Re: W's_sneak_vote_on_Vouchers_during_presidential_debate_passes_by_1_vote_ while_3_democrat_opponents_were_at_debate
At 12:36 AM 9/21/2003 -0400, you wrote: a question which arises after reading the article is why there are apparently not any private schools available which emphasize that their academic standards are superior to those of the failing public schools but which are not associated with any religious organization? Are there indeed no such non-religious schools, or is there some other reason why that is not a valid choice in this case? It is my opinion that 95+% of the people advocating vouchers do not give the tiniest shit about improving education in general but are just desperately trying to get around the church-state barrier to funding religious education with public money. They want to fund their sectarian religious school with my money, and I say to hell with them. (Forgive the possible pun.) Tom Beck AHT! HKA,HSA! DNDT,FHKtETLiAMH! Kevin T. - VRWC ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: W's_sneak_vote_on_Vouchers_during_presidential_debate_passes_by_1_vote_ while_3_democrat_opponents_were_at_debate
At 02:01 AM 9/21/03 -0400, Kevin Tarr wrote: At 12:36 AM 9/21/2003 -0400, you wrote: a question which arises after reading the article is why there are apparently not any private schools available which emphasize that their academic standards are superior to those of the failing public schools but which are not associated with any religious organization? Are there indeed no such non-religious schools, or is there some other reason why that is not a valid choice in this case? It is my opinion that 95+% of the people advocating vouchers do not give the tiniest shit about improving education in general but are just desperately trying to get around the church-state barrier to funding religious education with public money. They want to fund their sectarian religious school with my money, and I say to hell with them. (Forgive the possible pun.) Tom Beck AHT! HKA,HSA! DNDT,FHKtETLiAMH! Okay. I had little trouble with the paragraph where the words had the letters in the wrong order, but this is pure gibberish to me . . . -- Ronn! :) ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Girls more confident of success
I don't want this to be self serving as it may read. It's just I will always wonder what happened to me. I know when I was young, I never learned to tie my shoes until late, I'd guess at least seven or eight. In third grade we had modules that we did individually but it was secret in a way. You weren't told to finish it in a certain time, you just did the work. So while I was finishing each module in two or three days, other students were taking a week or more. At the end of the year I was second in the class, behind a girl who's parents were teachers, the father the HS science teacher. I grew up in a rural area. The district had a traveling teacher that taught gifted students one afternoon a week. I was in that class in the 3, 4, and 5 grades. In 5 grade some students got selected to be part of a whole gifted class. The only problem, it was 30 miles away. I could never understand why I wasn't selected in the 5th grade. But I was selected in the sixth grade. Those kids were smart, and 90% of them were in the class the year before; I feel now I started with a disadvantage. I don't think I was a problem student, but I just had 5 grades where I didn't learn any skills, because I could do the work without any trouble. Now the work was harder, I wasn't the smartest kid, most of the kids were local and didn't have to get up as early as me or the other travelers, I only knew three kids out of two classes of sixty. There were so many things that happened that now seem crazy, I almost think we were being experimented on by the local college. (There were a lot of student teachers to help with the class.) At the end of January I was in an accident and missed five weeks. Late in the year the teacher told me if that hadn't have happened, she would have flunked me! I had good grades, but nothing stellar. Obviously I had a lot of work I didn't get finished, but that was because I was out of school. So she was making the assumption that if I had been in class, my grades would have slipped that far. I was very mad that day. But I could have continued with the class, done the same program in the seventh grade. I said no thanks. On to the seventh grade. I was again a big fish in a little pond but back with friends. Yes, I was not challenged again. I didn't know how to study, how to budget time outside of class but I was having no trouble getting A's. I was having trouble in some classes, when it turned to book reports or history essay's. I hated, and still do, the idea that some books have hidden meanings, that there are other stories behind the story. I even asked, more than once, did the author himself ever state these hidden meanings or did he just write the book to make money? And never got a straight answer. But math and science, forget it. In pre-algebra I went through the book and did every problem in a few months. In class I would read other books, or do crossword puzzles or play chess with the person behind me. I helped him and led a study group for anyone who wanted to show up in the library. But our school was again behind the times. While the algebra teacher was a friend and let me get away with a lot, he didn't do anything to challenge me. And the curriculum turned against us. There was no honors courses, calculus, or anything advanced. I remember late in my senior year in trigonometry most of the class was having trouble with some concept. The teacher started ranting about how bad we'll do in college. He started putting calculus equations on the board and solving them. Of course we had no idea what he was doing. We had this same teacher for chemistry, physics, and geometry. He was near retirement age. I'm not saying he was senile (he's still lucid now 20 years later), but he had a lot of bad personal habits. I know I learned in spite of him, not because of him. It wasn't until I was in college, where I had to again take chemistry and physics and math, that I saw how bad he was. But I ran into a lot of teachers like that even in college. They'd be so sure of their methods, and would rant and rave about how stupid today's students were when everyone would fail a test. They'd say we didn't work and study hard enough, but we didn't have anything to study with. Or some of them you wouldn't voluntarily spend one second with because of their personality or habits, yet we paid money for them to teach us. Anyway, in trig and into college, my bad habits caught up with me. As I got older, things would be very easy at first so I wasn't really studying, I'd just show up and ace the test. But there'd be some point where I'd have no idea what was going on and it would happen suddenly. I never learned the basics, I just knew them but that knowledge doesn't help later. I wouldn't say this in a job interview, but my degree is worthless to me. Can anyone else admit this? If you had to take a test from a junior/senior class in your major, how good would you do?
Re: Girls more confident of success
At 02:14 AM 9/21/03 -0400, Kevin Tarr wrote: We are getting Object Oriented COBOL soon. Isn't that sort of an oxymoron, like attaching a jet engine to a covered wagon? -- Ronn! :) ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Girls more confident of success
At 01:25 AM 9/21/2003 -0500, you wrote: At 02:14 AM 9/21/03 -0400, Kevin Tarr wrote: We are getting Object Oriented COBOL soon. Isn't that sort of an oxymoron, like attaching a jet engine to a covered wagon? -- Ronn! :) I cannot say. Here's what I've been told: we always have vendors trying to get our company to use newer languages but so far none of them can read our databases and do tasks as fast as COBOL. We have systems that process millions and tens of millions of records. I do not know how that compares with other systems and their size. I can imagine that Amazon's Oracle database has as many or more records, but I doubt it works on all of them in one pass. (I may be overstating or even understating what is going on. Of course with a different language there are different ways to do things, that not every record would have to be processed every time. But I'm assuming the people pushing the new languages know this and still cannot get their programs to out perform our current setup.) Of course even if some new language was found to be a marked improvement, it would be tough to switch out a legacy system. We just went through a process of increasing the record length for a system (and moving/renaming some fields) . Our group had to inspect every program to see where changes needed to be made to match the new size. While some new programs were written, with the old programs all we were allowed to do was check them and make as little change as necessary. Some of mine were so garbled I wanted to rip them apart and re-write but I couldn't. It was a three month project for eleven people, not counting the users. Five days after it was finished I found a mistake in one of my programs. I didn't do anything wrong, the program invoked something that was defined outside of my program. I assumed it was the correct size, because other far more important programs used this invoke, while mine just used it as a reference. It wouldn't have been noticed until end of year processing when a lot of bad data would have been written. That too long story is showing what pains we'd have to go through if we threw everything out and used a different language. So far I've helped build from scratch one system and the above conversion. We are building another one from scratch and doing preliminary work on another conversion. It's a conversion, but we are going to re-write everything. The system is the biggest and oldest, some of the code is 30 years old with gotos and other horrible problems. If the whole group had to learn a new language, and then try and write these systems in that language; it'd take many years. We'd have years of dual systems, maintaining the old until the new was finished. So if OO can add functionality without having to change old programs if we don't want to, well why not use it? I know I was skeptical when I first heard of it, but reading the new user's manual I saw functions I could be using now (already in the COBOL version I'm using) but didn't know they were part of the system. The desk reference I was using was two versions old. Kevin T. - VRWC Four hours sleep and a 50 mile bike ahead. At least it ain't raining like last weekend. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Girls more confident of success
I'm reading all these anecdotes about bad teachers without identifying very well. Through most of high school and all of college, I found the teachers to be mostly irrelevant. I prefer learning from textbooks. After all, you don't have much of a pool to choose your teacher from, but generally only the better teachers will write a textbook and then you can choose the best of the better by choosing the best textbook. And with a book, you can learn at whatever pace you want, instead of being slowed down by the teacher. In high school physics, I couldn't stand the teacher's lectures, although compared to stories here maybe he wasn't so bad ( he had a Ph.D. in philosophy, though :-) I learned my high school physics from Sears, Zemansky, and Young, and I enjoyed it immensely! -- Erik Reuter http://www.erikreuter.net/ ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Derivation vs. Memorization
Alberto Monteiro wrote: Ronn!Blankenship wrote: Who somehow did memorize the quadratic formula... Can you derive it? Trivial. I ddn't memorize Cardano's formula, but I can derive it easily: eliminate term in x^2, x = u + v then eliminate term with uv. He did say quadratic, which means second degree? OTOH, I have a hard time remembering some obscure geometry formulas, even simple ones like a^2 = b^2 + c^2 - [or +?] 2 [?] b c cos [or sin?] A Yes, I tend to derive the Law of Cosines from the dot product of vectors when I need it. (Although once you have it down to + or - sin or cos, it's easy to decide which of the 4 possibilities is correct. The last term must be zero when the angle is 90 degrees, and so on...) ---David ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Fan Fic Uploads
Over the last few days, I've been uploading some of Vilyehm's fan fic to a special section of my web page: http://stories.brin-l.org Here are direct links to the stories V's sent me so far, in order of publishing: Between a Grok and a Hard Pace: http://stories.brin-l.org/grok_hard_pace.html The Ahp'Churezz: http://stories.brin-l.org/ahp.html A scholarly treatise on Tytlal and the Three Stooges: http://stories.brin-l.org/tytlal_bw.html First Journal Entry of Dor-hinuf: http://stories.brin-l.org/dorhinuf1.html __ Steve Sloan . Huntsville, Alabama = [EMAIL PROTECTED] Brin-L list pages .. http://www.brin-l.org Chmeee's 3D Objects http://www.sloan3d.com/chmeee 3D and Drawing Galleries .. http://www.sloansteady.com Software Science Fiction, Science, and Computer Links Science fiction scans . http://www.sloan3d.com ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Girls more confident of success
--- Kevin Tarr [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I love the idea of OO but I just cannot grasp it fully, yet. Luckily we don't need it, it's just part of the latest version. GROAN = _ Jan William Coffey _ __ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free, easy-to-use web site design software http://sitebuilder.yahoo.com ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Added Hoon's Fur Past. Oops.
I've been behind on reading list mail, so I just saw the additional fanfic story that V posted to the list. It's now sitting on my site at: http://stories.brin-l.org/hoonfurpast.html As usual, the main fanfic page is at: http://stories.brin-l.org/ __ Steve Sloan . Huntsville, Alabama = [EMAIL PROTECTED] Brin-L list pages .. http://www.brin-l.org Chmeee's 3D Objects http://www.sloan3d.com/chmeee 3D and Drawing Galleries .. http://www.sloansteady.com Software Science Fiction, Science, and Computer Links Science fiction scans . http://www.sloan3d.com ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
No baby?
I was sure I'd check my mail this evening and see that Julia had gone off to the hospital. I was absolutely positive. I guess I was wrong. Oh well, keep waiting... - jmh ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
My sanity questioned
Awhile back, I found a magazine of puzzles in the grocery store and bought it. You're given a crossword-puzzle-grid, a list of numbers grouped by the number of digits in each one and then sorted in numerical order, and one number placed in the grid. You then try to logically figure out where each of the rest of the numbers fit in the grid. I was working on one, and Dan was curious as to what it was. I showed him. He thinks it's *totally* insane. I pointed out that they were making money putting these things out, the implication being that I can't be the *only* one in the world who enjoys it. So, am I nuts? Or just really, really weird? Julia p.s. being pregnant doesn't have anything to do with it one way or the other; I've enjoyed doing them under various circumstances, but I'm more likely to do them with relatives in the house, for some reason ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: My sanity questioned
In a message dated 9/21/2003 3:55:26 PM US Mountain Standard Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: So, am I nuts? Or just really, really weird? Julia I like doing logic problems in pen. William Taylor P.S. Your twins may be geniuses. They're waiting for the Emmy Awards. I know I'd do anything to get out of watching another awards show. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: My sanity questioned
At 05:55 PM 9/21/2003 -0500, you wrote: Awhile back, I found a magazine of puzzles in the grocery store and bought it. You're given a crossword-puzzle-grid, a list of numbers grouped by the number of digits in each one and then sorted in numerical order, and one number placed in the grid. You then try to logically figure out where each of the rest of the numbers fit in the grid. I was working on one, and Dan was curious as to what it was. I showed him. He thinks it's *totally* insane. I pointed out that they were making money putting these things out, the implication being that I can't be the *only* one in the world who enjoys it. So, am I nuts? Or just really, really weird? Julia I like them too. Haven't done them in a long time, but they are better than normal crossword puzzles or a word search type. I'm assuming a program can be written, where you'd almost have to solve the whole thing before you can get the first one. Do you think these are now made by hand or with a 'puter? Kevin T. - VRWC 50 miles ridden, muscle cramps in both legs at the same time, broken spoke causing a wobbly wheel. But fun. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: memorization vs. idea space position
- Original Message - From: Reggie Bautista [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Friday, September 19, 2003 3:41 PM Subject: Re: memorization vs. idea space position Dan wrote: As Doug has pointed out, language is a system. I like to think of the metaphor of idea space where the words both defines the space and is embedded in the space. If one includes math as a language, there is a strong arguement that there are no ideas apart from language. Indeed most people who state I have a great idea, I just can't put it into words actually have a vague idea they think is great, that may even have the potential to be great, but isn't fleshed out. I pretty much agree with the rest of your post, but I disagree about this point. Yes, sometimes have ideas with potential but that are not fleshed out, but there are other circumstances where someone can actually have a great idea but honestly have trouble translating it into written or spoken words (or other equivalent symbols). One of the interesting parts of this is that this question is not well suited to empirical verification. We are discussing ideas that are worthwhile, but never get communicated to the outside world. I think it is safe to say that there exists at least some BS artists who insist that they had great ideas for a number of different things but they just can't put them into words. They also cannot put them into code, they cannot sketch them out, they cannot build them, etc. An extreme examples of this were the numerous crackpots that wandered by the UW physics department with their great grand unified theories that exist in their minds. They just didn't have the math to get it out on paper, and assumed that an inferior thinker who did bother to study the maths could help them flesh out their great idea. When they were pushed to explain it, the muttered something like all is gravity. I think we can agree that these crackpots really didn't have a real theory/a real idea of how to unify physics. Rather they had a vague hunch that they convinced themselves was an idea. Instead it was simply nonsense. Now, having said this, I'll agree that there are times that a given audience doesn't understand what you've tried to put down. For example, I find that I cannot convey everything in what I do to my customers; I have to give them a general idea. But, I find that, when I cannot put something down on paper that looks logical to me, there is still a real chance that there is a big hole in my thought process. I may think that I had an idea for something, but it turned out that I had an intuition that did not pay off. Further, in the process of explaining my work to others I often find a hole in my reasoning, or (to my embarrassment) they find a hole. The review of colleagues is always been a critical part of development of new ideas in science. So, I'm rather skeptical of people who say they have a great idea that they just cannot communicate to anyone. But, lets just suppose that there is someone who has come up with a conceptualization of a grand unified theory that they cannot communicate to anyone else; or a wondrous piece of music that they cannot put in any concrete form; or a design for a solar cell that would cost a dollar per square meter to produce and would be 60% efficient, etc., all of which is actually in full form in their head, but they are unable to communicate the idea. Is there any empirical verification of this possible? In some cases, such as someone who has had an injury or illness that interferes with the ability to communicate; I'd accept the testimony of folks that have recovered from strokes who said they could think but not talk. But, I believe this is different from someone who claims that they have come up with a new idea that they can't explain but is really wonderful. So, in retrospect, my generalization might very well have been too general. For example, as a composer, I sometimes think in sound. Most of the time if I hear a certain melody or harmony or tone color in my head, I can translate that to written music or synthesizer settings or code in c-sound, but sometimes I hear one of the above (especially tone colors) that I can't translate immediately into any written, verbal, or setting form. Why not? If it is fully formed, what keeps you from it? I'm not trying to criticize you, I just don't understand how you cannot know exactly what you want but not be able to map it onto any nominal means of recording musical thought. Also, I've also thought of melodies, harmonies, and tonal colors in my head, and I wouldn't think to call myself a composer. I would guess that, if these ever saw the light of day, they would be much much worse than I think they are when I run them through my head. My experience is that I don't know if I've actually come up with a full fledged idea until I'm done either doing it or writing it down. The process of putting it in concrete form
Re: My sanity questioned
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: P.S. Your twins may be geniuses. They're waiting for the Emmy Awards. I know I'd do anything to get out of watching another awards show. We have cable. There's a football game on ESPN in about 45 minutes. (Kickoff will probably be more like an hour off.) I don't have strong enough feelings to want one team to beat the other; I like both teams. But it'll be something of a distraction. I agree with you on the Emmys; the pre-award show is preempting some perfectly good Fox cartoon time. :P But if the twins going to come any time in the next 36 hours, I'd really rather they come *before* Monday Night Football. (The matchup aside, I really, really like Al Michaels' voice.) Julia ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Week 3 NFL Picks
John D. Giorgis wrote: With Hurricane Isaebl bearing down on Washington DC, I am getting my picks in early this week, in case the power is out for a while.Of course, after last week's dismal performance, maybe a little shake-up is just what I needed. I was an abysmal 5-11 last week, bringing me to a pathetic 16-16 for the season. The Upset Special went to 1-1 as absolutely nothing went right for me this week. Anyhow, here's hoping these picks aren't just as all wet Jacksonville at INDIANAPOLIS - I saw few signs of life in Jacksonville last week against the Bills. Without Jimmy Smith they are utterly nondynamic in the passing game, and combied a complete inability to generate a pass rush with a swiss cheese secondary. Yes, Virginia that's a recipe for disaster in the NFL. Pick: COLTS Got that one. That was the outcome I would prefer, anyway. :) Kansas City at HOUSTON - If San Diego loses this week, just remember that I always said that Kansas City was going to the Super Bowl. Pick: CHIEFS Got that one easy. Somebody decided that nobody wanted to be watching that at some point, so they switched us over to the Patriots/Jets game. You'd *think* they'd have the sense to not mess with that within 200 miles of Houston, anyway, but N -- we missed a chunk of that game. Got to see the final minutes of humiliation, though. (UT played Rice in that stadium last night. Rice was the home team. UT had a lot more fans there. Guess it was a bad home team stadium this weekend; the final on *that* was something like 48-7, UT winning.) Minnesota at DETROIT - If the Vikings win this, they will have a 3-0 record within the division, including two road division wins. Green Bay, you are hearby put on notice. Pick: VIKINGS Good pick, I'm happy with the outcome. New Orleans at TENNESSEE - I have to admit, I have almost no idea about this game. Will the Saints look like the inept crew that got hammered in Seattle? Will the Titans look like the same team that got blow out in Indy?I say that Tennessee recovers from the blowout at home I think. Pick: TITANS Good pick. New York Jets at NEW ENGLAND - The Patriots are in the home opener, after two tough games on the road. Revenge will also be on their minds after New York came into Foxboro, upended the Patriots, and then snuck off with the division title one week later. The Jets, meanwhile, are in a total tailspin - but they have a habit of turning things around once things get the darkest. Even better a Jets win combined with a Bills win gives my Bills total control of the division with a two-game lead on all comers. Unfortunately, I just don't see it Pick: PATRIOTS Good pick, and I'm happy. :) Got to see some of that game, as well; just as well the team I preferred to win was winning *that* one, at least! Pittsburgh at CINCINNATI - I liked the Bengals to improve this year, but getting Pittsburgh after a tough loss is a nasty assignment. Pittsburgh should be looking to rebound this week... Pick: STEELERS Yup. Tampa Bay at ATLANTA - After losing twice to the Bucs badly this year, this game is taking on Super Bowl-like qualities for the Falcons. I also don't know that the Bucs can take advantage of Atlanta's weakness at the Safety position, especially with Joe Jurevicious out. Pick: FALCONS Nope. But this one was at least a reasonable nope. Green Bay at ARIZONA -Time to break out all the classic futility jokes about the Cardinals. Pick: PACKERS Knock me over with a feather, that pick was wrong! I could *not* believe the score when I saw it. New York at WASHINGTON - Both teams have serious O-Line issues, so it could be a big day for the sackmeisters on each side... which should be advantage Giants, and I think that the Giants are the better team, but the Redskins will be riding high after the big win in Tampa, and the Giants have to be in a funk after pulling the comeback against Dallas on Monday night, and then letting it just slip away. Pick: REDSKINS Nope, but it took overtime to make it so. Guess he who dies by the field goal in OT can live by the field goal in OT? :) St. Louis at SEATTLE - The Seahawks have yet to be tested, while the Rams have played two tight ones. I think that there is something to be said for coming into a game fresh after having a laugher the week before, so I'll give the nod to... Pick: SEAHAWKS Yep. Baltimore at SAN DIEGO - The Chargers are still inexorably ah forget it I think that despite Jamal Lewis rushing for all those yards last week, the Ravens still darn near lost because Kyle Boller is still a very green rookie. Facing a hungry Chargers team at home searching for their first win is not going to be easy for him. Pick: CHARGERS No, and I'm not happy about it, either. Sheesh. Cleveland at SAN FRANCISCO - The Browns were supposed to be a playoff team this year, but are now staring
Re: Week 3 NFL Picks
In a message dated 9/21/2003 4:56:27 PM US Mountain Standard Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Green Bay at ARIZONA -Time to break out all the classic futility jokes about the Cardinals. Pick: PACKERS Knock me over with a feather, that pick was wrong! I could *not* believe the score when I saw it. Jack in the Box has a promotion where you can get a Cardinals' antenna ball for upsizing a combo meal. At least you can no longer say that the Cardinals don't have any at all. William Taylor - Damn it! If Fox let their animation people do a three hour parody award show--I'd watch that. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Girls more confident of success...in an empathicaly focused world
Jan wrote- What about an education system and workplace that are now more focused on empathic and rote memorization ability than on problem solving ability? While I am not the most up to date on teaching methods, the only large scale changes I can recall that have impacted the majority of school systems are new math (what was the old math?) and whole reading (versus phonetics). Womens lib has benificial effects, but it also has some detrimental effects as well. I suggest that technolegy and buisness would be progressing much faster had Womens lib never happened. The focus in the work place on empathic systems rather than problem solving systems leads to a highly political environement more focused on polotics than getting the job done. I can't recall any literature that just the presence of women inherently politicizes a situation. The things I am familiar with are that there are differences in communication, group dynamics when males/females were researched in general/isolation. Work place culture is a blend of the people, goals, corporate leaders, structure, etc, it is simplistic to think that one very general concept (Womens Lib) is the cause of another general thing (politics) without some sort of additional supoort. Support for this can be shown in advancements made in the last century prior to womens lib and those made after it. If this were true, then a socity which desired to gain advantage by being more efficient would recognize the abilities and benifits of both gendered mindsets and the spectrum between the two extreems. And focus not on an overreaching standard, but on the strengths of the individual, and the benifits of the microcultures which employ both modles. How would you measure efficient? Worker productivity has reached higher and higher levels since Women's Lib, wouldn't this seem to support progress overall? i.e. I think we are shifting from the standard being the male model to the standard being the female model and this is why you see the numbers in the article. At the same time I do not think that either extreem is the best one, but rather the acceptance of individuals. I certainly don't see a female model, but agree with Debbie's later posts- more and more people are learning how to put in the effort and work to get to where they want to be. Politics and who you know will always be present, but as demands for efficiency and productivity become more demanding (and outcomes more measured) hopefully there will be more effort to select the best person. Dee Sore, tired and finally clean after the Hurricane Isabel clean up exercise program ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Girls more confident of success
Jan asked- Does it mean that women, unlike men forgo carriers to rais families? Actually, some of the current literature says that women most usually must make a choice between career and family. Societal pressures usually favor the raise family option. Women who try and do both usually have set backs in their career which worsen the longer the time away from work. Anectdotally, I have several friends where the husbands are the ones staying with the kids while the woman is the bread winner. I love that absolute stereotypes are going by the wayside, Dee ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Week 3 NFL Picks
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: In a message dated 9/21/2003 4:56:27 PM US Mountain Standard Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Green Bay at ARIZONA -Time to break out all the classic futility jokes about the Cardinals. Pick: PACKERS Knock me over with a feather, that pick was wrong! I could *not* believe the score when I saw it. Jack in the Box has a promotion where you can get a Cardinals' antenna ball for upsizing a combo meal. Here you can get a Cowboys antenna ball or a Texans antenna ball. At least you can no longer say that the Cardinals don't have any at all. :D William Taylor - Damn it! If Fox let their animation people do a three hour parody award show--I'd watch that. So would I. So would I. Julia ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Equal rights opportunity or numbers?
- Original Message - From: Ronn!Blankenship [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Killer Bs Discussion [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Saturday, September 20, 2003 7:38 PM Subject: Re: Equal rights opportunity or numbers? I agree with you. I just brought that up because it's the situation that must be dealt with in America today. I've got a question for you then, Ronn. I'll agree, for the sake of arguement, that quotas for hiring creates more problems then it solves. But, I cannot see how refusing to measure what's happening will solve problems. Let me give a simple example from my work history. A company I worked for in Texas had a RIF (Reduction in Force). In a RIF, in Texas, no reasons need to be given; its not performance based. In this particular RIF, 21 people were let go in engineering. All 21 were over 55. There was 1 person over 55 who was able to keep his job, becasue his boss convinced the company that they couldn't achieve a particular goal if he were let go. Technically this is legal, because the company's position is that they just decided to slash the least important positions. The fact that they created positions that were very similar a few months later and hired younger people to fill those positions was just a coincidence. I consider that obviously false. However, it was impossible to prove this on a case by case basis; which was the requirement. To me, it is obvious that the company decided to get rid of its oldest engineers. The pension liability they would have if they allowed these workers to work till they were 65 was the most likely reason for this action. Another thought was that older engineers were not talented enough because they were old. My questions for you is: 1) Should this sort of action be legal? 2) Do you consider the type of measurement I made be considered a quota? I certainly see the problems inherent in quotas. I don't support quotas. However, I have a hard time accepting the proposition that if we just don't look everything will be fine. My personal suggestion is to look to where affirmative action has been implemented with unprecedented success both in achieving the goals of affirmative action and in achieving the goals of the organization itself and see what we can learn from that. Dan M. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Girls more confident of success...in an empathicaly focused world
- Original Message - From: Jan Coffey [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Killer Bs Discussion [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Friday, September 19, 2003 11:53 AM Subject: Re: Girls more confident of success...in an empathically focused world Strange it always seems to me that these same people are setting up and applying procedures which work against the company rather than for it. And that this is why things go SNAFU when they are not around. And they are so very bad that they cause problems before they arrive? There are indeed, bad office managers, bad administration assistants. But, even a poor administration assistant who is a bit heavy handed in scheduling conference rooms is better than the chaos that occurs when no one schedules rooms, and two important meetings are scheduled in the same time and place. Companies that comprise more than one person are social and political entities. It is impossible to stop them from being such. Personal feelings, social relationships between the people involved all have an effect on the work that gets done. People that are good at facilitating that are very valuable. I also don't think that progress is only measured by technology and business -- particularly I don't think that most corporations have a shining vision of the future- other than their own profits (of course there _are_ responsible and innovative companies which do). Was it always that way? When do you think it wasn't? The robber baron era, for example, was before women got the vote. The idea of a golden age before woman's lib where talent at producing things was the critical factor in a man's success is not supported by history. There are a few short lasting exceptions to this rule. For example, in WWII, talented generals did tend to do well, even if they were next to impossible to get along with. For a few years, when there were virtually no Americans with experience and money was unlimited (contracts were all cost plus), and schedules were tight, young talented engineers could rise fast at NASA. They did, however, have to have mentors who were senior in NASA and sponsored them. But, of course, when NASA stopped being a critical part of the Cold War , lost its direction after we beat the Russians to the moon, and people gained experience in NASA, it became a more typical bureaucratic entity. Indeed, it changed from one of the best to one of the worst organizations for obvious reasons. It lost its clear goal, and its funding was dependant on things that were inherently political in nature. Exactly it is only when the effort was achieved that the advancement deteriorated. NASA can't even listen to their experts any more, and why? Because its experts tell it things that, if passed on to Congress, would decrease funding. Because they are not people persons enough to get themselves heard in a strickly empathic driven political environement. You mean in the good old fashion shut up and do as your told corporate environment, everything would have been great? I disagree. What possible use could a forman with People skills? The right workers are the ones that get the job done. The only trouble that is important is those that effect the task at hand. Focus on the people skills and who gets the job depends on who likes who, what personalities fit together, not who can get the job done. In my experience, getting the job done usually involves working with other people. And if you are concerned with conflict then don't be. Conflict can be just as much a benifit as a detriment. Conflict is naturual, let it happen. A type workers will always try and make it to the top and then stay there. Why not focus their advancement on technical results rather than shmoozing, The easiest and best way to the top has always been to play political games. When I started in industry, it was in the oil patch in the early '80s. It was definitely the good old fashioned business culture. Being a good 'ol boy was as critical or more critical for making money than being a talented engineer. Now, there was an exception to this. Software was so new, none of the managers knew how to deal with it. I remember the Executive VP stating that the way to get good software was to hire a bunch of hippies and throw raw meat at them. In this environment, a software engineer who had little to no skill in getting along with people could do all right. But, after a while, people determined that folks who were good at coding, but who would assume that the internal software customers were all idiots who didn't need to be listened to, weren't really all that productive after all. One of the things I learned early in my career was that my technical ability, by itself, would not allow me to succeed. I was in an organization with field operations as a internal customer. These guys did not have to obey engineering mandates. Indeed, as the profit center, they could dictate to engineering far more than
Re: Girls more confident of success
Jan wrote- I am suggesting that education should be tailored to the individual to use and highlight that individuals strengths. We do this anyway (FREX exempting Dyslexics from forign language requirments). Each individual should be allowed to find the nich in which they can best contribute to society, and they should be allowed to do so at their own pace (faster or slower). This would benifit the society and increase the societies efficiency by using the best of what each individuals strengths have to offer. It benifit's the individual becouse they would not have to be constrained by their weeknesses, especialy when they have strengths that would benifit society. If we had such an education system, the gender differences would no-longer matter. Actually, I went through part of grammar school with this type of system- termed open concept learning. Students worked at an independent pace, with minimal standards for each grade. The teachers had to know where each student was in the spectrum of learning- sometimes grouping those that moved at the same speed for various segments of learning. I thought it was great although I imagine it was exhausting for the teachers- even putting like level students together. After 10-15 years the principal eventually retired, the hand picked teachers went on to different places and the program went by the wayside to traditional learning. I guess it was more than the average amount of work for a teacher. The transition to a regular school (in my mind everyone moves at the same pace) program was hard in junior high school. Taking this type of a program to the junior high/high school level would be great, some larger school systems have different tracts that allow students to really tailor their education but the core requirements remain. Dee ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Equal rights opportunity or numbers?
On Sun, Sep 21, 2003 at 09:05:09PM -0500, Dan Minette wrote: To me, it is obvious that the company decided to get rid of its oldest engineers. The pension liability they would have if they allowed these workers to work till they were 65 was the most likely reason for this action. Another thought was that older engineers were not talented enough because they were old. Do you think it would have happened on a 401(k) type plan instead of pensions? It seems to me this is yet another problem due to pensions. Defined contribution plans beat defined benefit plans in many ways. -- Erik Reuter http://www.erikreuter.net/ ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Equal rights opportunity or numbers?
- Original Message - From: Erik Reuter [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Killer Bs Discussion [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Sunday, September 21, 2003 9:21 PM Subject: Re: Equal rights opportunity or numbers? On Sun, Sep 21, 2003 at 09:05:09PM -0500, Dan Minette wrote: To me, it is obvious that the company decided to get rid of its oldest engineers. The pension liability they would have if they allowed these workers to work till they were 65 was the most likely reason for this action. Another thought was that older engineers were not talented enough because they were old. Do you think it would have happened on a 401(k) type plan instead of pensions? That's a good question, but I don't know the answer for this particular instance. The second reason, the idea that an old engineer is a bad engineer, might have been enough...or it might not. I think that the 401(k) or SAP plan fits today's workplace a lot better than the old fashioned pensions did. The pensions were a good fit for the old way when long term employment was encouraged and productive workers were kept on if at all possible. Dan M. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: memorization vs. idea space position
--- Dan Minette [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: So, I'm rather skeptical of people who say they have a great idea that they just cannot communicate to anyone. But, lets just suppose that there is someone who has come up with a conceptualization of a grand unified theory that they cannot communicate to anyone else; or a wondrous piece of music that they cannot put in any concrete form; or a design for a solar cell that would cost a dollar per square meter to produce and would be 60% efficient, etc., all of which is actually in full form in their head, but they are unable to communicate the idea. Is there any empirical verification of this possible? snip - like go read the original post kind of snip. Thinking some more about it, it seems that new forms of math are as likely a candidate as any for ideas that cannot be expressed symbolically. But, I've never heard of a mathematical system who's rules exist, but cannot be described in terms of things already know to other mathematicians. Obviously symbols can be invented on the fly, so that's not a problem...its more that one could imagine a set of rules so far removed from present systems that there is no mapping. But, I know of no instances of someone with a real track record coming up with systems he/she cannot describe at all to any other mathematician. Dan M. Consider person A. One day while quilting ana triangular shaped cloth on a loom. She has already started the work and is creating the peice by stoping one line short every other pass. She needs the peice to be as least as long on the longest side as a triangular window she wishes to cover. She wonders if it will fit the way she is weaving it. She knows how many threads are in a centameeter, and she knows ho may threads wide the loom is. She knows how long the side of the peice will be if she keeps shortening every other thread, it will be twice as long. In a flash she realizes that if the bottom (loom width) side were it'self again as many threads long, and so were the length, they, geometricaly, would have to exactly fold in to be the same length as the unknown side it'self again as many threads long. Briliant she thinks. There must be some way to figure this out. So down to her local mathmatics department of her local university she goes thinking that she has discoverd one of the secrets of the universe. These smart people, she thinks, must know how to find the original length from it'self again as many threads long! But how does she descrie it? She get's to meet the professor in the hall and she begins to try and describe her idea and to ask help, but since she can not describe it in any way that makes sense to the professor he dissmisses her as a loony. I wonce awoke from a dream where I saw a structure for the universe. I never have been able to describe it. I once tried to explain it to friends and the exact same words that you used above were used. Everything is gravity or Gravity doesn't exist, it is a feature of what matter is made of, only it is seen as a force becouse of the expasion of the universe, it is not a force in and of itself. What is more, perhaps all the other forces are just side effects of this. Like beeds on a string as the universe expands the beeds all get closer and closer. Now that doesn't make any sense. Besides it's just some cooky idea from someone who never got past 3ed symester physics. The string is the universe the beeds matter. To make it all more clear put lengths of straw (the kind you drink out of) inbetween the beends. Now take out the string and mesure out to replace it with a length of bungy. Mark mesurment distences on the bungy and put the whole thing back together. Now pull the bungy from both ends. Accroding to the markings on the bungy the beeds keep getting closer together. Now, if the bungy were big enough and the beeds numerous enough and the bungy were being stretched fast enough wouldn't it kind of match what our universe looks like? If you were a beed, beeds that were futher appart would seem to move away while ones closer together would seem to move closer together. Of course my physics proff dindn't think the idea was interesting at all. He also didn't like the time is just the way we experience all the curled up space demensions either. Or the cause and effect are just what is left over after all the waves traveling in all directions cancle eachother out. But since I have heard that one from people who can actualy do the math. What does it mean? I have enough interest and facination that I should learn the math. ...Or write fantacy... But what if I were right once and a while? Even when I am not I am currently incapable of describing it to the point that it can be falseifiable. If that is your point then greate, we can agree. But I also have seen the answer to problems which were not so far outside my area of expertice. The fact that I didn't have the language to describe them didn't alter the fact that in
Re: memorization vs. idea space position
...
Thinking some more about it, it seems that new forms of math are as likely
a candidate as any for ideas that cannot be expressed symbolically. But,
I've never heard of a mathematical system who's rules exist, but cannot be
described in terms of things already know to other mathematicians.
Obviously symbols can be invented on the fly, so that's not a problem...its
more that one could imagine a set of rules so far removed from present
systems that there is no mapping. But, I know of no instances of someone
with a real track record coming up with systems he/she cannot describe at
all to any other mathematician.
Dan M.
All of known mathematics can be coded into Set Theory, for
instance, which is pretty simple. (Two undefined terms: 'set' and
'is an element of', and around 10 axioms.) After a while, the
encoded forms are nothing like how anybody actually THINKS about
the ideas, but the encoding can certainly be done.
So in the worst case, one could use set theory to
unambiguously state what one's ideas were, and then do a lot
of hand-waving to get the flavor of it across.
If pushed, I would be prepared to say that something
which could not be coded into set theory was not mathematics
at all.
---David
0 = {}, 1 = {0} = {{}}, 2 = {0,1} = {{},{{}}}, 3 = {0,1,2},...
is the standard encoding of the natural numbers, which I believe
is due to Henkin.
___
http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: No baby?
I'd like to have this over with, because it gets kind of tedious keeping track of the time of the last N contractions. Of course, in general, they've been in clusters where they're roughly an hour apart. 12-15 minutes apart is when we head out. The closest 2 were 25 minutes apart, and then nothing for over an hour. Sigh. Julia Just Braxton-Hicks contractions, I bet. Hang in there... ---David ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Girls more confident of success...in an empathicaly focused world
--- [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: How would you measure efficient? Worker productivity has reached higher and higher levels since Women's Lib, wouldn't this seem to support progress overall? I have no way to counter most of what you have questioned. However, I do know that the produtivity getting higher is not actualy correct. If you count hours worked, it drops dramaticaly, we work longer hours now than before so the mesure of productivity must be hour for hour not week for week. If you then count the actual ~earnings~ of that productivity you find that it is lower still. Finaly if you discount the productivity improvements do to technology I think you will find that productivity is lower and lower. Of course no one that I know of has done such a study. People tend to shoot the messenger, don't they? i.e. I think we are shifting from the standard being the male model to the standard being the female model and this is why you see the numbers in the article. At the same time I do not think that either extreem is the best one, but rather the acceptance of individuals. I certainly don't see a female model, but agree with Debbie's later posts- more and more people are learning how to put in the effort and work to get to where they want to be. Politics and who you know will always be present, but as demands for efficiency and productivity become more demanding (and outcomes more measured) hopefully there will be more effort to select the best person. The best person for plesant interaction, or the best person for achieving technical results? = _ Jan William Coffey _ __ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free, easy-to-use web site design software http://sitebuilder.yahoo.com ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Equal rights opportunity or numbers?
--- Dan Minette [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: - Original Message - From: Ronn!Blankenship [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Killer Bs Discussion [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Saturday, September 20, 2003 7:38 PM Subject: Re: Equal rights opportunity or numbers? I agree with you. I just brought that up because it's the situation that must be dealt with in America today. I've got a question for you then, Ronn. I'll agree, for the sake of arguement, that quotas for hiring creates more problems then it solves. But, I cannot see how refusing to measure what's happening will solve problems. Let me give a simple example from my work history. A company I worked for in Texas had a RIF (Reduction in Force). In a RIF, in Texas, no reasons need to be given; its not performance based. In this particular RIF, 21 people were let go in engineering. All 21 were over 55. There was 1 person over 55 who was able to keep his job, becasue his boss convinced the company that they couldn't achieve a particular goal if he were let go. Technically this is legal, because the company's position is that they just decided to slash the least important positions. The fact that they created positions that were very similar a few months later and hired younger people to fill those positions was just a coincidence. I consider that obviously false. However, it was impossible to prove this on a case by case basis; which was the requirement. To me, it is obvious that the company decided to get rid of its oldest engineers. The pension liability they would have if they allowed these workers to work till they were 65 was the most likely reason for this action. Another thought was that older engineers were not talented enough because they were old. My questions for you is: 1) Should this sort of action be legal? 2) Do you consider the type of measurement I made be considered a quota? I certainly see the problems inherent in quotas. I don't support quotas. However, I have a hard time accepting the proposition that if we just don't look everything will be fine. My personal suggestion is to look to where affirmative action has been implemented with unprecedented success both in achieving the goals of affirmative action and in achieving the goals of the organization itself and see what we can learn from that. Dan M. Dan, why can't we all agree that it was wrong, and accept that quanifying the wrongness is not allways a simple task, but tht the human mind is capable of recognizing the wrongness. You don't need numbers to show that it is wrong when it is so very clear. = _ Jan William Coffey _ __ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free, easy-to-use web site design software http://sitebuilder.yahoo.com ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Girls more confident of success...in an empathicaly focused world
Jan asked relating to the best person for the job- The best person for plesant interaction, or the best person for achieving technical results? LOL, I wear cracked, taped together, hanging by a thread rose colored glasses. In my world I can have both. In reality, sometimes I get a bit of both or more of one- people are just the way they are. Dee ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Equal rights opportunity or numbers?
- Original Message - From: Jan Coffey [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Killer Bs Discussion [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Sunday, September 21, 2003 10:11 PM Subject: Re: Equal rights opportunity or numbers? Dan, why can't we all agree that it was wrong, and accept that quanifying the wrongness is not allways a simple task, but tht the human mind is capable of recognizing the wrongness. You don't need numbers to show that it is wrong when it is so very clear. Actually, you do need numbers; its just that the example is so very obvious that the math needed is _very_ straightforward. Lets not include the numbers, and see what we can determine. Tom, who is 56, lost his job in a RIF. Was it age based discrimination or not? From that information alone, I cannot tell. I also cannot fathom how anyone else could. Dan M. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: My sanity questioned
You're given a crossword-puzzle-grid, a list of numbers grouped by the number of digits in each one and then sorted in numerical order, and one number placed in the grid. You then try to logically figure out where each of the rest of the numbers fit in the grid. ... So, am I nuts? Or just really, really weird? Julia Everybody likes different things. To me, those sound too much like work. I would just transfer it into Graph Theory and write a program to solve the puzzles. But they're way better than word search puzzles, in my view. I have an algorithm for word search puzzles: Take the first word. Find its first letter. Go through the grid looking for the first letter. Now look around each instance for the second letter of the word. Etc. I find anything that easy to automate BORING. I also have a book of Mensa Math and Logic Puzzles. But they are too hard to be interesting. If I ever need examples of NP-complete recreational problems, I have a book of them... I like them too. Haven't done them in a long time, but they are better than normal crossword puzzles or a word search type. I'm assuming a program can be written, where you'd almost have to solve the whole thing before you can get the first one. Do you think these are now made by hand or with a 'puter? Kevin T. - VRWC You mean, Are there puzzles of this type where for any number k much less than the total number of words n, and for any subset of k word-spaces in the grid, that there are multiple valid ways to fill in the k word-spaces.? That sounds plausible. I don't have a good grip on the problem, so I can't say for sure. If it were true, the existence of such puzzles could probably be shown by a counting argument. Ideally, a puzzle like this should appear to be NP-hard (i.e. one would just have to try everything), but then on closer inspection reveal a back door to deducing a solution step-by-step. It might be possible to find these automatically, but I'd HOPE that someone was checking by hand to be sure that solving them would feel satisfying. ---David ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0525947647/qid=1064201122/sr=2-1/ref=sr_2_1/102-7196545-4354567 I just finished reading this today. What a hoot! xponent A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right Maru rob ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them
I just finished reading this today. What a hoot! I thought it was wonderful. I'd also strongly recommend Paul Krugman's new The Great Unraveling, and Big Lies by Joe Conason. Tom Beck www.prydonians.org www.mercerjewishsingles.org I always knew I'd see the first man on the Moon. I never dreamed I'd see the last. - Dr Jerry Pournelle ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Girls more confident of success...in an empathicaly focused world
- Original Message - From: Jan Coffey [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Killer Bs Discussion [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Sunday, September 21, 2003 10:05 PM Subject: Re: Girls more confident of success...in an empathicaly focused world --- [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: How would you measure efficient? Worker productivity has reached higher and higher levels since Women's Lib, wouldn't this seem to support progress overall? I have no way to counter most of what you have questioned. However, I do know that the produtivity getting higher is not actualy correct. If you count hours worked, it drops dramaticaly, we work longer hours now than before so the mesure of productivity must be hour for hour not week for week. Let me quote Brad's website on this again. http://econ161.berkeley.edu/movable_type/archives/000949.html The average yearly growth in productivity per hour worked productivity per capita were both 2.4% between '95 and '01. Between '90 and '95 If you then count the actual ~earnings~ of that productivity you find that it is lower still. Earnings by who? Productivity does create weath, the distribution of that wealth is another question; but maldistributed wealth is still wealth. Finaly if you discount the productivity improvements do to technology I think you will find that productivity is lower and lower. If you discount that, how much productiviy improvement has there been in the last 500 years? If you just ask how effective are we now at using the technology of 1503, I'd guess we'd be far less productive. Of course no one that I know of has done such a study. People tend to shoot the messenger, don't they? Productivity per hour worked is given. I'm not sure what earnings per worker vs. productivity per worker means. Who's earnings? Productivity without improved technology doesn't mean much to me. i.e. I think we are shifting from the standard being the male model to the standard being the female model and this is why you see the numbers in the article. At the same time I do not think that either extreem is the best one, but rather the acceptance of individuals. I certainly don't see a female model, but agree with Debbie's later posts- more and more people are learning how to put in the effort and work to get to where they want to be. Politics and who you know will always be present, but as demands for efficiency and productivity become more demanding (and outcomes more measured) hopefully there will be more effort to select the best person. The best person for plesant interaction, or the best person for achieving technical results? Out of curiosity, in your world view, does everyone work all by themselves and then everything falls into place at the end? How do you work with someone after saying in a big meeting your so ignorant, you don't know just how stupid you really are.** ? Dan M. ** An actual quote ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Girls more confident of success...in an empathicaly focused world
- Original Message - From: Dan Minette [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Killer Bs Discussion [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Sunday, September 21, 2003 10:49 PM Subject: Re: Girls more confident of success...in an empathicaly focused world The average yearly growth in productivity per hour worked productivity per capita were both 2.4% between '95 and '01. Between '90 and '95 per capita productivity went up 1.2%, while productivity per hour worked went up 1%. missed finishing this, sorry Dan ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: No baby?
- Original Message - From: Julia Thompson [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Killer Bs Discussion [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Sunday, September 21, 2003 5:51 PM Subject: Re: No baby? Horn, John wrote: I was sure I'd check my mail this evening and see that Julia had gone off to the hospital. I was absolutely positive. I guess I was wrong. Oh well, keep waiting... Around midnight last night, Dan was convinced we'd be headed for the hospital well before noon. Nothing doing. I'd like to have this over with, because it gets kind of tedious keeping track of the time of the last N contractions. Of course, in general, they've been in clusters where they're roughly an hour apart. 12-15 minutes apart is when we head out. The closest 2 were 25 minutes apart, and then nothing for over an hour. Sigh. Well, at least you are still having contractions. If you started having expansions, it would really signal a long wait. Dan M. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Girls more confident of success...in an empathicaly focused world
--- Dan Minette [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: - Original Message - From: Jan Coffey [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Killer Bs Discussion [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Friday, September 19, 2003 11:53 AM Subject: Re: Girls more confident of success...in an empathically focused world Strange it always seems to me that these same people are setting up and applying procedures which work against the company rather than for it. And that this is why things go SNAFU when they are not around. And they are so very bad that they cause problems before they arrive? There are indeed, bad office managers, bad administration assistants. But, even a poor administration assistant who is a bit heavy handed in scheduling conference rooms is better than the chaos that occurs when no one schedules rooms, and two important meetings are scheduled in the same time and place. Companies that comprise more than one person are social and political entities. It is impossible to stop them from being such. Personal feelings, social relationships between the people involved all have an effect on the work that gets done. People that are good at facilitating that are very valuable. But if you structure that entintie on, say, reducing conflict, you get crap. I also don't think that progress is only measured by technology and business -- particularly I don't think that most corporations have a shining vision of the future- other than their own profits (of course there _are_ responsible and innovative companies which do). Was it always that way? When do you think it wasn't? The robber baron era, for example, was before women got the vote. The idea of a golden age before woman's lib where talent at producing things was the critical factor in a man's success is not supported by history. Or supported by me. That is not what I said, it is what you injected into what I was saying. There have been times when doing something for the progress of all mankind, when doing the right thing becouse it made things better was more important than personal advancement. (Not that personal advancement wasn't also an issue.) Actualy, as an aside, by interpreting my words the way that you did you personified the difference we were talking about. There are a few short lasting exceptions to this rule. For example, in WWII, talented generals did tend to do well, even if they were next to impossible to get along with. For a few years, when there were virtually no Americans with experience and money was unlimited (contracts were all cost plus), and schedules were tight, young talented engineers could rise fast at NASA. They did, however, have to have mentors who were senior in NASA and sponsored them. But, of course, when NASA stopped being a critical part of the Cold War , lost its direction after we beat the Russians to the moon, and people gained experience in NASA, it became a more typical bureaucratic entity. Indeed, it changed from one of the best to one of the worst organizations for obvious reasons. It lost its clear goal, and its funding was dependant on things that were inherently political in nature. That's what I'm talking about. Exactly it is only when the effort was achieved that the advancement deteriorated. NASA can't even listen to their experts any more, and why? Because its experts tell it things that, if passed on to Congress, would decrease funding. Once again what I am talking about. Because they are not people persons enough to get themselves heard in a strickly empathic driven political environement. You mean in the good old fashion shut up and do as your told corporate environment, everything would have been great? No, you are linking things that are not linked. (Although we can talk about the beinfits and constraints of strong leadership if you like.) The other day a few co-workers and I were talking about Starship Troopers the movie. Ed said that it was unfortunate that the uniforms in the movie looked so simmilar to a Nazi uniform. Tom then asked why it was unfortunate, the Nazi's had cool uniforms. Many in the group were agast. They couldn't seperate the consept of appearance and policy. It took about 20 minutes of convincing before the agast group could be convinced that Tom was refering ~only~ to the uniforms, even though that was all he has said. Once again, this is exactly the kind of thing I am talking about. This just a lunchtime converstaion, emagine the fallout of something like that work related. I disagree. What possible use could a forman with People skills? The right workers are the ones that get the job done. The only trouble that is important is those that effect the task at hand. Focus on the people skills and who gets the job depends on who likes who, what personalities fit together, not who can get the job done. In my experience, getting the job done usually involves working with other people.
Re: Girls more confident of success...in an empathicaly focused world
--- Dan Minette [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: bla bla bla The best person for plesant interaction, or the best person for achieving technical results? Out of curiosity, in your world view, does everyone work all by themselves and then everything falls into place at the end? How do you work with someone after saying in a big meeting your so ignorant, you don't know just how stupid you really are.** ? extreams to prove the falicy dan? = _ Jan William Coffey _ __ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free, easy-to-use web site design software http://sitebuilder.yahoo.com ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Girls more confident of success...in an empathicaly focused world
--- Dan Minette [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: - Original Message - From: Dan Minette [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Killer Bs Discussion [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Sunday, September 21, 2003 10:49 PM Subject: Re: Girls more confident of success...in an empathicaly focused world The average yearly growth in productivity per hour worked productivity per capita were both 2.4% between '95 and '01. Between '90 and '95 per capita productivity went up 1.2%, while productivity per hour worked went up 1%. Yea, ok, now it's not bla bla but do you think this is valid? based on what? Look around you, at the rate things ~were~ going, super sonic travel should be commonplace, a moon station should be old news, maned mars mission should be old news as well. Highly destributed concurent systems should be commonplace. Instead we have no super sonics for civilians, not even a shuttle replacement much less manned anything. And we are all forced to send gigantic packets of text trhough port 80 and a snails pace. But by someoenes crazy estimate we are ~more~ productive. sheesh! = _ Jan William Coffey _ __ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free, easy-to-use web site design software http://sitebuilder.yahoo.com ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Girls more confident of success...in an empathicaly focused world
- Original Message - From: Jan Coffey [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Killer Bs Discussion [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Sunday, September 21, 2003 11:12 PM Subject: Re: Girls more confident of success...in an empathicaly focused world --- Dan Minette [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: - Original Message - From: Dan Minette [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Killer Bs Discussion [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Sunday, September 21, 2003 10:49 PM Subject: Re: Girls more confident of success...in an empathicaly focused world The average yearly growth in productivity per hour worked productivity per capita were both 2.4% between '95 and '01. Between '90 and '95 per capita productivity went up 1.2%, while productivity per hour worked went up 1%. Yea, ok, now it's not bla bla but do you think this is valid? based on what? Look around you, at the rate things ~were~ going, super sonic travel should be commonplace, a moon station should be old news, maned mars mission should be old news as well. Highly destributed concurent systems should be commonplace. There is a much easier explanation for this. It first happened in physics, and then it happened in engineering as the simple applications of physics all happened. I think Pauli may have been the first to talk about it, but I won't swear it was him. It might have been Dirac, and I'd appreciate correction: Back then, a second rate mind could have a first rate idea. Now, a first rate mind has a hard time coming up with a third rate idea. The last fundamental revolution in physics was about 75 years ago. Recent fundamental theoretical advances, like the standard model, have no known commercial applications, even 25 years later. QED does, but that's 50 years old, and its probably the last innovation. So, back when all the physicists and their grad. students could fit into a room, tremendous progress in understanding physics was made in a very short time. Look at the funamental advances between, 1870 and 1930 and compare them to 1930 and 2000. Then look at how quickly commercial applications followed on the heels of the new physics. Radio was within about 20 years of EM theory. But, if you look at the physics of the last 50 years, you will see that a lot more effort is needed for much smaller advances. That happens a great deal with technology. When a field is new, advances are made by leaps and bounds. As it matures, it takes a great deal of effort to make a small advancement. When the maturation process happens varies from industry to industry. It happened with planes when they started going about 90% of the speed of sound. It happened in steel making about the same time. It has yet to happen with computers; we are still getting a factor of 2 every 18 months. Now, I rather doubt that the making of computer chips is more male problem solving oriented than, say, fusion energy or steel making. Technologies mature, and after the low hanging fruit is harvested, things get more difficult. I've seen the same process in my own industry. One could do a few straightforward things 20 years ago and make major progress. Now, the advances are much slower. In short, the lack of advance in space and airplane development is not due to the emphasis on empathy in the workplace. Rather, it is due to having been in the easy part of the learning curve for the first part of the century, and hitting a much more difficult streach lately. Dan M. Instead we have no super sonics for civilians, not even a shuttle replacement much less manned anything. And we are all forced to send gigantic packets of text trhough port 80 and a snails pace. But by someoenes crazy estimate we are ~more~ productive. sheesh! ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
