The biggest obstacle for low income, inner-city students, whom are cognitively capable, is that they enter the school system at 5 or 6 not even knowing their alphabet, or how to tie their shoes.
How is that a problem? It is normal here (not US) for kids to enter school with widely different skills and maturity. But if they are "cognitively capable", they soon catch up to their ability level. Something else is going on.
From observation, I don't believe it makes much difference whether the parents have the time or will to help them at home. Correlation, not causation. Some combination of nature and the culture of the broader community, not just parents.
Sad to see "inner-city" used as a euphemism. Here in Australia, without the same race problems, the inner-city schools are some of the best in the state. Not up there with the leafy-suburb private schools, but the public high school that covers the city centre is one of our better ones.
And it is good that the Russians feel the need to legislate this. At least they are giving lip service to rule of law. The US is heading the other direction, and increasingly ruling by presidential executive order, and misused "emergency" powers, in place of laws passed by congress.
And no, this did not start with Trump. It has been getting worse over recent administrations.
the energy of 2.2lb (1kg) of payload at launch is approximately 275 kJ but to
Sorry, but you are doing the wrong maths. Rockets are not like cars, the important metric is delta-V, not energy. Calculating kinetic energy to achieve orbit is a rookie error. - unless you happen to have a giant rail gun or space elevator.
This is why rocket "power" is always quoted in Newtons, not Watts.
Take a look at the Rocket Equation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... The maths is just simple algebra, no calculus needed - have fun!
Neither "energy" nor delta-V ( velocity/momentum) are the reason for air launch though. It avoids problems of getting through the low, dense atmosphere, and you can have a more efficient rocket if it only has to operate in thinner air.
But Elon Musk stated that the total benefit amounted to 5% payload increase, so they scrapped the idea. Its easier to just build a 5% bigger rocket.
Adding more data could help you make better estimates about likeliness of that particular instance of human crashing cars,
Yes, that's what I'm saying. Fair treatment based on individual merit. This does not imply equal outcomes for classes for people. And trying to force equal outcomes would be very bad.
a good machine learning algorithm that can determine that a person is a member of a poor group will give that person a bias towards poor.
Yes, but only if you have insufficient data. If you have to choose between loaning your money to two people, and all you know is one is black and the other white, then of course you are much safer loaning it to the white guy!
But if you have their tax records and bank statements for the last ten years, the skin colour becomes irrelevant!
A black man has no such option - even if he was born upper class the assumption that he's poor trash trying to hide in a suit will follow him all his life.
Seriously? I find that hard to believe. But perhaps I'm biased since most of what I know about America comes from American TV, which is full of black characters in upper-middle-class roles. But no. If someone who dresses and talks like, say, Obama, comes into your shop, nobody is going to be watching him closely in case he steals something. If white guy dresses and talks like a street criminal, he will be treated as such. Surely?
You let AI know the gender - it will figure men are more likely to get into crash. If you stop feeding gender to AI, it will figure people named John are more likely to be causing trouble, than people named Julie. You will have to play a long cat and mouse game cutting off information sources for the AI to a point of it becoming useless.
Don't cut off data, add more!! Yes men crash more than women, but why? Given enough information about the individual, the algorithm will stop making guesses based on gender. Age, personality, aggression level, claims history, driving skill, risk-taking... Add in a GPS driving log for younger drivers, and each person will pay a premium based on their own individual risk, not on what is between their legs. Of course men and women are different, so average premium will differ, but there will be no *unfair* bias. Is it OK to charge more for more aggressive or unskilled drivers, or is that "bias" too?
Interestingly enough in your example, even if you removed the actual gender from the data, you'd probably still have a 'biased' selection algorithm.
That is not "bias" by gender though, but bias by relevant correlates, which is fair. If google hires more male white and Asian engineers, and few black females, it is not bias by race and gender, but bias by intelligence and skills of the applicant pool, which is affected by not just the skills but the differing preferences of the demographics.
Any small difference in engineering aptitude between men an women is dwarfed by their different preferences and interests. No politically correct algorithm is going to change that. Are you saying the algorithm has a gender bias still?
Notably they looked at arrest records of the parents as an indicator, and if a biased system caused their parents to be arrested, then the system would gladly extend that bias to a new generation.
I'm sensing some very strong bias in your wording. Why do you speak of the parents as if they are victims instead of criminals? Why do you assume there is racial bias? The correlation between child and parent is independent of race.
And what is the problem? You don't arrest people based on how likely they are to commit a crime. But if you want an algorithm to identify potential future criminals (e.g. so you can target welfare programs) then the arrest record of their parents is very relevant in assessing risk.
When the facts say that men are on average stronger and taller than women, are the facts wrong?
If an algorithm is hiring bricklayers, and all it knows is the gender of the applicant, it will pick men. But feed the algorithm enough data: the weight, strength, job history, test laying rate etc, then gender bias will be removed. It will pick the best applicants, who just happen to be men. (OK, all the applicants were men, but you get the idea.)
Same for almost anything. Skin colour rarely matters, and given enough more direct data on factors that do matter, skin colour will have no predictive value, so the algorithm will ignore it.
The impactor was neither explosive nor dropped (gravity being insufficient). It was more like shooting the asteroid with a bullet, as far as I can tell.
Playboy was a serious publication back in the day. Sadly, "men's" magazines these days seem to be every bit as trashy as women's magazines. Just look at the covers: the same clickbait or "20 ways to..." headlines, celebrity faces on the cover, infomercial content, appeal to vanity, what to wear,...
It must be all the artificial oestrogens in the environment.
Not a lot of point in electric cars, unless you have excess clean electricity, which Norway has in hydro. Might as well have efficient petrol cars. Anything but the SUVs and pick-ups that plague North America.
Norway has severe weather, sub zero temperatures for much of the year, heavy snow, and people need to travel long distances. All the things that people say make EVs unsuitable.
Norway put in the infrastructure. Charging everywhere. EVs work great there.
Well done Norway.
You forget to add: Norway has the billions of tons of oil exports to pay for it.
The Moon is a Harsh Mistress... Remember dropping grain carriers loaded with tons of rocks?
It is a lot harder than "dropping". From the moon, you need a gun with a muzzle velocity of at least 2.3km/s. (or ballistic missile delta-V) Current rail-gun technology can do this, but only for much smaller payloads, and we are a long way from getting the required battleships/frigates to the moon.
Like the time a Russian spy satellite powered by a nuclear reactor burned up in the upper atmosphere releasing roughly 90 lbs of uranium particles into the atmosphere?
The author of that article is clueless. U235 "highly radioactive"? No. If so, it would not have lasted for billions of years in the earth's crust, along with u238, thorium and potassium-40. Perhaps the writer is confusing it with the Plutonium 238 used in space probe RTGs? The concern with reactors crashing, weapon tests, and power reactor accidents is not the large amount of near-stable uranium, but the small amount of fission byproducts, such as the caesium-137 in the above article.
Everyone alive at the time probably has a few atoms of it in their bodies.
And countless atoms of uranium from other sources. About 0.1 mg. Lots more potassium 40 though!
I hope those Iranian hackers were not trying to sabotage American factories. Because that would be an illegal act of war, deserving international condemnation and sanctions.
To all the other posters: I realize that this thread is most likely dead.
If you want anyone to read your posts, log in, as AC posts are hidden by most. I only see you because you replied to me.
> Why did that gene change? Was it chance? Or was it the Hand of God?
A good question, and a scientific one, because it makes testable predictions. People have looked for evidence of intelligence affecting evolution of genes - while proving such a vague notion as "god" is impossible, there should definitely be evidence of such guiding because "Hand of God" would have long-term goals. Natural evolution does not plan ahead. It relies on each incremental step succeeding on its own merits. Yes this is slow, but it means we have legs made from modified fish fins, rather than wheels.
Slashdot Mirror
The biggest obstacle for low income, inner-city students, whom are cognitively capable, is that they enter the school system at 5 or 6 not even knowing their alphabet, or how to tie their shoes.
How is that a problem? It is normal here (not US) for kids to enter school with widely different skills and maturity.
But if they are "cognitively capable", they soon catch up to their ability level. Something else is going on.
From observation, I don't believe it makes much difference whether the parents have the time or will to help them at home. Correlation, not causation.
Some combination of nature and the culture of the broader community, not just parents.
Sad to see "inner-city" used as a euphemism. Here in Australia, without the same race problems, the inner-city schools are some of the best in the state.
Not up there with the leafy-suburb private schools, but the public high school that covers the city centre is one of our better ones.
And it is good that the Russians feel the need to legislate this. At least they are giving lip service to rule of law.
The US is heading the other direction, and increasingly ruling by presidential executive order, and misused "emergency" powers, in place of laws passed by congress.
And no, this did not start with Trump. It has been getting worse over recent administrations.
the energy of 2.2lb (1kg) of payload at launch is approximately 275 kJ but to
Sorry, but you are doing the wrong maths. Rockets are not like cars, the important metric is delta-V, not energy.
Calculating kinetic energy to achieve orbit is a rookie error. - unless you happen to have a giant rail gun or space elevator.
This is why rocket "power" is always quoted in Newtons, not Watts.
Take a look at the Rocket Equation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
The maths is just simple algebra, no calculus needed - have fun!
Neither "energy" nor delta-V ( velocity/momentum) are the reason for air launch though.
It avoids problems of getting through the low, dense atmosphere, and you can have a more efficient rocket if it only has to operate in thinner air.
But Elon Musk stated that the total benefit amounted to 5% payload increase, so they scrapped the idea. Its easier to just build a 5% bigger rocket.
Adding more data could help you make better estimates about likeliness of that particular instance of human crashing cars,
Yes, that's what I'm saying. Fair treatment based on individual merit. This does not imply equal outcomes for classes for people.
And trying to force equal outcomes would be very bad.
a good machine learning algorithm that
can determine that a person is a member of a poor group will give that
person a bias towards poor.
Yes, but only if you have insufficient data. If you have to choose between loaning your money to two people, and all you know is one is black and the other white, then of course you are much safer loaning it to the white guy!
But if you have their tax records and bank statements for the last ten years, the skin colour becomes irrelevant!
A black man has no such option - even if he was born upper class the assumption that he's poor trash trying to hide in a suit will follow him all his life.
Seriously? I find that hard to believe. But perhaps I'm biased since most of what I know about America comes from American TV, which is full of black characters in upper-middle-class roles.
But no. If someone who dresses and talks like, say, Obama, comes into your shop, nobody is going to be watching him closely in case he steals something.
If white guy dresses and talks like a street criminal, he will be treated as such. Surely?
it disadvantages men, car insurance.
You let AI know the gender - it will figure men are more likely to get into crash.
If you stop feeding gender to AI, it will figure people named John are more likely to be causing trouble, than people named Julie.
You will have to play a long cat and mouse game cutting off information sources for the AI to a point of it becoming useless.
Don't cut off data, add more!! Yes men crash more than women, but why? Given enough information about the individual, the algorithm will stop making guesses based on gender. Age, personality, aggression level, claims history, driving skill, risk-taking ... Add in a GPS driving log for younger drivers, and each person will pay a premium based on their own individual risk, not on what is between their legs. Of course men and women are different, so average premium will differ, but there will be no *unfair* bias. Is it OK to charge more for more aggressive or unskilled drivers, or is that "bias" too?
Interestingly enough in your example, even if you removed the actual gender from the data, you'd probably still have a 'biased' selection algorithm.
That is not "bias" by gender though, but bias by relevant correlates, which is fair.
If google hires more male white and Asian engineers, and few black females, it is not bias by race and gender, but bias by intelligence and skills of the applicant pool, which is affected by not just the skills but the differing preferences of the demographics.
Any small difference in engineering aptitude between men an women is dwarfed by their different preferences and interests. No politically correct algorithm is going to change that. Are you saying the algorithm has a gender bias still?
Notably they looked at arrest records of the parents as an indicator, and if a biased system caused their parents to be arrested, then the system would gladly extend that bias to a new generation.
I'm sensing some very strong bias in your wording. Why do you speak of the parents as if they are victims instead of criminals? Why do you assume there is racial bias? The correlation between child and parent is independent of race.
And what is the problem? You don't arrest people based on how likely they are to commit a crime. But if you want an algorithm to identify potential future criminals (e.g. so you can target welfare programs) then the arrest record of their parents is very relevant in assessing risk.
When the facts say that men are on average stronger and taller than women, are the facts wrong?
If an algorithm is hiring bricklayers, and all it knows is the gender of the applicant, it will pick men.
But feed the algorithm enough data: the weight, strength, job history, test laying rate etc, then gender bias will be removed. It will pick the best applicants, who just happen to be men. (OK, all the applicants were men, but you get the idea.)
Same for almost anything. Skin colour rarely matters, and given enough more direct data on factors that do matter, skin colour will have no predictive value, so the algorithm will ignore it.
We definitely had descendants in Africa.
Speak for yourself. I was well behaved on my vacation in Africa, not just because of the risk of AIDS.
The famous private drone delivery video that went viral:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
How to get more Australian that that? A pie delivered by trained cockatoo?
Besides, if it's not a problem, why hide it??
Are you talking about the camera, or the human body?
'Common room'? Unless the room was public how can you know people wouldn't be walking around naked in it?
What's with the nudity phobia? Are you assuming the camera was for sexual voyeurism?
I read that if there was a chemical weapons attack in the US, thousands of people would rather die than remove their contaminated clothing in public.
The impactor was neither explosive nor dropped (gravity being insufficient). It was more like shooting the asteroid with a bullet, as far as I can tell.
The creepy part is that the camera is hidden.
How is it creepy? It was in the common room, and quite obviously there for non-nefarious purposes.
I'd have just stuck some tape over it, checked there were no other cameras, and got on with enjoying my vacation.
I can't speak to them past my memory of Playboy.
Playboy was a serious publication back in the day. Sadly, "men's" magazines these days seem to be every bit as trashy as women's magazines. ..." headlines, celebrity faces on the cover, infomercial content, appeal to vanity, what to wear, ...
Just look at the covers: the same clickbait or "20 ways to
It must be all the artificial oestrogens in the environment.
Not a lot of point in electric cars, unless you have excess clean electricity, which Norway has in hydro.
Might as well have efficient petrol cars. Anything but the SUVs and pick-ups that plague North America.
Norway has severe weather, sub zero temperatures for much of the year, heavy snow, and people need to travel long distances. All the things that people say make EVs unsuitable.
Norway put in the infrastructure. Charging everywhere. EVs work great there.
Well done Norway.
You forget to add: Norway has the billions of tons of oil exports to pay for it.
Numerous countries have already banned April fools, the Republic of San Serriffe being the latest.
Its time we did the same.
The "stories" were clearly not true to anyone who had some brains, for example the famous spaghetti tree story.
Easy to say now, but in the England of 1957, spaghetti was an exotic foreign food known mostly to soldiers returned from the war in Italy.
The Moon is a Harsh Mistress... Remember dropping grain carriers loaded with tons of rocks?
It is a lot harder than "dropping". From the moon, you need a gun with a muzzle velocity of at least 2.3km/s. (or ballistic missile delta-V)
Current rail-gun technology can do this, but only for much smaller payloads, and we are a long way from getting the required battleships/frigates to the moon.
Like the time a Russian spy satellite powered by a nuclear reactor burned up in the upper atmosphere releasing roughly 90 lbs of uranium particles into the atmosphere?
The author of that article is clueless. U235 "highly radioactive"? No. If so, it would not have lasted for billions of years in the earth's crust, along with u238, thorium and potassium-40.
Perhaps the writer is confusing it with the Plutonium 238 used in space probe RTGs?
The concern with reactors crashing, weapon tests, and power reactor accidents is not the large amount of near-stable uranium, but the small amount of fission byproducts, such as the caesium-137 in the above article.
Everyone alive at the time probably has a few atoms of it in their bodies.
And countless atoms of uranium from other sources. About 0.1 mg. Lots more potassium 40 though!
Did everyone miss the sarcasm here? I believe he was backhandedly referring to the Stuxnet affair, not that I'm sympathetic.
Thanks. Glad somebody is paying attention :-)
I understand the reasons for Stuxnet, but you have to expect some blowback.
I hope those Iranian hackers were not trying to sabotage American factories.
Because that would be an illegal act of war, deserving international condemnation and sanctions.
To all the other posters: I realize that this thread is most likely dead.
If you want anyone to read your posts, log in, as AC posts are hidden by most.
I only see you because you replied to me.
> Why did that gene change? Was it chance? Or was it the Hand of God?
A good question, and a scientific one, because it makes testable predictions. People have looked for evidence of intelligence affecting evolution of genes - while proving such a vague notion as "god" is impossible, there should definitely be evidence of such guiding because "Hand of God" would have long-term goals.
Natural evolution does not plan ahead. It relies on each incremental step succeeding on its own merits. Yes this is slow, but it means we have legs made from modified fish fins, rather than wheels.