Comment I think I'll Retweet this (Score 1) 200
*cough*Twitter*cough*
*cough*Twitter*cough*
"standard IQ tests, which have been criticized for cultural bias"
The voices who complain about cultural bias will always find a reason that any test is biased, as long as it continues to score their preferred racial/ethnic/economic/victim class lower than their supposed oppressors. If current tests showed that poor African immigrants with little schooling were "more intelligent" than the average middle class white person, the tests would be hailed as scientific evidence of the tyranny of the current social regime.
That said, the classic IQ test is very limited. It does measure one thing pretty well, but just what that thing is isn't well defined--and that thing, while helpful in some ways, is in no way required for a successful, happy life.
Most likely it was 1000 sites containing images of adult women with small breasts, which as all good citizens know is intolerable in a decent society.
If conservatives are risk averse, why are a strong majority of successful businessmen and entrepreneurs conservative? Please don't say it's because greed and the desire to keep their money overpowers their inherent timidity at the world. That would be incredibly smug.
If liberals love uncertainly and novelty, why are they the ones who push for the certainty and banality of pervasive welfare programs? Please don't say it's because their inherent love of "people" overpowers their personal inclination for uncertainty. That would be incredibly patronizing.
I've actually been a Google rater. I spent about 2 years total doing it--long enough to become a 'moderator' who ensures quality feedback from other raters--in between, and supplemental to, "real" jobs. Raters give feedback on lots of Google services but it falls into two buckets: ranking the quality of legitimate results, and learning to spot the "spam".
Legit results are easy. Spam is more interesting. For one thing, I didn't entirely agree with their definition of what spam was--that's part of the reason you still see spammy results in some searches. The other part of course is that the spammers are constantly changing tactics. But it was actually kind of fun learning to spot the various methods spammers can use, and know that I was helping to improve search results by getting them off the front page (and hopefully off the top 100 pages).
But I always assumed that rater feedback was used to judge and adjust The Algorithm rather than individual page results. The Algorithm has always been king at Google.
I can make a telephone call to almost any country in the world from here. The UN doesn't seem to have done a bad job ensuring that this works correctly...
Do you seriously believe that the UN gets credit for global telecommunications? I'm sure they'd love to, a la Al Gore, agree with you but that's ridiculous. And would you seriously claim that the UN--a political organization by definition--would somehow NOT politicize ICANN more than it is now? Some people don't like America having the control it does, but that's political as well. Show me one way in which the US has abused its oversight and then we can talk about reasons for a possible shift in control. Until then, stop your reflexive inclination toward warm fuzzy handholding, and get back to work improving the world rather than trying to control what others have made.
it is unreasonable for these people to pay the same price as someone who just checks their e-mail and sends photos to their grandchildren.
Yes, let's also say it is unreasonable that some people use public roads more than others--it's just not fair! Why should two people who pay the same taxes get different levels of service? The reason it is reasonable for people to pay similar amounts for disparate useage are:
Just wait for the lawsuits to start rolling in when people with unsecured wi-fi points get billed for their neighbors' usage...then the government will respond by making it illegal to use open wi-fi spots, as "theft of services"...then we'll all be logging in to the interwebs with our government-issued tracking ID... It's a 'solution' to solve a non-existent problem.
You knew the job was dangerous when you took it, Fred. -- Superchicken