Books and Music That Make You Dumb - Digits - WSJ.com
http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2009/02/27/books-and-music-that-make-you-dumb/

A 25-year-old Caltech graduate student has developed a tongue-in-cheek statistical look at taste and intelligence.

WSJ - Digits

Anyone who has ever sought to justify their own musical or literary taste may find some solace in the side project of Virgil Griffith, a 25-year-old Caltech graduate student known for embarrassing numerous corporations with his WikiScanner, the database that tracks the sources of anonymous edits to Wikipedia entries.

Using facebook statistics to find correlation between intellegence and taste.

LOL

Average SAT (with standard error) for the 133 most popular entries for "favorite music" on facebook. The vertical axis doesn't mean anything.

counting crows? really?

Eh

interesting though probably incorrect in many ways. relationship from sat scores to music taste

DTI is a variant of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) that can measure the structural integrity of the brain's white matter, which is made up of cells that carry nerve impulses from one part of the brain to another. The greater the structural integrity, the faster nerve impulses travel. >Personal Note: I worked with DTI during my internship at the MRRC (Magnetic Resonance Research Center) at Yale University. Our signals looked more similar to the second image except that we didn't have a 3d model extracted from the raw signal (the second one shows a raw DTI signal with an overlay of its 3d model representation).

The smarter the person, the faster information zips around the brain, a UCLA study finds. And this ability to think quickly apparently is inherited. The study, published in the Journal of Neuroscience, looked at the brains and intelligence of 92 people. All the participants took standard IQ tests. Then the researchers studied their brains using a technique called diffusion tensor imaging, or DTI. Capturing Mental Speed DTI is a variant of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) that can measure the structural integrity of the brain's white matter, which is made up of cells that carry nerve impulses from one part of the brain to another. The greater the structural integrity, the faster nerve impulses travel. "These images really give you a picture of the mental speed of the brain," says Paul Thompson, Ph.D., a professor of neurology at UCLA School of Medicine. They're also "the most beautiful images of the brain you could imagine," Thompson says. "My daughter, who's 5, says they look like

Smart People Really Do Think Faster http://bit.ly/ey8Db So...that means all us twitter users are wicked smart [from http://twitter.com/AdamPieniazek/statuses/1375120864]

Tying the hands of a person who is speaking, the Arab proverb goes, is akin to "tying his tongue." Western soldiers in Iraq know how important gestures can be when communicating with locals. To close, open and close a fist means "light," but just opening a fist means "bomb." One soldier recently home from Iraq once tried to order an Iraqi man to lie down. To get his point across, the soldier had to demonstrate by stretching out in the dirt. Translation software could help, but what's the best way to make it available in the field?

iPod is becoming tool of choice for US Military

Apple’s New Weapon To help soldiers make sense of data from drones, satellites and ground sensors, the U.S. military now issues the iPod Touch.

The US military has been looking for a device that is both versatile and easy to use to help its soldiers make sense of information they receive from satellites, drones, and ground sensors while in the field. The iPod Touch has become that new device. It's cheaper than the current devices distributed to soldiers and Apple has already done all of the necessary research and manufacturing for the devices. As the iPod Touch gains more functionality, it is hoped that soldiers will gradually be able to shed soem of their other devices and just carry the iPod.

To help soldiers make sense of data from drones, satellites and ground sensors, the U.S. military now issues the iPod Touch.

I can haz higher IQ?

Instead of seeing a single series of items like the one above, test-takers saw two different sequences, one of single letters and one of spatial locations.

Find N-Back test on web

The Boston Globe

an interesting article about baby's brain

The latest research suggests a more prosaic, democratic, even puritanical view of the world. The key factor separating geniuses from the merely accomplished is not a divine spark. It’s not I.Q., a generally bad predictor of success, even in realms like chess. Instead, it’s deliberate practice. Top performers spend more hours (many more hours) rigorously practicing their craft.

Genius - The Modern View

IQ persistence and success

"The key factor separating geniuses from the merely accomplished is not a divine spark. It’s not I.Q., a generally bad predictor of success, even in realms like chess. Instead, it’s deliberate practice. Top performers spend more hours (many more hours) rigorously practicing their craft."

Converting Clicks into Customers

SeeWhy Inc., an Andover, Mass.-based provider of real-time analystics on los ecommerce customers, has raised $4.5 million in second-round funding. Scottish Enterprise was joined by return backers Logispring, Pentech Ventures and Delta Partners

spam

see why you are losing your prospects this analytics tool helps you to identify landing pages,shopping carts abandonment

not so sure

Besides the fact that this comes from the NY Post, this article raises some legitimate causes for concern about our education system. Jack also provides some solutions worth thinking about and discussing...

Suppose all goes well. He'll be sitting in front of a teacher a good 18 months after first deciding to learn. What folly. The answer is to relieve schools of the job of validating knowledge and return them to a role of spreading it. Colleges should no more vouch for their own academic competence than butchers should decide for themselves whether their meat is USDA prime. As I write this, Google is putting every book ever written online. Apple is offering video college lectures for free download through its iTunes software. Skype allows free videoconferencing anywhere in the world. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology and many other schools have made course materials available for free on their Web sites. Tutors cost as little as $15 an hour. Today's student who decides to learn at 1 a.m. should be doing it by 1:30. A process that makes him wait 18 months is not an education system. It's a barrier to education.

"A student who secures a degree is increasingly unlikely to make up its cost, despite higher pay, and the employer who requires a degree puts faith in a system whose standards are slipping. Too many professors who are bound to degree teaching can't truly profess; they don't proclaim loudly the things they know but instead whisper them to a chosen few, whom they must then accommodate with inflated grades. Worst of all, bright citizens spend their lives not knowing the things they ought to know, because they've been granted liberal-arts degrees for something far short of a liberal-arts education."

"Systems on the edge of chaos are said to be in a state of "self-organised criticality". These systems are right on the boundary between stable, orderly behaviour - such as a swinging pendulum - and the unpredictable world of chaos, as exemplified by turbulence... Brain scans used to map the connections between regions of the human brain discovered that they form a "small-world network" - exactly the right architecture to support self-organised criticality. Small-world networks lie somewhere between regular networks, where each node is connected to its nearest neighbours, and random networks, which have no regular structure but many long-distance connections between nodes at opposite sides of the network. Small-world networks take the most useful aspects of both systems. In places, the nodes have many connections with their neighbours, but the network also contains random and often long links between nodes that are very far away from one another. It's the perfect compromise."

Do ideas sometimes pop into your head from, it seems, nowhere? Yes, and it’s because your brain actually operates on the edge of chaos. In fact, your brain is like a pile of sand, but don't worry: that's why it has such remarkable powers

via http://habrahabr.ru/blogs/popular_science/65236/

BBC NEWS | Technology | Artificial brain '10 years away' http://nm14b.tk [from http://twitter.com/stevepuma/statuses/2802534611]

a newly invented technology for an artificial brain will be available in the market 10 years away.

Blue Brain project says within 10 years we can have a fully functional replica of the human brain.

Content Type: text/html

Human Skills

“A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, and die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.” – Robert A. Heinlein

In several benchmark tests of focus, college students who routinely juggle many flows of information, bouncing from e-mail to web text to video to chat to phone calls, fared significantly worse than their low-multitasking peers.

Some people suspect that a multitasking lifestyle has changed how they think, leaving them easily distracted and unable to concentrate even when separated from computers and phones. Their uneasiness may be justified. In several benchmark tests of focus, college students who routinely juggle many flows of information, bouncing from e-mail to web text to video to chat to phone calls, fared significantly worse than their low-multitasking peers.

“Sometimes dogs are doing mistakes adapting in metro, but they are studying.” via donna

Interesting news from Russia in English language.

who russian dogs adapt to their urban environment, ride subway cars, scare people into dropping food. little grifters.

THE LAST DAYS OF THE POLYMATH

People who know a lot about a lot have long been an exclusive club, but now they are an endangered species. Edward Carr tracks some down ...  read more »

That is why modern institutions tend to exclude polymaths, he says. “It’s very hard to show yourself as a polymath in the current academic climate. If you’ve got someone interested in going across departments, spending part of the time in physics and part of the time elsewhere, their colleagues are going to kick them out. They’re not contributing fully to any single department. OK, every so often you’re going to get a huge benefit, but from day to day, where the universities are making appointments, they want the focus in one field.”

People who know a lot about a lot have long been an exclusive club, but now they are an endangered species.

“Nowadays people that are called polymaths are dabblers—are dabblers in many different areas,” he says. “I aspire to be an intellectual polygamist. And I deliberately use that metaphor to provoke with its sexual allusion and to point out the real difference to me between polygamy and promiscuity."

"People who know a lot about a lot have long been an exclusive club, but now they are an endangered species..."

this is good to hear.

When things don’t add up, the mind goes into high gear.

Studie: Absurditäten rütteln die Sinne wach.

This is really interesting.

Palantir Technologies has designed what many intelligence analysts say is the most effective tool to date to investigate terrorist networks. The software's main advance is a user-friendly search tool that can scan multiple data sources at once, something previous search tools couldn't do.

Palantir Technologies has designed what many intelligence analysts say is the most effective tool to date to investigate terrorist networks.

Scientific studies have shown that you can destroy a child by calling them "smart." Even when they're very young, little kids know that being "smart" is what makes them special - and so, the first time they encounter something they don't understand immediately, it's a threat. Their specialness is in danger of being stripped away. And if they lose that smartness, then what are they?

You're going to live in fear, smarty. The question is, which fear?---------As long as they were in the drawer, they could be good. And I could be a good writer. If I worked at it. Which I wasn't, but that potential gave me all the glory of feeling like I might be a great writer some day without all of that icky negative feedback. Sure, I had this constant underlying fear that maybe I wasn't good enough - but I had a moderately popular journal, some folks who liked me, and wasn't that enough?

the

Not to make too much of it, but this struck a chord with me. I can identify with this.

The more we study dolphins, the brighter they turn out to be. By Anuschka de Rohan

Nature vs Nurture

David Brooks on why genius is created through deliberate practice.

"The key factor separating geniuses from the merely accomplished is not a divine spark. It’s not I.Q., a generally bad predictor of success, even in realms like chess. Instead, it’s deliberate practice. Top performers spend more hours (many more hours) rigorously practicing their craft."

The differences between rational thinking and intelligence.

Is George W. Bush stupid? It's a question that occupied a good many minds of all political persuasions during his turbulent eight-year presidency. The strict answer is no. Bush's IQ score is estimated to be above 120, which suggests an intelligence in the top 10 per cent of the population. But this, surely, does not tell the whole story. Even those sympathetic to the former president have acknowledged that as a thinker and decision-maker he is not all there. Even his loyal speechwriter David Frum called him glib, incurious and "as a result ill-informed".

Weird. This was my advice to undergrads, although not in science...

Approach to getting broad understanding of topics you don't understand that well

Blog post/article on how to set your self up to be able to improve your learning ability.

yeah, amen in so many ways. It's harder and takes longer (the biggest problem), but immersion (in combination with good memory) is by far the only way to learn things. It's how I learnt to spell (and that's now slipping: the other aphorism is "use it or lose it")

Note that the title above isn’t “how to learn everything”, but “how to learn about everything”. The distinction I have in mind is between knowing the inside of a topic in deep detail — many facts and problem-solving skills — and knowing the structure and context of a topic: essential facts, what problems can be solved by the skilled, and how the topic fits with others. This knowledge isn’t superficial in a survey-course sense: It is about both deep structure and practical applications. Knowing about, in this sense, is crucial to understanding a new problem and what must be learned in more depth in order to solve it. The cross-disciplinary reach of nanotechnology almost demands this as a condition of competence.

May 26, 2009 The Difference Between An Amateur, A Scientist, And A Genius

"An amateur is full of wonder and speculation, tinkering towards the truth but suffering from a lack of knowledge and idleness; he's not even sure if someone else has already made these discoveries. "Is this a worthwhile pursuit?" A scientist performs experiments to confirm or disprove a hypothesis, and in that way he grinds out the truth. A genius has three abilities, which are actually the union of amateur and scientist: 1. to know the state of the art, what is known and what is not known. 2. To be able to think "out of the box". 3. To be disciplined enough to concentrate on the tedium of a formal investigation of his wondrous speculations."

The old sayings "success is 1% inspiration, 99% perspiration" or "90% of anything is just showing up" really speak not to the necessity of work, but to the point that most ideas are mediocre and it doesn't matter. Diligent application can make almost anything a success.

An amateur is full of wonder and speculation, tinkering towards the truth but suffering from a lack of knowledge and idleness; he's not even sure if someone else has already made these discoveries. "Is this a worthwhile pursuit?" A scientist performs experiments to confirm or disprove a hypothesis, and in that way he grinds out the truth. A genius has three abilities, which are actually the union of amateur and scientist: 1. to know the state of the art, what is known and what is not known. 2. To be able to think "out of the box". 3. To be disciplined enough to concentrate on the tedium of a formal investigation of his wondrous speculations.

http://tinyurl.com/mancyg

"A genius has three abilities, which are actually the union of amateur and scientist: 1. to know the state of the art, what is known and what is not known. 2. To be able to think "out of the box". 3. To be disciplined enough to concentrate on the tedium of a formal investigation of his wondrous speculations."

Broad-based MIT project aims to reinvent AI for a new era. By going back and fixing mistakes, researchers hope to produce ‘co-processors’ for the human mind.

ai

Proyecto del MIT que busca rescatar algunas investigaciones en inteligencia artificial de hace 50 años, para conformar nuevo proyecot MMP

"This time, they are determined to get it right — and, with the advantages of hindsight, experience, the rapid growth of new technologies and insights from the new field of computational neuroscience, they think they have a good shot at it."

"Thus, computer systems will have greater opportunity to learn from the collective behavior of billions of humans. They will get smarter, gleaning relationships between objects, nuances, intentions, meanings, and other deep conceptual information. Today's Google search uses an early form of this approach, but in the future many more systems will be able to benefit from it."

Computer systems will have greater opportunity to learn from the collective behavior of billions of humans. They will get smarter, gleaning relationships between objects, nuances, intentions, meanings, and other deep conceptual information. Today's Google search uses an early form of this approach, but in the future many more systems will be able to benefit from it.

Being intelligent is like having a knife. If you train every day in using the knife, you will be invincible. If you think that just having a knife will make you win any battle you fight, then you will fail. This believe in your own inherent ability is what will kill your startup. Success comes from the work and ability you put in becoming better than the others, and not from some brilliance you feel you may have within you.

Satnam Alag is the author of Collective Intelligence In Action, a book about how to program for recommendation engines and other collective intelligence methods in web apps.

In a recent post, we looked at recommendation systems, briefly reviewing how Amazon and Google have implemented their own systems for recommending products and content to their users. ...

Interview with "Collective Intelligence in Action" author

analysis

Computer games driving developments in AI (bots getting smarter)

By Jonathan Schaeffer, Vadim Bulitko, and Michael Buro First Published December 2008 Can video games breathe new life into AI research?

This project has so far produced a formal system for analyzing and classifying a team’s opening moves. That may not sound like much, but this task proved immensely challenging, because positions and actions are not nearly as constrained as they are in a game like chess. Researchers in our group have used this formalism to analyze computer logs of more than 50 hours of tournament-level play between seasoned Counter-Strike teams. Soon, we expect, computer bots programmed to learn tactics from such logs will play reasonably well—doing things a person might do. It’ll be a long time before these bots will be able to beat expert human players, though. But that’s not the objective, after all—they just need to make for entertaining adversaries.

The game is called F.E.A.R. , short for First Encounter Assault Recon, and its use of AI, along with its impressive graphics, are its prime attractions. The developer, Monolith Productions of Kirkland, Wash., released it in 2005 to rave reviews, including the GameSpot Web site’s Best Artificial Intelligence award. Such recognition means a lot to the game’s creators, who face stiff competition in what has become a multibillion-dollar industry.

Can video games breathe new life into AI research?

"I get satisfaction out of seeing stuff that makes real change in the real world. We need a lot more of that and a lot less abstract stuff."

TED Talks Temple Grandin, diagnosed with autism as a child, talks about how her mind works -- sharing her ability to "think in pictures," which helps her solve problems that neurotypical brains might miss. She makes the case that the world needs people on the autism spectrum: visual thinkers, pattern thinkers, verbal thinkers, and all kinds of smart geeky kids.

Temple Grandin's remarkable TED talk just posted (must see): http://bit.ly/cQzRtp – Michael Shermer (michaelshermer) http://twitter.com/michaelshermer/statuses/9588688450

an autistic lady talks about her expereinces

Amid the many uncertainties loosed by the al-Qaida attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, one forecast seemed beyond doubt: Islamist terrorists would strike the United States again—and soon.

Clear overview of the prevailing theories about why no major attacks have occurred since 9/11/01.

Smart people are good if you need to do a lot of really hard things, and we did a lot of really hard things. But it's not all upside. For one thing, smart people tend to systematically overestimate the value of being smart. In fact, it is really valuable, but they still tend to weight it too heavily compared to other virtues you might also value, such as consistency, focus, attentiveness to the emotional needs of your customers, and so on. One of the problems with really smart people is that they can talk themselves into anything. And often they can talk you into it with them. And if you're smart yourself, you can talk them into stuff. The tendency to drift and lack of focus can be really extreme unless you have a few slower people in the group to act as a kind of intellectual ballast.

interesting insight into people and psychology

Keepers at Furuvik Zoo found that the chimp collected and stored stones that he would later use as missiles. Further, the chimp learned to recognise how and when parts of his concrete enclosure could be pulled apart to fashion further projectiles.

This is fascinating. Experts say this shows that the chimp was "anticipating a future mental state - an ability that has been difficult to definitively prove in animals."

Chimps behaviour shows they are more intelligent than it seems

Excised

http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB260/index.htm Very interesting history of a once "black" agency.

amazing advances in brain studies

Critical of Paul MacLean

“So-called lower animals, such as fish, reptiles and birds, display a startling array of cognitive capabilities. Goldfish, for instance, have shown they can negotiate watery mazes similar to the way rats do in intelligence tests in the lab…”

# Despite cartoons you may have seen showing a straight line of fish emerging on land to become primates and then humans, evolution is not so linear. The brains of other animals are not merely previous stages that led directly to human intelligence. # Instead—as is the case with many traits—complex brains and sophisticated cognition have arisen multiple times in independent lineages of animals during the earth’s evolutionary history. # With this new understanding comes a new appreciation for intelligence in its many forms. So-called lower animals, such as fish, reptiles and birds, display a startling array of cognitive capabilities. Goldfish, for instance, have shown they can negotiate watery mazes similar to the way rats do in intelligence tests in the lab.

Imagine everyone having the same level of intelligence. What would set us apart then?

THE aliens are out there and Earth had better watch out, at least according to Stephen Hawking. He has suggested that extraterrestrials are almost certain to exist — but that instead of seeking them out, humanity should be doing all it that can to avoid any contact.

THE aliens are out there and Earth had better watch out, at least according to Stephen Hawking. He has suggested that extraterrestrials are almost certain to exist — but that instead of seeking them out, humanity should be doing all it that can to avoid any contact. He's a smart man. Take his advice and don't fuck with aliens

"He concludes that trying to make contact with alien races is “a little too risky”. He said: “If aliens ever visit us, I think the outcome would be much as when Christopher Columbus first landed in America, which didn’t turn out very well for the Native Americans.”"

-How to work with “stupid” people http://j.mp/d8Qteb

humans versus animals

Sleeping on a problem really can help solve it, say scientists who found a dreamy nap boosts creative powers. They tested whether "incubating" a problem allowed a flash of insight, and found it did, especially when people entered a phase of sleep known as REM. [Excerpt, click on the link to read the rest of this article.]

Sleeping on a problem really can help solve it, say scientists who found a dreamy nap boosts creative powers. They tested whether "incubating" a problem allowed a flash of insight, and found it did, especially when people entered a phase of sleep known as REM. Volunteers who had entered REM or rapid eye movement sleep - when most dreams occur - were then better able to solve a new problem with lateral thinking.

We propose that REM sleep is important for assimilating new information into past experience to create a richer network of associations for future use. They tested whether "incubating" a problem allowed a flash of insight, and found it did, especially when people entered a phase of sleep called REM sleep.

The study at the University of California San Diego showed that the volunteers who entered REM during sleep improved their creative problem solving ability by almost 40%.

"We found that, for creative problems you've already been working on, the passage of time is enough to find solutions. "However for new problems, only REM sleep enhances creativity."

Another indication of malleability is that I.Q. has risen sharply over time. Indeed, the average I.Q. of a person in 1917 would amount to only 73 on today’s I.Q. test. Half the population of 1917 would be considered mentally retarded by today’s measurements, Professor Nisbett says. Another proven intervention is to tell junior-high-school students that I.Q. is expandable, and that their intelligence is something they can help shape. Students exposed to that idea work harder and get better grades. That’s particularly true of girls and math, apparently because some girls assume that they are genetically disadvantaged at numbers; deprived of an excuse for failure, they excel.

Poor people have I.Q.’s significantly lower than those of rich people, and the awkward conventional wisdom has been that this is in large part a function of genetics.

Good mythbuster and eye-opener on I.Q. Recommended.

"Intelligence does seem to be highly inherited in middle-class households, and that’s the reason for the findings of the twins studies: very few impoverished kids were included in those studies. But Eric Turkheimer of the University of Virginia has conducted further research demonstrating that in poor and chaotic households, I.Q. is minimally the result of genetics — because everybody is held back. "

praise effort more than achievement, teach delayed gratification, limit reprimands and use praise to stimulate curiosity

We are now witnessing the rapid stress of older institutions accompanied by the slow and fitful development of cultural alternatives. Just as required education was a response to print, using the Internet well will require new cultural institutions as well, not just new technologies. It is tempting to want PatientsLikeMe without the dumb videos, just as we might want scientific journals without the erotic novels, but that's not how media works. Increased freedom to create means increased freedom to create throwaway material, as well as freedom to indulge in the experimentation that eventually makes the good new stuff possible. There is no easy way to get through a media revolution of this magnitude; the task before us now is to experiment with new ways of using a medium that is social, ubiquitous and cheap, a medium that changes the landscape by distributing freedom of the press and freedom of assembly as widely as freedom of speech.

So... does the internet make us smarter? http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704025304575284973472694334.html

BBC News | Creativity is akin to insanity, say scientists who have been studying how the mind works.

Article on creativity and how the minds mimic schizophrenia. Interesting about education and the mind.

That thin line between genius and madness is now verified by science.

The Anosognosic’s Dilemma: "Existence is elsewhere." — André Breton, The Surrealist Manifesto | http://ow.ly/21xM1 [from http://twitter.com/avivao/statuses/16753976754]

The Anosognostic's Dilemma. Errol Morris, Dunning

Dunning

For the last three years, I.B.M. scientists have been developing what they expect will be the world’s most advanced “question answering” machine, able to understand a question posed in everyday human elocution — “natural language,” as computer scientists call it — and respond with a precise, factual answer. In other words, it must do more than what search engines like Google and Bing do, which is merely point to a document where you might find the answer. It has to pluck out the correct answer itself.

long, but very interesting read on IBM's "answering machine": http://nyti.ms/czrluK - big data, parallel queries, etc... aka, google. – Ilya Grigorik (igrigorik) http://twitter.com/igrigorik/statuses/16866126164

1. Lack of motivation. A talent is irrelevant if a person is not motivated to use it. Motivation may be external (for example, social approval) or internal (satisfaction from a job well-done, for instance). External sources tend to be transient, while internal sources tend to produce more consistent performance.

picture emerging from the research is deeply troubling, at least to anyone who values the depth, rather than just the velocity, of human thought. People who read text studded with links, the studies show, comprehend less than those who read traditional linear text. People who watch busy multimedia presentations remember less than those who take in information in a more sedate and focused manner.

Top Secret America (Washington Post)

One of the best uses of Flash to display data that I've ever seen.

Questi sono alcuni dei risultati di un'inchiesta portata avanti per due anni dal Washington Post. Dice @riotta su twitter che non ci sono scoop, però.

Great piece of journalism from Washington Post: Top Secret America, A hidden world, growing beyond control. http://is.gd/dyx7L #Terrorism

Interesting.

The top-secret world the government created in response to the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, has become so large, so unwieldy and so secretive that no one knows how much money it costs, how many people it employs, how many programs exist within it or exactly how many agencies do the same work.

tl;dr Government is too big.

To ensure that the country's most sensitive duties are carried out only by people loyal above all to the nation's interest, federal rules say contractors may not perform what are called "inherently government functions." But they do, all the time and in every intelligence and counterterrorism agency, according to a two-year investigation by The Washington Post. What started as a temporary fix in response to the terrorist attacks has turned into a dependency that calls into question whether the federal workforce includes too many people obligated to shareholders rather than the public interest -- and whether the government is still in control of its most sensitive activities.

To ensure that the country's most sensitive duties are carried out only by people loyal above all to the nation's interest, federal rules say contractors may not perform what are called "inherently government functions." But they do, all the time and in every intelligence and counterterrorism agency, according to a two-year investigation by The Washington Post.

RT @redlog: RT @ananny Phenomenally good reporting from the Washington Post: "Top Secret America", http://bit.ly/9Ja5Fi

invetigaciones especiales acerca del gob de EUA

tl;dr Government is too big.

To ensure that the country's most sensitive duties are carried out only by people loyal above all to the nation's interest, federal rules say contractors may not perform what are called "inherently government functions." But they do, all the time and in every intelligence and counterterrorism agency, according to a two-year investigation by The Washington Post. What started as a temporary fix in response to the terrorist attacks has turned into a dependency that calls into question whether the federal workforce includes too many people obligated to shareholders rather than the public interest -- and whether the government is still in control of its most sensitive activities.

To ensure that the country's most sensitive duties are carried out only by people loyal above all to the nation's interest, federal rules say contractors may not perform what are called "inherently government functions." But they do, all the time and in every intelligence and counterterrorism agency, according to a two-year investigation by The Washington Post.

RT @redlog: RT @ananny Phenomenally good reporting from the Washington Post: "Top Secret America", http://bit.ly/9Ja5Fi

invetigaciones especiales acerca del gob de EUA

tl;dr Government is too big.

To ensure that the country's most sensitive duties are carried out only by people loyal above all to the nation's interest, federal rules say contractors may not perform what are called "inherently government functions." But they do, all the time and in every intelligence and counterterrorism agency, according to a two-year investigation by The Washington Post. What started as a temporary fix in response to the terrorist attacks has turned into a dependency that calls into question whether the federal workforce includes too many people obligated to shareholders rather than the public interest -- and whether the government is still in control of its most sensitive activities.

To ensure that the country's most sensitive duties are carried out only by people loyal above all to the nation's interest, federal rules say contractors may not perform what are called "inherently government functions." But they do, all the time and in every intelligence and counterterrorism agency, according to a two-year investigation by The Washington Post.

RT @redlog: RT @ananny Phenomenally good reporting from the Washington Post: "Top Secret America", http://bit.ly/9Ja5Fi

Does language profoundly influence the way people see the world? http://bit.ly/cAtxU8 (via @SteveAkinsSEO @lindahollier)

This is an interesting article describing the differences of understanding in different languages.

Language is a uniquely human gift. When we study language, we are uncovering in part what makes us human, getting a peek at the very nature of human nature. As we uncover how languages and their speakers differ from one another, we discover that human natures too can differ dramatically, depending on the languages we speak. The next steps are to understand the mechanisms through which languages help us construct the incredibly complex knowledge systems we have. Understanding how knowledge is built will allow us to create ideas that go beyond the currently thinkable. This research cuts right to the fundamental questions we all ask about ourselves. How do we come to be the way we are? Why do we think the way we do? An important part of the answer, it turns out, is in the languages we speak.

Add: http://bit.ly/aRLx4F @nedkumar: ..how language influences the way people see the world. Lost in Translation http://bit.ly/ba7GUV

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1543871

While strong AI still lies safely beyond the Maes-Garreau horizon1 (a vanishing point, perpetually fifty years ahead) a host of important new developments in weak AI are poised to be commercialized in the next few years. But because these developments are a paradoxical mix of intelligence and stupidity, they defy simple forecasts, they resist hype. They are not unambiguously better, cheaper, or faster. They are something new. What are the implications of a car that adjusts its speed to avoid collisions … but occasionally mistakes the guardrail along a sharp curve as an oncoming obstacle and slams on the brakes? What will it mean when our computers know everything — every single fact, the entirety of human knowledge — but can only reason at the level of a cockroach?

New Developments in Artificial Intelligence: Man vs. Google #AI http://bit.ly/9LbS0q $$

What are the implications of a car that adjusts its speed to avoid collisions … but occasionally mistakes the guardrail along a sharp curve as an oncoming obstacle and slams on the brakes? What will it mean when our computers know everything — every single fact, the entirety of human knowledge — but can only reason at the level of a cockroach?

Impressive essay on artificial intelligence.

Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.

While strong AI still lies safely beyond the Maes-Garreau horizon1 (a vanishing point, perpetually fifty years ahead) a host of important new developments in weak AI are poised to be commercialized in the next few years. But because these developments are a paradoxical mix of intelligence and stupidity, they defy simple forecasts, they resist hype. They are not unambiguously better, cheaper, or faster. They are something new. What are the implications of a car that adjusts its speed to avoid collisions … but occasionally mistakes the guardrail along a sharp curve as an oncoming obstacle and slams on the brakes? What will it mean when our computers know everything — every single fact, the entirety of human knowledge — but can only reason at the level of a cockroach?

New Developments in Artificial Intelligence: Man vs. Google #AI http://bit.ly/9LbS0q $$

What are the implications of a car that adjusts its speed to avoid collisions … but occasionally mistakes the guardrail along a sharp curve as an oncoming obstacle and slams on the brakes? What will it mean when our computers know everything — every single fact, the entirety of human knowledge — but can only reason at the level of a cockroach?