Here is the eighth-grade graduation test given in Salina, Kansas, in April 13, 1895. It was taken from the original document on file at the Smoky Valley Genealogical Society and Library in Salina, Kansas and reprinted by the Salina Journal:
Grammar (Time, one hour)
1. Give nine rules for the use of Capital Letters.
2. Name the Parts of Speech and define those that have no modifications.
3. Define Verse, Stanza and Paragraph.
4. What are the Principal Parts of a verb? Give Principal Parts of do, lie, lay and run.
5. Define Case, Illustrate each Case.
6. What is Punctuation? Give rules for principal marks of Punctuation.
7-10. Write a composition of about 150 words and show therein that you understand the practical use of the rules of grammar.
Arithmetic (Time, 1.25 hours)
1. Name and define the Fundamental Rules of Arithmetic.
2. A wagon box is 2 ft. deep, 10 feet long, and 3 ft. wide. How many bushels of wheat will it hold?
3. If a load of wheat weighs 3942 lbs., what is it worth at 50 cents per bushel, deducting 1050 lbs. for tare?
4. District No. 33 has a valuation of $35,000. What is the necessary levy to carry on a school seven months at $50 per month, and have $104 for incidentals?
5. Find cost of 6720 lbs. coal at $6.00 per ton.
6. Find the interest of $512.60 for 8 months and 18 days at 7 percent.
7. What is the cost of 40 boards 12 inches wide and 16 ft. long at $.20 per inch?
8. Find bank discount on $300 for 90 days (no grace) at 10 percent.
9. What is the cost of a square farm at $15 per acre, the distance around which is 640 rods?
10.Write a Bank Check, a Promissory Note, and a Receipt.
U.S. History (Time, 45 minutes)
1. Give the epochs into which U.S. History is divided.
2. Give an account of the discovery of America by Columbus.
3. Relate the causes and results of the Revolutionary War.
We would reject it, and quite sensibly, because this fact (like his conclusion that whites are more intelligent than blacks) tends to lead people to the illogical conclusion that intelligence is genetically determined.
Intelligence is a funny thing; no one can prove exactly how much of it is tied to genes and how much of it is tied to upbringing.
Uhh... dude. A small change in genetics can make for a HUGE change in intelligence, regardless of environment. Just changing less than five percent of your DNA, you would have already died of old age... as a female rat. Yeah, that's right. Less than 5% of our DNA differs from that of rats. Now, don't you think it's possible, just possible, that genetic differences between individuals or the same race can cause variance in intelligence that no amount "nuture" could ever compensate for?
Well, I can't help myself. Living in a county where direct translations into English are a constant amusment, where it's common to see things like "four season tiger soup" or even "crow-dragon tea" on menus, I can't resist...If you babelfish "A penny saved is a penny earned." into Chinese and back again, you get:
"The penny is the penny is won by the preservation"
I frequently spend $25 on a movie and snacks for two. Total time is usually 90 minutes. The maximum amount of interaction with the movie is laughing, being surprised or scared, and shushing the idiot who spends $25 to talk on his cell. Most of the time, I feel the experience was worth it. Yet $15 a month for an online game is a lot?
So, why are you frequently spending $25 on a movie and for two? Do you need two seats to yourself at the movies for some inscrutable reasons? Maybe you just mean snacks for two... as in you have serious munchies? On the other hand, do mean that movies require a date and food to be comparable to a MMORPG? Don't you ever eat during your computer sessions? This whole comparison seem awfully weird...
I think you completely missed the parent's point. User 184013 was implying that the weakening of the US dollar was a good thing. Observe the folling quote from 184013's post:
The dollar has lost around 20% of it's value against the Indian Rupee over the last 5 years. Americans are now 20% cheaper to employ compared to Indians than they were 5 years ago.
That trend's going to continue until it isn't worth offshoring anything anymore. In the meantime the US standard of living hasn't changed much. The Indian standard of living has increased substantially, it'll continue increasing and they'll continue getting more expensive.
China is a problem. The problem with China is that they fix their exchange rate to the dollar.
He wasn't arguing that it was China's fault that the USD is depreciating. He wasn't "blaming the world". He was saying that under normal conditions the depreciation of the USD would lead to an equilibrium in terms of salaries and offshoring. He actually seemed like a friendly guy who thought it was a GOOD thing that Indians will be catching up with westerners' standard of living. He was just saying that the PRC's fixing the yuan exchange rate prevents this equilibrium from being achieved. You yourself said, "...look at virtually all other currencies. They are all strong against the USD. This is a problem with the American..." By your own admission, it looks like from an objective economic perspective the USD was overvalued, and is in the process of a correction against every other currency... except the Chinese yuan. This is exactly what the poster you responded to said.
Again, as usual, Americans love to blame their weakened Dollar on other countries. There always has to be an external demon.
Maybe you should hold your anti-American rants in check for a moment and think before you post. Maybe, just maybe you'll at least find out what the poster is saying so you can at least disagree with THAT, instead of just disagreeing with something nobody said, and spewing your prejudiced, nationalist filth all over our beloved slashdot.
blockquote=grandparent's post (184013) italics=parent's post (anonymous coward)
In general, countries formed from Asian immigrants have high IQs. Particularly Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Singapore. Hong Kong's average of 107 is number one in the world. Asian Americans also have very high average IQs. Scores are also quite decent in Japan and S. Korea. However IQ averages accross large asian countries such as China and India are about equal to those of the average North American or European. Interestingly, the group documented with the highest average IQ is Jewish Americans. I've seen studies putting that average at an astounding 113. Interestingly the average IQ of Jewish people in Isreal is only 94. Maybe some argument can be made that only more intelligent people were able to successfully immigrate out of China to HK or the US, giving the US an unbalanced racial IQ make up. It would stand to reason that the really smart Jews from Europe would have been in New York during the holocaust. Most of those living in Isreal now are decended from those who did NOT get out of Europe in time. Meanwhile the barriers for Mexicans coming to the US haven't been nearly so high, so perhaps there isn't much IQ selective pressure on those immigrant communities. Same thing would go for Africans caught by slavers a couple of hundred years ago.
Survival of the fittest always applies. What you missed is that the definition of fitness has changed. Being tough, aggressive, violent and inclined to rape women would be a set of traits that would have been very successful for a Roman soldier. He'd probably have many more children than other Roman soldiers in his company. Give those same traits to a man living in London right now, and he'd likely not have any children at all.
What survival of the fittest encourages now is sex appeal, willingness to have children, and ability to provide for them (especially in societies without too many social programs). Evolution is pushing us in that direction as we speak. I remember reading an article in Scientific American a few years back. It was talking about West Point students, and how to predict who would make general. It turns out that grades, work ethic, and intelligence were all factors, but the biggest factor was facial structure. While facial structure wasn't a good predictor of where they they'd be in the middle of their careers, those with strong jaws and sharp features traditionally associated with leaders were in fact far more likely to make general by the end of their careers. Furthermore, those men also fathered one more child than the others on average. THAT'S survival of the fittest at work!
I really don't like this idea everyone on this thread is repeating. It seems that there's some idea that people who do poorly on mensa tests, are disproportionately likely to have artistic or musical talent. I haven't found this to be the case at all. I don't think that people who excel at mensa tests have a propensity to suck at artist pursuits either. Some people are just smarter than others. I'm not just talking about acquired skills, either. What I mean is that some intelligent people are just more capable of learning and thinking about ANYTHING than other less intelligent people.
Let's look at a couple of cases:
1)Leonardo Da Vinci
Here is a man who was arguably the greatest artist, engineer, and medical researcher of his age. He was a great painter, an inventor of siege weapons, and a visionary who imagined such things as helicopters hundreds of years before his time. In fact, much of Galileo's work on gravity stems from Da Vinci's earlier observations. Da Vinci's also widely credited as the author of the most accurate anatomy text of his time. Oh yeah, he was a hell of an athlete when he was young, too.
2) A boy in my high school named, "Ricky".
Ricky wasn't so bright. I have no idea where he is now, but at the age of 15 he had an awful lot of trouble reading. His drawing ability was on par with a normal 6 year old's, he had no musical talent, and he couldn't do long division yet either. Ricky was no master of social skills either. In fact, he was bossy, selfish and immature.
If you are going to try to argue that somehow these two individuals possess "different kinds" of intelligence, then please excuse me while I go puke. The truth is, EVERY "type" of intelligence has a positive correlation with every other type. Those in psychology research call it "g", or the General Intelligence Factor. It's not necessarily a pleasant fact. Maybe the world would be a fairer place if everyone was intellectually equal... but we aren't.
http://www.psych.utoronto.ca/~reingold/courses/i nt elligence/cache/1198gottfred.html
In a similar vein, those who are good looking and/or pretty are way more likely to become rich than are the ugly and stupid Beavises and Buttheads of the world. Life ain't fair.
I had to think about this for a minute, but now I think I've got it. In my head my example case was travelling due east or west in which case three points in a line on a path around the world would fall on a line on the map. I also thought of due north and due south, which work too as long as you don't cross a pole.
I guess the problem is that as you move along a constant compass heading in other angles the direction of due north will change relative to your facing. ie. "constant compass headings are not straight lines on the earth." Thanks for pointing that out. I'll have to keep that in mind.
4. Nice choice of map - see the distortion at the top. That's one thing you should be able to avoid online.
The thing about making a flat map of a spherical world is that there will always be distortion. Either the relative sizes of landmasses, the angles between them or BOTH will be distorted. The particular projection used to create the map will determine how much of what kind of distortion the map has. Whether if a map is "online" or not has nothing to do with it as long as it is still a two dimensional representation of a 3 dimensional object.
The most popular projection is called the Mercator Projection. This projection will heavily distort the relative sizes of landmasses, making whatever is in the corners of the map appear to be much larger than what is in the center. For example, depending on where the map is centered, Greenland could appear to be larger than the entire South American continent. The good side of the Mercator Projection is that it preserves the relative angles of locations. In other words, if 3 places all fall on the same straight line (around the world of course), then all three will also be in a straight line on a Mercator Projection map. For this reason, the Mercator Projection is by far the most useful for sailors and Navigators.
Other projections such as the Lambert Azimuthal Projection provide more exact relative sizes of countries and continents, while horribly distorting the shapes of places near the edge. There is also an Azimuthal Equidistant projection which neither maintains correct relative sizes, nor angles, but has the advantage that all distances measured from the center of the map will be correct.
As you can see, mapping online or off is all about trade offs. You can have correct shapes or angles or distances, but you any map will distort at least two of the three.
Vocab for serving your Chinese overlords
on
In the Year 2020
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· Score: 1
Hmm... people always say, "nin2 yao4 tao4 can1 ma?" But that means, "Do you wanna make it a combo meal?"
If it MUST be "do you want fries with that", then say "yao4 pei4 shu3 tiao2 ma?"
FYI "shu3" = potato/yam, and "tiao2" = stick
PS Anybody know what's wrong with slashdot and Chinese characters? This is one of the only forums I've seen that turns them all into ??s
Re:You might as well just say
on
Defining Google
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· Score: 1
Look, I was just making a satirical comparison. No need to revert to immature name calling. Your dismissive response notwithstanding, looks DO affect your earning ability. And just like college degrees, looks help your employment prospects even in jobs where they really aren't that relevant. Also, just like degrees, atractiveness has a positive correlation with performance. The comparison between looks and educational background are not so far fetched as you may have thought. The biggest difference is, in my mind, that one is a socially acceptable reason for making a hire and the other is not.
In any case, regardless of whether if interviewers can admit to hiring the more attractive candidate, do you really believe that it doesn't happen?
http://www.sims.berkeley.edu/~hal/people/hal/NYT im es/2003-08-28.html http://static.highbeam.com/r/r eportonsalarysurveys/may012002/whateverattractivepeopleearnmorebriefar ticle/ http://channels.netscape.com/ns/careers/pa ckage.js p?name=fte/attractivepeopleearnmore/attractivepeop leearnmore&floc=wn-np
One significant way a nice ass benefits you over not having a nice ass was told to me like this:
Let's say you're interviewing for a job and the employer has to decide between you and one other person. You both have the same qualifications and are both great people, but only one of you has a nice ass. Do you not think the employer will choose the nice assed person over the other when it's one of the last factors with which to choose?
So, if anything, a nice ass gets you that one step ahead of the person without one. If you both have a nice ass, then at least you don't have to worry about that being a problem so much.
While I'm prone to the occasional mis-typing of words I know how to spell, I can assure you that my grammar and spelling NEVER approach the level of that guy's. The thing that scares me is that after seeing all of these comments about his mistakes, I thought to myself, "Gee, what post were all of THESE in?"
Then, upon clicking "parent", I realized in horror that it was the post about Doom 3 people looking like they're made of rubber. I read that whole post without noticing ANYTHING wrong with it!!! Oh, and I forgot to mention one thing. I'm an ESL teacher and freelance Chinese to English translation editor. It's my friggin JOB is to pounce on grammar (and to a lesser degree, spelling) mistakes. Oh, the disgrace...
Like many others here, I don't like having a separate location bar and google bar in firefox. Just having one location bar and hitting down like in mozilla is a lot better in my mind.
But the BIG thing for me is that mozilla opens tabs with ctrl-enter, while firefox uses ctrl-enter to auto complete a URL as a.com address and requires alt-enter to open a tab for some stupid reason. Ctrl-enter is easier and faster to hit than alt-enter since the two keys are so close. Who uses URL.com completion anyway? If you don't type in the.com the browser autocompletes as it is...
Also, I feel that the whole mozilla organization is much more reasonable. Are options really some type of "tool"? No. Mozilla got it right to put it under preferences. Just because IE did something stupid doesn't mean that firefox has to copy it.
Oh, opening a set of bookmarks as a group of tabs is a great feature in mozilla too. For some reason my firefox won't do that.
While they may have developed their own keyboards years ago, they no longer use those keyboards with characters on them because Chinese has over 10,000 character that would need to be represented and it was deemed slow and cumbersome. Instead they type using the "latin" keyboard in pinyin (which is the phonetic pronunciation of a written character utilizing only the 26 letters).
Apparently you aren't familiar with canjie Chinese input. It's based on the structure of Chinese characters. Each key has one strucural componet of a character. By typing in the components one by one, a character is built. When you are done, you hit space. Actually, this is faster than typing words in English. Many people type over 200 words a minute using cangjie. Some type over 300. I know the definition of a word is a little difficult to compare between English and Chinese, but a Chinese person who is good with cangjie can type a text faster than a fast western typist can type the English translation.
Cangjie is used in Mainland China, Taiwan, HK, and even overseas communities. It takes a little work to learn, but unlike pinyin and zhuyin it is equally useful regardless of what Chinese langauge you speak (Mandarin, Cantonese, Kejia, Minnan, etc...). Best of all unlike Japanese people who use their phonetic input method, Chinese who use cangjie will never forget how to write characters by hand.
BTW, nearly any keyboard made now will have roman characters on it. However, I've never seen one here without cangjie symbols. Taiwanese keyboards have a THIRD system (zhuyin fuhao) as well.
I see the same kinds of complaints all the time here on the Chinese servers. Why the heck is everyone so obsessed about playing on the American servers? If you do that lag sucks, and you won't be able to find as many people who speaks your language. Even Brit's don't quite speak the langauge of Americans in my opinion...
Also, nobody here want's to play with the Europeans. I haven't seen any complaints from Europeans who want to play with Chinese either. Nope, everyone wants to play with the Americans... except the Canadians of course. But then again, they get stuck on the same North American servers.
Honestly, I pity Blizzard. They're just a game company trying to cut down on lag. Instead they're seen as evil for trying to "keep everyone out of America" or something like that. Peh. I'm happy to play on local servers.
Much of what you say is sad, but it is true... Bush is the most pro-Taiwan president in recent years, but all that means is that he'll publicly affirm the Taiwan relations act. Kerry won't even touch the issue. It also saddens me that even though Taiwan tries every year to join the UN, it never even acknowledges it. This is a democratic population of more than 22 million, and the 11th biggest economy in the world. China has not controlled Taiwan since BEFORE the Japanese occupation. Why is it that they can threaten to invade Taiwan every year, and nobody cares except the US? Why is it that the UN does nothing? How can France be pushing the EU to sell better weapons TO POINT AT ME?
As for the US to Taiwan weapon sale, it has happened. There was a review about it here since many ê¥ÁÄÒ (national party) thought it was too expensive and Taiwan almost backed out, but the legislative yuan did nothing to stop the deal. The US did help upgrade the systems. It doesn't matter much in the long run though... you are right, the balance of power is moving to China.
Lots of people like Bush here in Taiwan. That's because he's publicly stated that he'll honor the US commitment to defend Taiwan if China attacks. After France made some weapon deals with China, China set up over 500 missles pointed RIGHT F*#&ING AT THIS CITY(), and China and France started doing joint military drills, Bush sent 7 aircraft carriers into the Taiwan straight as a deterent. Kerry, meanwhile has repeatedly promised China more cooperation on all issues and barely mentioned Taiwan at all. Taiwan is THE issue China has with everyone...
I don't know much about what's going on with Iraq, but if Kerry wins theres a good chance of having war here... China won't happily tolerate Chen Shui Bian () much longer. Mainland Chinese been threatening to attack for years, and if the US abandons, they will.
"Positive" purposes? Peh! How much work would that be?
Besides blowing stuff up could be positive! Like blowing up McDonalds toys! Let me tell you, it's a pain in the ass to do with black cat firecrackers... I don't think I've ever managed it in less than 5 or 6. Damned indestructable McDonalds toys... grumble.. grumble... I want anti-matter... grumble... grumble... grr...
I completely agree. Atkins is one of the most risky and stupid diets I've ever heard of. As I've said before Japanese diets are about 70% carbs.
Despite this, Japanese people live longer than any other people in the world. They are a heck of a lot skinnier than westerners, too. I live in Taiwan, and I can say the Chinese diet isn't too much different. More than half of the calories come from JUST rice and noodles. After counting fruits, veggies, and snacks, more than 70% of the calories come from carbohydrates.
If carbohydrates are so terrible as Atkins said, then why is it that nearly half the world lives on rice, and that half isn't so fat as westerners? I would bet that it's because here we don't eat so damn much, and we actually walk and ride bikes instead of driving everywhere.
First off, I love Monty Python. I used to watch re-runs of it, Black Adder and Red Dwarf all through high school... Anyway, it's not just business. Many Canadian aquaintances just assume I'm Canadian until I mention something about growing up in Colorado. After all, we have the same sports (NBA, NHL, MLB), most of the same TV, similar social habits, etc... It's really not clear until either they start bashing the US (all together not uncommon), or we talk of (non-chinese) politics. Politics, THAT's where the difference is more than culture. Of course with a Brit, or an Aussie, they know right away by my accent that I'm not from there.
Anyway, I can't speak with so much certainty about outsourcing in India, as I've never been there. But, I think the situation is similar to that in China, though less extreme. Basically, the big outsourcing companies usually pick Chinese workers instead of Canadians for the following reasons:
1) Like you said, cost. Insurance, benefits, and legal concerns are are very expensive in Canada. The average Chinese IT worker makes 1/3 the salary of the average Indian. Comparatively, Canadians cost a fortune.
2) Finding qualified workers really is easier in China. China has more highly educated tech job searchers than anywhere else in the world. It's not even close. If I post on chinahr.com looking for a DBA, I can expect to find dozens of candidates with advanced degrees willing, exhaustive knowledge of both Oracle and MS databases, and programming skills to match. In Canada, on the other hand, the people with exhaustive knowledge of any database system are few, far between, and already taken.
3) China is an emerging market, growing at a tremendous rate. According to the World Bank- Economic Growth Indicators Report (can't do a direct link, sorry), China's economy grew by 10.1% anually during the 80's, and 10.7% during the 90's. This was by far the fasted growth of any country. India was #2, by the way. During 20 years, China's total growth was +723.5%, while it was only +97.1% for the US, and +68.4% for Japan. For many large businesses, establishing contacts in China is considered crucial as it is becoming an increasingly large market to sell to. For some products such as cell phones it's alredy #1 in volume. This makes China a little more attractive to set up shop in than Canada, but not nearly so much as points 1) and 2)
Hhahahaha, Rush albums!! You FOOL! That doesn't repel me, it gives me a reason to invade! "The ones who hold high places must be the ones to start!" Let's invade now, after all "we're only immortal for a limited time!" "Why does it happen? Because it happens, ROLL THE BONES", BABY, MUAHAHAHAHA!!
uh.. about this Celine Dion person though... perhaps we could do a swap? We get Sarah McLachlan, Celine goes home? Oh, if "I could wave my magic wand..."
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Here is the eighth-grade graduation test given in Salina, Kansas, in April 13, 1895. It was taken from the original document on file at the Smoky Valley Genealogical Society and Library in Salina, Kansas and reprinted by the Salina Journal:
Grammar (Time, one hour)
1. Give nine rules for the use of Capital Letters.
2. Name the Parts of Speech and define those that have no modifications.
3. Define Verse, Stanza and Paragraph.
4. What are the Principal Parts of a verb? Give Principal Parts of do, lie, lay and run.
5. Define Case, Illustrate each Case.
6. What is Punctuation? Give rules for principal marks of Punctuation.
7-10. Write a composition of about 150 words and show therein that you understand the practical use of the rules of grammar.
Arithmetic (Time, 1.25 hours)
1. Name and define the Fundamental Rules of Arithmetic.
2. A wagon box is 2 ft. deep, 10 feet long, and 3 ft. wide. How many bushels of wheat will it hold?
3. If a load of wheat weighs 3942 lbs., what is it worth at 50 cents per bushel, deducting 1050 lbs. for tare?
4. District No. 33 has a valuation of $35,000. What is the necessary levy to carry on a school seven months at $50 per month, and have $104 for incidentals?
5. Find cost of 6720 lbs. coal at $6.00 per ton.
6. Find the interest of $512.60 for 8 months and 18 days at 7 percent.
7. What is the cost of 40 boards 12 inches wide and 16 ft. long at $.20 per inch?
8. Find bank discount on $300 for 90 days (no grace) at 10 percent.
9. What is the cost of a square farm at $15 per acre, the distance around which is 640 rods?
10.Write a Bank Check, a Promissory Note, and a Receipt.
U.S. History (Time, 45 minutes)
1. Give the epochs into which U.S. History is divided.
2. Give an account of the discovery of America by Columbus.
3. Relate the causes and results of the Revolutionary War.
4.
Uhh... dude. A small change in genetics can make for a HUGE change in intelligence, regardless of environment. Just changing less than five percent of your DNA, you would have already died of old age... as a female rat. Yeah, that's right. Less than 5% of our DNA differs from that of rats. Now, don't you think it's possible, just possible, that genetic differences between individuals or the same race can cause variance in intelligence that no amount "nuture" could ever compensate for?
Well, I can't help myself. Living in a county where direct translations into English are a constant amusment, where it's common to see things like "four season tiger soup" or even "crow-dragon tea" on menus, I can't resist...If you babelfish "A penny saved is a penny earned." into Chinese and back again, you get:
"The penny is the penny is won by the preservation"
So, why are you frequently spending $25 on a movie and for two? Do you need two seats to yourself at the movies for some inscrutable reasons? Maybe you just mean snacks for two... as in you have serious munchies? On the other hand, do mean that movies require a date and food to be comparable to a MMORPG? Don't you ever eat during your computer sessions? This whole comparison seem awfully weird...
He wasn't arguing that it was China's fault that the USD is depreciating. He wasn't "blaming the world". He was saying that under normal conditions the depreciation of the USD would lead to an equilibrium in terms of salaries and offshoring. He actually seemed like a friendly guy who thought it was a GOOD thing that Indians will be catching up with westerners' standard of living. He was just saying that the PRC's fixing the yuan exchange rate prevents this equilibrium from being achieved. You yourself said, "...look at virtually all other currencies. They are all strong against the USD. This is a problem with the American..." By your own admission, it looks like from an objective economic perspective the USD was overvalued, and is in the process of a correction against every other currency... except the Chinese yuan. This is exactly what the poster you responded to said.
Again, as usual, Americans love to blame their weakened Dollar on other countries. There always has to be an external demon.
Maybe you should hold your anti-American rants in check for a moment and think before you post. Maybe, just maybe you'll at least find out what the poster is saying so you can at least disagree with THAT, instead of just disagreeing with something nobody said, and spewing your prejudiced, nationalist filth all over our beloved slashdot.
blockquote=grandparent's post (184013)
italics=parent's post (anonymous coward)
I guess the parent hasn't heard of electron tunnelling.
Here's a link with some data about IQ scores and GDPs of various nations.
_ IQ#Estimates_of_other_countries
http://www.sq.4mg.com/NationIQ.htm
wikipedia has the same data here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by
In general, countries formed from Asian immigrants have high IQs. Particularly Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Singapore. Hong Kong's average of 107 is number one in the world. Asian Americans also have very high average IQs. Scores are also quite decent in Japan and S. Korea. However IQ averages accross large asian countries such as China and India are about equal to those of the average North American or European. Interestingly, the group documented with the highest average IQ is Jewish Americans. I've seen studies putting that average at an astounding 113. Interestingly the average IQ of Jewish people in Isreal is only 94. Maybe some argument can be made that only more intelligent people were able to successfully immigrate out of China to HK or the US, giving the US an unbalanced racial IQ make up. It would stand to reason that the really smart Jews from Europe would have been in New York during the holocaust. Most of those living in Isreal now are decended from those who did NOT get out of Europe in time. Meanwhile the barriers for Mexicans coming to the US haven't been nearly so high, so perhaps there isn't much IQ selective pressure on those immigrant communities. Same thing would go for Africans caught by slavers a couple of hundred years ago.
Just my 2 cents.
Survival of the fittest always applies. What you missed is that the definition of fitness has changed. Being tough, aggressive, violent and inclined to rape women would be a set of traits that would have been very successful for a Roman soldier. He'd probably have many more children than other Roman soldiers in his company. Give those same traits to a man living in London right now, and he'd likely not have any children at all.
What survival of the fittest encourages now is sex appeal, willingness to have children, and ability to provide for them (especially in societies without too many social programs). Evolution is pushing us in that direction as we speak. I remember reading an article in Scientific American a few years back. It was talking about West Point students, and how to predict who would make general. It turns out that grades, work ethic, and intelligence were all factors, but the biggest factor was facial structure. While facial structure wasn't a good predictor of where they they'd be in the middle of their careers, those with strong jaws and sharp features traditionally associated with leaders were in fact far more likely to make general by the end of their careers. Furthermore, those men also fathered one more child than the others on average. THAT'S survival of the fittest at work!
I really don't like this idea everyone on this thread is repeating. It seems that there's some idea that people who do poorly on mensa tests, are disproportionately likely to have artistic or musical talent. I haven't found this to be the case at all. I don't think that people who excel at mensa tests have a propensity to suck at artist pursuits either. Some people are just smarter than others. I'm not just talking about acquired skills, either. What I mean is that some intelligent people are just more capable of learning and thinking about ANYTHING than other less intelligent people.
i nt elligence/cache/1198gottfred.html
Let's look at a couple of cases:
1)Leonardo Da Vinci
Here is a man who was arguably the greatest artist, engineer, and medical researcher of his age. He was a great painter, an inventor of siege weapons, and a visionary who imagined such things as helicopters hundreds of years before his time. In fact, much of Galileo's work on gravity stems from Da Vinci's earlier observations. Da Vinci's also widely credited as the author of the most accurate anatomy text of his time. Oh yeah, he was a hell of an athlete when he was young, too.
2) A boy in my high school named, "Ricky".
Ricky wasn't so bright. I have no idea where he is now, but at the age of 15 he had an awful lot of trouble reading. His drawing ability was on par with a normal 6 year old's, he had no musical talent, and he couldn't do long division yet either. Ricky was no master of social skills either. In fact, he was bossy, selfish and immature.
If you are going to try to argue that somehow these two individuals possess "different kinds" of intelligence, then please excuse me while I go puke. The truth is, EVERY "type" of intelligence has a positive correlation with every other type. Those in psychology research call it "g", or the General Intelligence Factor. It's not necessarily a pleasant fact. Maybe the world would be a fairer place if everyone was intellectually equal... but we aren't.
http://www.psych.utoronto.ca/~reingold/courses/
In a similar vein, those who are good looking and/or pretty are way more likely to become rich than are the ugly and stupid Beavises and Buttheads of the world. Life ain't fair.
I had to think about this for a minute, but now I think I've got it. In my head my example case was travelling due east or west in which case three points in a line on a path around the world would fall on a line on the map. I also thought of due north and due south, which work too as long as you don't cross a pole.
I guess the problem is that as you move along a constant compass heading in other angles the direction of due north will change relative to your facing. ie. "constant compass headings are not straight lines on the earth." Thanks for pointing that out. I'll have to keep that in mind.
The thing about making a flat map of a spherical world is that there will always be distortion. Either the relative sizes of landmasses, the angles between them or BOTH will be distorted. The particular projection used to create the map will determine how much of what kind of distortion the map has. Whether if a map is "online" or not has nothing to do with it as long as it is still a two dimensional representation of a 3 dimensional object.
The most popular projection is called the Mercator Projection. This projection will heavily distort the relative sizes of landmasses, making whatever is in the corners of the map appear to be much larger than what is in the center. For example, depending on where the map is centered, Greenland could appear to be larger than the entire South American continent. The good side of the Mercator Projection is that it preserves the relative angles of locations. In other words, if 3 places all fall on the same straight line (around the world of course), then all three will also be in a straight line on a Mercator Projection map. For this reason, the Mercator Projection is by far the most useful for sailors and Navigators.
Other projections such as the Lambert Azimuthal Projection provide more exact relative sizes of countries and continents, while horribly distorting the shapes of places near the edge. There is also an Azimuthal Equidistant projection which neither maintains correct relative sizes, nor angles, but has the advantage that all distances measured from the center of the map will be correct.
As you can see, mapping online or off is all about trade offs. You can have correct shapes or angles or distances, but you any map will distort at least two of the three.
http://www.aquarius.geomar.de/omc/omc_project.htm
http://www.worldatlas.com/aatlas/worldout.htm
Hmm... people always say, "nin2 yao4 tao4 can1 ma?" But that means, "Do you wanna make it a combo meal?"
If it MUST be "do you want fries with that", then say "yao4 pei4 shu3 tiao2 ma?"
FYI "shu3" = potato/yam, and "tiao2" = stick
PS Anybody know what's wrong with slashdot and Chinese characters? This is one of the only forums I've seen that turns them all into ??s
Look, I was just making a satirical comparison. No need to revert to immature name calling. Your dismissive response notwithstanding, looks DO affect your earning ability. And just like college degrees, looks help your employment prospects even in jobs where they really aren't that relevant. Also, just like degrees, atractiveness has a positive correlation with performance. The comparison between looks and educational background are not so far fetched as you may have thought. The biggest difference is, in my mind, that one is a socially acceptable reason for making a hire and the other is not.
T im es/2003-08-28.htmlr eportonsalarysurveys /may012002/whateverattractivepeopleearnmorebriefar ticle/a ckage.js p?name=fte/attractivepeopleearnmore/attractivepeop leearnmore&floc=wn-np
In any case, regardless of whether if interviewers can admit to hiring the more attractive candidate, do you really believe that it doesn't happen?
http://www.sims.berkeley.edu/~hal/people/hal/NY
http://static.highbeam.com/r/
http://channels.netscape.com/ns/careers/p
One significant way a nice ass benefits you over not having a nice ass was told to me like this:
Let's say you're interviewing for a job and the employer has to decide between you and one other person. You both have the same qualifications and are both great people, but only one of you has a nice ass. Do you not think the employer will choose the nice assed person over the other when it's one of the last factors with which to choose?
So, if anything, a nice ass gets you that one step ahead of the person without one. If you both have a nice ass, then at least you don't have to worry about that being a problem so much.
While I'm prone to the occasional mis-typing of words I know how to spell, I can assure you that my grammar and spelling NEVER approach the level of that guy's. The thing that scares me is that after seeing all of these comments about his mistakes, I thought to myself, "Gee, what post were all of THESE in?"
Then, upon clicking "parent", I realized in horror that it was the post about Doom 3 people looking like they're made of rubber. I read that whole post without noticing ANYTHING wrong with it!!! Oh, and I forgot to mention one thing. I'm an ESL teacher and freelance Chinese to English translation editor. It's my friggin JOB is to pounce on grammar (and to a lesser degree, spelling) mistakes. Oh, the disgrace...
Like many others here, I don't like having a separate location bar and google bar in firefox. Just having one location bar and hitting down like in mozilla is a lot better in my mind.
.com address and requires alt-enter to open a tab for some stupid reason. Ctrl-enter is easier and faster to hit than alt-enter since the two keys are so close. Who uses URL .com completion anyway? If you don't type in the .com the browser autocompletes as it is...
But the BIG thing for me is that mozilla opens tabs with ctrl-enter, while firefox uses ctrl-enter to auto complete a URL as a
Also, I feel that the whole mozilla organization is much more reasonable. Are options really some type of "tool"? No. Mozilla got it right to put it under preferences. Just because IE did something stupid doesn't mean that firefox has to copy it.
Oh, opening a set of bookmarks as a group of tabs is a great feature in mozilla too. For some reason my firefox won't do that.
While they may have developed their own keyboards years ago, they no longer use those keyboards with characters on them because Chinese has over 10,000 character that would need to be represented and it was deemed slow and cumbersome. Instead they type using the "latin" keyboard in pinyin (which is the phonetic pronunciation of a written character utilizing only the 26 letters).
Apparently you aren't familiar with canjie Chinese input. It's based on the structure of Chinese characters. Each key has one strucural componet of a character. By typing in the components one by one, a character is built. When you are done, you hit space. Actually, this is faster than typing words in English. Many people type over 200 words a minute using cangjie. Some type over 300. I know the definition of a word is a little difficult to compare between English and Chinese, but a Chinese person who is good with cangjie can type a text faster than a fast western typist can type the English translation.
Cangjie is used in Mainland China, Taiwan, HK, and even overseas communities. It takes a little work to learn, but unlike pinyin and zhuyin it is equally useful regardless of what Chinese langauge you speak (Mandarin, Cantonese, Kejia, Minnan, etc...). Best of all unlike Japanese people who use their phonetic input method, Chinese who use cangjie will never forget how to write characters by hand.
BTW, nearly any keyboard made now will have roman characters on it. However, I've never seen one here without cangjie symbols. Taiwanese keyboards have a THIRD system (zhuyin fuhao) as well.
I see the same kinds of complaints all the time here on the Chinese servers. Why the heck is everyone so obsessed about playing on the American servers? If you do that lag sucks, and you won't be able to find as many people who speaks your language. Even Brit's don't quite speak the langauge of Americans in my opinion...
Also, nobody here want's to play with the Europeans. I haven't seen any complaints from Europeans who want to play with Chinese either. Nope, everyone wants to play with the Americans... except the Canadians of course. But then again, they get stuck on the same North American servers.
Honestly, I pity Blizzard. They're just a game company trying to cut down on lag. Instead they're seen as evil for trying to "keep everyone out of America" or something like that. Peh. I'm happy to play on local servers.
Much of what you say is sad, but it is true... Bush is the most pro-Taiwan president in recent years, but all that means is that he'll publicly affirm the Taiwan relations act. Kerry won't even touch the issue. It also saddens me that even though Taiwan tries every year to join the UN, it never even acknowledges it. This is a democratic population of more than 22 million, and the 11th biggest economy in the world. China has not controlled Taiwan since BEFORE the Japanese occupation. Why is it that they can threaten to invade Taiwan every year, and nobody cares except the US? Why is it that the UN does nothing? How can France be pushing the EU to sell better weapons TO POINT AT ME?
As for the US to Taiwan weapon sale, it has happened. There was a review about it here since many ê¥ÁÄÒ (national party) thought it was too expensive and Taiwan almost backed out, but the legislative yuan did nothing to stop the deal. The US did help upgrade the systems. It doesn't matter much in the long run though... you are right, the balance of power is moving to China.
Lots of people like Bush here in Taiwan. That's because he's publicly stated that he'll honor the US commitment to defend Taiwan if China attacks. After France made some weapon deals with China, China set up over 500 missles pointed RIGHT F*#&ING AT THIS CITY(), and China and France started doing joint military drills, Bush sent 7 aircraft carriers into the Taiwan straight as a deterent. Kerry, meanwhile has repeatedly promised China more cooperation on all issues and barely mentioned Taiwan at all. Taiwan is THE issue China has with everyone...
I don't know much about what's going on with Iraq, but if Kerry wins theres a good chance of having war here... China won't happily tolerate Chen Shui Bian () much longer. Mainland Chinese been threatening to attack for years, and if the US abandons, they will.
"Positive" purposes? Peh! How much work would that be?
Besides blowing stuff up could be positive! Like blowing up McDonalds toys! Let me tell you, it's a pain in the ass to do with black cat firecrackers... I don't think I've ever managed it in less than 5 or 6. Damned indestructable McDonalds toys... grumble.. grumble... I want anti-matter... grumble... grumble... grr...
Makes sense to me... he's pro-his life... not yours
I completely agree. Atkins is one of the most risky and stupid diets I've ever heard of. As I've said before Japanese diets are about 70% carbs.
Despite this, Japanese people live longer than any other people in the world. They are a heck of a lot skinnier than westerners, too. I live in Taiwan, and I can say the Chinese diet isn't too much different. More than half of the calories come from JUST rice and noodles. After counting fruits, veggies, and snacks, more than 70% of the calories come from carbohydrates.
If carbohydrates are so terrible as Atkins said, then why is it that nearly half the world lives on rice, and that half isn't so fat as westerners? I would bet that it's because here we don't eat so damn much, and we actually walk and ride bikes instead of driving everywhere.
First off, I love Monty Python. I used to watch re-runs of it, Black Adder and Red Dwarf all through high school... Anyway, it's not just business. Many Canadian aquaintances just assume I'm Canadian until I mention something about growing up in Colorado. After all, we have the same sports (NBA, NHL, MLB), most of the same TV, similar social habits, etc... It's really not clear until either they start bashing the US (all together not uncommon), or we talk of (non-chinese) politics. Politics, THAT's where the difference is more than culture. Of course with a Brit, or an Aussie, they know right away by my accent that I'm not from there.
Anyway, I can't speak with so much certainty about outsourcing in India, as I've never been there. But, I think the situation is similar to that in China, though less extreme. Basically, the big outsourcing companies usually pick Chinese workers instead of Canadians for the following reasons:
1) Like you said, cost. Insurance, benefits, and legal concerns are are very expensive in Canada. The average Chinese IT worker makes 1/3 the salary of the average Indian. Comparatively, Canadians cost a fortune.
2) Finding qualified workers really is easier in China. China has more highly educated tech job searchers than anywhere else in the world. It's not even close. If I post on chinahr.com looking for a DBA, I can expect to find dozens of candidates with advanced degrees willing, exhaustive knowledge of both Oracle and MS databases, and programming skills to match. In Canada, on the other hand, the people with exhaustive knowledge of any database system are few, far between, and already taken.
3) China is an emerging market, growing at a tremendous rate. According to the World Bank- Economic Growth Indicators Report (can't do a direct link, sorry), China's economy grew by 10.1% anually during the 80's, and 10.7% during the 90's. This was by far the fasted growth of any country. India was #2, by the way. During 20 years, China's total growth was +723.5%, while it was only +97.1% for the US, and +68.4% for Japan. For many large businesses, establishing contacts in China is considered crucial as it is becoming an increasingly large market to sell to. For some products such as cell phones it's alredy #1 in volume. This makes China a little more attractive to set up shop in than Canada, but not nearly so much as points 1) and 2)
Hhahahaha, Rush albums!! You FOOL! That doesn't repel me, it gives me a reason to invade! "The ones who hold high places must be the ones to start!" Let's invade now, after all "we're only immortal for a limited time!" "Why does it happen? Because it happens, ROLL THE BONES", BABY, MUAHAHAHAHA!!
uh.. about this Celine Dion person though... perhaps we could do a swap? We get Sarah McLachlan, Celine goes home? Oh, if "I could wave my magic wand..."