quinnchr

I've been using http://www.criticker.com for a few years and have found some fantastic films. Never heard of YMDB but it seems like the same concept.

I totally get what you're saying about the unpredictability of human behaviour. But I don't see the connection to this particular system. It could totally be chaotic if it was modelled as a dynamical system, I don't disagree with that, but as far as I can tell they approached it using neural networks...

Chaos isn't an intrinsic behaviour of humans, it's a property arising from specific conditions in a dynamical system. I do think there's been interesting results in trying to model human behaviour (http://www.wilmott.com/pdfs/090610_mandelbrot.pdf), but like you I'm hesitant to apply these mathematical models to us irrational humans. Anyway, I'm just being a pedantic math nerd.

P.S. Sensitivity to initial conditions alone does not imply a dynamical system is chaotic.

It's not impossible at all. In fact there is entire field of study devoted to the long term evolution of dynamical systems (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ergodic_theory).

And within a chaotic system there are several types of stability that can be readily predicted over a long period of time such as Lyapunov stability and asymptotic stability.

Why do you think this system would be chaotic in the first place?

I'm pretty sure we still find plenty of use in the ideas much older than that... Do we not still teach the ideas of Pythagoras et al?

I'm pretty sure what you're trying to say is religion has no place in the 21st century.

Also fun fact, the early days of Islam saw huge steps forward for women's rights, more so than pretty much any other culture at the time (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_feminism#Early_reforms_...). I'm curious why you Mohammed was a misogynist and what that has to do with Islam?

My dad used a bike seat for me, which was doable since my brother and I were different ages and weren't often going to the same place. There are of course bike trailers for hauling 2-3 children around and don't forget pedicabs which regularly haul around 3-4 adults.

After you get used to it you don't really feel exhausted. Yes commuting 20 miles by bike is definitely an upper limit, at least for me, but I do know people with longer bike commutes.

So assuming you fuel yourself with pure beef, the most unsustainable food I could find, you'd need about .85 kg to get 2000 calories. On average the production of beef releases about 13.3 kg of CO2 per kg of beef, so we're looking at 11.305 kg of CO2 per commute. The average CO2 produced for a medium sized car is about .5 kg per mile. So for the same 40 mile commute you're looking at around 20 kg of emissions. So even if you choose to only eat the most unsustainable food it's still better than driving. If you switch to pork or poultry you can reduce that 11.305 kg of CO2 by about 75%. Cars just don't even come close.

Well show me some data then. Like I said, it seems like the majority of people live within a reasonable radius of work to make cycling feasible. I'm not saying it's easy, and there are plenty of people it doesn't work for, but I seriously doubt it's 80% of people.

I live in one of the worst cities for cycling in the US and I do all of those things regularly.

I bike to Costco and Ikea all the time, but sure you do have to get big stuff delivered unless you have a trailer (https://www.bikesatwork.com/blog/move-it-by-bike-moving-serv...). I used to commute to downtown from the suburbs daily. When I was young my dad used to bike me to daycare/school all the time. If you need to be somewhere in a suit you bike in pants + undershirt and add the rest when you get there.

All of these things are possible, admittedly there is a real limitation of needing to live within a 15-20 mile radius of work. The best data I can find suggests about 23% of commuters have a commute of more than 20 miles. So I would say cycling is a perfectly reasonable solution for the majority of people.

We'll it's usually advised that if bitten by a spider you should kill/capture it or take a picture so it can be identified and the correct anti-venom administered.

So yes, do call 911, but taking a picture could be potentially life saving.

Ummm, I kinda explicitly pointed to the Irish having a distinct culture that people celebrate.

And where did I say people are responsible for the misdeeds of their ancestors? You definitely aren't responsible, but you do benefit disproportionally from a long history of oppression. You shouldn't feel guilty, but you should be aware of it.

Nor was I saying we should be overly attentive to race, I'm simply saying that acknowledging someone's race isn't racist. And I hate to break it to you, but yes people do have a shared experience based on their skin color. Whether you're black and 8th generation American, or you're from Africa, there is a shared experience in the way you are perceived and treated in a society dominated by "white culture."

You sound like every defensive white dude ever who can't handle the fact that just maybe our society is built around us. You are the one who is erasing culture.

Seriously watch that video I linked (better yet, watch the whole movie).

People do say they are proud to be white all the time, just in a different way. I hear "I'm proud to be Irish!" all the time. The thing is "white culture" isn't really a thing, "white culture" is simply the dominant culture in our society that we tell other cultures they should adapt to.

No one is saying white people can't be proud of their heritage. They can be proud, and they do celebrate their heritage all the time. Acknowledging someone's race isn't extending racism, it's embracing them and their culture.

To be honest I used to think similarly, I never got why people had to be proud of their race, or why it was part of their identity. Eventually I realized it's because the dominant culture is white, I don't have to ask myself what it means to be white or what it means to be american. It is part of my identity, I just have the luxury of not having to think about it.

Anyway, I would highly recommend watching "The Color of Fear", it changed my mind on a lot of stuff I'd never thought about critically.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-vAbpJW_xEc

This is true, but why do these differences change so dramatically when you cross national borders? Specifically, Men have a higher variability in IQ in countries that have higher gender inequality. To me this seems to indicate that it's an issue of culture and the way men and women are socialized, not something biologically inherent to each sex.

Not related to IQ, but this study debunks the variability hypothesis in regards to mathematics performance: http://www.ams.org/notices/201201/rtx120100010p.pdf

Let me help you out: http://bit.ly/N5TntW

Discrete math usually serves as an introduction to methods of proofs, which would most definitely help with linear algebra.

I guess that's true if you consider being for legalized sex work the exact same as being against legalized sex work. She's pretty explicitly pro legalized sex work.

Let me quote the relevant part again:

"She views prostitution as violence against women and favors laws like those in Sweden, where the sale of sexual services is legal"

If you interpret viewing prostitution as violence the same as viewing sex between consensual adults as violence you're totally right on that one too.

In what ways do organizations like NOW actively fight against equality, and scream hate at men for daring to want to talk about men's issues?

Yes it's quite possible, as long as the don't lie about and belittle the position they are attacking.

I'm sorry but it's patently obvious that "every other organization is a men's organization" is hyperbole. You're making a very forced semantic argument that applies to pretty much everyone.

99.999% of feminists would agree that there are institutions dominated by women, they just happen to be the hyper-minority. You're doing exactly what's done every time a feminist discussion comes up, deliberately misrepresenting feminism in an attempt to discredit it.

Please show me these feminists that want to prohibit men from addressing men's issues. Or provide a shred of evidence for any of your claims. You're certainly entitled to your opinion, but don't post tired unsubstantiated bullshit and pretend you've critically engaged the subject.

No sorry, had the poster actually engaged the issue critically they'd probably at least cite specific sources and literature for the issues they are raising, instead of reciting the same tired criticisms of feminism that are brought up in literally every discussion of feminism ever.

So your issue with feminism is essentially that it's wrong for a women's movement to pursue women's issues?

Nothing about feminism is orthogonal to addressing the needs of men. In fact there is a lot of feminist theory exploring pretty much every single issue you listed, and if you did actually engage the issue critically you'd probably know that.

I highly doubt you engaged these issues critically if you seriously don't believe that most institutional structures are dominated by men.

Great, student bodies have slightly more women than men. However the vast majority of professors, researchers, and administrators are men. It's the positions of power being dominated by men that makes the institution for men. Much like the positions of power in politics and business are undeniably dominated by men.

The only reason "lunatic" feminists seem more visible is because people feel compelled to point out the most extreme views of "lunatic" feminists every single time there is a discussion of feminism.

It would be like if every time a science article was posted on HN you had multiple people pointing out that all science is crazy because some lunatics used to think eugenics was a good idea.

Seriously, pick any thread on HN vaguely related to feminism and you will find multiple people claiming that feminism is a worthless lunatic ideology not based on reality. And 99% of them use outdated theory (just as eugenics is outdated) and complete misrepresentations to back up their claims. For example saying things like:

"oh, wait, one of the leading feminists (Alice Schwarzer) is strongly opposing any legalisation of prostitution"

When in fact her position is nowhere close to that:

"She views prostitution as violence against women and favors laws like those in Sweden, where the sale of sexual services is legal but their purchase is not. (See also: Prostitution in Germany.)"

It's pretty ridiculous to claim that feminism seems crazy because fringe feminists are simply more public, when you are directly and purposefully contributing to making them more public in a pretty transparent attempt to discredit feminism.

This is an interesting campaign trying to tackle those exact issues of perception: http://www.africafornorway.no/

Did you read my post at all? I'm pretty explicitly not talking about all religious organizations, but rather religious charities, and like I already pointed out:

'My source counts charities as religious if they identify their cause as being for "Religious Activities" or "Religious Media and Broadcasting"' A small fraction of that would be the 400 million dollars spent lobbying by religious groups every year, you know lobbying to restrict women's rights and against same sex marriage.

No I didn't miss that part. Like I said religious charities devoted to human services are counted towards human services in the source I posted. My source counts charities as religious if they identify their cause as being for "Religious Activities" or "Religous Media and Broadcasting"

I'm not trolling. I think religous charities do a lot of good, but I think they also can do a lot of harm. I think it's ridiculous to suggest that private charity will solve everything when the majority of that charity goes to religious Charities who have a track record of oppressing those with different beliefs.

So... what's your point? You seem to be making a semantic argument, to what end?

Sometimes there's not a germane statistic and you might just have to go off of your own lived experience.

That doesn't really refute my point at all. Catholic charities devoted to human services are counted under human services.

I'm not sure where I said religious charities don't help people. They most certainly help members of their respective congregations. But they also can do a lot of harm, like you know, oppressing people by opposing same sex marriage, or pretty much anyone who doesn't share their religious beliefs.

Since we're focusing on catholics, what good is done by denying all of your employee's spouses insurance coverage, just so you don't have to extend the benefit to people in same sex marriages? http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03...

Except that the plurality of U.S. charity goes to religious charities.

Charitable giving for health, education, and human services accounts for only 33% of all charitable giving in the U.S. How much of that goes to programs designed to address poverty is debatable.

Source: http://www.alysterling.com/documents/GUSA2012ExecutiveSummar...

According to your own source US numbered highways were funded in large part by the federal government:

"Behind the scenes, the federal aid program had begun with the passage of the Federal Aid Road Act of 1916, providing 50% monetary support from the federal government for improvement of major roads. The Federal Aid Highway Act of 1921 limited the routes to 7% of each state's roads, while 3 in every 7 roads had to be "interstate in character". Identification of these main roads was completed in 1923.[1]"

Also according to your source it looks like the U.S. numbered highways developed in spite of the numerous private organizations existing at the time:

"The new system was both praised and criticized by local newspapers, often depending on whether that city ended up on a major route. While the Lincoln Highway Association understood and supported the plan, partly because they were assured of getting the US 30 designation as much as possible, most other trail associations lamented their obsolescence. At their January 14–15, 1926 meeting, AASHO was flooded with complaints."

Here's some similar research on race: http://www.nber.org/papers/w9873

White sounding names get 50% more callbacks then black sounding names when sending out identical resumes.