Actually, the combination of the first two results in a deep rooted unshakable self-confidence that is earned by overcoming diversity and the instilled insecurity. If even despite being told daily you cannot possibly succeed, you are not too good and you will amount to nothing, you get ahead, there is pretty much nothing anybody can tell you that would shake your confidence. Further, you will know the exact upper and lower limits of your skills, you will rarely misjudge your own ability and if you decide to do something, it is because you know you will succeed.

Compare this to whatever is being taught in american schools today. The false sense of confidence, that is standing on such flimsy basis, that it takes just couple words to bring any one of those kids to tears or unbalance them so much they won't really have a shot to compete against you, even if they were actually better. I actually see that as immature and imbalanced. Not sure how you reached your baseless conviction that it is the other way around.

I wish I had strong impulse control to compliment those first two. I can see clearly how it impairs me from reaching my full potential.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ACM_International_Collegiate_Programming_Contest

Until the world opened up in 1991, it was USA only. Once that happened, you have a healthy mix for couple years and since 2000, it is Russia, China and Poland only at the top spot. But check the top 10 and you will see which universities are the best.

But just try to hire people even around Sillicon Valley, in my entire professional life I met only one Russian programmer that was not excelent and he was educated in US since 5th grade.

All of those rankings have one fatal flaw, they put more than 50% weight on citations of articles or books by the staff of those universities published in English Language (No Russian, No Mandarin). If instead of focusing on the teachers, they focus on the students, the picture would be quite different.

I'd hire a student from those three schools over anybody who studied in any university in US, no questions asked. Especially over anyone who went to High School in US.

I don't think we are talking about Computer Science. There are three universities in Russia (1 in Moscow and 2 in St. Petersburg) that are all better in Computer Science than any university in US.

Ok, ok, just the executive branch of the US government then. Big difference.

Not just that' but when you make the former head of KGB openly envious of your spying programs, you can be sure that you've finally surpassed the Soviet Union in every field :)

But China's middle class is roughly the same size as US middle class. But they just about met. In a decade China will have double the size of middle class, while US middle class is steadily shrinking.

If you don't let us snoop on you, children get fucked. I mean, literally, fucked, by pedophiles. Yes, that is your only choice a stalker or pedophile. Pick one.

I'm for this proposal, if the same bill will include a requirement for all military financing to declare ahead of time which military conflict the weapon will be used with specifics and financial analysis of the impact for dollar compared to current weapons.

But they don't pay the same tax for the same purchase. The only REAL commodity we have in this life is our time. Money is just a mental construct. If you paid the same amount of time in tax for the same purchase, we could talk about some fairness. But you don't. You pay same amount of some made up number, which for one person could mean a day, for another an hour and for another just a fraction of a second.

Sales Tax is actually a reverse progressive tax. Depending on the percentage of your income spent each month, you are taxed more or less. The most at 100% income spent, which is poor and lower middle class. Then middle class gets to about 95% spending, upper middle class 85% spending and then you get the rich, which spend generally at 10% or less. So their tax burden is 10 times lower than the poor and middle class. There is nothing fair about a sales tax.

Heh?

I'm sorry, I thought you've got problems with basic economics, but clearly it is also reading comprehension and spelling. Please read again my last comment.

I spend a lot of time at the computer. Well over 80 hours a week. So I did a lot of measurements with different configurations of HW/SW. And I found out that I spend at average two more hours a week doing non-productive stuff on PC/Win than on Mac/OSX. Those two hours a week are 150 hours over the amortized lifetime (3 years) of the computer. I don't know what is your hourly rate, but I cannot afford to use PC/Win even if they paid me $5000 to take it, I would not. It is just too expensive for me. So yeah, I need OSX for "some reason".

Because you think of it wrong. You think about how you would handle the situation if you were in it. The people that starve do not have your skills and/or intelligence. They don't have access to information, transportation and education. They might not be aware of programs that help, but even if they did, food is something you need every single day. It wears on you to beg all the time. They might be also too busy working often 2-3 part time jobs and getting from one to the other.

Most people also starve because the food they can get is not nutricious or they don't get enough of it. The reason being high pricess on quality food, which are kept high due to the export and other factors. We do have full shelves, but we also have people who look at those shelves and cannot afford what is on them and so the shelves stay full.

There were 4 billlion dollars cut from the food stamps program as well just recently. It will mean so many more families who still starve, but do not qualify for the food stamps. Those churches and food banks are not available in rural areas, where poverty is the biggest problem and are not sufficient for the demand in impoverished cities where there is just too many poor and starving people.

The argument you are making is so insensitive and prejudicial it is hard to imagine how you can even think like that, but I guess this is what positive bias is about.