tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post3272210283127333479..comments2024-03-28T18:18:37.133-07:00Comments on CONTRARY BRIN: Unleash problem-solvingDavid Brinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14465315130418506525noreply@blogger.comBlogger48125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-62395921052256145062007-05-25T16:18:00.000-07:002007-05-25T16:18:00.000-07:00Dr. Brin:You asked for comments about the fact tha...Dr. Brin:<BR/><BR/>You asked for comments about the fact that BUSHKIE<BR/>(see my poetry blog for some great political poems at --http://my-poem-a-day.blogspot.com <BR/><BR/>At any rate, I think the fact that Bush pulled this out of his hat is VERY closely related to the "shenanigans" surrounding Alberto, and his assistant, and the remaining folks in his "White house stable"<BR/><BR/>I think he pulled this out, while alberto was getting ready to testify before the house, and Monica this week.<BR/><BR/>I also STRONGLY think this is tied to the May 9 signing of the NSPD 51<BR/>and the EXTREME DEARTH of press coverage (except for blogs and the "freak"(coast-to-coast)press.<BR/><BR/>Try google news on NSPD 51 and see what does or doesnt come up<BR/><BR/>I personally am very very worried about this lack of coverage.<BR/>and yes, I AM paranoid that an event like Hurricane Katrina could cause BUSHKIE to put the ENTIRE country under this MARSHAL LAW<BR/>I did a word-by-word dissection of it over at my main blog <BR/>(markbnj.blogspot.com)<BR/><BR/>Thanks for listening.<BR/><BR/>Do you think YOU could forward some of these concerns to some news media?<BR/><BR/>I personally think (conspiracy theory... there was a secret portion of this that says NO coverage is to be allowed, or that media outlet will be forfeit to the US NCC (national continuity co-ordinator){read new dicator{<BR/><BR/>Oh, and I personally sent at least 20 emails to different newspapers, radio outlets, and tv stations/networks, and have had ABSOLUTELY no response.<BR/><BR/>markbnjMark Brownhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08713628570394054338noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-27904801103379871672007-05-25T12:08:00.000-07:002007-05-25T12:08:00.000-07:00Re: Programming for KidsI think the days of produc...Re: Programming for Kids<BR/><BR/>I think the days of product ubiquity are coming to a close as the Long Tail manifests itself on the body economic (I picture a Jormungandr-like creature, but that's neither here nor there). The fact is, the option is out there, and it can be found with a little searching.<BR/><BR/>On the other hand, people still have the (increasingly less reasonable) expectation that they can walk into a store or explore the 'ware bundled in their new Dell and find something useful for a kid's education. I'm here to tell you that it ain't happening, at least in my town.<BR/><BR/>And whatever happened to the Summarizers, Evaluators and Aggregators that were supposed to make sense of the flood of Interwebbian data?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-46424785266161851222007-05-24T20:32:00.000-07:002007-05-24T20:32:00.000-07:00I work in the evil oil industry in Australia where...I work in the evil oil industry in Australia where there is a critical shortage of engineers and technicians (I could go on about the state of education with respect to engineering and science but that is off topic;-). <BR/><BR/>I have worked with brain pools in India and teams of guest workers in local offices. In this context it is just so much better for the local economy, and the guest workers, for the work to be done here rather than in a cubicle farm in Mumbai. We retain the ability to manage this work, our economy is not constrained by labour shortages and they eat and sleep locally. <BR/><BR/>When I do factory visits there are often teams of Chinese, Philippine and other nationals beavering away. They enjoy better wages and conditions than they can get at home and I know the finished product will be produced using the QA that I am used to.<BR/><BR/>The up side for the guest work is as David points out. I know single data points don’t prove the case but when talking to them they often talk about being able to acquire property back home, to support extended families and, most importantly for them, enough money to get married and start a family. They also get to see a different culture and perhaps will take some of the good ideas back home. <BR/><BR/>So I know a well managed guest worker programme works and works well for all parties (win win). There is the big concern about what happens on the down side of the economic cycle. The only answer is to control your politicians well enough so the guest worker program winds down with the economy. If you can’t do that then you are screwed anyhow.<BR/><BR/>Illegal immigrations is entirely a different problem. These are the people that are truly exploited and often in very bad ways. Anything that can be done to stop it should be done. Giving them legal status is a good start. Reals punitive fines for employers is also necessary, even better, make it a criminal offence with gaol time. If there is no chance of employment then the illegals wont come - word will spread quickly.Squandering Resourceshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09346528601529549079noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-10001489856301160472007-05-24T16:08:00.000-07:002007-05-24T16:08:00.000-07:00But it used to be that MOST American kids got an i...<I>But it used to be that MOST American kids got an inititial exposure to programming thru little BASIC programs IN THEIR TEXT BOOKS! The textbooks had these short exercises because ALL home PCs had the same easily accessed language.</I><BR/><BR/>Incorrect. During the period where BASIC was on PCs, most American kids did not have access to a PC (at least at home).<BR/><BR/>Don't wish to rehash an old argument but resources are so plentiful and available to aspiring programmers today — with a few clicks, the doors can be opening to any plane of programming, be it kernel hacking, game programming, web scripting or whatever magical mastery is desired to make the machine do the bidding of its master.<BR/><BR/>Given the propensity of programmer aptitude to flourish (see any research on the history and science of cultivating and recruiting programmers) in response to present day ubiquity, I'd say the situation is a whole lot better than it was 15-20 years ago. <BR/><BR/>And I write this as somebody that would have been so much more blessed in that old school Basic environment, but like many many Americans, socioeconomic concerns precluded my participation in programming computing machines until midway through college.Unknownhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17776798115265942884noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-88041682668463133432007-05-24T15:13:00.000-07:002007-05-24T15:13:00.000-07:00Alas, while I appreciate such efforts, eg Ruby & P...Alas, while I appreciate such efforts, eg Ruby & Python, they simply miss the point.<BR/><BR/>Yes, highly motivated kids (like my son) will overcome the energy barrier and access such great tools.<BR/><BR/>But it used to be that MOST American kids got an inititial exposure to programming thru little BASIC programs IN THEIR TEXT BOOKS! The textbooks had these short exercises because ALL home PCs had the same easily accessed language.<BR/><BR/>I agree that BASIC is inferior. But it was there. Everywhere.David Brinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14465315130418506525noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-34178608250412898952007-05-24T13:23:00.000-07:002007-05-24T13:23:00.000-07:00Dr. Brin,I saw this link (http://hacketyhack.net/)...Dr. Brin,<BR/><BR/>I saw <A HREF="http://hacketyhack.net/" REL="nofollow">this link</A> (http://hacketyhack.net/) today and thought of your article, "Why Johnny Can't Code." <BR/><BR/>Some beautiful people got together and made a programming language (Ruby) to help kids learn to code.<BR/><BR/>Problem solved!Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-4211175907971929662007-05-24T12:05:00.000-07:002007-05-24T12:05:00.000-07:00Dr. Brin and the rest of you might like this artic...Dr. Brin and the rest of you might like this article. It just went up from the June issue of the Washington Monthly, it's called <A HREF="http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2007/0706.cvr_story.html" REL="nofollow">How a Democrat Can Get My Vote</A>, and it's interviews with seven recently retired military folks about the kinds of things they're concerned about and, obviously, how Democrats could get their votes.<BR/><BR/>Of course, since the military's made up of a lot of individual people, they sometimes disagree. One guy says the Democrats have to come up with a "plan to win" in the Middle East, another says to be decisive, even on calling for withdrawal. But it's an interesting piece to read, especially given our discussions here.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-2270644329378284612007-05-24T01:56:00.000-07:002007-05-24T01:56:00.000-07:00Well, mr.justice i don't agree with you all about ...Well, mr.justice i don't agree with you all about the program especially,it mixes well the egalatarian. It nice to get to see this informations more informations on problem solving.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-71044353685531065232007-05-23T17:20:00.000-07:002007-05-23T17:20:00.000-07:00I'm honestly undecided about guest worker programs...I'm honestly undecided about guest worker programs. My understanding is that <A HREF="http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?ItemID=10374" REL="nofollow">places like Singapore and Switzerland make effective use of them</A>. But such programs don't mix well with our egalitarian ideals, so I suspect it isn't politically possible to correctly implement one here. And no guest worker program may be better than a program that doesn't keep wages high enough to encourage businessmen to invest in labor saving technology.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-15703776962193510382007-05-23T09:54:00.000-07:002007-05-23T09:54:00.000-07:00An interesting tidbit re: the Manchurian Candidate...An interesting tidbit re: the Manchurian Candidate from an article by Harvard Professor Niall Ferguson:<BR/><BR/>http://hnn.us/roundup/entries/39113.html<BR/>---<BR/>Here the key figure is Prince Bandar bin Sultan bin Abdul Aziz al Saud who, as Saudi ambassador to the United States, was one of the leading advocates of the attack on Iraq. Since October 2005 he has been back in Riyadh as Secretary-General of the National Security Council, where he is said to be lobbying hard for another attack: this time (you guessed it) on Iran.<BR/>---<BR/><BR/>Bandar, of course, is W's buddy that he's nicknamed "Bandar Bush" and the guy who schooled W in foreign policy while he was running for President back in 2000.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-61707890402751308262007-05-23T00:08:00.000-07:002007-05-23T00:08:00.000-07:00"Is there such a thing as a **effective** guest wo..."Is there such a thing as a **effective** guest worker program? Effective by what measure? "<BR/><BR/>The pragmatic measure is obvious (if a bit circular) - it's effective if it largely eliminates illegal immigration. The details of how to make it effective are too complex to resolve here.<BR/><BR/>A fundamental "guest worker program" question is - do you want massive numbers of foreigners working in the US, why or why not? There are valid reasons to take either side.<BR/><BR/>Do we want to cut off the income of these relatively impoverished workers? But do we really like being the sort of nation that exploits massive amounts of cheap foreign labor?<BR/><BR/>Maybe offer citizenship to anyone in the GW program, after they've worked here a year or two. Many won't want it, but at least we'd have had the decency to offer it. Of course, we'd probably have to do it over objections from Mexico...Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-56267790341743130102007-05-22T23:57:00.000-07:002007-05-22T23:57:00.000-07:00The same workers get to send money home (their chi...<I>The same workers get to send money home (their chief aim). Only now, since they will be legal, they will be able to: complain about environmental, safety and gross labor abuses… :See ombundsmen about the above… …Send money home by normal channels, avoiding usery… …create bank accounts and drive legally etc while here.</I><BR/><BR/>There are redeeming features, like I wrote. However, the negatives far outweigh the positives. This issue is striking for how different the view of elites is in contrast to working Americans. There was a poll, a few years back that measured elites (in media, business, government) view vs. working American view on immigration and it was quite disparate.<BR/><BR/><I>In fact, I was a guest worker when I stayed more than a year in Britain. Dig it. If it is legal and open and transparent, then there are fewer opportunities for gross exploitation.</I><BR/><BR/>From my first hand experience working with <B>legal</B> non-immigrant visa workers (H-1B, etc.…), exploitation is what happens for the mass of cases. Workers burdened with debt, indentured to firm, and absolutely no oversight whatsoever other than "self-policing". Some would disappear to escape such prohibitive contracts and resurface to work "illegally" because of it.<BR/><BR/>Meanwhile, thousands of good paying jobs that could be filled by young Americans are instead manned by entry level foreign immigrants.<BR/><BR/>Without a doubt, your experience is totally different than many coming here to work who are of different race and creed. Rich western professionals working offshore can't be compared to guest workers in the U.S.. History is a showcase for how abusive and exploitative guest worker programs are.<BR/><BR/>Again, if I have to choose a side, then I would opt for immigrants being here and NOT being treated like 2nd class citizens.<BR/><BR/>Make employers pay a living wage, create incentives for advancing automation/robotics. Grow the pie bigger… …not provide a captive labor market for aristocrats!Naumhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06741963276339044331noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-85977032272003870262007-05-22T22:38:00.000-07:002007-05-22T22:38:00.000-07:00You guys are unfair to the guest worker concept.Th...You guys are unfair to the guest worker concept.<BR/><BR/>The same workers get to send money home (their chief aim). Only now, since they will be legal, they will be able to:<BR/><BR/>complain about environmental, safety and gross labor abuses<BR/><BR/>See ombundsmen about the above<BR/><BR/>Send money home by normal channels, avoiding usery<BR/><BR/>create bank accounts and drive legally etc while here.<BR/><BR/>In fact, I was a guest worker when I stayed more than a year in Britain.<BR/><BR/>Dig it. If it is legal and open and transparent, then there are fewer opportunities for gross exploitation. Yes, the unions hate it and too big a program will be the same as imporing scabs to break what little union power remains. I did not say I support all aspects. Just recognize that this is a complex situation and party lines aren't the be all and end all.David Brinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14465315130418506525noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-90030626300719320322007-05-22T22:31:00.000-07:002007-05-22T22:31:00.000-07:00Is there such a thing as a **effective** guest wor...Is there such a thing as a **effective** guest worker program? Effective by what measure? If gauged on the merit of increasing a cheap and compliant labor pool. <BR/><BR/>Seems they are closer to slavery in nature, with employees held captive to a single employer. Where there is no freedom of job mobility, terrible disincentives for speaking out illegal actions, and other injustices. It's a throwback to times of almost a century ago. Folks who come here for hard work should not be treated as second class citizens. <BR/>http://www.splcenter.org/legal/guestreport/index.jsp<BR/><BR/>While there may be some redeeming value, I don't think it offsets the total minus, especially considering the impact to American workers. It depresses wages, squeezes the least of us, and crushes opportunity. It's a weighted hand, with global labor arbitrage — employers have ability to move work and workers across borders, while workers migrate at great cost and peril. And it's not just in effect at the lower end of the wage income scale — there are millions of professional positions now served in "cheaper labor" locales or by importing foreign workers, most of which are entry level equivalents. While official unemployment statistics are not indicative of an impending crisis, a study of new job creation reveals the vast majority to be lower paying service jobs, many of which are prime candidates for replacement by advances in automation and robotics. Throw in the fact that job security is no more, with workers spending less and less time with each employer, and that adds up to anti-immigration pressure.<BR/><BR/>I believe as one writer put it (http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0705-23.htm), it's not an "illegal immigration" problem, it's an illegal employer" problem. But now the problem has so manifested itself, brute force solutions like walls and military roundups are impractical and unjust. I, like most Americans, remain opposed to illegal immigration, but I am sickened by the xenophobic nature displayed by much of the anti-immigration crowd. <BR/><BR/>Senator Kyl (R) is taking heat from constituents for his support of the recent immigration bill. On Monday, I heard him on the radio, defending his position deftly by casting it is something unappealing that had to be done due to the Democratic majority in Congress. I found that to be quite amusing, considering that Democrats have no veto proof majority and not even enough to escape cloture in the Senate. If he truly wanted better immigration legislation, he could talk to the President who is a like member of his political party. <BR/><BR/>Though it seems to me that a compromise in legislation of this nature profits corporate interests at the expense of both immigrants and working Americans. I'd like to see Democrats stand up for the latter.Naumhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06741963276339044331noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-39325691370890742202007-05-22T20:39:00.000-07:002007-05-22T20:39:00.000-07:00Why is it the poor and working classes that must p...<I>Why is it the poor and working classes that must pay for the development of the world? </I><BR/><BR/>Cynical answer: they're the ones who live in the undeveloped parts of the world, so they should pay for their own benefits. :PAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-30437061885456528262007-05-22T15:51:00.000-07:002007-05-22T15:51:00.000-07:00Have you seen the interview with Dyane Sawyer. I ...Have you seen the interview with Dyane Sawyer. I don't know if it was on purpose but she sure did show how vapid and shallow the TV news is.<BR/><A HREF="http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/05/21/al-gore-with-diane-sawyer/" REL="nofollow">link</A>Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-20842490881864560662007-05-22T14:23:00.000-07:002007-05-22T14:23:00.000-07:00Al Gore has been cribbing from me ever since EARTH...Al Gore has been cribbing from me ever since EARTH. And since I invented the Internet. I like the guy and approve of him... how could I not, when he clones everything I say! Worse, he often does it BEFORE I said it! It get ticked off but, as I said, I guess it's better to be ripped off by a great guy who almost gets it right than to be ripped off by, well, Hollywood.David Brinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14465315130418506525noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-12145476716537796422007-05-22T13:47:00.000-07:002007-05-22T13:47:00.000-07:00DaveAway..."Why would they return home, why would ...DaveAway...<BR/><BR/>"Why would they return home, why would they wait in line, why would they sign up? Those who are already here, will have no more motivation to go back home than they already have. They have jobs, which provides all else."<BR/><BR/>Self-interest. An effective guest worker program should quickly shift jobs from illegals to guest workers. <BR/><BR/>Of course, that assumes the program isn't made so onerous that employers and workers go around it.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-88268234375718825102007-05-22T12:04:00.000-07:002007-05-22T12:04:00.000-07:00I don't know what it is, but we love Al Gore in Ca...I don't know what it is, but we love Al Gore in Canada, and in Toronto in particular.<BR/><BR/>Apparently he's coming out with a new book about the democratic process in the US. Not sure if that's been covered yet by media there. The title itself hints at a line of reasoning similar to David's, so I thought I'd ask on this forum if there's anything else known about it.<BR/><BR/>See this link for some basic info:<BR/><BR/>http://www.cbc.ca/arts/books/story/2007/05/22/gore-book.html<BR/><BR/>e-manAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-82480628535899738672007-05-22T08:44:00.000-07:002007-05-22T08:44:00.000-07:00Dr. Brin et al.,I'm hoping this isn't behind the s...Dr. Brin et al.,<BR/><BR/>I'm hoping this isn't behind the subscriber wall:<BR/><BR/>It is entitled "A Good Provider is One Who Leaves."<BR/><BR/>http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/22/magazine/22Workers.t.html?ex=1179979200&en=86c89a128feef13a&ei=5070<BR/><BR/>But this leaves a major issue yet on the table, one that is the core of globalization:<BR/><BR/>Why is it the poor and working classes that must pay for the development of the world? Why is the middle class in this country absorbing a negative savings rate to provide for economic growth and investment that makes Wall Street speculators rich? Why do we borrow money from the national treasury to give a tax holiday to the wealthy during a time of crisis (called the "fight for our generation," but not important enough for a draft or transformation from consumer to war economy)?<BR/><BR/>I think a part of science-based learning is not just in the problem solving, but the proper problem *defining.* Note how all the slick PR agencies are setting up their barracades not at the solution step ("it will be soooo expensive to fix the world") but at the problem step ("global warming is just a natural fluctuation").<BR/><BR/>The real work for us in the reality-based world I think is still in the problem definition step. We still have to show people that every time they make a certain set of political choices, they are being returned the same structure of middle-class-attacking, environment-stripping, soak-the-poor and feed-the-rich infrastructure as is causing many of the problems we are currently seeing.<BR/><BR/>Once we get the ability to get consensus on what the (root, not just symptom) problems and priorities are, only then can we talk about appropriate solutions.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-30656162019305496702007-05-22T08:38:00.000-07:002007-05-22T08:38:00.000-07:00Well, the immigration bill seems to be the topic o...Well, the immigration bill seems to be the topic of the day, so let's start out with that.<BR/><BR/>Guest worker programs of any sort are just a way for a company to get cheap indentured servants. They're a piece of crap. Anybody who comes to the country and is willing to live here and work should have the chance to become a citizen.<BR/><BR/>The border fence idea is just a pointless bit of show for the xenophobe base.<BR/><BR/>Making a path for legalizing the people already here is probably the best and most important part, because once they're legal, they'll pay taxes, they'll be covered by minimum wage, they'll be part of the system, with everything that goes with it. That's probably the best part of the bill, and it seems to be fairly reasonably done, not just a giveaway, but neither is it something impossible.<BR/><BR/>And the bill, as far as I've seen, doesn't have anything to do with enforcement against companies that hire illegal immigrants. That's the biggest reason we have so many, because there's many companies, especially agriculture, that love to have laborers they can pay less than minimum wage, not provide any health care or documentation or taxes, and being illegal, none of the workers can go to anyone when their working conditions suck, because they're afraid of being deported. Which is an enormous indictment of how bad things are in parts of Mexico, but doesn't do anything to justify these companies' exploitation. You'll hear companies saying they can't get Americans to do the work, but that's a crock, they can't get Americans to do the work because they don't want to pay a decent wage.<BR/><BR/>So, all in all, would I say the bill's good? Probably not. And the thing is, we can probably get a better bill. The "pass it then fix it later" idea hasn't worked out so hot, NAFTA and other trade deals never got around to getting those labor and environmental protections, the PATRIOT act still hasn't been fixed to be constitutional, the Medicare drug benefit is still just a boondoggle benefiting the pharmaceutical companies, etc.<BR/><BR/>Especially without anything to address the companies hiring illegal immigrants, I'd have to say this bill really doesn't cut it.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-78083575550958096712007-05-22T02:37:00.000-07:002007-05-22T02:37:00.000-07:00Erraturm:The URL for terrorpets should be:radaronl...Erraturm:<BR/>The URL for terrorpets should be:<BR/><BR/>radaronline.com/from-the-magazine/2007/05/gangs_of_iraq_1.php<BR/><BR/>The story points out that as the U.S. military becomes increasingly desperate for recruits, it's now inducting thousands of gang members. Common sense suggests that the fourth generation warfare kills those American inner city gang members learn in Iraq will soon enough wind up getting used against the police back in America, courtesy of home-made cellphone IEDs und so weiter. At which point our glorious leaders will wail, "Who could ever have foreseen this horrible new cycle of urban violence in America???"<BR/><BR/>Uneducated kids may wind up becoming gang members in America and going off to fight wars for our wealthy elite, but those uneducated kids aren't stupid. And they'll bring back the urban warfare techniques they learn from the insurgents to American inner cities -- and they'll use 'em.Unknownhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10994509912655287453noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-48109252375557186792007-05-22T02:23:00.000-07:002007-05-22T02:23:00.000-07:00The single most urgent priority for science is to ...The single most urgent priority for science is to extend its evidence-based methodology to the rest of society, including medicine, law, education and public policy. <BR/>This is not some startling original idea; Clay Shirky has advocated it for a long time, but he's only the latest of a long line of advocates for this idea, reaching back to Carl Sagan, Isaac Asimov, and many many others. However, we now live in a global economy so interconnected that we can no longer afford the luxury of winging it and running our instutions by gut feel and ideological gladiator games, rather than evidence and the test of reality: <BR/>www.edge.org/q2007/q07_9.html <BR/><BR/>At present, U.S. medicine has no central database for identifying (for example) all the drugs a patient is currently taking, and what their interactions might be. Cuba has such a system -- but not America:<BR/>www.hsph.harvard.edu/ats/May19/<BR/><BR/><I>"Individually, these health statistics systems--such as data on AIDS and sexually transmitted diseases, registries on cancer and other diseases, birth and death records, household health surveys, and provider records--generally meet the needs they were created for, albeit with room for improvement. But collectively, <BR/>as a national system of information on the health of the U.S. population, they are deficient. Because they were not planned as a unified system, they are a patchwork of data collection systems, both duplicative <BR/>and full of gaps."</I><BR/>http://www.ncvhs.hhs.gov/Vision21stReport.htm#unrealized<BR/><BR/><BR/>Accreting many smaller medical databases into larger ones multiplies errors rather than reducing, and error rates in databases are already severe -- facts which bode ill for efforts to generate collective stats from<BR/>our fragmented archipelago of medical databases:<BR/><BR/><I>"...Payroll record changes have a 1% error rate, billing records have a 2-7% error rate, and the error rate for credit records may be as high as 30%."</I><BR/>http://www.dataquality.com/997pierce.htm<BR/><BR/>What's the cumulative total error rate of American medical records? No one knows -- the records are spread out over too many databases, and many records are not even currently entered into computerized systems (they exist only on paper, in filing cabinets or shelf file systems!), for anyone to form a reliable estimate.<BR/><BR/>What's the patient mortality rate for each doctor in your local hospital? Can you find out before you choose a doctor? Which doctor scores highest? Which one scores lowest by comparison with a regional and then a national average for that medical specialty? Do you know? Not only do you NOT know, chances are the hospital doesn't know, nor do the doctors themelves. Which ER procedures result in the most saved lives in each community? No one knows. We have no central record-keeping system for American medicine, and as a result medical policy <BR/>remains adrift is guesstimation and trial and error.<BR/><BR/>Likewise, The Innocence Project has applied evidence-based testing to rape convictions, with startling results. This has thrown much of the justice system into chaos and<BR/>cast grave doubt on the reliability of eyewitness evidence.<BR/>The result? Prosecutors fight <I><B>against</I></B> evidence-based procedures in the law! (The best way to keep your conviction rate high is to block DNA testing of convicted rapists.)<BR/>www.commondreams.org/headlines/022100-01.htm<BR/><BR/>In education, we find that rising test scores fail to correlate with increasing skill-sets by graduates. While I.Q. tests march ever upward over the generations, courtesy<BR/>of the Flynn Effect<BR/>www.indiana.edu/~intell/flynneffect.shtml<BR/><BR/>...U.S. high school graduates keep falling farther and farther behind the rest of the world in basic skills:<BR/>www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A41278-2004Dec6.html<BR/><BR/>The same proves true of non-science and non-math student skill sets:<BR/><BR/><I>"Our elementary and middle schoosl are sending students to high schoo lwith higher reading skills yet students graduate able to read no better than their peers did a decade ago."</I><BR/>http://72.14.253.104/search?q=cache:Ve76YBS0MF0J:www2.edtrust.org/NR/rdonlyres/85897615-327E-4269-939A-4E14B96861BB/0/k16_winter01.pdf+American+high+school+graduates+lower+skills&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=12&gl=us<BR/><BR/>Meanwhile, K-12 U.S. education (particularly in the sciences) continues to get dumbed down, courtesy of "social promotion" and No Child Left Behind test rankings that deceptively rank as "proficient" students who read 1 to 2 grades <I>below</I> their grade level, and other forms of left-wing feel-good ideology, along with the usual right-wing ideology like creationism injected into science classes: <BR/>http://www.popecenter.org/clarion_call/article.html?id=1843<BR/><BR/>The claim that schools used to demand much more of students isn't just mindless nostalgia. Take a look at this high school final exam from 1895. Then ask yourself if <I><B>you</I></B> could pass it <B>today</B>:<BR/>http://www.barefootsworld.net/1895finalexam.html<BR/><BR/>Moreover, the degeneration in basic educational standards is international, as this example from Britain clearly shows:<BR/><BR/><I>"...My former colleagues, senior doctors in the hospital that I worked in until my recent retirement, received a leaflet with their monthly pay stubs. It offered them, along with all other employees, literacy training: a little late in their careers as doctors, one might have thought.<BR/>"The senior doctors could take up to 30 hours of free courses to improve their literacy and numeracy skills, all in working time, of course. In these courses, they could learn to spell at least some words, to punctuate, to add and do fractions, and to read a graph.<BR/>“Do you have a SPIKEY [sic] profile?” asked the leaflet, and went on to explain: “A spikey profile is when a person is good at literacy but not at mathematics or visa [sic] versa.” The reader could address himself to one of no fewer than four members of the hospital staff who were “contact persons” for the courses, among them the Vocational Training Coordinator and the Non-Vocational Training Coordinator. In case none was available to answer the telephone or reply to e-mails, the reader could contact one of three central government agencies that deal with the problem of illiterate and innumerate employees."</I><BR/>http://www.city-journal.org/html/17_1_oh_to_be.html<BR/><BR/>Lack of basic science education leads to abominations like this:<BR/>http://www.badscience.net/?p=392<BR/><BR/>Cases like the one above are absolutely indefensible in the modern world, given our current state of scientific knowldege. It is well known that humans are particularly bad at statistical reasoning: <BR/>www.springerlink.com/index/X535827T2M525776.pdf<BR/><BR/>And since this is well known, science can offer a variety of methods for correcting this intrinsic human bias in reasoning. This proves particularly important, insofar as most public policy decisions are based on statistical reasoning. <BR/><BR/>Our society's ongoing failure to use evidence-based methodology<BR/>from science leads to crazy public policy of the kind we find in hospitals, where interns who deal with life-threatening situations are forced to stay awake for 36 hours straight despite findings like this:<BR/>http://health.ucsd.edu/news/2000_02_09_Sleep.html<BR/><BR/>Lack of basic science education and lack of evidence-based thinking leads to crazy public policy decisions. Decisions like encouraging suburban sprawl with dumb tax incentives, or continuing to use a hub-and-spoke system in our air transportion, resulting in ever-increasing logjams courtesy <BR/>of Braess' Paradox.<BR/>http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0021-9002%28199703%2934%3A1%3C155%3ABPIALN%3E2.0.CO%3B2-2&size=LARGE&origin=JSTOR-enlargePage<BR/><BR/>As you know, Braess' Paradox tells us that adding additional links in a transportation network leads to worse performance. This occurs, as is well known, because in any transport network, the traffic jams always appear in the nodes, never in the interconnections twixt the nodes -- i.e., freeways jam up because of spillback at the onramps and offramps, not because of lack of lanes on the freeway proper, or beacuse of the speed limits on the freeway lanes. Moreover, because adding links increases the number of nodes as the square of the number of links, you get geometrically worse perfomrance by adding more links. This explains why our current hub-and-spoke air travel system experiences geometrically increasing delays as we increase the number of spokes. The delays result from logjams in the boarding terminals, not the speed of the jets themselves, nor from the lack of flights between the hubs. Yet, though Braess' Paradox is today well known, our society persists in maldesigning transportation networks guaranteed to run afoul of this basic principle, with predictable results:<BR/>http://www.philly.com/inquirer/home_top_left_story/20070423_Farther__faster__Not_anymore.html<BR/><BR/>If we weren't nearing Peak Oil this would be bad enough, but it's utterly inexcusable in a world running out of petroleum reserves.<BR/><BR/>Of course, science itself continues to reveal that the human mind, far from operating on logic, is primarily a swirling soup of emotion and self-delusion, rather than a rational <I>homo economicus</I> difference engine, as<BR/>demonstrated by experiments like this:<BR/>http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?chanID=sa006&articleID=7750A576-E7F2-99DF-3824E0B1C2540D47&ref=rss<BR/> <BR/>This probably explains why some people in our society persist in speaking out vehemently against reason and tolerance, and why they're making lucrative careers out of it:<BR/>www.dvorak.org/blog/?p=11524<BR/><BR/>It's long past time for scientists to push back and exert some influence on society by arguing publicly for evidence-based methods throughout society, not just in science itself.<BR/><BR/>An uneducated society, following not science-based methods of evidence but gut feelings and rhetoric, does have its benefits...at least to the powers that be:<BR/>http://terrorpets.com/index.php?option=com_bookmarks&Itemid=1&task=detail&id=695<BR/><BR/>But it has far more drawbacks. <BR/><BR/>It seems increasingly likely that the early 21st century represents a return to medievalism. Many have noted this, including Thomas Wolfe in his oft-quoted essay "The Great Relearning," and Martin Van Creveld, in this prescient article from 2000:<BR/>http://www.d-n-i.net/creveld/naming_a_new_era.htm<BR/> <BR/>It falls to science and in particular to science education to combat this new medievalism, which has given us every sort of self-delusion and error in reasoning from faith-based pre-emptive invasion of other countries to denial of evidence for global warming, to tautological justifications for string "theory" which fails to provide us with the basic requirements of science (to wit, falisifiable predictions), to lunacies like the anti-evolution and anti-secular hysteria on the right and the anti-frankenfood and anti-nuclear frenzy on the left.Unknownhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10994509912655287453noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-47891874444403229452007-05-21T22:25:00.000-07:002007-05-21T22:25:00.000-07:00I despair of people not seeing that migration to c...I despair of people not seeing that migration to cities (even crossing the border to migrate to US cities) has been part of national development for a long time. Stewart Brand even points out that it has ecological advantages. It certainly reduces birth rates.<BR/><BR/>Moreover, the remittances sent home by laborers in the US are often THE thing lifting up villages back in Mexico. <BR/><BR/>Try stopping patronizing assumptions and TALK to some of these workers (the sharp ones who have honed their English) about their home villages. <BR/><BR/>You may be surprised to hear about their little home rancheras and trips home to spend a thousand here and there on brick and mortar and pipe and concrete, building up a house and barn and investing in a horse, a truck... <BR/><BR/>...and then adding a hundred to the pot of the expatriate village association to get that road in, the extra room on the school, the cell phone pylon. Some of these village associations in LA hold street fair fundraisers. They have offices both in LA and back home with humming fax lines back and forth.<BR/><BR/>ANd if you do not know about stuff like this, then your compassion is limited to enjoying angry oversimplifications, not viewing the world's complexity as an opportunity to learn the Engineering of Progress.<BR/><BR/>The oversimplifying mythologies pursued by the left are sometimes as infuriatingly racist and ignorant as those on the right! We are talking not billions or tens of billions but HUNDREDS, over the last decade. or two. Some (Oh, certainly not all!) of the laborers you meet here -- hauling and scraping and sweating at stuff you'd never do -- are local heroes and mini-lords back home and own horses and fruit trees. <BR/><BR/>I am not trying to sugar coat. The picture I am painting is as tarnished as it is shiny. But the point is that the simpleminded stereotype utterly ignores the shine. <BR/>And thus ignores opportunities. <BR/>And thus is ignorant and stupid. <BR/><BR/>Almost as much as the far right is stupid for saying that the "market solves everything."David Brinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14465315130418506525noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-34765856423868380042007-05-21T21:30:00.000-07:002007-05-21T21:30:00.000-07:00"Workers would need to return home after some peri...<I>"Workers would need to return home after some period, and get back in line - giving others a chance, and making it clear that guest status is temporary."</I><BR/><BR/>My question here would be "why?" Why would they return home, why would they wait in line, why would they sign up? Those who are already here, will have no more motivation to go back home than they already have. They have jobs, which provides all else. To make the illegals go back home and follow the rules (and I have no problem with guest worker plans, provided that it is not privatized) you will have to deprive them of any current jobs they may have or get in the future. If there is no penalty other than a slap on the wrist for employing illegals, the employment will continue, and all the exploitation that goes with it. Put some teeth in laws against hiring illegals and step up enforcement <I>a lot</I>, then watch illegals go home to get in line. Otherwise, why should they?daveawayfromhomehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06237313399294302353noreply@blogger.com