Archive for the 'Commentary' category
Few Clues to High IQs
Thursday, January 11, 2007 8:52 pm
Kids with high IQs have a distinct pattern of brain development, according to a 20-year study of more than 300 young minds published in the March 30 issue of the journal Nature.
And for the next big brain study, scientists will get these smart kids to figure out what this Nature study really means.
Like all brain and intelligence studies, this one is loaded with implications. If smart brains are biologically different from dumb brains, does that mean that genetics and therefore race determine intelligence?
Yes and no. That is, yes to the former to some degree (if you can define intelligence), and no to the latter. Regardless, dim-witted eugenicists will use the study to advance their cause of breeding super-intelligent humans.
The study, led by Dr. Philip Shaw of the National Institutes of Mental Health, found surprisingly that the brains of smarter kids developed more slowly than the brains of children with average to lower intelligence, based on standard IQ tests.
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Job fairs. Speed dating for job seekers and employers! Or like a cattle market.
Most Colleges and Universities organise job fairs round about graduation time to allow students to meet new employers - it’s a fairly common method of recruiting recent graduates.
Job seekers can use job fairs to find out a bit more information about employers, working life and general industry information. This is what most people use job fairs for.
However, the opportunity exists for job seekers to use the brief few minutes they have with employers to create a lasting impression (er, a “good” lasting impression!) and sell themselves, for job fairs are also an opportunity for the cream of the crop to rise to the top!
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What is Philosophy?
Wednesday, January 10, 2007 12:23 pm
by Monique Barb
The failure of all thinkers of defining philosophy by a unique and complete sentence leads us to many suppositions. First of all, one may think that they do not know what philosophy is,although it exists for more than 2500 years, or that this concept is too complex to be enounced in a single definition. Another hypothese would be that of the existence of too many philosophical species and that each philosophy has its own definition. But a reasonable conclusion is that of having more different subjects gathered under the same name, a series of “philosophies” which cannot be either united or expressed by a single concept.
Aristotle said that there were 3 theoretical philosophies : mathematics, physics and theology. If his conception was right,it would be difficult to find a unique definition for all, a definition which could comprise the essence of all these subjects.
So we are compelled to conclude that we cannot find a distinct and general definition for the concept of philosophy, although we have so many philosophical works of art.
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Biff from Back to the Future
Sunday, January 7, 2007 6:05 pmExcuses of the Fat Bitch
Tuesday, December 19, 2006 11:41 pm
“But her greatest worry is what other gym-goers might think about her weight.”
When it comes to making excuses, I think fat people are the second most adept at it, after German ex-soldiers. Seriously, they will try and think up any reason that doesn’t involve blaming themselves to explain why they are so humungously fucking fat. While we were gathering discussion topics for Station Nation, Danman came across an article detailing the latest fatty excuse, and it’s a doozy. It’s such a doozy, in fact, that I’ve decided to write a whole response to it on these fair pages. A link to the article can be found here, but I will naturally provide you with the pertinant information so you don’t have to exhaust precious energy in clicking a link:
“Another hurdle to exercise: embarrassment
Fear of looking fat, silly prevents many people from breaking a sweat.
Tripping and falling off the treadmill at the gym has made Debbie Holman self-conscious about working out in public. She’s afraid she’ll humiliate herself again by flubbing up on the equipment.
But her greatest worry is what other gym-goers might think about her weight.”
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Two Phrases That Destroyed American Culture
Wednesday, December 13, 2006 9:43 pm
Every time I promise myself that I will work on controlling my temper, I always end up making a scene.
This time, it wasn’t my fault. All I wanted was a bagel. A bagel, a cup of coffee, and perhaps a spot near a window where I could idly watch the traffic go by as I browsed through the newspaper and licked cream cheese from my fingers. But apparently the Gods were not on my side.
Today I got in line behind a middle aged woman in a fur coat who was barking orders at the poor bagel girl like she was a dumb misbehaving dog. Fur Coat was ordering multiple bagel sandwiches from a list, but instead of ordering them in such a way that would make sense, she was attempting to order them all at the same time. The Bagel Girl was obviously confused and you could tell by her shaking hands that Fur Coat’s harsh tone was intimidating her. Finally, Fur Coat snapped, “I said light butter on that bagel! Light butter! Jesus!”
I couldn’t stand it anymore. I cut in, “You don’t have to be such a bitch about it.”
Fur Coat glared daggers at me and stated, “I’m not.”
“Well, I beg to differ.”
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Online Journalism, America, and the New World Order
Monday, December 11, 2006 9:02 pm
Dana G. Smith
The alarm should of been sounded a very long time ago. When the internet was first out, I was living in another city. The system was new then and the companies where I live did not have good phone lines, and used only 1200 mps download. It was a time when signing up was new and AOL was one of the first ones in our area to put up lines in different cities for everyone to access the net.
Then my next door neighbor put a system in his house for connecting to the internet. I was one of the first ones to sign up on his little system. As time went on, software became better, along with installation methods for the whole internet business system. In time my neighbor moved it all to an office. Today, he is the largest provider in our state. He grew with the net.
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Ray Robison
Kathleen Carroll, executive editor and senior vice president of The Associated Press has addressed the rising cacophony of bloggers and pundits insisting that the AP substantiate its recent reporting of six Sunnis being burned alive in Baghdad. They AP editor states:
Indeed, a small number of them have whipped themselves into an indignant lather over the AP’s reporting.
Well, I am not sure how the AP defines “a small number” (a surprisingly vague term for a statement expounding upon the accuracy of the AP), but let’s quantify this in a familiar term, the Google search. As of this writing, when I type in “who is Jamil Hussein”, a very specific search term in quotations that will only bring that exact question in the results I find 11,700 returns. A search for “Jamil Hussein” as of now will provide you with 162,000 returns. Sounds like quite a few more people than a “small number” are concerned about the AP’s reporting.
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