This robot from USC moves amazingly. That it is funded by DARPA makes me think twice about what it might be used for.
Stumbling Through Mediocrity
One of James Fallows’ readers comments on teaching to students in China and their obsession with the standardized test (gaokao) that will determine their future.
The only thing that matters is the test, and doing well on the test is a matter of memorizing a number of decontextualized facts. The worst affect by far of the [...]
I agree with Dick Cheney!
Asked for his reaction to Bush’s decision [not to pardon Scooter Libby] Cheney said: “Scooter Libby is one of the most capable and honorable men I’ve ever known. He’s been an outstanding public servant throughout his career. He was the victim of a serious miscarriage of justice, and I strongly believe [...]
Apparently 1 out of 53K or so.
I’m not quite one of a kind, but getting there.
I took the 43 Things Personality Quiz and found out I’m a
Lifelong Learning Self-Knowing Health Nut
Words of wisdom from government employee Ronald Reagan:
The best minds are not in government. If any were, business would hire them away.
Ronald Reagan
40th president of US (1911 – 2004)
The Quotations Page.
As someone who has definitely expended too much of my life on the watching of Gilligan’s Island, this is heartening news. Shirky argues that there has been a cognitive surplus in the developed world and for the past 50 years we have been soaking up that surplus with situation comedies and that now we are [...]
Is it any wonder communication fails?
Her version of the story:
R: I thought of something else you should get at the store.
L: Ok.
R. Hum.
L: I’m getting a pad.
L: What was it?
R: What was it?
L: What was what?
L: What you wanted to me to get?
R: I thought you wrote it down?
L: Wrote what down?
R: Gum
My side:
R: I [...]
Reasoning, when we do it, is mostly to find justification for what we already believe.
Jonathan Haidt, a social psychologist at the University of Virginia, in here.
Senator Clinton has decided that she is not going to apologize for her vote in 2002 authorizing the use of military force in Iraq.
If the most important thing to any of you is choosing someone who did not cast that vote or has said his vote was a mistake, then there are others to choose [...]