2020-09-10 Ned Batchelder
https://nedbatchelder.com//blog/202009/how_to_be_helpful_online.html
Why has college gotten so expensive in the last 30 years? Probably because the government handed them a blank check in 1993.
2020-09-01 Andrew Ghobrial
the federal government pays the universities/colleges up front, and the student then owes the government that money.
This represented a large shift in the alignment of incentives. When the loans come from the federal gov, there’s much less pressure on schools to compete on price.
Artificial brains may need sleep too
2020-06-08 James Riordon
States that resemble sleep-like cycles in simulated neural networks quell the instability that comes with uninterrupted self-learning in artificial analogs of brains
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Watkins and her research team found that the network simulations became unstable after continuous periods of unsupervised learning. When they exposed the networks to states that are analogous to the waves that living brains experience during sleep, stability was restored. “It was as though we were giving the neural networks the equivalent of a good night’s rest,” said Watkins.
https://www.lanl.gov/discover/news-release-archive/2020/June/0608-artificial-brains.php
Trump admits he ‘often’ regrets tweets, retweets get him ‘into trouble’, in interview with Barstool Sports founder
2020-07-25 Joseph A. Wulfsohn
“Do you sometimes — because I follow you on Twitter and I know I do this… do you ever tweet out and be like — you wake up and, ‘Aw man, I wish I didn’t send that one out’?” Portnoy asked.
“Often, too often,” Trump responded. “It used to be in the old days before this, you’d write a letter and you’d say this letter is very big. You put it on your desk and then you go back tomorrow and you say, ‘Oh, I’m glad I didn’t send it,’ right? But we don’t do that with Twitter, right? We put it out instantaneously, we feel great, and then you start getting phone calls — ‘Did you really say this?’ I say, ‘What’s wrong with that?’ and you find out a lot of things.”
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/trump-admits-often-regrets-tweets-barstool-sports-ceo
What We Believe – Black Lives Matter
2020-07-11 Black Lives Matter Foundation, Inc
We disrupt the Western-prescribed nuclear family structure requirement by supporting each other as extended families and “villages” that collectively care for one another, especially our children, to the degree that mothers, parents, and children are comfortable.
https://blacklivesmatter.com/what-we-believe/
Wayback Machine copy:
http://web.archive.org/web/20200822193504/https://blacklivesmatter.com/what-we-believe/
Behind the dead-water phenomenon
2020-07-06 CNRS
What makes ships mysteriously slow down or even stop as they travel, even though their engines are working properly?
…In 1904, the Swedish physicist and oceanographer Vagn Walfrid Ekman showed in a laboratory that waves formed under the surface at the interface between the salt water and freshwater layers that form the upper portion of this area of the Arctic Ocean interact with the ship, generating drag.
This phenomenon, called dead water, is seen in all seas and oceans where waters of different densities (because of salinity or temperature) mix. It denotes two drag phenomena observed by scientists. The first, Nansen wave-making drag, causes a constant, abnormally low speed. The second, Ekman wave-making drag, is characterized by speed oscillations in the trapped boat. The cause of this was unknown.
Hidden Neutrino Particles May Be a Link to the Dark Sector
2020-07-01 William Charles Louis and Richard G. Van de Water
The most likely solution was a new neutrino—a “sterile” neutrino, so called because it would not interact with other matter in any way except through gravity.
Nuclear ‘Power Balls’ May Make Meltdowns a Thing of the Past
“It is physically impossible—as in, against the laws of physics—for triso to melt in a reactor,” says Sell. “And when you start with a reactor that can’t melt, your safety case completely changes.”
Why the US military usually punishes misconduct but police often close ranks
2019-12-06
When police are revealed to have killed an unarmed suspect or used excessive force during arrest, police generally defend those actions. Cops who report wrongdoing are routinely ostracized as “rats” and denied promotions, according to a 1998 Human Rights Watch study. Researchers identify this so-called “blue wall of silence” – the refusal to “snitch” on other officers – as a defining feature of U.S. cop culture today.
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U.S. military culture stresses organizational, rather than personal, loyalty.
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And the pride Marines famously feel, for instance, comes from being part of this well-respected corps. Personal relationships with other Marines are of secondary importance.
Is Dark Mode Such A Good Idea?
2020-02-02 Raluca Budiu
Results showed that light mode won across all dimensions: irrespective of age [of the individual], the positive contrast polarity [light mode] was better for both visual-acuity tasks and for proofreading tasks.