"The fact is, factory learning is dead, we just don't know it yet. We have spent the last 250 years in factory schools, built using factory ideas to populate our factories with workers. Today, we need a change in how we educate people, so that they are ready for information jobs. This requires scrapping the 'one size fits all' education model that is clearly dying (NCLB, Common Core etc), and replacing it with student paced education system where each student has a customized curriculum, based on ABILITY and WILLINGNESS to learn."

This argument has been around for what, a century or more now? And individuated software learning systems have been in use for over a half-century. See: the PLATO computer instruction system, starting in 1960. The truth is, the research on how well these systems work in practice has been consistently pretty dismal (I don't have time to get links at the moment, feel free to research). Last week a fellow at MIT and former MS researcher released a book basically saying that after a career of attempts, he's now convinced that technology cannot solve this problem. The most basic beginning instruction requires human guidance, and unfortunately that creates some bandwidth limitation in how many students a given teacher can attend to.

"But no matter how good the design, and despite rigorous tests of impact, I have never seen technology systematically overcome the socio-economic divides that exist in education. Children who are behind need high-quality adult guidance more than anything else. Many people believe that technology “levels the playing field” of learning, but what I’ve discovered is that it does no such thing."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2015/06/04/technology-wont-fix-americas-neediest-schools-it-makes-bad-education-worse/

You can't use the ancient Greek meaning. In the modern technical context, a hypothesis is something that can be tested. A theory is a larger body of explanations. Look here for the specifics of statistical hypothesis testing in the last hundred years or so. This is basic Stats 101 stuff:

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

"for I have sworn upon the altar of god eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man." - Thomas Jefferson - illustrates the proper attitude.

The act of owning slaves, on the other hand, not so much.

So perhaps you misread the subject, re: "how you extract location data from Facebook" (GGGP post) when you responded to this thread.

Anyway, here's the answer: No one can. FB does not make that information available regarding any user.

But how does one access that about another person on a social media site like Facebook?

"i want my teachers teaching, not spying"

Teachers are not administrators. The two camps are generally in opposition. In recent years administrators have generally taken more control of schools away from teachers at all levels (i.e., become more manager-employee relationship). Administrators would decide and run a program like this. Likely teachers would be the only voice in schools arguing *against* something like this -- and here's hoping they have some job protection so they don't get fired in response.

Example: Administrators in Holyoke, Massachusetts demand putting up students' names and test scores in a public "data wall" to motivate them. Teacher Agustin Morales, local union president, attends school board hearing and points out this is likely illegal. His observation reports suddenly switch from positive to negative and he's fired soon thereafter. Fairly common story.

http://www.psc-cuny.org/clarion/december-2014/why-teacher-agustin-morales-lost-his-job

I'll take "Poor Thinkers are Also Poor Spellers" for $1000, Alex.

Thanks for posting that.

.... I mean Texas.

My understanding is that the walk at R'lyeh would be normal, but the view of the distant surroundings highly skewed, and possibly take exponential time:

http://arxiv.org/abs/1210.8144

I'm broadly guessing that this was the setup for a new interview question: "Were you dumb enough to believe that I ask the puzzle about walking around the poles for a job interview at SpaceX?"

Totally agreed. Vaporware.

20-year-old college students says to me yesterday: "I just got my first computer and I'm trying to figure out these files and directories and stuff."

Your personal experience is not universal.

Your interpretation makes no sense in a few different ways. First: The Federalist Papers are arguing in support of the core Constitution at a time before the Bill of Rights or 2nd Amendment existed or had even been proposed. Second: Once again, the argument by Hamilton is not that random ownership of guns will protect liberty, but actually the exact opposite. Federalist No. 29 is specifically in support of the the fact that the Federal government needs to be in charge of an elite armed forces, and that this is "the best possible security", that the people as a whole cannot possibly be up to the task. The only question here is whether this well-trained and Federally-organized "select corps" is a full-time army or a part-time militia. Here's your quote in context of the full paragraph:

"But though the scheme of disciplining the whole nation must be abandoned as mischievous or impracticable; yet it is a matter of the utmost importance that a well-digested plan should, as soon as possible, be adopted for the proper establishment of the militia. The attention of the government ought particularly to be directed to the formation of a select corps of moderate extent, upon such principles as will really fit them for service in case of need. By thus circumscribing the plan, it will be possible to have an excellent body of well-trained militia, ready to take the field whenever the defense of the State shall require it. This will not only lessen the call for military establishments, but if circumstances should at any time oblige the government to form an army of any magnitude that army can never be formidable to the liberties of the people while there is a large body of citizens, little, if at all, inferior to them in discipline and the use of arms, who stand ready to defend their own rights and those of their fellow-citizens. This appears to me the only substitute that can be devised for a standing army, and the best possible security against it, if it should exist."

I recommend that anyone read the whole paper, it's pretty short and highly illuminating to the true purpose of a Federally-run armed force, specifically in contrast to disorganized and undisciplined random mobs.

http://www.foundingfathers.info/federalistpapers/fed29.htm

Disagree. Technology is entirely controllable (see: documents that current photocopiers, printers, or Photoshop will not print). And: We will never get off this planet, that's just fantasy stuff. Come back to reality.