Last time I checked Amazon was a company that can choose to sell what they want to sell. They can even choose to not sell things they used to sell, especially if they've hired new people who might be opposed to such books.
Or, the most likely explanation is that the Chinese government is pressuring the Saudi Arabian government, which is pressuring the U.S. government to pressure Amazon to not sell those books.
I agree. I do find, yes I'm biased as a conservative, that most of the editorials are pretty good. They are usually right-wing but are generally well-written and provide a nice counter-balance to editorials from the New York Times. There are a number of op ed pieces on the WSJ (and NYT) that I find completely ridiculous though. I can't find the source but there was a study done that found that the WSJ's non-editorial news leaned left - the editorials were a different matter.
Which is why you break up the market monopolies and let Capitalism do its thing with a very light hand from the government. All of this Net Neutrality stuff is important but it doesn't quite fix the problem. The real problem in most of the country is no competition between ISPs.
She has OCD and apparently paranoia. That's why her reasoning makes no sense - because she has mental health issues that interfere with logical thinking.
The LDS Church probably won't make new software because there are a lot of other good alternatives now and it's not worth the effort to recreate what's already being done commercially. There are some really nice alternatives to PAF now.
No, he (assuming male) was just pointing out that the research is possibly biased. It's like the research that shows that the best predictor of the effectiveness of an anti-depressant medication is who funded the study. Studies funded by the pharmaceutical companies tend to show greater drug effectiveness; those funded by independent sources tend to show weaker effectiveness. It's an example of confirmation bias. Just as the background of those who watch Fox News is important, so is the background (funding) of those conducting the study.
It's okay. We have an administration that does the same thing. E.g., "This stimulus package saved this many jobs." That's not something you can really say. They can make very rough estimates but it's akin to the MIAA or RIAA saying that torrented copies of their stuff results in X many lost sales.
No, the linked-to article on Alternet is what is flamebait and/or trolling. The original research wasn't but the article was. That's why the title and summary are trolling.
That was my first thought. Here are some key reasons the article is a troll:
"The body of evidence that Fox News is nothing but a propaganda machine dedicated to lies is growing by the day." That's very biased language that is certainly no better than anything Fox News does.
Here's another one: "By the way, the rest of the media was not blameless. CNN and the broadcast network news operations fared only slightly better in many cases." Oh, by the way, the other news networks (except maybe MSNBC) were no better (without providing the statistics, it's just as accurate to say no better as it is to say slightly better because the differences might not be statistically different).
Here's more trolling: "This is big news and it is critical that the nation be advised that a major news enterprise is poisoning their minds." What's funny is that he calls for the other news source to attack Fox News and expose them. That's pretty much the worst thing other news organizations could do. Does the author really think it is wise to attack Fox News? Is that going to solve any problems? For people who watch Fox News, it will just cause them to distrust other news sources even more. How about the other news organizations start producing real news instead of all the stuff they are currently doing? That's a better response, especially since they have just as "uninformed" viewers as Fox News has.
It's not perfect but they correlate at a r = 0.8, which is really quite good so we can use it as a pretty good proxy of IQ (which is something we do clinically - I'm a clinical psychologist - if we have the data available). Another thing that's telling for using the SAT or ACT as proxies for IQ is how stable they are. I know you can study and learn how to take the tests so they are definitely affected by that - they are achievement tests after all and are not strictly aptitude tests - but scores are quite stable over time. For instance, what you get on the SAT will probably be really close to what you get on the GRE; they are similar tests. That was true for me (although I did slightly better on the GRE than the SAT but my GRE score was close to my ACT score if you converted between them). That's true for everyone else in grad school I've talked to about this (and I've talked to a lot of people because intelligence testing is one of my research interests).
Anyway, I'm having some/. problems and have lost part of this reply that I wrote previously (or maybe it's just operator error). To sum up - you can get a decent estimate of IQ from SAT and GRE or other tests like that. There are certainly limitations but on average, it's a good estimate.
Except that Pres. Bush's estimated IQ (based on his scores on the SAT) is 119, which puts him close to the 90th %ile. Source: http://www1.csbsju.edu/uspp/Election/bush011401.htm (there are other sources as well and I've done my own calculations that come up with about the same result).
Trolling much? I'll feed the troll. USAF pilots are by and large very bright individuals (yes, I have spent a lot of time around a number of them). You don't get to be an Air Force pilot by being "dumb as bricks." Almost all have college degrees (it's been a requirement now for a lot of years to be a college graduate) and a number have advanced degrees. Most of those degrees are in technical fields as well - engineering, biology, physics, etc. Sure, a number were jocks in high school but they were smart jocks.
For the record, the average predicted IQ of USAF pilots (at least pilot candidates) is 120 (with a standard deviation of 6), which counts as above average to superior intelligence (meaning that most of them probably would have been in gifted programs in school). The average IQ in the U.S. is 100 with a standard deviation of 15. This puts USAF pilots, on average (mean), in the top 9% (+/- standard deviation range = top 16% to top 4%) for IQ in the U.S. If you want the source check out this article: Daniel Orme, Malcolm James Ree, Paul Rioux, Premorbid IQ estimates from a multiple aptitude test battery: regression vs. equating, Archives of Clinical Neuropsychology, Volume 16, Issue 7, October 2001, Pages 679-688, ISSN 0887-6177, DOI: 10.1016/S0887-6177(00)00091-3.
The point is still valid though. Almost all of the poorest Americans are way better off than the average in many other countries at the bottom of the scale. Income disparity does not mean that the average (median) is not also relatively well off.
Most of the rise in life expectancy has come from a reduction in infant mortality. That big jump occurred, like you said, right around 1900 (its actually just after).
No, we might appreciate some of what Assange and Moore do but not how they do it (including the fact that they are egotistical attention-seekers, at least that is the impression I and a lot of other people have - but it could be wrong).
Anyway, while Moore focuses mainly on the American Right, Assange does not (unless Obama and Clinton count as the American Right). I've seen just as much support for WikiLeaks from the Right as from the Left (and maybe even more since there are a lot of Libertarians {who tend to be more Right than Left} who support WikiLeaks).
Both points are debatable. You do not have to like the Iraq War to know that we really were not lied into the war. The ties between Iraq and Al-Qaeda were never explicitly stated as reasons. WMDs was given as a reason but just about every government (there were a lot of U.N. declarations stating that) in the world believed Iraq had them. I know it's more complex than that but to say we were lied into the Iraq War is disingenuous.
As far as the health care crisis; do we have a health care crisis or a health insurance crisis? Health care != health insurance. Much of the rising health care costs stem from our insurance system (and while I'm not opposed to a nationalized health care plan, I know that will not fix anything. Almost all the other countries in the world with nationalized health care are starting to privatize more and more). We have to fix the health (obesity, etc.) of Americans before we can fix health care (and we probably won't fix the biggest {pun intended} problems of health through health care).
Blame Congress, not the Presidency. You'd still get to blame Republicans (unless the changes happened after 2006). Congress is the legislative branch of government.
Or, you receive a whole 70% of the profits by letting Apple promote (mostly passively unless you have a great app), host, transfer, and manage your apps. It's all in how you want to spin it. 30% to reach a market of millions and millions isn't bad.
The scientific method absolutely is based on a philosophy or ideology (okay, not a single one but it is based on philosophies and ideologies and assumptions). Are you aware of epistemology and the field of the philosophy of science? Why do you think that scientists in the United States earn doctorates of philosophy? That's more than tradition. There are competing scientific methods as well. As much as I loathe to link to Wikipedia as an authoritative source, it has some good information: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_scientific_method
I don't have time to explain more, unfortunately. I'm not arguing against the scientific method. I think it's one of the best things humans ever came up with but our scientific method in its roots largely stems from Greek philosophy.
"Seventy-five percent of America’s families give every year. Fifty percent volunteer their time, and many Americans give in myriad other ways that are not captured in data.... If we look at how much money Americans give per capita compared to citizens in other coun- tries of the world, we will find that the average American citizen gives away three-and-a-half times as much money each year as the aver- age French citizen, seven times as much as the average German, and 14 times as much as the average Italian. Now, as an economist I want to know whether or not that’s because we are richer. However, when you correct for income differences and tax differences and all the things that make the United States a different country, you find that the gap doesn’t close."
Slashdot Mirror
Last time I checked Amazon was a company that can choose to sell what they want to sell. They can even choose to not sell things they used to sell, especially if they've hired new people who might be opposed to such books.
Or, the most likely explanation is that the Chinese government is pressuring the Saudi Arabian government, which is pressuring the U.S. government to pressure Amazon to not sell those books.
I agree. I do find, yes I'm biased as a conservative, that most of the editorials are pretty good. They are usually right-wing but are generally well-written and provide a nice counter-balance to editorials from the New York Times. There are a number of op ed pieces on the WSJ (and NYT) that I find completely ridiculous though. I can't find the source but there was a study done that found that the WSJ's non-editorial news leaned left - the editorials were a different matter.
Which is why you break up the market monopolies and let Capitalism do its thing with a very light hand from the government. All of this Net Neutrality stuff is important but it doesn't quite fix the problem. The real problem in most of the country is no competition between ISPs.
She has OCD and apparently paranoia. That's why her reasoning makes no sense - because she has mental health issues that interfere with logical thinking.
The LDS Church probably won't make new software because there are a lot of other good alternatives now and it's not worth the effort to recreate what's already being done commercially. There are some really nice alternatives to PAF now.
Here's a good reason to move beyond PAF (it's not been actively developed for a long time): http://genealogysstar.blogspot.com/2009/01/beyond-paf-lineage-linked-database.html
No, he (assuming male) was just pointing out that the research is possibly biased. It's like the research that shows that the best predictor of the effectiveness of an anti-depressant medication is who funded the study. Studies funded by the pharmaceutical companies tend to show greater drug effectiveness; those funded by independent sources tend to show weaker effectiveness. It's an example of confirmation bias. Just as the background of those who watch Fox News is important, so is the background (funding) of those conducting the study.
It's okay. We have an administration that does the same thing. E.g., "This stimulus package saved this many jobs." That's not something you can really say. They can make very rough estimates but it's akin to the MIAA or RIAA saying that torrented copies of their stuff results in X many lost sales.
No, the linked-to article on Alternet is what is flamebait and/or trolling. The original research wasn't but the article was. That's why the title and summary are trolling.
That was my first thought. Here are some key reasons the article is a troll:
"The body of evidence that Fox News is nothing but a propaganda machine dedicated to lies is growing by the day." That's very biased language that is certainly no better than anything Fox News does.
Here's another one: "By the way, the rest of the media was not blameless. CNN and the broadcast network news operations fared only slightly better in many cases." Oh, by the way, the other news networks (except maybe MSNBC) were no better (without providing the statistics, it's just as accurate to say no better as it is to say slightly better because the differences might not be statistically different).
Here's more trolling: "This is big news and it is critical that the nation be advised that a major news enterprise is poisoning their minds." What's funny is that he calls for the other news source to attack Fox News and expose them. That's pretty much the worst thing other news organizations could do. Does the author really think it is wise to attack Fox News? Is that going to solve any problems? For people who watch Fox News, it will just cause them to distrust other news sources even more. How about the other news organizations start producing real news instead of all the stuff they are currently doing? That's a better response, especially since they have just as "uninformed" viewers as Fox News has.
Exactly. Look at evolution, the theory has evolved over time to adjust for evidence. Just because it has to change some doesn't mean it is invalid.
It's not perfect but they correlate at a r = 0.8, which is really quite good so we can use it as a pretty good proxy of IQ (which is something we do clinically - I'm a clinical psychologist - if we have the data available). Another thing that's telling for using the SAT or ACT as proxies for IQ is how stable they are. I know you can study and learn how to take the tests so they are definitely affected by that - they are achievement tests after all and are not strictly aptitude tests - but scores are quite stable over time. For instance, what you get on the SAT will probably be really close to what you get on the GRE; they are similar tests. That was true for me (although I did slightly better on the GRE than the SAT but my GRE score was close to my ACT score if you converted between them). That's true for everyone else in grad school I've talked to about this (and I've talked to a lot of people because intelligence testing is one of my research interests).
/. problems and have lost part of this reply that I wrote previously (or maybe it's just operator error). To sum up - you can get a decent estimate of IQ from SAT and GRE or other tests like that. There are certainly limitations but on average, it's a good estimate.
Anyway, I'm having some
Except that Pres. Bush's estimated IQ (based on his scores on the SAT) is 119, which puts him close to the 90th %ile. Source: http://www1.csbsju.edu/uspp/Election/bush011401.htm (there are other sources as well and I've done my own calculations that come up with about the same result).
Further, classified != secret to the government. Your thief analogy was just about perfect.
Trolling much? I'll feed the troll. USAF pilots are by and large very bright individuals (yes, I have spent a lot of time around a number of them). You don't get to be an Air Force pilot by being "dumb as bricks." Almost all have college degrees (it's been a requirement now for a lot of years to be a college graduate) and a number have advanced degrees. Most of those degrees are in technical fields as well - engineering, biology, physics, etc. Sure, a number were jocks in high school but they were smart jocks.
For the record, the average predicted IQ of USAF pilots (at least pilot candidates) is 120 (with a standard deviation of 6), which counts as above average to superior intelligence (meaning that most of them probably would have been in gifted programs in school). The average IQ in the U.S. is 100 with a standard deviation of 15. This puts USAF pilots, on average (mean), in the top 9% (+/- standard deviation range = top 16% to top 4%) for IQ in the U.S. If you want the source check out this article: Daniel Orme, Malcolm James Ree, Paul Rioux, Premorbid IQ estimates from a multiple aptitude test battery: regression vs. equating, Archives of Clinical Neuropsychology, Volume 16, Issue 7, October 2001, Pages 679-688, ISSN 0887-6177, DOI: 10.1016/S0887-6177(00)00091-3.
The point is still valid though. Almost all of the poorest Americans are way better off than the average in many other countries at the bottom of the scale. Income disparity does not mean that the average (median) is not also relatively well off.
Most of the rise in life expectancy has come from a reduction in infant mortality. That big jump occurred, like you said, right around 1900 (its actually just after).
No, we might appreciate some of what Assange and Moore do but not how they do it (including the fact that they are egotistical attention-seekers, at least that is the impression I and a lot of other people have - but it could be wrong).
Anyway, while Moore focuses mainly on the American Right, Assange does not (unless Obama and Clinton count as the American Right). I've seen just as much support for WikiLeaks from the Right as from the Left (and maybe even more since there are a lot of Libertarians {who tend to be more Right than Left} who support WikiLeaks).
Both points are debatable. You do not have to like the Iraq War to know that we really were not lied into the war. The ties between Iraq and Al-Qaeda were never explicitly stated as reasons. WMDs was given as a reason but just about every government (there were a lot of U.N. declarations stating that) in the world believed Iraq had them. I know it's more complex than that but to say we were lied into the Iraq War is disingenuous.
As far as the health care crisis; do we have a health care crisis or a health insurance crisis? Health care != health insurance. Much of the rising health care costs stem from our insurance system (and while I'm not opposed to a nationalized health care plan, I know that will not fix anything. Almost all the other countries in the world with nationalized health care are starting to privatize more and more). We have to fix the health (obesity, etc.) of Americans before we can fix health care (and we probably won't fix the biggest {pun intended} problems of health through health care).
And owned by Google with licenses obtained from George Lucas.
Blame Congress, not the Presidency. You'd still get to blame Republicans (unless the changes happened after 2006). Congress is the legislative branch of government.
Or, you receive a whole 70% of the profits by letting Apple promote (mostly passively unless you have a great app), host, transfer, and manage your apps. It's all in how you want to spin it. 30% to reach a market of millions and millions isn't bad.
That's when you know they have won - we can't tell the difference between a spammer and a /. commentator. This is the beginning of the end.
Don't ask me who "they" are.
P.S. Of course it was spam.
The scientific method absolutely is based on a philosophy or ideology (okay, not a single one but it is based on philosophies and ideologies and assumptions). Are you aware of epistemology and the field of the philosophy of science? Why do you think that scientists in the United States earn doctorates of philosophy? That's more than tradition. There are competing scientific methods as well. As much as I loathe to link to Wikipedia as an authoritative source, it has some good information: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_scientific_method
I don't have time to explain more, unfortunately. I'm not arguing against the scientific method. I think it's one of the best things humans ever came up with but our scientific method in its roots largely stems from Greek philosophy.
75% of Americans donate every year (I'm not saying 75% of /.ers donate but they might). From a talk (source: http://speeches.byu.edu/?act=viewitem&id=1826&tid=2) by economist Arthur Brooks:
"Seventy-five percent of America’s families give every year. Fifty percent volunteer their time, and many Americans give in myriad other ways that are not captured in data.... If we look at how much money Americans give per capita compared to citizens in other coun- tries of the world, we will find that the average American citizen gives away three-and-a-half times as much money each year as the aver- age French citizen, seven times as much as the average German, and 14 times as much as the average Italian. Now, as an economist I want to know whether or not that’s because we are richer. However, when you correct for income differences and tax differences and all the things that make the United States a different country, you find that the gap doesn’t close."