilities) you're using! Is there a particular section of parameter space that you think you can access that's not solidly covered by existing academic DM experiments? Sounds like fun in any case.
Nope, sorry - not this one. It's a "lottery ticket". It's looking for something that isn't forbidden by current theory, but unlikely to be true. It requires a careful analysis to see that it doesn't violate basic principles, so I don't want to be judged before I have data. My analysis might be wrong in any event.
If I get results, maybe. Publishing takes time and has no benefit.
I recently finished a book where the author analyzes the entire process of getting a PhD in physics. For various reasons, it's not at all worthwhile. You will never be in a position to realize your dream of doing interesting research or becoming a professor. I'll let others describe the various problems, but they're fairly self-evident.
So let's think out of the box. Is there a way to do interesting research without the PhD?
It turns out there's a ton of interesting things being done by home experimentation nowadays. Actually, this used to be common - a gentleman scientist was someone with an independent income who tinkered with home research. Many had quite elaborate laboratories and discovered useful things.
If you want to be a researcher, you could approach the problem intellectually. Establish a steady income from which you can support yourself and family, allocate some time and money to setting up a lab, and do your own research.
Ben Krasnow built an electron microscope (!), and is experimenting with vapor-phase deposition of conductive traces. Robert Murray Smith makes graphene and conductive ink, Brad Graham built a rock disaggregator (which is, incidentally, totally frightening), Lindsay Wilson built an untrasonic drill, Timothy Ferriss is scientifically studying of nutrition, I am trying to detect dark matter (no link - sorry)
Lots of people are doing interesting research at home with a modest budget. If you can give up the big questions (Higgs Boson, Penicillin replacement, Egyptian archaeology), there's a wide swath of interesting areas just waiting to be explored.
So a bunch of un-elected bureaucrats decided whether same un-elected bureaucrats had the power to regulate a product or service? Mind you, I'm not questioning whether this is a good product or not-- just whether the FDA should be deciding what's in its jurisdiction. Where are the progressives clamoring for "checks and balances"?
The FDA bears the brunt of all public outrage of anything even tangentially related to medicine. They are bureaucrats who want to avoid responsibility at any cost. The FDA also bears none of the costs of testing new products.
What outcome did you expect?
A different model might take the utility of public safety into account. Instead of "safety at any cost", it might be "more good than harm".
The current diagnosis model is probabilistic fitting, where a self-confessed list of symptoms is matched against a list of possible conditions. The doctor starts with "try this, see if it clears up" and moves to the next condition if it doesn't. (And heaven help you if you get a rare condition.)
I don't see how a diagnostic test, even an inaccurate one, could be worse than what we have now. A false positive would have to be confirmed by more accurate testing, and a false negative wouldn't be any different from not taking the test (ie - you'd wait for symptoms to appear). Maybe instead of the FDA requiring companies to prove perfection, it should be up to the FDA to prove that something *doesn't* work. They would eliminate all the obvious scams and swindles, and allow companies to try new things(*).
(*) With normal legal protections - companies would still be liable for damages.
What's the problem with Hollywood Accounting? Do you have any actual complaint here? The way writers are paid for work is completely regular and legal, and all people outside the business ever hear are the stories, heavily promoted, of certain individuals who thought they could get a better deal by taking their case to the press.
Hollywood accounting is essentially lying about profits so that the producers don't have to pay "percent of profit" agreements. I think the best example is Forrest Gump, about a year after release it was the third-highest-grossing movie of all time, having taken in around $661 million against a $55 million cost to produce and (at that time) still sitting at a $65 million loss.
Winston Groom [writer of "Forrest Gump"] was only made whole because he had you guys over a barrel: you couldn't make the sequel without his blessing, and he had been burned by the original movie.
Producers have a well-earned reputation as predatory, greedy, grasping, and immoral. I can remember reading occasional accounts of producer behaviour starting with the Three Stooges, with occasional first-hand and investigatory reports ever since with no change in perspective. A simple Google search exposes your history for all to see. You are widely regarded as bad people.
How is Hollywood Accounting more fair than, say, the common dot-com tactic of paying an employee with stock options and then diluting them? Or the technology company policy of paying a patent filer with a flat bonus? The difference is moral opprobrium and marketing, nothing more.
I think you meant to say "less fair".
We don't support companies that screw with employees either, we're pretty consistent about the "fairness" issue.
When a large insurance payout goes to someone of something ridiculous like $50 million, to people who would be lucky to make a million in their lifetime, people cheer, yet complain when it means their medical costs go up to cover the doctors insurance premiums.
It is good that the correct source was found and that he won the court case but this is not the correct way to solve these problems.
You make a good point, but I'm not sure what can be done about it. Others would use that same point to defuse righteous cheering and encourage solemnity at the outcome, and maybe imply that it is in our best interest *not* to encourage such outcomes. Not holding the perpetrators' feet to the fire would be a worse alternative.
Do you have an alternative? What do you propose?
I eagerly awate assemblerex's demand for Voltage Pictures to be compensated millions of dollars for the bittorrented distribution of The Hurt Locker. I bring this up as someone who was employed on that film, and note that that money pays my salary on the next film...
You seem to be implying that we have a double standard in judging the moral position of copyright litigants.
Let me ask you something: do the "Voltage Pictures" standard contracts in any way, shape, or form conform to the common definition of Hollywood Accounting?
It's not that we always side with "the little guy" - we frequently side against small vendors making money off of illegal copying, such as Chinese illegal DVD vendors or businesses who sell open-source software.
The rule is this: we generally side against evil, in all its predatory, corrupt, and dishonourable ways.
What's your take on the "Voltage Pictures" contracts, BTW? I think people here would enjoy your views.
Perhaps we can assemble and offer a large pile of underwear as ransom?
Will the gnomes return him unharmed, or is that a different business model?
What's this got to do with Cary Elwes character from "The Princess Bride"?
In the novel (and movie), it was discovered that the "Dread Pirate Roberts" was not a single person.
One person started the legend, got rich and retired. His replacement kept the name in order to take advantage of the reputation, got rich, and retired... and this continued for several generations of the name.
From Wikipedia: "It is revealed during the course of the story that Roberts is not one man, but a series of individuals who periodically pass the name and reputation to a chosen successor. Everyone except the successor and the former Roberts is then released at a convenient port, and a new crew is hired. The former Roberts stays aboard as first mate, referring to his successor as "Captain Roberts", and thereby establishing the new Roberts' persona. After the crew is convinced, the former Roberts leaves the ship and retires on his earnings."
The original SilkRoad founder used the pseudonym "Dread Pirate Roberts", got rich, and turned over the name to his successor (who was sloppy and got arrested). The original founder's choice of name was probably an homage to a popular character, but it has mirrored the backstory of the book character with some measure of irony. (Or maybe it's not irony, it's just unexpected - I can't really tell.)
Thanks - good point.
If we were to take it as given that psychopathy is a good thing for a leader to have -- not just good for him but good for those led -- then how ought a person to vote informed by that knowledge?
Should I uniformly vote for the most ruthless person in every race? Or should I identify the most ruthless person at the highest level and then vote for him and the people he will most readily use to accomplish his purposes?
That's an insightful question, this discussion has taken an interesting twist.
Distinguish the attributes of leadership from the goals of leadership. We can rate everyone in the political arena on a scale of ruthlessness (where would Dick Cheney be?), but by itself that's not a useful guide for our decisions. First choose the leaders whose goals are the same as yours, or whose goals will benefit you the most. Once you have winnowed down the candidates, the one that's the most ruthless will likely be the most effective. Vote for that one.
The problem with federal government right now is that political goals only benefit small subsets of the population, most often a "boost" to a specific company or industry, and most likely in the guise of "job creation". You can vote for those people if you think you're a member of the subset, or even if you're a member of the subset "most of the time", but in reality such thinking only leads to income inequality, class envy, and revolt (as outlined by this previous post).
If the actions of the federal government were to always benefit wide swatches of the people, we would be much better off. Things like the interstate highway system, the Hoover dam, and "universal health care" (just pick someone else's solution and duplicate it) have a beneficial effect on large sections (if not all) of the population. Loopholes that allow GE to pay no taxes benefits a tiny subset, and over time subsets overlap subsets, which leads to the exponential model.
(As a practical matter, since the federal government seems entrenched in "boost a small subset", my advice is to always vote against the incumbent. This minimizes their opportunity to accrue political power, and sends a message of "change, or be kicked out".)
That and not exhibiting psychopathic-like tendancies in the maximum degree.
From the article: “I’m obnoxiously competitive. I won’t let my grandchildren win games. I’m kind of an asshole, and I do jerky things that piss people off,” he says. “But while I’m aggressive, but my aggression is sublimated. I’d rather beat someone in an argument than beat them up.”
Oh my god... you're right! I'm a complete psychopath!
Since gays have never had a natural way to produce biological descendants, I would say the fact that they appear now and again is a side effect of some other, useful trait, not a useful trait in itself.
Consider evolution from the point of view of the genes, not the organism.
In the case of gays, the occasional uncle that doesn't start a family works for the success of the bloodline without sharing that success with other clans. It's effectively "drone labor" for the genes involved. The adage "rich uncle left me his fortune" has its roots in evolutionary survival.
With this adaptation the genes are more likely to propagate, but not the particular combination that makes up the individual.
(Viz: The Selfish Gene by Rick Dawkins.)