I want to take a little bit to write about the study of the physical processes and mental functions of brain science, neurology and neuron oriented confabulation. I will be studying these concepts in school.
These fields when applied with physics are very interesting to me. The human brain is the least understood organ of the body. Since the neo-cortex and brain are somewhat complex at the chemical level, it is helpful for me to reduce the brain's mode of operations to three functions 'till I learn more in school: neurons, synapses and axons. One can think of axons as gateways they are the terminus enablers within the multi-path roads throughout the brain. Synapses are more or less conduits containing the energy that are neurons, I believe.
Specifically I am interested in learning more about the human connections between neural interfaces and computer logic which can include quantum physics. What is a neural interface? In science fiction books and film noir or "dark future" novels like those by William Gibson the use of neural interfaces or wet-ware is commonplace. The user adapts the technology to fit his or her needs in situations that require a high degree of adapation. The technology is modular it changes shape and function to mold to the person's ability. Adaptation is critical and, how can I say this wisely, it is partially independent of the person because machines cannot hack people. In fiction, the details of wet-ware can be good or bad depending on the book's setting -- it's characters and the scope or larger context to the story that count most. The individuals who use this type of technology to improve both their physical and digital attributes and, consequently, evolve and change their humanity for good don't have to sacrifice both the personal and social needs of others and themselves and they probably know how the moral of the story ends when they accomplish what they set out to do.
I am firmly behind the Open Source software motto: "There's more than one way to do it." I've got a good feeling about the future. Not only is there more than one way to do it, one can accomplish a lot with a little if they set their mind toward achieving more. I hope that my positive contributions to the sciences, journals and private industries go far. I will be a good student. America is in my hopes and dreams.
I think all publicly accredited universities should each allocate the ~.05% in administrative and functional costs from their yearly budgets to test students on both reason and comprehension like CollegeBoard's SAT system is doing now but do this independently of collegeboard.com and not centrally officiate the testcenters nationwide in terms of operations, training, and funding.The fees that Collegeboard requires are completely arbitrary. Since I think this group is receiving public profit and private profit assistance from the U.S. government, governments worldwide and private foundations the test programs and costs that they advertise and promulgate on their website are not based in reality. Also, where is the students' data going or getting stored once students are done taking the test? We all know that completed college scores go to the schools. What of information and data retention and, plotting continuing test scores on a graph by terms and by years, what of computational data integrity and consequently the physical location and storage of this data? Why does this practice have to be nationalized at every educational junction? I say that it doesn't have to.http://www.collegeboard.com/student/testing/sat/calenfees/fees.html -This effort can be done by district groups with a reproducible manner ofarchitecture and effort. Heck, that group of standards have already beentemplated and utilized by the SAT group itself. Why should Collegeboardget to keep on heading up the function, administration and whole processof the SAT template every fall, winter and spring without competition?It takes healthy personnel and proper datacenters to make this part ofthe transition to college happen, plus in general keeping access open toall students regardless of their income status, race, disability orgender.
----SAT ProgramFor Students and Parents * Register online for the SAT (requires student login) * View and send scores online (requires student login) * General SAT information for students and parents * Contact information for students and parents ...
I think all publicly accredited universities should allocate the .05% in administrative and functional costs from their yearly budget to test students on both reason and comprehension like CollegeBoard's SAT system is doing now but do this independently of the collegeboard.com and not centrally officiate testcenters nationwide in terms of operations, training and support.
The fees that C.B. "require" are completely arbitrary. Since this group is perhaps receiving public profit or private non-profit/private profit subsidies from the U.S. government and other worldwide governments the costs they promulgate on their website are not based in reality. Also, where is students' data going or being stored once they're done taking the test? We all know that the college scores go to the schools. What of information & data retention and the data integrity or physical location and storage of this data? Why does this practice have to be nationalized? I say that it doesn't!
http://www.collegeboard.com/student/testing/sat/calenfees/fees.html - This effort can be done by district groups with a reproducible manner of architecture. Heck, that standard has already been templated and adopted by the SAT group itself. Why should they get to keep on administering both the function and the process of the SAT template every fall and winter without competition?
This is really all it is, including personnel and datacenters:
----
SAT Program
For Students and Parents
For Counselors
For Admission Staff
I thought Senator Biden did well last night. You'd have to tune in to know that because once again, the mainstream media is balking on content and context when it comes to reporting the facts on progressive politics -- better healthcare, nurturing both the market and marketplace so that 21st century private energy markets and diametrically across from these markets the public energy policies can exist in reality, sanely and cleanly exiting Iraq whilst redeploying troops to Afghanistan if our Special Forces troops get their asses kicked x number of times during a month or year's time. The debate also had elements of internal media silliness, for example this question from moderator Gwen Ifill:
IFILL: . . .Biden, we want to talk about taxes, let's talk about taxes. You proposed raising taxes on people who earn over $250,000 a year. The question for you is, why is that not class warfare and the same question for you, Gov. Palin, is you have proposed a tax employer health benefits which some studies say would actually throw five million more people onto the roles of the uninsured. I want to know why that isn't taking things out on the poor, starting with you, Sen. Biden.
BIDEN: Well Gwen, where I come from, it's called fairness, just simple fairness. The middle class is struggling. The middle class under John McCain's tax proposal, 100 million families, middle class families, households to be precise, they got not a single change, they got not a single break in taxes. No one making less than $250,000 under Barack Obama's plan will see one single penny of their tax raised whether it's their capital gains tax, their income tax, investment tax, any tax. And 95 percent of the people in the United States of America making less than $150,000 will get a tax break.
[ snip ]
IFILL: Governor?
PALIN: I do take issue with some of the principle there with that redistribution of wealth principle that seems to be espoused by you. But when you talk about Barack's plan to tax increase affecting only those making $250,000 a year or more, you're forgetting millions of small businesses that are going to fit into that category. . .
Use of the words class warfare are now rejected by most including populists as both undefined jargon and a "word virus". It is a catch phrase designed to stir up emotions and create smitten controversies more than explain anything. Biden is a formally educated man therefore in the beginning he fell for this word virus by replying with the word fair, something you do not do during an election season in a capitalist, competitive society that is collectively trying to move away from economic dictatorship or a corporate run society. The term class warfare was bandied about a lot during the 1980's by people hooked on wealth who espoused the benefits of Reaganomics and the virtues of rugged individualism which is soooo yesterday.
Worthy news links:
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/10/03/politics/2008debates/main4497138.shtml?source=mostpop_story
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7649760.stm
http://voices.kansascity.com/node/2300 :
By Yael T. Abouhalkah, Kansas City Star Editorial
The morning after, it's even easier to see exactly how Joe Biden won Thursday's debate -- and precisely how Sarah Palin faltered.
The highlights:
-- Biden wasn't smug, he wasn't condescending and yet he hammered home point after point, such as linking John McCain to President Bush's failed policies.
-- Biden stayed on point. He didn't wander around after moderator Gwen Ifill asked a question. Whether it was Iran, the bailout or other topics, Biden answered what he was asked.
-- Biden talked about foreign affairs like he knew the trouble spots of the world and how he and Barack Obama would handle them.
On the other hand:
-- While Palin didn't commit huge gaffes, she wandered all over the place in answering questions. It was noticeable, and made it clear Palin's knowledge of many topics was skin-deep. . .
...And finally here's something from the right-wing Weekly Standard:
http://www.weeklystandard.com/weblogs/TWSFP/2008/10/was_gwen_ifill_fair_1.asp
Obama Opens Lead in Six of Seven Swing States, Two Polls Show - October 1, 2008
Bloomberg - Barack Obama's lead widened over Republican rival John McCain in key swing states, including Florida, Ohio, Nevada and Pennsylvania, propelled by his debate performance and the worsening economy, two polls showed.
The Democratic presidential nominee gained ground in seven battleground states and leads in six, according to two surveys conducted after he and McCain debated on Sept. 26 and as Congress haggled over a $700 billion plan to rescue financial markets.
The economy is the biggest drag on McCain in Florida, Pennsylvania and Ohio, the three states surveyed by Quinnipiac University and the biggest electoral prizes in the group, according to Peter Brown, the assistant director for the poll.
Electoral Votes
Together, the seven states have 107 of the 270 Electoral College votes needed to claim the White House.
The Quinnipiac surveys were conducted Sept. 27-29 and the Time/CNN polls Sept. 28-30, as Republican and Democratic lawmakers and the Bush administration labored to reach agreement on a package of measures to ease the tightening credit crisis.
In Florida, Obama leads McCain among likely voters 51 percent to 43 percent in the Quinnipiac poll and 51 percent to 47 percent in the CNN/Time survey . . .
There is or had been a front page on www.barackobama.com for Submitting your Story, however I decided to blog it a day late ( Constitution day was yesterday ).
This comes from both an acquaintance and I it is a formal Petition for Relief to our President:
Title IV ... We citizens petition The President to act in the role of aconstitutional scholar to:A. Research and compose a scholarly ' Presidential Compendium ' of:1. Plain language ' The President's Constitution Page ' with interactionand graphic ebooks.2. Published public and technical serials that explain goodconstitutional culture, executive statecraft, offers a reference readinglist, and standardized Presidential information.3. Submit a set of yearly papers for independent scholarly peer reviewfor publication.
A. Assess and marginally develop the design and use of Open source formats and applications to:
1. Allow for a structured, internally consistent work-flow which supports the delivery of applications for the purpose of bettering government practices using transparently defined constructs, requesting deliberation of computer programming matters of context by establishment of public In-Forums and measurable benchmarks.
2. Model an externally consistent private non-profit commission for the aforementioned statement.
Title V ... We citizens petition The President to act in the role of constitutional model citizen to:
A. Set examples for the development and execution of Executive Branchdecisions limited by our constitution and yet able to manage largeamounts of rational information.B. Create functional parameters where contributing citizens can receive credit and credibility both openly and legitimately for actions of due diligence and a means for an individual by which to utilize rational and intelligent behavior where it is both wisely expected or personally anticipated when applying ethics, psyche and logic.
Testing is not teaching.
By writing this I'm not referring to: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2008/08/05/dl0501.xml
This article infers correctly that a student's personal scholarly ability is independent of the teacher neutrally testing his or her ability for a fixed, determinate time.
No, here I am referring to those people in American society who have lost their way in terms of group thinking, much more so than a little asymmetrical thinking, and both actively and deliberately mix up the spontaneous testing of others plus mix up their own routine social skills between their personal space and colleagues' and strangers' personal spaces.
It is odd behavior to anyone who prefers empirical, rational thought that has experienced this seemingly random form of assailment from a clique. Sometimes this pattern of behavior is amplified during big campaigns in political campaign offices by professional bosses who have to test their staff to assure both themselves and their bosses that their staff aren't taking too much workload on either mentally and virtually, or staff are suspected of acting in a politically biased, incompetent or corrupt manner. If there isn't true oversight then perhaps this "testing behavior" in limited quantities is indeed acceptable under controlled conditions.
Some people take it way too far though and I am very much getting tired of the regional cliques and the snobbish, aristocratic ways of certain people in our nation's intelligentsia, independent of age or income.
Positive change must impact us all. Some rise, some fall and some will have to climb to embrace and work toward bringing Obama's message of equality, hope and unity in to their daily lives and thereby change their lives and others around them positively at the same time.
http://barometer.orst.edu/news/2008/07/23/Forum/A.Summer.What-3393606.shtml
There's a lot of editorial here -- and there's a lot going on now domestically here and there to change the business cycles so they can be one healthy lifecycle of opportunity, change and income for all of us and not one of negative values, condescending behavior and perpetual debt over income.>> A lucky few applied early to specialty internships that pay, kept a job they've had in the past or had an in with a family friend who got them a job...the former area of work mentioned is public-profit and government centered (work study stuff) I think. That's a whole different type of occupation however it's important most for the 1st, 2nd and 3rd year fledgling students.>> However, a large portion of students have found that landing an entirely new job was and is simply impossible this summer. Sure, one would assume that with students leaving for the three-month vacation, there would be plenty of job openings, but the population of Corvallis drastically drops and there is no This is a west coast conundrum that many independents, economists and a few politicians are studying now.What's going on is that restaurant, gardening and service sector jobs have not been impacted much in, say, the last 2-4 years since this January I think. However, positions such as morning newspaper delivery, part time and full time jobs at locally owned grocery stores and tech work has been impacted a lot more.The mainstream establishment media is no longer ignoring or padding a lot of false data in to this disturbing trend of distressed macroeconomics which follow measurable, micro-scale district based formations of work. What the media (not most student media, that is) are continuing to do though is parrot a ridiculously low federal unemployment number which both private liberal and private conservative economic analysis firms point out is mostly artifical to start with.>> need for those jobs to be filled until the school year. The businesses win while the students, probably spending money in taking summer classes, are suffering.If you follow work processes and where do the dollars come from then you know that up there ("..businesses win") it's specifically an Eugene, Corvallis, etc. problem. There's a lot of old money around here. In other words, portions of our local economy are perceived by the youth to be a cliquish racket of older, gutless, obsequious and perhaps servile ways of both thinking and conducting business on a routine basis. Unfortunately, that hogging or locking down of resources impedes on or directly interferes with a lot of the free-thinking entrepreneurs here in the Valley who want to do better personally and economically in point of fact of prior work and/or school experience, disability or race and income potential status plus domestic investment portfolios.>> Yet there is another problem that people in general, not only students, have when it comes to getting a job. People are not jobless due to their incompetence or total lack of experience, although these might be part of the problem. No, a big reason is that E word we keep hearing too much of lately - the Economy.True. We have an income inequality situation going on here. Not even the meanest conservative Republican disputes that angle.>> The economy has declined so much in the United States that it is beginning to affect businesses that usually hire young people for seasonal work.>> Why?A colleague and I have said that this social skills problem is more a who and what challenge which, given there's an open and transparent business model, leads to the facts of how money is made. Yes, identity, attitude and improving or following up on work skills are important factors too. Adding all the variables together we need Change We Can Believe in at local and global levels of commerce so that the students may understand our example, steal that idea in a manner of speaking and make money too with PayGo that benefits everybody not just a select few using a free market. It is why our collective haves, needs and wants of economics are contextually and inherently obvious to all except the most slow-witted among us.
This is an online, short term non-business venture I solely formed that is on an ad-hoc basis to help people ( Each one teach one ) better understand non profit polls and, separately, how the commercial media use them. I am learning too. I will make errors but will strive for accuracy in what I do. That's why I wrote ad-hoc I am a volunteer. We do not want a repeat of post-primary Florida 2000. The courts have kind of already seen to promulgating the regulation required to end voting fraud and abuse. Additionally we really do not want a repeat of Ohio 2004, '' Cuyahold'em county '', proprietary Visual FoxPro databases being used at the state and regional levels to effectively strip out votes plus the tinkering with or destruction of provisional ballots. The reason Ohio 2004 was flagged by activists was because there were some serious discrepancies in the Ohio exit polls. In other words the professional, random surveys conducted by professionals after Ohio's voting booths closed and the reality on the ground didn't add up. My background: I am an Obama volunteer, tech enthusiast, researcher and soon to be part time student. Please, move on up to Ubuntulinux ( https://shipit.ubuntu.com/ ). It's cool. Ubuntu means '' humanity towards others '' in African or Bantu, B.T.W.! Take the time to back up your Windows data, then make the switch to Linux this year. If you are new to visual Linux the learning curve can be steep but you will not be sorry in the long term if you plan ahead. Aesthetics: I stole a button logo from http://store.barackobama.com/ and pasted the words '' I R '' over Obama's sunrise insignia. Maybe it would make more sense to have '' P O '' or '' P O Media '' ( get it, cheerleading for transparency? ). I R = Independent or Internal Review. If you happen to be an Obama employee reading this and you wish to critique the medias use of polls I guess internal review is more fitting. Also, after posting this I'm going to change the group description from inter-regional which is kind of vague to state and regional which is more apt here, politically and legally speaking of course. Here's what I revised and rewrote then sent to a local Oregon Bill of Rights mailing list. We need: " fully accountable backoffices, with publicly listed call center desks where someone answers the phone with ''Can I help you?'' and all questions plus respondent phone numbers and zip codes correlated to those very questions are planned, gathered, triaged, sorted, structured and delivered by open, internal commission in advance of the poll, electronically logged with timestamps & notarized by hand and are left open at a secure virtual location for both internal review and random audits without notice. If a public polling institute has to serve the public, then transparency is mandatory and is mutually beneficial for both supply and demand. "
I'm not selling anything here. I cannot take a position on the administrative structure of future call centers & their financing but others and me can deliberate here or face-to-face on the facts; the best standards & practices that those entities should adhere to. This opportunity for building groups, bridging online collaboration and looking to the future is part of us all helping build virtual architecture which matches up to the physical constructs that are real life.
I will conjecture that most of us are voting for Senator Obama because we want someone who is grounded in real life and has gotten experience by manner of positive, optimistic thinking in addition to political merit and legal accomplishments.
Obama in 2008!
Here are some thoughts I posed to the audience at gateworld.net. I am a sci-fi geek and the Canadian produced Stargate Atlantis is one of those shows I enjoy watching now & then, and Gateworld is about its fandom. I have a growing interest in the foundations and logistics of syndication and how it all works within ( and without ) the purview of Hollywood.
What do y'all think of the writers strike in the states? I know ( I guess [?] ) that the hollywood strike doesn't affect any of the Canuck writers from the land of the ice and snow up North. Still, I got to wonder where the writing part and the larger angle of syndication are going in terms of distribution of content, how it may affect the SG franchise now and in the future and what those with stake in the creative process including fans think. The following article from the baltimore sun says that the show runners or writer-producers are really dictating most or all of the terms of collective bargaining and pricing for the demand side and of course the supply side. I find it intriguing that in this day and age one small collective of people have so much power over choice taking place within the circles that are demand or simply put: aggregation of demand -- '' when assessing the eventual outcome, look at the show runners, the executive producers who are in charge of television series. These are the writer-producers who are emerging as the dominant force of a slowly recombining TV industry. It's a business that's tilting its way toward new media. And show runners are at the center of it all. Show runners hire and fire writers and crew members, develop story lines, write scripts, cast actors, mind budgets and run interference with studio and network bosses. It's one of the most unusual and demanding job descriptions in the entertainment world. Sure, show runners always have had power that often extends well beyond their own shows. That's especially true of the industrious few who have had multiple series on the air simultaneously: David E. Kelley, Dick Wolf, John Wells, J.J. Abrams, Shonda Rhimes, Shawn Ryan, Seth MacFarlane and others. But the strike is proving that show runners are beginning to call the industry's shots in ways that other traditional power sources - trade unions, studio bosses, network executives, agents - either cannot or will not. Indeed, TV writer-producers played a crucial back-channel role in pressuring the studios and the guild to come back to the bargaining table. '' Here's a snip of an article from Media Life Magazine: '' The encouraging note is that the two sides are meeting. What's less encouraging is that they've come together at the prodding of what seems the entire entertainment industry, which is taking a huge hit as a result of the walkout, potentially hundreds of millions of dollars. Neither side is revealing its position, by mutual agreement, and that they could agree on that is a good sign. But whether either side is willing to make concessions is not known and impossible to read through the rhetoric of recent weeks. But one thing does seem clear. If the writers and studio executives can't reach an agreement in these three days, the prospect for an agreement anytime soon grows increasingly dim, certainly not before January. In terms of who is ahead, the win easily goes to the writers, who have made a strong case to the public, portraying themselves as ordinary working sorts who in all but a few cases earn middle-class salaries when they are working, which is not always, while casting the studio bosses as greedy corporate thugs. The studios have done a poor job at portraying themselves in favorable terms. And while the writers are clearly hurting from being out of work, it's the studios and the networks they produce shows for that now come across as having far more to lose if the strike goes on. '' Here's the first problem, as I see it: '' Neither side is revealing its position, by mutual agreement, and that they could agree on that is a good sign. '' Well THAT is nothing more then a throwback to 1950's hollywood when studio execs met behind cigar smoke-filled office rooms and cut inroads into major deals before their personnel and marketing people had a chance to weigh said promulgated changes. THAT = a fading, proprietary style of business and hence, old economics. Knowledge workers, ex-dot commers, feminists and radicals are telling the modern world that that style of management won't make it anymore. Oh wait this is hollywood we're talking about, not Vancouver?! Is it really exactly the same up there? Finally, the core or root of the strike: ( Fellow amateur and professional sci-fi writers, if you are serious about your writing being critiqued or assessed in an academic manner do refrain from using words like crux or heart instead of root [ previously worded ] -- the former choice of words like crux or heart are acceptable yet they are emotive and not descriptive enough for making apt metaphors which show others the path. ) '' In terms of who is ahead, the win easily goes to the writers, who have made a strong case to the public, portraying themselves as ordinary working sorts who in all but a few cases earn middle-class salaries when they are working, which is not always, while casting the studio bosses as greedy corporate thugs. The studios have done a poor job at portraying themselves in favorable terms. And while the writers are clearly hurting from being out of work, it's the studios and the networks they produce shows for ... '' Ah, but have the writers indeed made a strong case to the public when it seems that they are beholden to the whims of the producers? Here I am reminded of American baseball. In the mainstream media we are presented with two sides: management and the rights of the ball players themselves. What of the fans? We must end the self-referencing, deprecating ideology that is the old world form of consumerism which gets points by keeping talented individuals, fanboys and fangirls isolated. I claim that some of the more entrenched writer-producers literally subscribe to this Dark Side of the Force; a weaker solely corporate ideology and concurrently the writer-producers apply this bias in strictly monetary form to oppress the viewing public, us, the writers; the fans worldwide.
Am I correctly inferring that Canada is creatively and monetarily affected by the hollywood strike in terms of access to personnel and pilot seasons? Is the strike global or does this round of collective bargaining operationally affect only North America? I thought a nation's borders mattered here. Must be that NAFTA thing.
