Sunday Soiree
And while we are about it, we may as well proceed on cleaning up a few stray article-thoughts that have piled up.
First, courtesy of researchers at U Haifa and U Michigan, we have indication that the larger the population the less the competition. [Link] The mumblage – whether journalistic or researcher is unclear – is
“When that bit of the test was over, (the researchers) then asked the participants a series of questions commonly used by psychologists to evaluate an individual’s tendency to compare himself with others in a social environment. They found that those with the highest tendency to make such comparisons had the lowest scores in the notional race against 500 others. These socially aware individuals are, as it were, looking around, assessing the situation and thinking that it is not worth trying too hard.”
I suspect I have a simpler answer, at least if I can pose it in terms of grades. Most college courses are graded on some sort of normalizable distribution, often Gaussian, Most students have some desired grade to make in a course. The bigger the student population in a course, the larger the number of grades of the desired degree. Hence a perception of ease.
An article in CNET [Link] addresses the takeover of the netbook market by Windows and the demise of Linux and solid state drives. It is journalism like this that not only makes me wonder how these folks are lasting as long as they are, but what kind of absolute slime mold mentats they think the consumerate is. Windows succeeded and Linux ‘failed’ because too many people who want to use netbooks are just plain too bogish to be able to handle Linux. To paraphrase the popular series of books, which are themselves too simple, Windows is for folks too dummy to be claimed by dummies. Linux is for alphas, Windows is for epsilons and maybe deltas. And the demise of the solid state drive is not economics, the economics are driven by supply and demand and when the demand goes down, the price goes up, at least in computer stuff. No, the reason the solid state drives went away is because Windows is a drive hawg and the solid state drives won’t permit all the stercus that Windows is and attracts.
On which subject, I note that some high shul in Indiana is renting netbooks to students. [Link] Given the fragility of most netbooks, and how most high shul students treat property, this sounds like a recipe for more financial stupidity, not that we expect anything more from shul systems. This more serves to remind us that the shuls have been steadily getting worse at producing knowledgeable graduates in correlation with increasing budgets. It costs more to keep them ignorant?
Meanwhile, the controversy over whether altered conditions, notably pressure, can accelerate nuclear decay continues. [Link] The idea is that by squeezing radioactive matter its half life is decreased – it emits decay particles faster. There are two sides to this: one is getting rid of waste products from nuclear reactors quickly; the other is getting more energy out of smaller reactors. Right now the whole thing is up in the air. That’s a polite way of saying the results are ambiguous to nonexistent. I could opine about non-nerd scientists but since I don’t know the folks involved, I’ll wait and see. Besides if this does work its new ground.
Speaking of energy, it seems that a Burger Tyrant in New Yawk has installed a spring loaded speed bump to capture energy from the automobiles going through their drive-through. [Link] Given what their products do to the customers – fat, sodium, other nasties – I suspect this will be very effective. After all, people who eat at fast food vendors are more massive than those who do not. And the exercise resulting from the movement might be marginally beneficial.
Then there is an article [Link] that the remains of Nikolaus Copernicus have been identified. Strange reportage here. The argument is that remains from a church Copernicus officiated have DNA match with hairs in a book owned by him. The rigor of the association seems a bit missing, something akin to the logic displayed by justicers on television dramas. Demonstration that the hairs are Copernicus’ seems the weakest link here. Besides, this is a bog thing; nerds are like imaginary aliens – its what you do not who you are.
