The grue emerald problem surely ranks with the Gettier problem as a red herring of the first order, generated by the misguided quest for confirmation, like Hempel’s paradox of the ravens. The paradox of the ravens means that the existence of a non-black non-raven like a white shoe or a green lizard gets to increase the likelihood that all ravens are black.
Goodman’s grue emeralds and the “new riddle of induction” | critical rationalism blog April 20, 2014
At the book’s center is Mr. Piketty’s contention — contrary to the influential theory developed by Simon Kuznets in the 1950s and ’60s — that mature capitalist economies do not inevitably evolve toward greater economic equality. Instead, Mr. Piketty contends, the data reveals a deeper historical tendency for the rate of return on capital to outstrip the overall rate of economic growth, leading to greater and greater concentrations of wealth at the very top.Despite this inevitable-seeming drift toward “patrimonial capitalism” that his charts seemed to show, Mr. Piketty rejected any economic determinism. “It all depends on what the political system decides,” he said.Such statements, along with Mr. Piketty’s proposal for a progressive wealth tax and income tax rates up to 80 percent, have aroused strong interest among those eager to recapture the momentum of the Occupy movement.
Thomas Piketty Tours U.S. for His New Book - NYTimes.com April 19, 2014
Mr. Piketty seems to be maintaining a most un-rock-star-like modesty, brushing away comparisons to Tocqueville and Marx with an embarrassed grimace and a Gallic puff of the lips.“It makes very little sense: How can you compare?” he said on Thursday between gulps of yogurt during a break in his packed schedule — before going on to list the 19th-century data sets that Marx neglected to draw on in “Das Kapital,” his 1867 magnum opus.“If Marx had looked at them, it would have made him think a bit more,” he said.
Thomas Piketty Tours U.S. for His New Book - NYTimes.com April 19, 2014
Summers resigned as Harvard's president in the wake of a no-confidence vote by Harvard faculty that resulted in large part from Summers's conflict with Cornel West, financial conflict of interest questions regarding his relationship with Andrei Shleifer, and a 2005 speech in which he suggested that the under-representation of women in science and engineering could be due to a "different availability of aptitude at the high end", and less to patterns of discrimination and socialization.
Lawrence Summers - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia April 19, 2014
The American Chemical Society said in 2012 that graphene was discovered to be 200 times stronger than steel and so thin that a single ounce of it could cover 28 football fields. Chinese scientists have created a graphene aerogel, an ultralight material derived from a gel, that is one-seventh the weight of air. A cubic inch of the material could balance on one blade of grass. “Graphene is one of the few materials in the world that is transparent, conductive and flexible — all at the same time,” said Dr. Aravind Vijayaraghavan, a lecturer at the University of Manchester. “All of these properties together are extremely rare to find in one material.”
Bend It, Charge It, Dunk It: Graphene, the Material of Tomorrow - NYTimes.com - NYTimes.com April 19, 2014
Many studies have shown that non-compete agreements reduce R&D investment and stifle innovation. MIT Professor Matt Marx conducted a seminal study in Michigan that showed that the enforcement of non-competes caused a sharp drop in mobility for inventors, thereby slowing innovation and economic dynamism. Professor Mark Garmaise of UCLA published a study which had similar findings and, further, assessed the state by state use of non-competes, concluding that Massachusetts had one of the strictest in the nation
Seeing Both Sides: It's All About Talent (part 2) - Eliminating Non-Competes April 16, 2014
The main problem with MM pairs is caused by non-deterministic values generated by the database engine itself, such as autoincrement fields, random numbers and timestamps. The solution to that is that we don’t let the db generate anything. Every value inserted/modified always comes from the application. This allows us to write to either of the two sides of a MM pair knowing it will get replicated to the other side correctly. I’ve heard that MM pairs don’t make sense since you’re executing everything twice. It’s true that you are executing everything twice, but you’re doing it already if you’re using a master-slave(s) setup, and the benefits that come from MM pairs are huge. In addition to giving you fault tolerance and load balancing, they are the key to being able to do non-disruptive, live schema changes.
Two Sides For Salvation « Code as Craft April 16, 2014
In Shakespeare's Henry IV, Part 2, Act 3, Scene 1, the king has a soliloquy. It begins, "How many thousand of my poorest subjects / Are at this hour asleep! O sleep, O gentle sleep, . . ." At the end, he declares, "Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown."
Who wrote "Heavy hangs the head that wears the crown." ? April 16, 2014
"We already know that the human immune system changes in space. It's not as strong as it is on the ground," explains Kundrot. "In one of the experiments, Mark and Scott will be given identical flu vaccines, and we will study how their immune systems react." Another experiment will look at telomeres—little molecular "caps" on the ends of human DNA. Here on Earth, the loss of telomeres has been linked to aging. In space, telomere loss could be accelerated by the action of cosmic rays. Comparing the twins' telomeres could tell researchers if space radiation is prematurely aging space travelers. .physorg-news-middle-block { width: 550px; height: 90px; } (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); Meanwhile in the gut, says Kundrot, "there is a whole microbiome essential to human digestion. One of the experiments will study what space travel does to [inner bacteria] which, by the way, outnumber human cells by 10-to-1." Other proposals are equally fascinating. One seeks to discover why astronaut vision changes in space. "Sometimes, their old glasses from Earth don't work," notes Kundrot. Another will probe a phenomenon called "space fog"—a lack of alertness and slowing of mental gears reported by some astronauts in orbit.
NASA to conduct unprecedented twin experiment April 15, 2014
For some of the children, they praised the action: “It was good that you gave some of your marbles to those poor children. Yes, that was a nice and helpful thing to do.” For others, they praised the character behind the action: “I guess you’re the kind of person who likes to help others whenever you can. Yes, you are a very nice and helpful person.”Continue reading the main story A couple of weeks later, when faced with more opportunities to give and share, the children were much more generous after their character had been praised than after their actions had been. Praising their character helped them internalize it as part of their identities. The children learned who they were from observing their own actions: I am a helpful person. This dovetails with new research led by the psychologist Christopher J. Bryan, who finds that for moral behaviors, nouns work better than verbs. To get 3- to 6-year-olds to help with a task, rather than inviting them “to help,” it was 22 to 29 percent more effective to encourage them to “be a helper.” Cheating was cut in half when instead of, “Please don’t cheat,” participants were told, “Please don’t be a cheater.” When our actions become a reflection of our character, we lean more heavily toward the moral and generous choices.
Raising a Moral Child - NYTimes.com April 14, 2014
Iran established a national army only recently, under the Pahlavis. The country has no martial tradition, and does not share neighbouring Turkey’s high esteem for the profession of arms. Iran did much to provoke the war with Iraq, but did not start or expect it. Tehran has avoided direct military conflict ever since, and its military expenditure is slight compared to that of its smaller Gulf neighbours. Unlike these smaller states, Iran’s imports are limited and basic rather than modern or high-tech. Although isolated, sanctioned, contained and depicted as a military threat by some, the country has rarely threatened to use force or seen its own security in military terms. Instead, it has steadily focused on the maintenance of domestic stability and security.
Is Iran a Military Threat? - Carnegie Endowment for International Peace April 12, 2014
حتی درسال 1373 هم که به آمریکا رفتم و مدتی عضو هیئت نمایندگی کشورمان درمجمع عمومی سازمان ملل بودم هیچ وقت این گونه سوالات در لفافه پیچیده مطرح نبوده است. البته دلیل آن روشن است وآن اینکه دراین گونه موارد، آن کشورها وحتی آمریکایی ها هم به دور از ابهام ویا هراس و فوبیای داخلی و برمبنای واقعیات به این مطالب توجه می کنند. واقعیت این است که من در سیزده آبان آن سال و زمان اشغال اصلا در تهران نبودم که از این امر مطلع ویا درآن مشارکت ویا حضور داشته ویا نامم مطرح باشد؛ بلکه من دراهواز از ماوقع مطلع شدم. مدتی بعد که به تهران آمدم یک روز مرحوم شهید دادمان به واسطه یکی دیگر ازشهدا و فرماندهان جنگ تحمیلی به نام مرحوم شهید ذاکر به من پیغام داد که آنها برای ترجمه به زبان فرانسه به کسی نیاز دارند که بتواند این کاررا انجام دهد
معاون سیاسی دفتر رئیس جمهوری: موفقیت ویژه روحانی شکستن فضای ایران هراسی است April 12, 2014
A study of the Iranian experience in itself can offer rare insights whether for its own features and characteristics or for its possible lessons and implications for recent events in the region. This book is concerned with the economic aspects and consequences of the Iranian Revolution in general and its interaction with the international economy in particular. Many studies have to date dealt with Iran’s economic challenges, policies and performance in the post-revolutionary period but its interaction with the international economy – although of growing importance – has not received sufficient attention.
Iran and the Global Economy: Petro Populism, Islam and Economic Sanctions Routledge Political Economy of the Middle East and North Africa: Amazon.co.uk: Parvin Alizadeh, Hassan Hakimian: Books April 12, 2014
OpenSSL, used by a host of companies and services to encrypt their data, contained a flaw for two years that, if exploited, allowed external parties to extract data from a server’s working memory in 64 kilobyte chunks. That’s not much, but it was a very repeatable exploit, meaning that nefarious parties could hit the 64 kilobyte button again and again. Eventually, presumably, you would get the golden ticket: private encryption keys. With that, you could decrypt sensitive, protected data, and no one would be the wiser. Here’s why this is even worse than you first thought: Even if you patch OpenSSL, you don’t know if your servers were previously compromised. You can throw out the old keys and generate new ones, but that only protects you moving forward.
OpenSSL Heartbleed Bug Leaves Much Of The Internet At Risk | TechCrunch April 9, 2014
There has been a generational shift but let’s also blame it on the global heterosexism! It is fascinating to see how during the 60’s and 70’s, drag (for both men and women) was one of the most popular elements of the entertainment culture; effeminate men were the most successful performers, comedians, musicians, etc. And since the 80’s there has been an increasing disidentification between the transgender and homosexuals in Iran because of the state support for transsexuality and the criminalization of homosexuality, hence an overall erasure of the image of gay, especially men. For example Fereydoun Farrokhzad[v] was one of the most popular and influential figures of his generation. Although most of those figures were very discreet about their sexuality and gender, even that ambiguity allowed them to perform in a unique way, people like Ramesh, Farrokhzad and even Hayedeh. Since the 80’s or 90’s we are more and more lacking that visual imagery. We grew up in a visual entertainment culture, produced mostly by the diaspora and almost accessible to everybody in Iran that was very queer aesthetically, to say the least.
When The Kid Was A Kid - Wild Gender April 8, 2014
As for television, one of the most inspiring TV shows for me and for millions of others kids and adults in Iran was Kolah Ghermezi. I totally think of the little puppets in the show as queer. The show was full of gender role-play in different forms. I loved the parts where Kolah Ghermezi put on make-up and a veil and impersonated a pregnant woman who was allergic to all kinds of food except chocolate! In a way Kolah-Ghermezi became an iconic gay figure for me; his emotional responses, his tone of talking, it was all very different from a typical “young boy”. He was the embodiment of a kind of gender non-conformity in young people.
When The Kid Was A Kid - Wild Gender April 8, 2014
The classic game Go was influential on the early combinatorial game theory, and Berlekamp and Wolfe subsequently developed an endgame and temperature theory for it (see references). Armed with this they were able to construct plausible Go endgame positions from which they could give expert Go players a choice of sides and then defeat them either way.
Combinatorial game theory - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia April 8, 2014
In its purest sense, “invention“ can be defined as the creation of a product or introduction of a process for the first time. “Innovation,” on the other hand, occurs if someone improves on or makes a significant contribution to an existing product, process or service. Consider the microprocessor. Someone invented the microprocessor. But by itself, the microprocessor was nothing more than another piece on the circuit board. It’s what was done with that piece — the hundreds of thousands of products, processes and services that evolved from the invention of the microprocessor — that required innovation.
The Difference Between ‘Invention’ and ‘Innovation’ | Idea Lab | PBS April 6, 2014
It says, in part: As a partner venture capitalist at Google Ventures, Kevin directs the flow of capital from Google into the tech startup bubble that is destroying San Francisco. The start-ups that he funds bring the swarms of young entrepreneurs that have ravaged the landscapes of San Francisco and Oakland. The flyer claims to speak for the service workers who “serve them coffee, deliver them food, suck their cocks [?], watch their kids, and mop their floors” and goes on to complain that most techies are “just like Kevin Rose,” though again, it’s short on specific criticisms, aside from pointing out that techies make a lot of money.
Anti-Tech Protesters Are Telling Kevin Rose’s Neighbors That He’s A “Parasite” | TechCrunch April 6, 2014
LEDs, glow-in-the-dark t-shirts, and detergents that “make your whites whiter” are all possible thanks to a property called luminescence. It comes in many shapes and sizes, but it’s all the same general principle: turn energy into light! Humanity has quickly taken this property, carved it up, marketed it, and given it cool names like triboluminescence, cathodoluminescence, and sonoluminescence.
nerd nite: smithsonian April 6, 2014
UPS engineers found that left-hand turns were a major drag on efficiency. Turning against traffic resulted in long waits in left-hand turn lanes that wasted time and fuel, and it also led to a disproportionate number of accidents. By mapping out routes that involved "a series of right-hand loops," UPS improved profits and safety while touting their catchy, environmentally friendly policy. As of 2012, the right turn rule combined with other improvements -- for the wow factor, UPS doesn't separate them out -- saved around 10 million gallons of gas and reduced emissions by the equivalent of taking 5,300 cars of the road for a year.
Why UPS Trucks Don't Turn Left April 5, 2014
کششهای رفتن همانهایی است که همیشه بوده، تحصیل در دانشگاهی بهتر، اندکی آزادی و استقلال بیشتر، امکانات و موقعیت بیشتر برای کار حرفهای و حتی تفریح و خوشگذارنی. و دردهای اینجا هم ثابت است، محدودهای سیاسی و اجتماعی و حتی خانوادگی، دانشگاههای ناکارآمد، موقعیت شغلی محدود و... علتش در ذهن من یک چیز بیشتر نیست. در این شهر به ما خوش گذشته. و بعید است جای دیگری انقدر خوش بگذرد. سعی میکنم کمی توضیح دهم که چطور در اینجا به ما خوش گذشته. درست است که نوجوانی و اوایل جوانی ما در فضای بستهی سیاسی گذشته، در دورهای که سیاستها سانسور و محدودیت در مورد محصولات فرهنگی به شدت اعمال میشده و گشت ارشاد در خیابانها بوده، اما ما از تجربهی نسلهای قبل راههای درروی بسیاری یاد گرفتهایم. زندگی زیرزمینی و فرهنگ زیرزمینی را گسترش دادیم
تجربهی زيسته April 5, 2014
One thing that is worth thinking about is the role of the underserved merchant in the adoption of a new payment system. Specifically, I mean merchants who today cannot easily collect payments from customers (i.e. it requires high up-front or ongoing cost), but with a new payment system they can collect easily and have enough margin to run a business. Some examples of underserved merchants and their enablers are:• eBay merchants enabled by PayPal • Farmers’ Market merchants enabled by Square • Developers who want to collect payments online enabled by Stripe • Drug dealers enabled by Bitcoin Underserved merchants have something people want, but customers can’t pay. The underserved audience is the engine that fuel the growth of new payment systems and helps the system move upmarket and be accepted by bigger, more established merchants.With this lens, let’s think about a few specific examples where there are merchants who have something people want, but it is hard/expensive/capital-intensive/need-a-middle-man to accept payments today.
Bitcoin FAQ — Medium April 5, 2014 | Modified
The money supply for BTC increases slowly. This is discouraging transactions because (if you believe in the currency and its future) you should hoard your BTC. The amount of new BTC going into circulation is low, barring any disaster (e.g. Germany banning BTC, Kraken hacked), it just makes sense to hold because what you have today will be worth more tomorrow.Because of the limits in the supply of money, today BTC is more of a stored value system (like gold), than a transactional currency (like USD).
Bitcoin FAQ — Medium April 5, 2014
Compare and contrast that to Dogecoin, the satirical currency whose mascot is a shiba inu that speaks like a caveman. New coins are issued frequently and at high volume and each coin has little value.
Most embarrassing Harvard moment: Me (whispering to a friend): “Hey, look at the professor’s zipper, it’s open… ”Professor: “I know, it’s broken.”
Pietro Galeone | The Harvard Crimson April 5, 2014
Shia Islam is another sect that adopted "negative theology". Most Salafi/Athari adherents reject this methodology because they believe that the Attributes of God, as depicted in Islamic scriptures is to be literal. But most Sunnis, who are Ash'ari and Maturidi by Kalam use ta'til to some extent, if not completely.
Apophatic theology - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia April 5, 2014
In brief, negative theology is an attempt to clarify religious experience and language about the Divine Good through discernment, gaining knowledge of what God is not (apophasis), rather than by describing what God is.
Apophatic theology - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia April 5, 2014
The fourth wall is the imaginary "wall" at the front of the stage in a traditional three-walled box set in a proscenium theatre, through which the audience sees the action in the world of the play.[1][2] The idea of the fourth wall was made explicit by philosopher and critic Denis Diderot and spread in 19th-century theatre with the advent of theatrical realism,[3] which extended the idea to the imaginary boundary between any fictional work and its audience. Speaking directly to or otherwise acknowledging the audience through a camera in a film or television program, or through this imaginary wall in a play, is referred to as "breaking the fourth wall" and is considered a technique of metafiction, as it penetrates the boundaries normally set up by works of fiction.
Fourth wall - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia April 5, 2014
Suppose P=NPP = NP and a fast linear-time algorithm for SAT appears tomorrow. Suddenly RSA is insecure, much of our modern communication system is broken, and we need to reconsider how to keep secrets from each other. Question: Is there a good single reference (or short list) to gain a big-picture view of what is possible in crypto (and in the allied field of "security") without intractability assumptions? This could save civilization one day, and would also be nice to peruse in the meantime. Discussion: Most of the cryptographic tasks we now study (OWFs, PRGs, PKE) are provably impossible in the P=NPP = NP world (a world dubbed "Algorithmica" in an influential essay by Impagliazzo), but some things remain possible: communication with a one-time pad; distributed secret sharing; private info retrieval; and some other nice things.
cr.crypto security - Cryptography without assumptions -- seeking an overview - Theoretical Computer Science Stack Exchange April 3, 2014
I have come to appreciate the important role that prestigious journals like Science, Nature and Cell play in filtering out bad science, and protecting both the public and other researchers from wasting their time reading about – or following up on – results that are not believable. You have all, undoubtedly heard about recent studies examining the reproducibility of scientific results. For example, a recent Nature paper [paywalled, so you can believe it] described how scientists at drug company Amgen were able to successfully replicate six of 53 landmark studies in cancer research. As these were landmark studies, most were published in the highest profile subscription journals. And these results prove that – contrary to what I would have expected – the top subscription journals doing a great job of picking papers. First, Amgen, who doesn’t like to waste their money, found 53 of these studies important enough to try to replicate. I don’t think they’ve bothered to try even a dozen PLOS ONE papers. But more amazingly these scientists at Amgen were able to get the same results as important academic scientists OVER ten percent of the time. This means that the papers must have described the methods extremely clearly – a hallmark of high profile journals.
Why I, a founder of PLOS, am forsaking open access April 3, 2014
