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User: ChrisMaple

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  1. Re:Quality Vs. Quantity on Boston Elementary, Middle Schools To Get a Longer Day · · Score: 1

    There was no mention of race in the post you responded to. You're one of the loonies who thinks that north means white and south means black. Do you not understand that only one person could have exited the Ferguson incident alive, and it was better that the policeman survive than the thug?

  2. Re:Quality Vs. Quantity on Boston Elementary, Middle Schools To Get a Longer Day · · Score: 1

    How lovely it must be to live in cloud-cuckoo land, where there's no correlation among intelligence, knowledge, and test results.

  3. Re:Quality Vs. Quantity on Boston Elementary, Middle Schools To Get a Longer Day · · Score: 1

    ____What no one in any school ever told me was that I was the captain of my own fate. We all are.___

    This.

    Self-schooling, self-empowerment, was a concept not even mentioned until the 4th year of college (and that was only because I complained that a course listed in the catalog had never actually been offered.) No other single idea for educational change is more important than this one.

  4. Re:college bound HS needs shop! on Boston Elementary, Middle Schools To Get a Longer Day · · Score: 1

    Tracking need not consist of excluding smart people from shop classes. My Jr. High School had 9 different levels in each grade, the primary difference being the difficulty and speed of the academic courses (math, English, science, history). Failure to track means boring and hindering the smart kids, and frustrating the dummies who can't understand what the teaching is rambling on about.

  5. Re:We need to change the order of topic presentati on Boston Elementary, Middle Schools To Get a Longer Day · · Score: 2

    Individuals are ... individual. Some people can and should be introduced to mathematics quite early. Math is the foundation of science and engineering, and one effective method for crippling a nation's technological future is withholding math from the young.

    I would argue that there is no "too young" to promote numerical understanding for anyone. Understanding numbers is essential to understanding the world, and the sooner that understanding starts, the better.

    Piaget responded to criticism by acknowledging that the vast majority of critics did not understand the outcomes he wished to obtain from his research (wikipedia). If that doesn't indicate a "the facts be damned" sort of dishonesty, I don't know what does.

  6. Re:Teachers' prestige, not their pay on Boston Elementary, Middle Schools To Get a Longer Day · · Score: 2

    PE classes have at best a very poor correlation with exercise, and an even weaker relation to the sorts of physical activities that help the brain. They are poorly thought out, and have as their primary result the development of hatred and fear of gym teachers among the weaker students.

  7. Re:No such thing as Time Travel into "past" on New Paper Claims Neutrino Is Likely a Faster-Than-Light Particle · · Score: 1

    Time is monotonic. Nothing can return to its own past.

  8. Re:Many DDR3 modules? on Many DDR3 Modules Vulnerable To Bit Rot By a Simple Program · · Score: 2

    So, other than fixing the dram design, the solution is to refresh more frequently. A software fix might be a high priority background program that forces a full refresh at regular intervals (probably a big performance hit). If the CPU does its own dram control, there might be a register that affects refresh rate, or perhaps a microcode fix.

    The problem is analog in nature, which suggests that optimized and very clean supply voltages, and very clean and precisely timed control signals might reduce or eliminate the problem.

    In any case, this means that manufacturers need to fix their designs and test them more thoroughly.

  9. Re:Bar joke on How a Massachusetts Man Invented the Global Ice Market · · Score: 1

    If Obama is not a native-born citizen (at least one US parent or born in US) and he's not naturalized or here on a valid visa, then he's an illegal alien. I've never even heard a suggestion that he's naturalized or here on a visa.

    Given that it was YEARS from the time his citizenship was first challenged until valid-looking papers were provided, there's good reason to believe those papers are forgeries.

    I'm making no claims with regard to whether he is legally qualified to be president, I'm just pointing out that it looks suspicious.

  10. Re:Target on How Venture Capitalist Peter Thiel Plans To Live 120 Years · · Score: 1

    What part of "with no laws", or for that matter "private island", makes any difference to an attacking drug cartel?

    While we're on the subject, why do you think he specified "few restrictions on weapons"?

  11. Re:Floating Sovereign Nation on How Venture Capitalist Peter Thiel Plans To Live 120 Years · · Score: 1

    With his libertarian-no regulation ideas, no doubt his floating nation will simply discharge raw sewage directly into the ocean.

    There are 2 answers to this. One is, it won't happen because no multi-millionaire wants to live in the middle of a sewer. The other is, if he's far enough off shore, so what? Who's hurt? It might even encourage beneficial ocean life.

  12. Re:What the hell? on How Venture Capitalist Peter Thiel Plans To Live 120 Years · · Score: 1

    If you're rich, you can buy the services of a chemist to manufacture HGH, or buy the services of a chemical engineer to build a machine that produces HGH. Or you can sail your yacht to a place where it's legal, and hide it onboard. Or buy it on the black market. Or create a company that legitimately manufactures the stuff, and siphon off some of it for personal use. Or get some from a buddy who owns a plant that manufactures it. Or slip your doctor a few extra large greenbacks. Or if you're really smart and persistent, learn how to make it yourself.

    Why the hell do you care? How is he hurting you?

  13. Re:Won't work on How Venture Capitalist Peter Thiel Plans To Live 120 Years · · Score: 2

    A nation implies a government with standing at the UN plus a military.

    Sorry, just wrong. There's nothing about being a nation that requires that the UN recognize it. And one of the Central American or northern South American countries has no military, just a police force. Apparently, its neighbors aren't evil enough to consider it worth invading.

  14. Re:Running? on How Venture Capitalist Peter Thiel Plans To Live 120 Years · · Score: 2

    Welfare: inefficient government-run money stealing program that discourages the creation of goods.

    Building codes: Are you aware that in one of Boston's tonier regions, vinyl window frames are illegal? Residents must use wood. Not all aspects of building codes are good.

    Minimum wage: If you're 5 years old and want to buy a comic book, you probably can't do anything that anyone is willing to pay you minimum wage for. But you might find a neighbor willing to pay you $2 an hour to pull weeds from a garden, and you might even be worth that much. Why deny the child the ability to earn a comic book? Why deny him the training that may help him to be more successful later in life?
    It's also well established that the effect of minimum wages in the United States especially hurts young Negros. Minimum wage laws are racist.

    Weapons: weapons laws in the U.S. are capricious at best. Limitations of the caliber and firing mechanisms on firearms are silly. Laws on garrottes, brass knuckles, and knives vary by state and in some cases by city.

  15. Re:sad little man on How Venture Capitalist Peter Thiel Plans To Live 120 Years · · Score: 1

    If you're enjoying life, why would you want to stop enjoying life?

  16. Re:perhaps a better title on How Venture Capitalist Peter Thiel Plans To Live 120 Years · · Score: 1

    all meats in america are processed to some level

    You've neither hunted nor fished, nor gone to grade school to learn the rules of capitalization.

  17. Re:I am a scientist in real life (IAAS?) on How Venture Capitalist Peter Thiel Plans To Live 120 Years · · Score: 1

    The average life expectancy for a white male aged 40 in the United States is an additional 38.6 years. This guy looks to be in good health and is actively maintaining his health. That gives him an excellent chance of getting well past his mid-eighties, even without the heroic measures that his wealth makes available to him.

  18. Re:Wish he would create Galt's Gulch on How Venture Capitalist Peter Thiel Plans To Live 120 Years · · Score: 1

    Poor people are poor for a reason. I've seen people who are poor because they have nothing to offer. In that case, his life would not be helped by a poor person. That also applies to those who can work but refuse to do so.

    Just to fill out the list of reasons that people can be poor, there are those that are spendthrifts, and those that have had so much stolen from them that they can't recover.

  19. Re: Is that it? on How Venture Capitalist Peter Thiel Plans To Live 120 Years · · Score: 1

    The "easy" problems are solved, and the hard ones are still there.

    Andrew Wiles might disagree.

  20. Re:Does money buy a cure for hubris? on How Venture Capitalist Peter Thiel Plans To Live 120 Years · · Score: 1

    There is at least a million persons for each rich dude who is as intelligent and as hard working and who isn't rich

    Clearly, you aren't one of either group, because simple math from your claim limits the number of rich people on earth to 5000.

  21. Re:Hahahahahahahahaha LOL on How Venture Capitalist Peter Thiel Plans To Live 120 Years · · Score: 1

    The evidence for HGH causing cancer is scanty. Far more likely is HGH encouraging the growth of cancer cells, since what HGH does is encourage the growth of those cells ready to grow. HGH is highest in youth, but youth is not when cancer is most prevalent.

    There's lots of accumulated cell damage in old age, and in old age the mechanisms for removing damaged cells are weaker. HGH may make it more likely that a bad cell reproduces out of control.

  22. Re:Hahahahahahahahaha LOL on How Venture Capitalist Peter Thiel Plans To Live 120 Years · · Score: 1

    The cure for most cancers is toxic, involving killing cancer cells more effectively than healthy cells. The other widely used successful treatment is surgery. There are nontoxic cures in some cases, including selective immune enhancement. Rarely, some cancers are cured by removing the irritant causing the cancer and/or general health improvements.

  23. Re:Nothing can go Wrong Here on How Venture Capitalist Peter Thiel Plans To Live 120 Years · · Score: 1

    The most fundamental right, upon which all other rights are based, is the right to life.

    From the right to life derives the right to activities to maintain life. From the right to life derives the right to voluntarily trade for the goods (tools, food, clothing, real estate, etc.) necessary to maintain life. From the right to life derives the right to voluntarily trade for the goods that make life worth living, and real estate is also among those goods.

    In such manner (with considerably more detail required) is the right to land ownership demonstrated. It is not just "convenient", it is a necessary component of the right to life most places on earth.

    --

    Social Contract, on the other hand, is a problem to discuss. First, it's not a contract, which (among its other properties) is a voluntary agreement, and there's nothing voluntary about something imposed on a person at birth. Second, the "social contract" isn't the same everywhere, and the social contract of North Korea requires the murder of Christians. --- Too often, "social contract" is a verbal fog that sneaks in hidden restrictions against the life of an insufficiently careful thinker.

  24. Re:And who will collect the trash? on How Venture Capitalist Peter Thiel Plans To Live 120 Years · · Score: 1

    Guatemala is 18 years out from decades of political turmoil in the form of armed revolutions. Recovery takes time, although it doesn't seem as if they're recovering very well.

    The Guatemalan government's expenditures are in the range of 10% to 14% of the GDP. That's not bad by libertarian standards. Military expenditures are 3.4% of government expenditures, which implies that over 90% of government expenditures are waste. Guatemala has a "social security" system, which is explicitly not libertarian, and if it is like other SS systems, it is a burden on the poor.

  25. Re:And who will collect the trash? on How Venture Capitalist Peter Thiel Plans To Live 120 Years · · Score: 1

    the economic might of the rich

    Pray tell, what does "the economic might of the rich" consist of?

    The rich can buy and sell among themselves, in which case it doesn't involve the poor. Or, they can buy and sell goods and services with the poor, in which case

    1. The poor are free to trade with the rich or not
    2. The poor gain from the transaction, or they would not engage in it.

    they will have less freedom than now since they will have exactly NONE influence...

    Incomprehensible grammar notwithstanding, you have no understanding of libertarianism. Influence has no significance if influence doesn't lead to the use of force against someone. That force only exists in the context of a coercive government, i.e. a non-libertarian government.