I'm almost certain he's English. His tongue is firmly in cheek, and most people with exposure to English people with his level of education would recognize it at an instant. And he is happily indifferent to being misinterpreted, if his posting history is any indication.
I read it as the opposite: a snide parody of crude gender essentiallism in the form of a sideways shot at the Larry Summers' remarks. Only the author can clear that up.
Dry wit is dying art, so I shouldn't be surprised to see such literal reactions.
Look, he's right. The misuse of the term "learning curve" is an annoyance that bothers me as much as the misuse of the word "literally." The term is mathematical in its origin.
And frankly, I prefer autistics to bilious jackasses such as yourself.
Well, they are trying to prevent the formation of a government and state that would be inimical to their interests as they see them, as well as erode the will of occupation, which is supporting that government.
A lot of occupying forces would "like nothing better than to leave" - I'm sure that's how the USSR felt about Afghanistan - but that doesn't make them any less a force of occupation.
I think when you see someone from a working-class background interpret the reserve of someone from an upper-middle class background as "snobbery," when it is simply reserve, you have a case in which someone assumed that all people are "really" alike (with the same patterns of extroversion, energy, social emotions, etc.) We have some sense that tastes are different, but we reduce those difference to arbitrary ones (that person "a" likes "x", person "b" likes "y") rather than ones that indicate different values and emotional patterns (people from background "a" share a taste for things that assure and stimulate nostalgia; those from background "b" are more likely to prefer experiences that challenge them and resist their understanding, and those from "c" like those which gives them catharsis.)
The two types of social intelligence are related, because understanding the emotional state of an audience is part of entertaining them. Also connecting both - and sometimes missed by many - is the fact that we are by default socialized into one class, the ones that our families are positioned in.
A lot of social intelligence as a skill is learning the values, habits, preferences, patterns of emotion and customs of classes and cultures that are unlike the one you grew up with. It's part of a process of understanding how much of what you think of as "natural" and "reasonable" is really a product of your very specific background, and then learning more about others. Beyond crude maps of commodity tastes, a lot of geeks I know have trouble understanding that. Much of it comes from an egalitarian fallacy that they implicitly subscribe to - that we are "really" all the same, when we actually differ in some very fundamental ways.
Tipper Gore would be considered on the right in most of Europe. "Soccer Mom" populism is not the same thing as an authentic left position, just like neo-conservative opportunism is not the same thing as classical conservatism. T. Gore is playing to fearful, insular middle-class soccer moms just like the so-called right is playing to angry, resentful lower-middle class white men.
This world is far more interconnected for many of us than you imagine. You are probably 2 or more generations away from anyone outside this country (or, you're a short-sighted hypocrite, but I'll give you credit and assume it's the former.) Those of us with family around the world would kind of like to see them every now and again without being treated like criminals.
Country is clearly of British ancestry. Bluegrass, however, has both British and African roots; the banjo is of African lineage, and the style itself developed under the influence of blues and jazz. It's also not as old a form as you might think.
The truth is that most of the population of China is not only pretty happy about their living situation, but rather patriotic and even nationalistic about it, as well. Most don't perceive themselves as living under the boot of a brutal oppressive government, and just like those of us in the West, most of the time, they are not.
You know, I think you can overextend the use of neo-Darwinian evolutionary model. Considering both the plasticity of the mind and the real economic and personal pressures on people who become cab drivers, it is probably indeed more accurate to say that cab drivers become good at not-getting-lost.
The whole point of the article is the effect of work and other life experiences in forming brain architecture.
ensure that everyone starts the race at the same point
Not even close.
Do you think people pay for private schools just for laughs? And there are other issues involved. See this article by Paul Tough (or Google for a either a synopsis of it or a cut-and-paste version) for more of what create gaps in education and achievement.
There are also issues of infrastructure that create huge gaps, as well as social ties (often, to do well, one must leave home--and perhaps abandoning relatives who need your help.)
I had more disposable income in the year after finishing college - and I mean for-fun, whatever-I-want, woo-hoo disposable - than in my entire life before, and I don't think I was atypical. Teenagers don't get that much money. It simply used to be the case that their parents didn't have that much, either. That's no longer true - and, fewer people are becoming parents right away.
Oh, for the love of Pete. I know that this is Slashdot and that bashing liberal arts are just par for the course, but as someone with an undergraduate degree in science and a career in technology who is now doing academic work in the humanities, I have to object all around. Changes of perspective and interpretation are commonplace in the humanities. They use modes of argumentation and demonstration that are different from the sciences, and their objects of study are different. But they are no more biased, in my experience, than scientists are.
There are institutional reasons for them to be less biased, honestly. People in the humanities do not have labs full of students who have been funded externally that might commit them to one model or another. A philosopher can change course without jeopardizing their own or any of their students funding. A climate scientist who argues against urgency could risk their best sources of income, as could a researcher being funded by the pharms who comes to believe that a condition is treatable without pharmaceuticals.
Do you have any data to back that up? The myth of "teenage disposable income" had its origins in the baby boomers, particularly the children of those who lived through the depression. I haven't seen any data that backs up that claim in ages.
Bad taste in an anaphrodesiac. I'm sorry, there's only so much effort I can give to pretending to be interested in someone's inane babble in the name of sex.
Having different tastes is one thing - in fact, it can be healthy. But those different tastes should at least be at the same tier: I could deal with a partner who prefers Joyce, or even Updike or Hemingway, while I prefer Proust or Barthelme. But not with someone who prefers Star Wars novels.
Unless I was under no obligation to hear them speak or read a word they wrote. Then, there's room for negotiation.
I think the GP should find someone with comparable (not identical) tastes and sophistication to his own... he should get back on his high horse and find someone else who's also on a good horse. Life is too short to waste it with someone whose inner life bores you.
It simply needs to work better than the current methods to be useful. Something to keep an eye on, but it's a lot better than racial profiling. A lot better.
As morally/ethically noble and worthy, yes. As historically/politically/effectively great, no. I see "greatness" as a matter of quantity more than quality, really: I like the little brook that runs near my house a lot more than I like the Mississippi, but I would call the Mississippi, and not that little brook, a "great" river.
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OK, I have read his other posts.
I'm almost certain he's English. His tongue is firmly in cheek, and most people with exposure to English people with his level of education would recognize it at an instant. And he is happily indifferent to being misinterpreted, if his posting history is any indication.
I read it as the opposite: a snide parody of crude gender essentiallism in the form of a sideways shot at the Larry Summers' remarks. Only the author can clear that up.
Dry wit is dying art, so I shouldn't be surprised to see such literal reactions.
And you seem to have taken no classes in dry humor. It's clearly tongue-in-cheek. What's worrisome is that no one else seems to have caught that.
Look, he's right. The misuse of the term "learning curve" is an annoyance that bothers me as much as the misuse of the word "literally." The term is mathematical in its origin.
And frankly, I prefer autistics to bilious jackasses such as yourself.
Well, they are trying to prevent the formation of a government and state that would be inimical to their interests as they see them, as well as erode the will of occupation, which is supporting that government.
A lot of occupying forces would "like nothing better than to leave" - I'm sure that's how the USSR felt about Afghanistan - but that doesn't make them any less a force of occupation.
I think when you see someone from a working-class background interpret the reserve of someone from an upper-middle class background as "snobbery," when it is simply reserve, you have a case in which someone assumed that all people are "really" alike (with the same patterns of extroversion, energy, social emotions, etc.) We have some sense that tastes are different, but we reduce those difference to arbitrary ones (that person "a" likes "x", person "b" likes "y") rather than ones that indicate different values and emotional patterns (people from background "a" share a taste for things that assure and stimulate nostalgia; those from background "b" are more likely to prefer experiences that challenge them and resist their understanding, and those from "c" like those which gives them catharsis.)
The two types of social intelligence are related, because understanding the emotional state of an audience is part of entertaining them. Also connecting both - and sometimes missed by many - is the fact that we are by default socialized into one class, the ones that our families are positioned in.
A lot of social intelligence as a skill is learning the values, habits, preferences, patterns of emotion and customs of classes and cultures that are unlike the one you grew up with. It's part of a process of understanding how much of what you think of as "natural" and "reasonable" is really a product of your very specific background, and then learning more about others. Beyond crude maps of commodity tastes, a lot of geeks I know have trouble understanding that. Much of it comes from an egalitarian fallacy that they implicitly subscribe to - that we are "really" all the same, when we actually differ in some very fundamental ways.
Tipper Gore would be considered on the right in most of Europe. "Soccer Mom" populism is not the same thing as an authentic left position, just like neo-conservative opportunism is not the same thing as classical conservatism. T. Gore is playing to fearful, insular middle-class soccer moms just like the so-called right is playing to angry, resentful lower-middle class white men.
I take it you're not planning on getting life insurance, because when you're dead, well, then who cares about the kids?
This world is far more interconnected for many of us than you imagine. You are probably 2 or more generations away from anyone outside this country (or, you're a short-sighted hypocrite, but I'll give you credit and assume it's the former.) Those of us with family around the world would kind of like to see them every now and again without being treated like criminals.
Country is clearly of British ancestry. Bluegrass, however, has both British and African roots; the banjo is of African lineage, and the style itself developed under the influence of blues and jazz. It's also not as old a form as you might think.
The truth is that most of the population of China is not only pretty happy about their living situation, but rather patriotic and even nationalistic about it, as well. Most don't perceive themselves as living under the boot of a brutal oppressive government, and just like those of us in the West, most of the time, they are not.
Hey, if he needs to remind you, then it seems you've got the memory skills problem.
You know, I think you can overextend the use of neo-Darwinian evolutionary model. Considering both the plasticity of the mind and the real economic and personal pressures on people who become cab drivers, it is probably indeed more accurate to say that cab drivers become good at not-getting-lost.
The whole point of the article is the effect of work and other life experiences in forming brain architecture.
ensure that everyone starts the race at the same point
Not even close.
Do you think people pay for private schools just for laughs? And there are other issues involved. See this article by Paul Tough (or Google for a either a synopsis of it or a cut-and-paste version) for more of what create gaps in education and achievement.
There are also issues of infrastructure that create huge gaps, as well as social ties (often, to do well, one must leave home--and perhaps abandoning relatives who need your help.)
You know what bothers me? That all the people at that call center have the right to vote.
I had more disposable income in the year after finishing college - and I mean for-fun, whatever-I-want, woo-hoo disposable - than in my entire life before, and I don't think I was atypical. Teenagers don't get that much money. It simply used to be the case that their parents didn't have that much, either. That's no longer true - and, fewer people are becoming parents right away.
You don't understand Nicholas Negroponte, then. He's no particular friend of F/OSS, except as a mechanism for getting free labor for the OLPC project.
Oh, for the love of Pete. I know that this is Slashdot and that bashing liberal arts are just par for the course, but as someone with an undergraduate degree in science and a career in technology who is now doing academic work in the humanities, I have to object all around. Changes of perspective and interpretation are commonplace in the humanities. They use modes of argumentation and demonstration that are different from the sciences, and their objects of study are different. But they are no more biased, in my experience, than scientists are.
There are institutional reasons for them to be less biased, honestly. People in the humanities do not have labs full of students who have been funded externally that might commit them to one model or another. A philosopher can change course without jeopardizing their own or any of their students funding. A climate scientist who argues against urgency could risk their best sources of income, as could a researcher being funded by the pharms who comes to believe that a condition is treatable without pharmaceuticals.
Do you have any data to back that up? The myth of "teenage disposable income" had its origins in the baby boomers, particularly the children of those who lived through the depression. I haven't seen any data that backs up that claim in ages.
Gah.
Bad taste in an anaphrodesiac. I'm sorry, there's only so much effort I can give to pretending to be interested in someone's inane babble in the name of sex.
Having different tastes is one thing - in fact, it can be healthy. But those different tastes should at least be at the same tier: I could deal with a partner who prefers Joyce, or even Updike or Hemingway, while I prefer Proust or Barthelme. But not with someone who prefers Star Wars novels.
Unless I was under no obligation to hear them speak or read a word they wrote. Then, there's room for negotiation.
I think the GP should find someone with comparable (not identical) tastes and sophistication to his own... he should get back on his high horse and find someone else who's also on a good horse. Life is too short to waste it with someone whose inner life bores you.
It simply needs to work better than the current methods to be useful. Something to keep an eye on, but it's a lot better than racial profiling. A lot better.
As morally/ethically noble and worthy, yes. As historically/politically/effectively great, no. I see "greatness" as a matter of quantity more than quality, really: I like the little brook that runs near my house a lot more than I like the Mississippi, but I would call the Mississippi, and not that little brook, a "great" river.
You realize, don't you, that many many people browse at places where they can't control which client they are using?
It's ultimately the site-owner's responsibility to keep their site sane.
We change our money with some frequency as it is. A phase-in need not be that painful.