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Comment Some Public Records ... You Know ... Just in Case (Score 5, Informative) 448

So a whois.net domain name lookup on their site yielded nothing. And there are suspiciously no patents mentioning "wetag" or "ifind" and the names they listed (Dr. Paul McArthur) are in patents but for cold fusion BS in California.

Surely, though, they must have registered the "iFind" trademark? And if you search on TESS we find:

Owner (APPLICANT) WeTag, Inc. CORPORATION TEXAS 3309 San Mateo Drive Plano TEXAS 75023

With an attorney listed as "Richard G. Eldredge" which corresponds to a local attorney. Before you deploy the door kickers to lynch somebody, that address is just somebody's $200,000 house and could possibly be a random address used by a jerk. Remember that it's entirely possible that this is all a front by some other actor and someone was paid western union/bitcoin to register this trademark through this attorney without realizing they were just being used by literally anyone in the world ... of course, kickstarter should have even better transaction details (hopefully).

Comment Re: What about statistics vs calculus (Score 1) 155

Number Theory has application today, oh yes. Hellman (two 'l's, not one) had a BS, MS, and PhD in Electrical Engineering. Diffie had a bachelor's degree in Mathematics. My question is this: after Number Theory was shown to have applications how many Mathematicians lost interest due solely to the fact that it was no longer "pure" math? I knew a topologist who grew embarrassed and closed his office door before discussing relativity. It just wouldn't do to be interested in applications. Perhaps I should have drawn the distinction less about abstract vs concrete, and more about pure vs applied.

Comment Re:Actual Math + AP CS teacher here (Score 1) 155

I agree in regard to logic. Critical thinking needs to be taught as early as the human mind can comprehend it. This is essential, and it isn't being done. I disagree that number theory is appropriate. Some of the applications of number theory are useful, certainly, but I couldn't apply number theory theory to either my CS or my Physics degree. I think Information Theory would be more useful, or Operations Research, even, for that matter.

Comment Re:It could, but does it? (Score 1) 155

Finally. When I was in High School, calculators where not allowed. In HS Chem and Physics we could at least use slide rules. In Math, it was just pencil and paper. Most people need to learn to calculate in order to solve specific problems. Math as its known and taught today isn't the way to teach the general population to do either. I'd suggest that buying HS students a laptop and a copy of Mathematica, and then teaching them to use it, would pay for itself in terms of how swiftly both the general concepts as well as actual calculating ability would be instilled. Many, many more people would be capable of using advanced maths if only they could leverage these rather inexpensive tools. Is it more important to memorize multiplication tables, or to understand intuitively what Div, Grad, and Curl are, and how to use them? Why not let even people with 400 Math SAT scores understand and be able to apply the concepts of Calc and DiffEq (and Probability and Statistics) without having to work so hard at it?

Comment Re: What about statistics vs calculus (Score 1) 155

Math classes (my minor) and Software Engineering (my profession) have little of the same flavor at all. Math classes feel closer, perhaps, to Physics (my other degree), but even still, it isn't the same. Applied math is incredibly useful. Abstract math isn't useful, and those involved are unabashed proud of the fact. Very sad for Mathematics. The idea of teaching applied math (science and engineering based,) is a great idea that won't fly, due to the culture of mathematical academics. If you want to really learn Vector Calculus (which I've had) you'd do better to take the Physics E&M courses. Likewise, there is a lot more application to be found in Statistical Thermodynamics than Probability or Statistics classes. As a tutor I saw that Math majors could prove theorems, but Business majors could talk to someone about what the applications mean, which the Math majors thought was not relevant (in part, because they didn't know, and didn't need to know.)

Comment Re:Wow (Score 1) 224

It actually is a bit different for the Republicans, in that they are caught in an internal party schism of a scale we've not seen on either side since desegregation, if even then. It's difficult for the less right to look good to the more right, undirected pushing against the Democrats is one of the few ways they have to do it.

Comment Re:Wow (Score 1) 224

Do not forget that ObamaCare was rammed through without a single Republican vote in the House or Senate.

It's the unfortunate case that Republicans don't generally support Democratic bills. Witness the recent student loan bill. There is not much question that a better educated populance means a better economy and a stronger nation. It's a truism that we could just pay for college education in a number of fields and reap economic benefits of many times the spending. Indeed, we used to do more of that and the country was stronger when we did.

Comment Re:I really dig the Obamacare comments Bruce made (Score 1) 224

You meant "you wouldn't approve" rather than "you wouldn't understand".

Positioned correctly, it isn't all that socially reprehensible to state the sentiment that you don't believe you should pay for people who drive their motorcycle without helmets, people who self-administer addictive and destructive drugs, people who engage in unprotected sex with prostitutes or unprotected casual sex with strangers, and people who go climbing without using all of the safety equipment they could.

You don't really even need to get into whether you hold human life sacred, etc., to get that argument across. It's mostly just an economic argument, you believe yourself to be sensible and don't want to pay for people who aren't.

The ironic thing about this is that it translates to "I don't want to pay for the self-inflicted downfall of the people who exercise the libertarian rights I deeply believe they should have."

OK, not a bad position as far as it goes. Now, tell me how we should judge each case, once these people present themselves for medical care, and what we should do if they don't meet the standard.

Comment Re:citation needed (Score 1) 224

Citation needed.

I just looked for a minute and found This NIMH study. If you look at the percentages per year they are astonishingly high. 9% of people in any particular year just for mood disorders, and that's just the first on the list. Then they go down the list of other disorders. The implication is that everyone suffers some incident of mental illness in their lives. And given the number of psychiatrists, psychologists, and lay practitioners in practice, it seems like much of the population try to get help at times, if only from their priest or school guidance counselor.

You are not a rock. Can you honestly tell me that you haven't ever suffeed a moment of irrationality?

Comment Re:I really dig the Obamacare comments Bruce made (Score 2) 224

Yes, seeing a doctor really is a human right.

Does that mean we should bear the burden of your bad lifestyle choices? Well, we do today. Either those folks are in our emergency rooms, or they are lying on our streets. Either way, we all pay a cost.

It's not clear to me what you propose to do with them. Perhaps you should explain that a bit more clearly.

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