A test to screen stupid people who use computers

Why are textbooks so expensive? Well, it's used books, mostly.

American college programmers are starting to suck. A lot. Hopefully, I might be able to fix that one day.

A test to screen stupid people who use computers


Did you check out the demo test? I don't think "stupid people" is quite the right appellation.

But can I just point out that the author of the textbook article is beyond being a total tool? I seriously want to kick that guy in the head!

How dare bookstores mark up books by 30%, so they can make any profit on books they sell whatsoever? And bookstores selling textbooks is "a no-risk business." Obviously, he's never had to pay for shipping both ways for incredibly heavy books he couldn't do anything with--after he's paid someone to receive them, prepare them for sale, and return them to the publisher.

You know, I took a look at the problems for the 2005 ACM programming competition. I know how I'd solve about half of them at first glance, but there are some ugly problems in there.

Whether that means that I'm getting dumber, the problems are getting harder, or what, I don't know. However, I'm not going to say that America is going down the tubes, just because we haven't won an international programming competition in 8 years. It's a fucking international programming competition, the other nations should damn well better win sometime, I mean, there is only one America, but there are dozens of other competitive countries, holding no less than 2.5 billion people. If they can't beat us, the world is in a sad fucking state of affairs.

Combining the gender article with Mal's self-esteem article prompts me to ask: well, if it's not about telling girls they're good enough to do x or y, what's the deal? My hypotheses...girls tend to mature faster? Females are supposedly always thinking more long-term when they're choosing mates, so why not be more inclined to think long term when thinking about other life decisions? There's also the oft-cited "variance differences," where more men fall into the extreme ranges of ability in many areas whereas women tend to be more similar.

Obviously it doesn't make it okay to treat someone average like they're hot shit when someone else obviously has something on them.

Is it really something to worry about, though, if women still tend to put everyone else ahead of themselves (and all data I've seen recently support the idea that that trend isn't going anywhere)? I mean, in spite of goddess-named beauty equipment and Madonna trying to demonstrate how to become a dominatrix in her videos, the idea of a female putting herself first is still mostly limited to occasional indulgences in chocolate or manicures. Prove to me that the girls doing so much better than guys in high school and college aren't mostly settling down for BA's worth about half their husbands' and maybe we've got an actual debate. I think on the whole things kind of even out in the long run, usually still in males' favor.

Sorry, still pissed about that single child being primary predictive indicator of financial ruin thing.

My sister (a mom) has a theory about differences in male/female thinking. When comparing her abilities with that of her husband (and I suppose other parent pairs), she believes that females, on the whole, are are prone to be multi-task thinkers, whereas men are more singled-minded focusers.
I dunno. I tend to reject most all gendered theories of difference, but I still think her take is interesting. She bases her arguement on the ability of women to perform many tasks/roles at once - bringing home work to do in the evening, making dinner, cleaning up, planning the household arrangements for the next day, giving the kid a bath and putting it to bed, preparing for work the next day, remembering everyone in the household's schedules for the week...and generally all at the same time. Whereas men tend to move from one project to the next, getting harried when having to do all jobs at the same time (hence the Mr. Mom sterotype).

I would argue that, should this actually be true, it is because women are culturally conditioned to think in this way, with the expectation that they will be performing more roles/duties than men in these, our modern times.

anyway.

i don't know why I typed all this out. It seemed relevant at the outset.

well, if it's not about telling girls they're good enough to do x or y, what's the deal?

The part where the article really dug into my skin was the "well duh, girls are smarter" quote. I had to listen to that shit for 12 years. My elementary school experience was institutionalized sexism. I don't feel like qualifying that unless you're interested.

Obviously it doesn't make it okay to treat someone average like they're hot shit when someone else obviously has something on them.

I would argue that it depends on the circustances. 6 year old kids? They're pretty fucking stupid compared to the average adult, but we don't tell them that because they have room left for improvement. We shouldn't tell kids they'll never amount to anything good, but we do it all the time.

Is it really something to worry about, though, if women still tend to put everyone else ahead of themselves (and all data I've seen recently support the idea that that trend isn't going anywhere)?

I don't think this is any different for men. American culture encourages self-sacrifice to your employer as much as to your family - especially if that sacrifice is performed so that the family has money.

I mean, in spite of goddess-named beauty equipment and Madonna trying to demonstrate how to become a dominatrix in her videos, the idea of a female putting herself first is still mostly limited to occasional indulgences in chocolate or manicures.

Goddess-named beauty equipment? I totally missed that one.

Prove to me that the girls doing so much better than guys in high school and college aren't mostly settling down for BA's worth about half their husbands' and maybe we've got an actual debate.

Maybe you could explain to me why it is that girls do that? Because I haven't met a single scientist or engineer that doesn't want to know the answer to that question.

I think on the whole things kind of even out in the long run, usually still in males' favor.

That depends on what value system you're using.

Sorry, still pissed about that single child being primary predictive indicator of financial ruin thing.

They're just statisticians. Remember - they're not even real mathematicians, let alone real scientists ;-)

Stimulation of the left side of the brain made it harder for right-handers to attend to detail, whilst stimulation of the right side had this effect on left-handers.

Professor Glyn Humphreys from the University's School of Psychology said: "In right-handed people the right hemisphere sees the whole picture, whereas the left hemisphere attends to the details.

"However, we have found that in left-handed people, this is completely reversed.


The article is totally missing the "so what?" angle.

Don't make me smack you up, yo.

I, for one, welcome our new robotic camel jockey overlords.

I love your posts. :D

I please to aim.