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November 30, 2007

Friday Brainteaser: Termite Time

From Braingle:

You have two very hungry termites and two sticks of wood. One stick of wood is 12 inches long and the other is 16 inches long. One termite can eat sticks at the rate of 1 inch every 3 minutes. The other termite can eat 1 inch in 4 minutes. How would you use the termites and sticks to measure 61 minutes?

Posted by Elyas Bakhtiari at 10:46 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

November 29, 2007

American children, left behind

A new global ranking of 15-year old students' reading, math, and science abilities contains more bad news for the U.S. education system: American teenagers were below average in all categories and ranked 18th out of 30 in the tests, which were carried out in 57 countries that together account for nearly 90% of world GDP.

Finland, China, and Canada took the top three spots. I didn't expect U.S. students to be at the top, but I was a little surprised to see them so close to the bottom.

So what's wrong with our education system? Is it our culture? We seem to glorify simplistic thinking and superficial values in every aspect of public life. Popular culture is dominated by uneducated nitwits that cash in on their own stupidity—Paris Hilton, Brittany Spears, Johnny Knoxville, Ms. Teen USA South Carolina, the majority of professional athletes in any give sport... should I go on?

Even among adults, intellectualism has become stigmatized. We repeatedly ask for "regular Joe" politicians, and being perceived as intellectual is often a kiss of death when running for office. Steven Colbert's chastising of "East-coast, ivory-tower intellectuals" is great satire because it touches on the truth—many politicians, voters, and the mainstream media value faith over intelligence and confidence over curiosity.

Or maybe it's a funding issue? Federally-funded education has been under attack politically, but notice that the top countries in the survey rely on government-funded education. We can only shift so much federal money to defense spending before we start to fall behind in other areas. It's not just happening with education; our infrastructure is being neglected and many areas of scientific research are losing funding.

Or maybe it's because of a lack of family support or something else entirely. I have no idea, but if we don't do something soon, we can kiss our status as the world's only superpower goodbye. China's preparing for the future while we're still stuck in 2001.

Check out the video below for some students' perspective on the education system. They don't take ownership for their own lack of effort, but they do raise some interesting issues.

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November 27, 2007

Political polling: Internet or telephone?

Zogby released a poll yesterday showing Hillary Clinton losing potential match ups with five Republican nominees (even Mike Huckabee), a dramatic shift from a few months ago when Hillary was favored over all Republicans in Zogby polls. In the same match ups, Obama comes out on top and Edwards either ties or wins against most Republicans.

So what happened? The Clinton camp questions the methodology and claims the poll is inaccurate because it is Zogby's first online poll. Granted, the results probably shouldn't be compared with previous polls that were conducted via landline telephones, but which of the two methods is more accurate?

There is some validity to the argument that Internet polls exclude a (small) portion of the population without access—perhaps older Americans who are more likely to vote. But traditional telephone polling overlooks a large segment of the population who no longer has a landline and instead relies solely on cellphone service.

And compare the sample sizes: The telephone polls had samples of around 1,000, whereas this latest online survey included more than 9,000 likely voters and had a margin error of +/- 1.0 percent.

My endorsement goes to the online survey. Hillary is beginning to slide, and rather than acknowledge that, her campaign wants to cast doubt polling methodology. Her game plan is to exude a Bush-like confidence (i.e., arrogance) regardless of what's happening in the polls. Consider her interview last night with Katie Couric:

COURIC: If [the nominee] is not you, how disappointed will you be?

CLINTON: “Well, it will be me...”

COURIC: I know that you're confident it's going to be you, but there is a possibility it won't be. And clearly you have considered that possibility.

CLINTON: “No I haven't.”

COURIC: So you never even consider the possibility?

CLINTON: “I don't.”

She had better consider the possibility soon, because the latest poll reflects what has been a common assumption for many: Clinton is too polarizing to draw support from disenchanted Republicans (there are many) and independents and won't do well in a general election.

Posted by Elyas Bakhtiari at 7:36 AM | Comments (6) | TrackBack

November 26, 2007

Quote of the day: Steven King

The legendary horror writer unloads on the mainstream media in a recent Time interview:

I just filmed a segment for Nightline, about [the movie version of his novella] The Mist, and one of the things I said to them was, you know, "You guys are just covering — what do they call it — the scream of the peacock, and you're missing the whole fox hunt."

Like waterboarding [or] where all the money went that we poured into Iraq. It just seems to disappear. And yet you get this coverage of who's gonna get custody of Britney's kids? Whether or not Lindsay drank at her twenty-first birthday party, and all this other shit. You know, this morning, the two big stories on CNN are Kanye West's mother, who died, apparently, after having some plastic surgery. The other big thing that's going on is whether or not this cop [Drew Peterson] killed his... wife. And meanwhile, you've got Pakistan in the midst of a real crisis, where these people have nuclear weapons that we helped them develop. You've got a guy in charge, who's basically declared himself the military strongman and is being supported by the Bush administration, whose raison d'etre for going into Iraq was to spread democracy in the world.

So you've got these things going on, which seem to me to be very substantive, that could affect all of us, and instead, you see a lot of this back-fence gossip. So I said something to the Nightline guy about waterboarding, and if the Bush administration didn't think it was torture, they ought to do some personal investigation. Someone in the Bush family should actually be waterboarded so they could report on it to George. I said, I didn't think he would do it, but I suggested Jenna be waterboarded and then she could talk about whether or not she thought it was torture. And then the guy from Nightline said, "Well, obviously you've not been watching World News Tonight with Charlie Gibson." But I do — I watch 'em all!

I couldn't agree more that today's media organizations have lost all credibility.

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November 20, 2007

The strike, explained by the writers

Want to know what's going on with the writer's strike? Get it from the writers themselves. John Roberts at Kung Fu Monkey
has written for both television and film, and counters a libertarian, anti-union argument that the strike is about padding the pockets of already well-paid writers.

Basically, the strike is about residuals, which help keep struggling, "middle-class" writers afloat in between successful projects. Writers want a percentage of revenue generated from online sales, but the studios are taking a "let's wait and see" approach, arguing that they don't yet have a handle on online profitability. Screenwriter John August explains why this argument doesn't cut it for the writers:

There’s widespread belief that the rate paid to writers for DVD’s is too low. It was set 20 years ago, when DVD was a nascent and expensive technology. DVD’s are now cheap and hugely profitable, yet the rate remains fixed . . . Downloads will eventually supplant DVD’s. That’s why it’s crucial to set a fair rate for them now, and avoid the same trap of “let’s wait and see.”

Listen to more writers from two of my favorite shows:

Writers from The Daily Show

Writers from The Office

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November 16, 2007

Swift Kids for Truth

These are by far the best political ads, and the best satire, of the campaign season.

On Hillary Clinton:

On Barack Obama:

On John Edwards:

Sadly, these probably aren't too far off from what real campaign ads will look like next fall.

Hat tip to Good Will Hinton.

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November 14, 2007

Obama's Chief Technology Officer

Barack Obama plans on unveiling today his technology plan, which would, among other things, establish a "Chief Technology Officer" to "ensure government officials holds open meetings, broadcast live webcasts of those meetings, and use blogging software, wikis and open comments to communicate policies with Americans, according to the plan."

Other proposals in his plan include supporting network neutrality, opening the wireless spectrum for competition, and revamping H1-B immigration laws to bring people in to fill tech jobs that haven't been filled by American workers.

I've written previously about Obama's commitment to open-source government (a.k.a. "Government 2.0" and "Google Government"). If he's still looking for a way to distinguish himself from other candidates, particularly Hillary, I think he should push this issue more.

He's proposing some very innovative concepts and is showing distinct leadership. And it's not just that he's more tech savvy than his older colleagues. Some of the policy proposals are based on the fundamental concept of an open and transparent government—not something the Clintons are known for.

Posted by Elyas Bakhtiari at 2:13 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

November 12, 2007

Presidential candidates' missed votes

Presidential candidates serving in Congress have always taken a lot of flak for missing votes because of campaign events, and deservedly so. No one expects these candidates to run a successful campaign and attend every single vote, but at the same time, they were elected to do a certain job and deserve to be criticized if they're not doing it.

If your Average Joe skips work every other day to interview for a new job, he'd better be sure he gets it. Because if it doesn't pan out his old boss isn't going to be too happy about all the missed work.

That said, here's an attendance record for current presidential candidates who are also in the Senate (the percentage represents the number of votes missed):

And for the House:

Kudos to Kucinich. I thought Hillary's would be a little higher, and McCain's attendance record is just shocking.

Posted by Elyas Bakhtiari at 7:42 PM | Comments (6) | TrackBack

November 9, 2007

The case for Obama in under three minutes

Two videos, both from late in 2002, make the simplest case possible for Obama over Hillary as the Democratic nominee. She not only voted for the war, but she did it while parroting the same false justifications given by the Bush administration. Yes, she has more experience, but much of that experience involves making bad decisions and following the most politically-convenient path.

Video 1: Hillary discusses why she voted for the war

Video 2: Obama discusses why he was against the invasion and predicts the aftermath

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