The generalizations in TFA are misleading. People with clinical depression do not process much of anything, and dwell mostly on the negative aspects of their emotional and behavioral states. People with genetically mediated depression (ie. those for whom drug therapy is appropriate) may adapt to it, and learn to process things in a manner that fits the emotional state, that state being strong enough to overpower cognitions without such emotional baggage. But these are adaptations to adverse states, not adoption of cognitive styles that while processing promote consistent behavioral and possibly emotional states. Thus, it would be more appropriate to say there are people who, when approaching a problem that requires prolonged hierarchical analysis, fall into a cognitive state with attendant emotional and behavioral states that appear as though they are depression. People prone to depression may also be prone to adopting this processing style, but it's probably over-reaching to say that depression causes it (or depressed people think this way).
Although there are people for whom a particular state is problematic, it is not the state that is the problem but rather the person's inability to control it and/or their life, particularly those things that the state makes difficult to contend with in real life. For some, a particular cognitive state may produce in them a set of behaviors that produce problems, or that others consider to be problems, while serving the purpose of processing information in a certain way. There are some people who, when trying to solve a complex problem, will take in all they can about it, then go on with life and not think about that problem. Later, a solution will emerge seemingly of its own accord. This intuitive problem solving approach allows these people to solve problems more efficiently than they could have otherwise, and may not have been able to at all. This style of partitioned attention has positive effects in solving some problems. However, the effort of keeping one problem solving process operating in 'silent mode', and of maintaining the separation from other processes, puts a strain on the attentional system. This is sometimes called the attention bottleneck. When this happens, the person's behavior appears to indicate that they are unable to maintain their focus on things.
In order to solve a problem the person chooses to be a little scattered for a while. They exhibit a temporary deficiency in their attentional system but can override it easily when necessary. There are also persons who tend to process things in this way due to their psychological and/or physiological make up. They are less able to override the state, and exhibit the 'scattered' state more often and more obviously. Rather than a 'temporary deficiency in their attentional system' it is more accurate to say that they have an attentional deficit.
And there you have a parallel example to TFA where a cognitive style and a problematic behavior range coincide, but differentiating the cases of cause/effect (frequently with less control) and common correlation (more frequently with better control). This should help illustrate that it is more accurate to consider certain states, and not an entire person, to be disordered, as well as the fact that adoption of things that change one in a significant manner should be considered re-ordering rather than dis-ordering. Furthermore, it should be the person themselves who makes the determination as to whether the state produces in them a disorder due to it causing problems in living, rather than other people or even themselves coming to that conclusion because the resulting behaviors happen to fit a pattern seen in people who also exhibit those behaviors and have significant life problems caused by them.
So, people who use a cognitive process that runs in the background and produces a result seemingly automatically sometimes exhibit deficits in control of their attention. But people who exhibit deficits in control over their attention may may or may not be us
Around 20 years ago someone arranged a 'living flag' ceremony on Mount Trashmore in Virginia Beach, Virginia. Invitations went out to any and all military people stationed in the area, an enormous number of potential attendees. People showed up, the event was held, photographers took pictures. After, the phone company wanted to use some of the photos for the covers of the phone book. Upon examination it turned out that very few non-white persons had attended. The phone company couldn't see their way clear to use pictures of reality, so they held a bogus living flag event with a mix of non-whites of much greater proportion that in real life, and even in the military. (I suppose that of real life makes you then it may do the same for the basic, well devised lie, so the best way to prevent this uncomfortable feeling is to lie real big.) Those pictures got used. People who attended the event found out and publicized the fact, but after the initial splash the matter remained known but non-newsworthy. Also after, I was told but can't confirm that some of the photos were altered to increase the female presence and to make some of the people more attractive.
CCTV, like the US color coded terror alert level, the beefed up airport screening people and processes, and the very Dept. of Homeland Security itself are not primarily intended to be first-line effective deterrents. They are intended to be that, and do the job somewhat, but they are foremost intended to be seen by the populace as being devised and put into place by their government. The government has a mind set that the people need to be tranquilized -- that they are afraid and need to be comforted. I sat in on some of the committee meetings held at and for NIH, and the things suggested that were carried through were high visibility projects. Those things not visible were far less likely to be taken seriously, even though many would have been more effective (and were in other places at other times). There's also the inevitable politician's choice to be seen doing something positive, but still if it weren't visible, nobody thought it would carry much weight. I had a friend at Commerce and she said exactly the same sort of things went on in their meetings.
Of course LIGO is right and good and should be honored for a valiant try despite no results, and M-M are wrong despite results (rarely replicable but a few times) because they were mistaken from the get go. Gravity waves from oscillating N dimensional strings make sense but waves in the ether don't and neither does different light speeds like the speed of light in a vacuum, let's call it c, or the speed of light in water, 0.98c, except different frequencies have different values in water. Anyway, Einstein was right, the speed of light is the same regardless. Einstein was still right even though LIGO got no results.
Criticisms of science who doesn't understand optics, much less basic relativity? Actually, he doesn't understand basic science, since he applies "makes sense" as if it's meaningful.
A problem with both is the directions -- both perpendicular to local gravity. They're looking for crosswise wind ripple effects on a waterfall. Build one with a vertical leg.
Interferometry isn't affected by static fields like local gravity. If it were, their sensitivity is so high that you'd see the local-gravity effect even though their equipment is "perpendicular" to Earth's gravity because their equipment is not perfectly perpendicular to Earth's gravity.
Wow, straw man attacks from half bit wits in the absence of anything substantial outside of a high school text book. Got yer standard 3 degrees do ya? Can't tell. If so I'll see ya and raise ya 1 and keep the invites to Santa Fe as a hole card.
That said, you're specifically the sort of rabid dogmatist the tongue in cheek line (did you manage those big words, or just jump right to 'reply'?) referred to. I've taught from Collins and Pinch in my methodology classes since it was published because most people, students worst, have such misconceptions about the conduct the therefore the content of science. Take a big bow.
When you've removed your ass hat for making a claim of non-existence of an effect which if can be said to be based on anything is based on lack of evidence, feel free to tell the class how you intend to reconcile your statement that local gravity with the fact you've posted in under an article about an experiment that hopes to find waves in it. From distant sources to be sure, but in the local field, or we need to talk to the Hanford folks about how they've managed to negate it. I won't pressure you to figure out exactly where in the gravitational field of a rotating body inertial frame dragging (predicted by general relativity, yes?) does not prevent the field from being truly static, but I'll give you two names -- Lense and Thirring. Two more if you're still stumped -- LAGEOS and LAGEOS II.
I didn't pick on the sentence after "Interferometry isn't affected..." because I'm pretty sure you tried so hard to make a point that you didn't make sense, unless you can make it home whether you turn right 90 degrees or 270 (a logical extension of vertical being equivalent to very nearly horizontal). I also didn't whack you with the fact that the in-theories-only 'static' gravitational field precludes a unified field solution, string or not (all others being decidedly dynamic), because by now if you're still sitting in the saddle and your feet are on the stirrups, then the saddle has done slid around the bottom of the horse.
You know normally I'm willing to let spelling errors go without saying a word. But you actually had to type "querty." Didn't you notice that there was some kind of pattern there, that seemed just a bit off? Did you look down at your keyboard and see a word that looked almost, but not quite, the same?
How much you want to bet he typed "querty" almost as fast as if he'd typed "qwerty"? Typing non-words is slower than typing real or could-be words.
And since you bring it up, has anyone ever told you that people who touch type can usually type most things faster than someone who (I'm betting such as yourself, since as I said you bring it up) looks down at their keyboard?
Anyway, he was half right. Nothing beats typing for input speed. Not even a mouse. Study referenced in "Tog On Interface" showed that people continue to think a mouse is faster despite being proven by their own hand that it's not.
There used to be a niche market for tiuch screens attached to large copy machines used in a large copy shop chain. After too many complaints of sore finger tips and tired wrists and too many insurance claims for carpal tunnel treatments, they got rid of them.
Little wonder they didn't find anything. LIGO is a great big but brand new Michelson-Morley design. It took those guys many years to get a result.
Of course LIGO is right and good and should be honored for a valiant try despite no results, and M-M are wrong despite results (rarely replicable but a few times) because they were mistaken from the get go. Gravity waves from oscillating N dimensional strings make sense but waves in the ether don't and neither does different light speeds like the speed of light in a vacuum, let's call it c, or the speed of light in water, 0.98c, except different frequencies have different values in water. Anyway, Einstein was right, the speed of light is the same regardless. Einstein was still right even though LIGO got no results.
The above is a tongue in cheek adaptation of the LIGO news to the spirit if not content of Collins & Pinch's "The Golem" (actually M-M is covered). Should be required reading for those who'd mount a high scientific horse as well as those who'd seek to dismount them.
They are interferometers with more than a few essential similarities. Both should see something or else nothing regardless of theory because nature doesn't care for theory.
A problem with both is the directions -- both perpendicular to local gravity. They're looking for crosswise wind ripple effects on a waterfall. Build one with a vertical leg. As for orbital designs, same problem. But the rotation of the Earth should drag some frame. Put up two in opposing orbits (E-W/W-E).
A relevant piece of a recently submitted and rejected article on lessons from post-Apollo to Orion/Constellation. There were many suggestions on Apollo derivatives and follow ups, but only Skylab and Apollo-Soyuz made the cut. Many more could have flown. That fact in itself is a valuable lesson -- build for adaptability.
"With the Apollo 11 lunar landing nostalgia wave over, and the ongoing discussions about keeping, changing or abandoning designs and plans for Constellation, the new Ares rocket and the very Apollo-looking Orion crew vehicle, it is interesting to examine the development, evolution (including evolutionary dead ends) and the many never-were projected possibilities for the Apollo and Saturn components. Encyclopedia Astronautica offers a feast of details about Apollo developments, both successes and failure, in The Apollo Development Diaries http://www.astronautix.com/articles/apoaries.htm . Plans for the vehicles were later not so much lost as is claimed now, but were abandoned as unfeasible, unnecessary, and in the cases of some such as the high jumping Lunar Leaper and slithering Lunar Worm vehicles, just too weird http://www.astronautix.com/craftfam/apollo.htm .
As for the actual Lockheed Martin piece referenced in TFA, it's pure PR. But since they feel the need to waive their flag, perhaps there are rumbles from within NASA that they might consider alternatives.
How much is Slashdot getting paid for these ads for Wired? It better be plenty because they're cutting into the credibility here. This latest, a PR boosting (for Wired at the writer) contest announcement, posted in of all places Your Rights Online, is proof positive that if the new eds know what they're doing, they know they're steering this ship towards the icebergs.
The only thing this article has to do with My Rights Online is people are going to say with mod points that I don't have the right to tell you this shit needs to stop.
"orphan works where the rights owner is unknown" and "a monopoly, with unfair bargaining power."
Bargaining with unknown persons? I would think that if one thought they had this ability, they wouldn't need any sort of agreement set, as they could as easily bargain about and/or form a monopoly over unknown books. WTF is William Morris Agency doing by pretending to speak on behalf of unknown writers anyway? You have to be more than moderately known just to talk to them. As stated, it is speaking to its clients, so speaking about the effects on anything else as an argument intended for its clients carries about as much logical force as the unknown books statement above. I smell little glass pipes, or the little green pictures of dead guys equivalent.
Figure: William Morris Agency makes its money by getting a cut of royalites from writers it represents. It wants to see its slice of every single penny possible, right now. It is speaking on its own behalf about its own interests, and the interests of those who put ink to paper in order to generate revenue -- the publishers.
Then figure: The Authors Guild is authors representing and advising authors (including William Morris Agency clients) on all issues of interest to writers -- royalties, professional development, legal issues of all sorts, and above all, more writing. They are speaking on all their own shared interests, in order to not to have to depend on decisions being made by those others who make money off the authors' work (including William Morris Agency).
"He has spent more than 20 years eying this specific Almaz program."
A lot of people have been watching it that long. Here's the bibliography from the Almaz article in Encyclopedia Astronautica. The earliest article is 1991:
# Pauw, H, Spaceflight, "New Facts About Soviet Space Stations", 1994, Volume 36, page 89. # Haeseler, Dietrich, Spaceflight, "Original Almaz Space Station", 1994, Volume 35, page 342. # Kidger, Neville, Spaceflight, "Almaz - A Diamond Out of Darkness", 1994, Volume 36, page 86. # Chugunova, Nina, Ogonyok, "Kosmonavti Chelomeya", January 1993, No. 4-5, page 24. # Afanasyev, I B, Neizvestnie korabli, Kosmonavtika, Astronomiya, Znanie, 12-91.. # Melnik, T G, Voenno-Kosmicheskiy Siliy, Nauka, Moscow, 1997..
Not much of a "top secret" for the last 20 years anyway. It was slightly secret when it was first launched, April 1973, under the name Salyut 2.
Oh, and the cannon referred to in an earlir response was a Nudelman cannon, and not specifically intended for Almaz. It was originally on Soyuz 6.
TFA is misleading, this time due to the researchers trying to make their science sexy when it's really just trying to ride a social networking wave. There is no "now" involved. They are going to scan across time looking for posts on a particular subject to see what peoples "reactions" are. People don't post these millions per day simultaneously, and they may think for an hour before they post or the may post immediately after a particular thing of interest occurs.
The 'self-selection' bias is true but isn't nearly the issue people assume. What is there about being a twit that makes people think the same about a particular thing? The evidence is in the variance of opinion measures as compared to... what? People who are not twits (group) who'll agree to participate (subgroup) in a study comparing their opinions (subsubgroup), with those of twats (subsubsubgroup, plus forcing a result because they may never really have had such an opinion before being asked to here). All such studies have to contend with some biases such as self-selection. They have to report these as part of their operationalizations. As long as the statistical testing produces results that *could* be an accurate subset of the general population (it may just happen to be a result that looks like this, you can't tell) it can be considered a useful result. This depends on the statistical testing. And this project is being run by statisticians. I've no doubt they know what they're doing in this respect. Now when it comes to examining peoples' response to a tragedy, and finding they expect something worse to happen, well good luck on them finding the well understood basis for this and, failing to incorporate this, end up with a result that's way off compared to their others.
Why aren't they scanning the far broader user base of another system that allows the posting of more emotionally laden material by not restricting how much they post? Why aren't they using a collection of posts that cover decades instead of months? Because they're relying on making their science sexy to make it relevant and noticed. Any grouping creates bias, so the larger grouping makes better science, but Usenet isn't sexy, and Twatterizing is. At least this week. There's another problem. Twits move from one social networking site to another as each becomes the next best thing. Twitter will become obsolete, and so will their results.
What the panel is going to tell Obama is that the entire budget from the shuttle should, as it winds down, be transferred entirely within the manned space office directly to 'exploration', which consists of Constellation and 'advanced capabilities.
In essence, they are about to tell Obama that he should continue to award the budgets and increases already asked for, for specifically what they've asked for them for, continuing on through 2013. That is already reflected in the budget and proposals, as is their request to transfer shuttle funding to Constellation.
Look at the budget and proposal numbers from http://www.nasa.gov/pdf/210020main_NASA_FY09_Budget_Estimates_Summary.pdf for "Exploration (Constellation systems)" and "Space Operations (Space Shuttle)". As the shuttle winds down, Constellation winds up. It's already there, it has already been asked for, Obama already knows about this. The panel is merely repeating NASA's requests.
There is hardly anything newsworthy here, certainly nothing to run around with your hair on fire as Guardian appears to enjoy instigating by leading the pack. I'm not sure who started this screamfest, but it's spread all over the web with no one doing the little research as was done here in order to find out if the noise to noisier ratio is justified. Had they done so (and maybe they have) I suspect they'd ignore it and print this expose' of nothing what so ever in exactly the same manner anyway.
The other claim in the article, the reference to the Near Earth Object program, MailOnline reported previously and similarly slanted backwards. The claim that NASA says can't track all the rocks is a misstatement of "NASA needs more funding for more scopes/projects as the numbers grow", and the claim that NASA is alone in doing this is falsified by a visit to the NASA/JPL NEO web site that shows the seven NEO programs, one of the Australian, one of them Japanese, and one an international consortium. Thus, the second part echoes the first in that it's media initiated awfulism based on the entirely mundane politics of having an 'independent panel' created by the agency that wants what it said it wants, say the same thing.
The panel itself may even make cautionary and emphatic noises. The fact remains that the numbers, produced before the panel was even announced, already show NASA's budgets, projections and requests to cover exactly the programs which are being singled out for needing that money. They're just trying to prevent the NASA budget from being gutted and the money transferred to the health care program or any of the other programs grabbing at anything that might move.
... if someone were to hack the malware. It would be very bad if they changed it so it downloaded copyrighted stuff, say whole CDs of recent music, to Digsby's machines, and then sent email to RIAA saying it's there. It would be a very, very bad thing indeed if this were then redistributed and thousands of unsuspecting people installed it and remained unsuspecting as the usually do, while it did its job then erased itself, because otherwise it would have been a Simply Awful very, very bad thing.
These six emotional responses produce identical facial expressions globally, including interactions of these (surprise + joy at a gift opening, frinstance), as long as that's the only input. Anything more, and the facial expression as well as interpretation of it (say, pride mixed in since the gift was from your child who made it by hand being mixed with the other two), is open to cultural differences.
That was a single paragraph summary of facial expressions, global or not. It was old when I learned it in undergrad psych. TFA has nothing to do with facial expressions. It has to do with face scanning. It has nothing to say about facial expressions other than as the object being observed, and so has nothing to say on whether any are global or not.
'"We have people testing it in China and Iran," said Berman, whose agency runs Voice of America.'
VoM is a propaganda service, always has been. And I mean that in the strict technical sense, not with any negative connotation. It is their job to present information that can be received in countries elsewhere, which the US wants believed.
In this case, they want the residents of those countries to believe (ie "know") it is possible to have contact with information from outside that their own government doesn't want them to see. True or not, it encourages growth of anti-whatever sentiment and positions the US as a helpful ally. It doesn't have to exist because those people who fail to find it will assume it's something their government successfully blocked, but since the news of it didn't get blocked, they will believe it exists and will continue to search for anything that can help them.
Also, the governments this is intended for know it may not exist, or may even know it doesn't exist, but as long as their people might believe it does, they have to take steps to counter it. Taking those steps serves as evidence to those citizens this was intended for that it is real, and reinforces their belief.
TFA was not a news article. It was a normally fully-automatic information warfare weapon being fired in single-shot mode, from right between your legs, just like Christian Slater in "Broken Arrow". Where else can such an obvious lie be given credence and be likely to directly or indirectly reach those people it's intended for? Its content makes it likely to get posted to effective places such as here, and reposted to others like it, as well as forwarded from them to places that focus on these 'censorship' issues. Having "come from" here and places like it gives it street cred.
It is also a very effective piece, in that any information regarding its nature and as info-bullet can also be seen, and it will remain effective. All this can be said and it can *still* work. Between the pro--and-con arguments that appear tending to average each other out to zero by both discrediting the other, and the need for the intended recipients to believe in it and things like it, it will work. A well done piece like this is like saying to someone "I'm going to blow your head off" and having them duck, even though they see you're only pointing your finger at them. Because, hey, the finger might be loaded.
So exactly what is this organization going to do to rectify the situation of 80% (their measure) of adults age 20-50 (my estimate) being deficient in education regarding reproductive biology and optics/physics?
Put up a web site? That's all? There way more than plenty out there, and books, and other sources. The events and web sites you link to were there before too. How are you going to get the message to these people you've specified where others have failed by simply 'making available' and 'raising awareness'?
By singling out those people and humiliating them in the press? Smooth move.
Are you going to stick with your assumption that they don't know despite the fact that your data collection method (word of mouth reports of recollections of past events, asked with leading questions in order to set your context but which they'll tend to answer in such a way as to satisfy your implied preferred response) is fatally flawed? That was just a few of the errors among the many listed in places such as http://www.don-lindsay-archive.org/skeptic/arguments.html that you fall prey to. That's a pretty good example of bad scientific reasoning, hardly the PR you'd want.
You're doing nothing other than this website and publicity? That's pretty irresponsible when all those people are so deficient, by their admission and your conclusion. Who's going to save them from this sad state you've discovered they're stuck in?
You're doing nothing else? So then maybe things aren't so bad for them. So you've done them a disservice, insulted them, and presented yourself under false pretense. That would seem to beg apologies as well as discrediting yourself in exactly the field you seek to promote. That reflects on the entire field, especially those sites and events you link to on your site. More apologies.
Your presentation, creating an artificial problem in order to justify your existence and intentions, is just one sort of the things we science educators who seek to promote science solely by its own value and benefits, have to constantly strive to overcome. Thanks, we appreciate that. We could use you as a bad example in our work if we were to use your tactics and so redeem you a bit by making our job a bit easier. But I for one don't intend to stoop to it. Science education doesn't need that.
Public awareness, however, is a gateway to education, and it requires cleaning from time to time. It's the venue you've chosen to promote yourself, and I'm glad to be able to help you call attention to you in this context as you are, ask Shakespear said, hoist by your own petard. An apt analogy here, and one that could lead to consideration of the actual force needed to hoist you and whether your petard carried enough power in order to do so, as well as how far and on what ballistic trajectory. But the 'laws' (including calculations of F = ma), the calculus (for the ballistics) as well as the force your petard had to work to overcome (F = G * (m1 * m2 / r^2)) were to come from a man born a quarter century after Shakespear died. So we'll leave this as a history lesson, a criticism from a science educator of your presentation and its effects offered sincerely if emphatically, and my own effort to compartmentalize these while letting the science lesson take care of itself without needing all this to validate or promote itself.
"It all happens via a chip that resides in a camera that plugs into the set-top box."
It all stops happening via a Craftsman five pound ball peen camera removal tool that resides in a box that sits on top the work bench.
This reeks of leftover dot com fever outrageous idea development looking for thrown-cash funding regardless of viability. Though crippled beyond recuperation that mind set refuses to die along with some of its other goofy projects, such as the Nukem Dukem 3D of extraneous peripherals, the eternally vaporous Smell-O-Vision-like "products". If it weren't for the fact that the marketoids attending the conference are undoubtedly drooling over their imagined implications for advertising revenue, it would have all the impact and lifespan of all the items taken from patents and idea articles and sputtered across the What's New pages of Popular Science.
But then I could be wrong. Cable operators could "require" these and tie the incoming signal to its continued operation. In which case it would behoove the prudent to invest heavily into manufacturers of big rubber asses with clamps designed to attach to the front of cable set-top boxes.
"But while Pranknet's hoaxes have caused millions of dollars in damages, it is the group's efforts to degrade and frighten targets that makes it even more odious..."... because as we all know, what people think of you is far more important than millions of dollars worth of damage.
The statement "as intelligent as a 2 year old child" implies the ability to perform on par with a 2 year old with average mental abilities, or another child of different age with greater or lesser abilities, on an appropriate test of "intelligence" such the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (Revised).
Since those expected responses which are not verbal are written, obviously they'll score 0.
Since cognitive science seems to get further from a definition of intelligence the harder it tries to pin it down, even using the word is a problem. I quit believing in the concept when I saw a retarded child perform successfully (though slower, and with more effort)in a class of gifted children mostly because of the attention offered in the situation.
"Can perform successfully tests of some functions and display some cognitive abilities which when given to humans can be accomplished by more than half of 2 year old children" might be acceptable.
Besides, I've seen some dogs that were too stupid to live. And I've run and howled with some that I've trusted alone with my baby children. Who cares how smart a person they'd make? What matters is how smart a dog they are, and the smartest rarely need things like arithmetic.
For that matter, how smart is a 2 year old human on a dog scale of "intelligence"? After all, that's 21 in dog years. It's not 7 to 1, it's 10.5 to 1 for the first two, then 4 to 1 after.
I try to research the place so that all my questions are specific or at lest relevant rather than general. General questions from HR types are substitutes for real questions, and general questions from anyone can be taken as such.
If, after I've asked my specific questions, they still (and usually do) hit me with "Do you have any questions?" I hit back with "I've tried to research [you] the best I could so I could ask specific questions. In case there are things I've missed, and at the risk of answering a question with a question, what other things do you think I should know?" I moderate the language of this to match with the tone of the interview - formal/informal, inclusive/confrontational, etc.
Of course I also gauge whether it's worth asking this, or if I'd get formulaic answers, from how formulaic they were during the interview. If it goes like an HR script full of generalized questions that have nothing to do with me, I hold back and ask informally questions of the non-HR people involved outside the interview. If I'm not given the opportunity to meet with them around the interview, I'll ask if I will later. If they intend to make their decision without allowing me to meet with my potential colleagues, they want a body, not a member of an organization. Fuck them.
1. Every movement comes to recognize its Golden Age. It is always found to have been the earlier times of the present majority generation.
2. The same will be true of the next generation.
3. Someone may claim from outside the movement that this this Golden Age is past. They will be wrong, despite #1 still being true.
4. Proof that this apparent contradiction is correct will come when #2 comes true, who will in turn have to contend with the outside claims as in #3.
5. When the generation in #2 faces the problems in #1, the previous majority generation will become the mature generation. It will still remember its Golden Age as in #1, but with nostalgia rather than grief.
6. The mature generation will seek to impart the wisdom earned in its Golden Age and since to the majority generation in #1 and the new generation in #2.
7. #1 and #2 will listen with amusement if at all, and may gain some insights, but will proceed to develop their Golden Ages on their own.
Mature: "Will The Circle Be Unbroken?" -- Traditional
Majority: "Will It Go Round In Circles?" -- Billy Preston
Slashdot Mirror
The generalizations in TFA are misleading. People with clinical depression do not process much of anything, and dwell mostly on the negative aspects of their emotional and behavioral states. People with genetically mediated depression (ie. those for whom drug therapy is appropriate) may adapt to it, and learn to process things in a manner that fits the emotional state, that state being strong enough to overpower cognitions without such emotional baggage. But these are adaptations to adverse states, not adoption of cognitive styles that while processing promote consistent behavioral and possibly emotional states. Thus, it would be more appropriate to say there are people who, when approaching a problem that requires prolonged hierarchical analysis, fall into a cognitive state with attendant emotional and behavioral states that appear as though they are depression. People prone to depression may also be prone to adopting this processing style, but it's probably over-reaching to say that depression causes it (or depressed people think this way).
Although there are people for whom a particular state is problematic, it is not the state that is the problem but rather the person's inability to control it and/or their life, particularly those things that the state makes difficult to contend with in real life. For some, a particular cognitive state may produce in them a set of behaviors that produce problems, or that others consider to be problems, while serving the purpose of processing information in a certain way. There are some people who, when trying to solve a complex problem, will take in all they can about it, then go on with life and not think about that problem. Later, a solution will emerge seemingly of its own accord. This intuitive problem solving approach allows these people to solve problems more efficiently than they could have otherwise, and may not have been able to at all. This style of partitioned attention has positive effects in solving some problems. However, the effort of keeping one problem solving process operating in 'silent mode', and of maintaining the separation from other processes, puts a strain on the attentional system. This is sometimes called the attention bottleneck. When this happens, the person's behavior appears to indicate that they are unable to maintain their focus on things.
In order to solve a problem the person chooses to be a little scattered for a while. They exhibit a temporary deficiency in their attentional system but can override it easily when necessary. There are also persons who tend to process things in this way due to their psychological and/or physiological make up. They are less able to override the state, and exhibit the 'scattered' state more often and more obviously. Rather than a 'temporary deficiency in their attentional system' it is more accurate to say that they have an attentional deficit.
And there you have a parallel example to TFA where a cognitive style and a problematic behavior range coincide, but differentiating the cases of cause/effect (frequently with less control) and common correlation (more frequently with better control). This should help illustrate that it is more accurate to consider certain states, and not an entire person, to be disordered, as well as the fact that adoption of things that change one in a significant manner should be considered re-ordering rather than dis-ordering. Furthermore, it should be the person themselves who makes the determination as to whether the state produces in them a disorder due to it causing problems in living, rather than other people or even themselves coming to that conclusion because the resulting behaviors happen to fit a pattern seen in people who also exhibit those behaviors and have significant life problems caused by them.
So, people who use a cognitive process that runs in the background and produces a result seemingly automatically sometimes exhibit deficits in control of their attention. But people who exhibit deficits in control over their attention may may or may not be us
We will not go gently into that good night. We will no give up without a fight. Tomorrow will be our Independence Day.
Hey it worked great against aliens (along with Jeff Goldbloom's virus), so plain old Earth Governments wouldn't stand a chance.
Lock on. Fox three. Yeah, those helped too.
Around 20 years ago someone arranged a 'living flag' ceremony on Mount Trashmore in Virginia Beach, Virginia. Invitations went out to any and all military people stationed in the area, an enormous number of potential attendees. People showed up, the event was held, photographers took pictures. After, the phone company wanted to use some of the photos for the covers of the phone book. Upon examination it turned out that very few non-white persons had attended. The phone company couldn't see their way clear to use pictures of reality, so they held a bogus living flag event with a mix of non-whites of much greater proportion that in real life, and even in the military. (I suppose that of real life makes you then it may do the same for the basic, well devised lie, so the best way to prevent this uncomfortable feeling is to lie real big.) Those pictures got used. People who attended the event found out and publicized the fact, but after the initial splash the matter remained known but non-newsworthy. Also after, I was told but can't confirm that some of the photos were altered to increase the female presence and to make some of the people more attractive.
CCTV, like the US color coded terror alert level, the beefed up airport screening people and processes, and the very Dept. of Homeland Security itself are not primarily intended to be first-line effective deterrents. They are intended to be that, and do the job somewhat, but they are foremost intended to be seen by the populace as being devised and put into place by their government. The government has a mind set that the people need to be tranquilized -- that they are afraid and need to be comforted. I sat in on some of the committee meetings held at and for NIH, and the things suggested that were carried through were high visibility projects. Those things not visible were far less likely to be taken seriously, even though many would have been more effective (and were in other places at other times). There's also the inevitable politician's choice to be seen doing something positive, but still if it weren't visible, nobody thought it would carry much weight. I had a friend at Commerce and she said exactly the same sort of things went on in their meetings.
Of course LIGO is right and good and should be honored for a valiant try despite no results, and M-M are wrong despite results (rarely replicable but a few times) because they were mistaken from the get go. Gravity waves from oscillating N dimensional strings make sense but waves in the ether don't and neither does different light speeds like the speed of light in a vacuum, let's call it c, or the speed of light in water, 0.98c, except different frequencies have different values in water. Anyway, Einstein was right, the speed of light is the same regardless. Einstein was still right even though LIGO got no results.
Criticisms of science who doesn't understand optics, much less basic relativity? Actually, he doesn't understand basic science, since he applies "makes sense" as if it's meaningful.
A problem with both is the directions -- both perpendicular to local gravity. They're looking for crosswise wind ripple effects on a waterfall. Build one with a vertical leg.
Interferometry isn't affected by static fields like local gravity. If it were, their sensitivity is so high that you'd see the local-gravity effect even though their equipment is "perpendicular" to Earth's gravity because their equipment is not perfectly perpendicular to Earth's gravity.
Wow, straw man attacks from half bit wits in the absence of anything substantial outside of a high school text book. Got yer standard 3 degrees do ya? Can't tell. If so I'll see ya and raise ya 1 and keep the invites to Santa Fe as a hole card.
That said, you're specifically the sort of rabid dogmatist the tongue in cheek line (did you manage those big words, or just jump right to 'reply'?) referred to. I've taught from Collins and Pinch in my methodology classes since it was published because most people, students worst, have such misconceptions about the conduct the therefore the content of science. Take a big bow.
When you've removed your ass hat for making a claim of non-existence of an effect which if can be said to be based on anything is based on lack of evidence, feel free to tell the class how you intend to reconcile your statement that local gravity with the fact you've posted in under an article about an experiment that hopes to find waves in it. From distant sources to be sure, but in the local field, or we need to talk to the Hanford folks about how they've managed to negate it. I won't pressure you to figure out exactly where in the gravitational field of a rotating body inertial frame dragging (predicted by general relativity, yes?) does not prevent the field from being truly static, but I'll give you two names -- Lense and Thirring. Two more if you're still stumped -- LAGEOS and LAGEOS II.
I didn't pick on the sentence after "Interferometry isn't affected..." because I'm pretty sure you tried so hard to make a point that you didn't make sense, unless you can make it home whether you turn right 90 degrees or 270 (a logical extension of vertical being equivalent to very nearly horizontal). I also didn't whack you with the fact that the in-theories-only 'static' gravitational field precludes a unified field solution, string or not (all others being decidedly dynamic), because by now if you're still sitting in the saddle and your feet are on the stirrups, then the saddle has done slid around the bottom of the horse.
nothing beats a mouse and querty for input speed
You know normally I'm willing to let spelling errors go without saying a word. But you actually had to type "querty." Didn't you notice that there was some kind of pattern there, that seemed just a bit off? Did you look down at your keyboard and see a word that looked almost, but not quite, the same?
How much you want to bet he typed "querty" almost as fast as if he'd typed "qwerty"? Typing non-words is slower than typing real or could-be words.
And since you bring it up, has anyone ever told you that people who touch type can usually type most things faster than someone who (I'm betting such as yourself, since as I said you bring it up) looks down at their keyboard?
Anyway, he was half right. Nothing beats typing for input speed. Not even a mouse. Study referenced in "Tog On Interface" showed that people continue to think a mouse is faster despite being proven by their own hand that it's not.
There used to be a niche market for tiuch screens attached to large copy machines used in a large copy shop chain. After too many complaints of sore finger tips and tired wrists and too many insurance claims for carpal tunnel treatments, they got rid of them.
Little wonder they didn't find anything. LIGO is a great big but brand new Michelson-Morley design. It took those guys many years to get a result.
Of course LIGO is right and good and should be honored for a valiant try despite no results, and M-M are wrong despite results (rarely replicable but a few times) because they were mistaken from the get go. Gravity waves from oscillating N dimensional strings make sense but waves in the ether don't and neither does different light speeds like the speed of light in a vacuum, let's call it c, or the speed of light in water, 0.98c, except different frequencies have different values in water. Anyway, Einstein was right, the speed of light is the same regardless. Einstein was still right even though LIGO got no results.
The above is a tongue in cheek adaptation of the LIGO news to the spirit if not content of Collins & Pinch's "The Golem" (actually M-M is covered). Should be required reading for those who'd mount a high scientific horse as well as those who'd seek to dismount them.
They are interferometers with more than a few essential similarities. Both should see something or else nothing regardless of theory because nature doesn't care for theory.
A problem with both is the directions -- both perpendicular to local gravity. They're looking for crosswise wind ripple effects on a waterfall. Build one with a vertical leg. As for orbital designs, same problem. But the rotation of the Earth should drag some frame. Put up two in opposing orbits (E-W/W-E).
A relevant piece of a recently submitted and rejected article on lessons from post-Apollo to Orion/Constellation. There were many suggestions on Apollo derivatives and follow ups, but only Skylab and Apollo-Soyuz made the cut. Many more could have flown. That fact in itself is a valuable lesson -- build for adaptability.
"With the Apollo 11 lunar landing nostalgia wave over, and the ongoing discussions about keeping, changing or abandoning designs and plans for Constellation, the new Ares rocket and the very Apollo-looking Orion crew vehicle, it is interesting to examine the development, evolution (including evolutionary dead ends) and the many never-were projected possibilities for the Apollo and Saturn components. Encyclopedia Astronautica offers a feast of details about Apollo developments, both successes and failure, in The Apollo Development Diaries http://www.astronautix.com/articles/apoaries.htm . Plans for the vehicles were later not so much lost as is claimed now, but were abandoned as unfeasible, unnecessary, and in the cases of some such as the high jumping Lunar Leaper and slithering Lunar Worm vehicles, just too weird http://www.astronautix.com/craftfam/apollo.htm .
As for the actual Lockheed Martin piece referenced in TFA, it's pure PR. But since they feel the need to waive their flag, perhaps there are rumbles from within NASA that they might consider alternatives.
lie not within our typing, but our age.
"My handwriting abilities have deteriorated over the years."
and
"(I'm used to Telex machines, which should give you an indication of how old I am.)"
And you need a hint? Of course some of us are experiencing this. It's called "old". Say hello to entropy.
How much is Slashdot getting paid for these ads for Wired? It better be plenty because they're cutting into the credibility here. This latest, a PR boosting (for Wired at the writer) contest announcement, posted in of all places Your Rights Online, is proof positive that if the new eds know what they're doing, they know they're steering this ship towards the icebergs.
The only thing this article has to do with My Rights Online is people are going to say with mod points that I don't have the right to tell you this shit needs to stop.
Or if they're not, maybe they should be. To wit:
"orphan works where the rights owner is unknown"
and
"a monopoly, with unfair bargaining power."
Bargaining with unknown persons? I would think that if one thought they had this ability, they wouldn't need any sort of agreement set, as they could as easily bargain about and/or form a monopoly over unknown books. WTF is William Morris Agency doing by pretending to speak on behalf of unknown writers anyway? You have to be more than moderately known just to talk to them. As stated, it is speaking to its clients, so speaking about the effects on anything else as an argument intended for its clients carries about as much logical force as the unknown books statement above. I smell little glass pipes, or the little green pictures of dead guys equivalent.
Figure: William Morris Agency makes its money by getting a cut of royalites from writers it represents. It wants to see its slice of every single penny possible, right now. It is speaking on its own behalf about its own interests, and the interests of those who put ink to paper in order to generate revenue -- the publishers.
Then figure: The Authors Guild is authors representing and advising authors (including William Morris Agency clients) on all issues of interest to writers -- royalties, professional development, legal issues of all sorts, and above all, more writing. They are speaking on all their own shared interests, in order to not to have to depend on decisions being made by those others who make money off the authors' work (including William Morris Agency).
"He has spent more than 20 years eying this specific Almaz program."
A lot of people have been watching it that long. Here's the bibliography from the Almaz article in Encyclopedia Astronautica. The earliest article is 1991:
# Pauw, H, Spaceflight, "New Facts About Soviet Space Stations", 1994, Volume 36, page 89.
# Haeseler, Dietrich, Spaceflight, "Original Almaz Space Station", 1994, Volume 35, page 342.
# Kidger, Neville, Spaceflight, "Almaz - A Diamond Out of Darkness", 1994, Volume 36, page 86.
# Chugunova, Nina, Ogonyok, "Kosmonavti Chelomeya", January 1993, No. 4-5, page 24.
# Afanasyev, I B, Neizvestnie korabli, Kosmonavtika, Astronomiya, Znanie, 12-91..
# Melnik, T G, Voenno-Kosmicheskiy Siliy, Nauka, Moscow, 1997..
Not much of a "top secret" for the last 20 years anyway. It was slightly secret when it was first launched, April 1973, under the name Salyut 2.
Oh, and the cannon referred to in an earlir response was a Nudelman cannon, and not specifically intended for Almaz. It was originally on Soyuz 6.
TFA is misleading, this time due to the researchers trying to make their science sexy when it's really just trying to ride a social networking wave. There is no "now" involved. They are going to scan across time looking for posts on a particular subject to see what peoples "reactions" are. People don't post these millions per day simultaneously, and they may think for an hour before they post or the may post immediately after a particular thing of interest occurs.
The 'self-selection' bias is true but isn't nearly the issue people assume. What is there about being a twit that makes people think the same about a particular thing? The evidence is in the variance of opinion measures as compared to ... what? People who are not twits (group) who'll agree to participate (subgroup) in a study comparing their opinions (subsubgroup), with those of twats (subsubsubgroup, plus forcing a result because they may never really have had such an opinion before being asked to here). All such studies have to contend with some biases such as self-selection. They have to report these as part of their operationalizations. As long as the statistical testing produces results that *could* be an accurate subset of the general population (it may just happen to be a result that looks like this, you can't tell) it can be considered a useful result. This depends on the statistical testing. And this project is being run by statisticians. I've no doubt they know what they're doing in this respect. Now when it comes to examining peoples' response to a tragedy, and finding they expect something worse to happen, well good luck on them finding the well understood basis for this and, failing to incorporate this, end up with a result that's way off compared to their others.
Why aren't they scanning the far broader user base of another system that allows the posting of more emotionally laden material by not restricting how much they post? Why aren't they using a collection of posts that cover decades instead of months? Because they're relying on making their science sexy to make it relevant and noticed. Any grouping creates bias, so the larger grouping makes better science, but Usenet isn't sexy, and Twatterizing is. At least this week. There's another problem. Twits move from one social networking site to another as each becomes the next best thing. Twitter will become obsolete, and so will their results.
What the panel is going to tell Obama is that the entire budget from the shuttle should, as it winds down, be transferred entirely within the manned space office directly to 'exploration', which consists of Constellation and 'advanced capabilities.
In essence, they are about to tell Obama that he should continue to award the budgets and increases already asked for, for specifically what they've asked for them for, continuing on through 2013. That is already reflected in the budget and proposals, as is their request to transfer shuttle funding to Constellation.
Look at the budget and proposal numbers from
http://www.nasa.gov/pdf/210020main_NASA_FY09_Budget_Estimates_Summary.pdf
for "Exploration (Constellation systems)" and "Space Operations (Space Shuttle)". As the shuttle winds down, Constellation winds up. It's already there, it has already been asked for, Obama already knows about this. The panel is merely repeating NASA's requests.
There is hardly anything newsworthy here, certainly nothing to run around with your hair on fire as Guardian appears to enjoy instigating by leading the pack. I'm not sure who started this screamfest, but it's spread all over the web with no one doing the little research as was done here in order to find out if the noise to noisier ratio is justified. Had they done so (and maybe they have) I suspect they'd ignore it and print this expose' of nothing what so ever in exactly the same manner anyway.
The other claim in the article, the reference to the Near Earth Object program, MailOnline reported previously and similarly slanted backwards. The claim that NASA says can't track all the rocks is a misstatement of "NASA needs more funding for more scopes/projects as the numbers grow", and the claim that NASA is alone in doing this is falsified by a visit to the NASA/JPL NEO web site that shows the seven NEO programs, one of the Australian, one of them Japanese, and one an international consortium. Thus, the second part echoes the first in that it's media initiated awfulism based on the entirely mundane politics of having an 'independent panel' created by the agency that wants what it said it wants, say the same thing.
The panel itself may even make cautionary and emphatic noises. The fact remains that the numbers, produced before the panel was even announced, already show NASA's budgets, projections and requests to cover exactly the programs which are being singled out for needing that money. They're just trying to prevent the NASA budget from being gutted and the money transferred to the health care program or any of the other programs grabbing at anything that might move.
... if someone were to hack the malware. It would be very bad if they changed it so it downloaded copyrighted stuff, say whole CDs of recent music, to Digsby's machines, and then sent email to RIAA saying it's there. It would be a very, very bad thing indeed if this were then redistributed and thousands of unsuspecting people installed it and remained unsuspecting as the usually do, while it did its job then erased itself, because otherwise it would have been a Simply Awful very, very bad thing.
ANGER. FEAR. SURPRISE. SADNESS. JOY. DISGUST.
These six emotional responses produce identical facial expressions globally, including interactions of these (surprise + joy at a gift opening, frinstance), as long as that's the only input. Anything more, and the facial expression as well as interpretation of it (say, pride mixed in since the gift was from your child who made it by hand being mixed with the other two), is open to cultural differences.
That was a single paragraph summary of facial expressions, global or not. It was old when I learned it in undergrad psych. TFA has nothing to do with facial expressions. It has to do with face scanning. It has nothing to say about facial expressions other than as the object being observed, and so has nothing to say on whether any are global or not.
'"We have people testing it in China and Iran," said Berman, whose agency runs Voice of America.'
VoM is a propaganda service, always has been. And I mean that in the strict technical sense, not with any negative connotation. It is their job to present information that can be received in countries elsewhere, which the US wants believed.
In this case, they want the residents of those countries to believe (ie "know") it is possible to have contact with information from outside that their own government doesn't want them to see. True or not, it encourages growth of anti-whatever sentiment and positions the US as a helpful ally. It doesn't have to exist because those people who fail to find it will assume it's something their government successfully blocked, but since the news of it didn't get blocked, they will believe it exists and will continue to search for anything that can help them.
Also, the governments this is intended for know it may not exist, or may even know it doesn't exist, but as long as their people might believe it does, they have to take steps to counter it. Taking those steps serves as evidence to those citizens this was intended for that it is real, and reinforces their belief.
TFA was not a news article. It was a normally fully-automatic information warfare weapon being fired in single-shot mode, from right between your legs, just like Christian Slater in "Broken Arrow". Where else can such an obvious lie be given credence and be likely to directly or indirectly reach those people it's intended for? Its content makes it likely to get posted to effective places such as here, and reposted to others like it, as well as forwarded from them to places that focus on these 'censorship' issues. Having "come from" here and places like it gives it street cred.
It is also a very effective piece, in that any information regarding its nature and as info-bullet can also be seen, and it will remain effective. All this can be said and it can *still* work. Between the pro--and-con arguments that appear tending to average each other out to zero by both discrediting the other, and the need for the intended recipients to believe in it and things like it, it will work. A well done piece like this is like saying to someone "I'm going to blow your head off" and having them duck, even though they see you're only pointing your finger at them. Because, hey, the finger might be loaded.
Yup, a pretty silly statement when the observation was of the first one discovered.
Still a silly statement after the second one discovered, the very next day:
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn17613-second-backwards-planet-found-a-day-after-the-first.html
So exactly what is this organization going to do to rectify the situation of 80% (their measure) of adults age 20-50 (my estimate) being deficient in education regarding reproductive biology and optics/physics?
Put up a web site? That's all? There way more than plenty out there, and books, and other sources. The events and web sites you link to were there before too. How are you going to get the message to these people you've specified where others have failed by simply 'making available' and 'raising awareness'?
By singling out those people and humiliating them in the press? Smooth move.
Are you going to stick with your assumption that they don't know despite the fact that your data collection method (word of mouth reports of recollections of past events, asked with leading questions in order to set your context but which they'll tend to answer in such a way as to satisfy your implied preferred response) is fatally flawed? That was just a few of the errors among the many listed in places such as http://www.don-lindsay-archive.org/skeptic/arguments.html that you fall prey to. That's a pretty good example of bad scientific reasoning, hardly the PR you'd want.
You're doing nothing other than this website and publicity? That's pretty irresponsible when all those people are so deficient, by their admission and your conclusion. Who's going to save them from this sad state you've discovered they're stuck in?
You're doing nothing else? So then maybe things aren't so bad for them. So you've done them a disservice, insulted them, and presented yourself under false pretense. That would seem to beg apologies as well as discrediting yourself in exactly the field you seek to promote. That reflects on the entire field, especially those sites and events you link to on your site. More apologies.
Your presentation, creating an artificial problem in order to justify your existence and intentions, is just one sort of the things we science educators who seek to promote science solely by its own value and benefits, have to constantly strive to overcome. Thanks, we appreciate that. We could use you as a bad example in our work if we were to use your tactics and so redeem you a bit by making our job a bit easier. But I for one don't intend to stoop to it. Science education doesn't need that.
Public awareness, however, is a gateway to education, and it requires cleaning from time to time. It's the venue you've chosen to promote yourself, and I'm glad to be able to help you call attention to you in this context as you are, ask Shakespear said, hoist by your own petard. An apt analogy here, and one that could lead to consideration of the actual force needed to hoist you and whether your petard carried enough power in order to do so, as well as how far and on what ballistic trajectory. But the 'laws' (including calculations of F = ma), the calculus (for the ballistics) as well as the force your petard had to work to overcome (F = G * (m1 * m2 / r^2)) were to come from a man born a quarter century after Shakespear died. So we'll leave this as a history lesson, a criticism from a science educator of your presentation and its effects offered sincerely if emphatically, and my own effort to compartmentalize these while letting the science lesson take care of itself without needing all this to validate or promote itself.
"It all happens via a chip that resides in a camera that plugs into the set-top box."
It all stops happening via a Craftsman five pound ball peen camera removal tool that resides in a box that sits on top the work bench.
This reeks of leftover dot com fever outrageous idea development looking for thrown-cash funding regardless of viability. Though crippled beyond recuperation that mind set refuses to die along with some of its other goofy projects, such as the Nukem Dukem 3D of extraneous peripherals, the eternally vaporous Smell-O-Vision-like "products". If it weren't for the fact that the marketoids attending the conference are undoubtedly drooling over their imagined implications for advertising revenue, it would have all the impact and lifespan of all the items taken from patents and idea articles and sputtered across the What's New pages of Popular Science.
But then I could be wrong. Cable operators could "require" these and tie the incoming signal to its continued operation. In which case it would behoove the prudent to invest heavily into manufacturers of big rubber asses with clamps designed to attach to the front of cable set-top boxes.
So you deride the arbitrary metric of intelligence but discuss "dog years" .... haha.
What, doesn't your web browser parse the irony /irony markers?
"But while Pranknet's hoaxes have caused millions of dollars in damages, it is the group's efforts to degrade and frighten targets that makes it even more odious..." ... because as we all know, what people think of you is far more important than millions of dollars worth of damage.
WTF? Are they pranking /. with this?
The statement "as intelligent as a 2 year old child" implies the ability to perform on par with a 2 year old with average mental abilities, or another child of different age with greater or lesser abilities, on an appropriate test of "intelligence" such the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (Revised).
Since those expected responses which are not verbal are written, obviously they'll score 0.
Since cognitive science seems to get further from a definition of intelligence the harder it tries to pin it down, even using the word is a problem. I quit believing in the concept when I saw a retarded child perform successfully (though slower, and with more effort)in a class of gifted children mostly because of the attention offered in the situation.
"Can perform successfully tests of some functions and display some cognitive abilities which when given to humans can be accomplished by more than half of 2 year old children" might be acceptable.
Besides, I've seen some dogs that were too stupid to live. And I've run and howled with some that I've trusted alone with my baby children. Who cares how smart a person they'd make? What matters is how smart a dog they are, and the smartest rarely need things like arithmetic.
For that matter, how smart is a 2 year old human on a dog scale of "intelligence"? After all, that's 21 in dog years. It's not 7 to 1, it's 10.5 to 1 for the first two, then 4 to 1 after.
I try to research the place so that all my questions are specific or at lest relevant rather than general. General questions from HR types are substitutes for real questions, and general questions from anyone can be taken as such.
If, after I've asked my specific questions, they still (and usually do) hit me with "Do you have any questions?" I hit back with "I've tried to research [you] the best I could so I could ask specific questions. In case there are things I've missed, and at the risk of answering a question with a question, what other things do you think I should know?" I moderate the language of this to match with the tone of the interview - formal/informal, inclusive/confrontational, etc.
Of course I also gauge whether it's worth asking this, or if I'd get formulaic answers, from how formulaic they were during the interview. If it goes like an HR script full of generalized questions that have nothing to do with me, I hold back and ask informally questions of the non-HR people involved outside the interview. If I'm not given the opportunity to meet with them around the interview, I'll ask if I will later. If they intend to make their decision without allowing me to meet with my potential colleagues, they want a body, not a member of an organization. Fuck them.
1. Every movement comes to recognize its Golden Age. It is always found to have been the earlier times of the present majority generation.
2. The same will be true of the next generation.
3. Someone may claim from outside the movement that this this Golden Age is past. They will be wrong, despite #1 still being true.
4. Proof that this apparent contradiction is correct will come when #2 comes true, who will in turn have to contend with the outside claims as in #3.
5. When the generation in #2 faces the problems in #1, the previous majority generation will become the mature generation. It will still remember its Golden Age as in #1, but with nostalgia rather than grief.
6. The mature generation will seek to impart the wisdom earned in its Golden Age and since to the majority generation in #1 and the new generation in #2.
7. #1 and #2 will listen with amusement if at all, and may gain some insights, but will proceed to develop their Golden Ages on their own.
Mature: "Will The Circle Be Unbroken?" -- Traditional
Majority: "Will It Go Round In Circles?" -- Billy Preston
New: "Life Circles" -- Soul Control