A controlled study including longitudinal outcome measures is a good way to build evidence for or against Head Start, as the case may be. Leaping from evidence of a genetic factor in intelligence to an attack on Head Start is not.

In fact that study indicates that less intelligent kids benefit more from the program (whereas you quoted results for the population as a whole):

Selected subgroups of children showed patterns of favorable impacts, including favorable impacts through 1st grade in the cognitive, social-emotional, or health domains.

Among the 4-year-old cohort, these subgroups include children of parents with mild depressive symptoms, children who were Dual Language Learners, and children with lower cognitive skills.

I do have a 4k display on my Mac Pro, but I don't have a tablet because I like having one device that can do it all. A Surface Pro with this new chip might end up being that device.

I will admit what triggered suspicion - I forgot to bring a birth certificate for my 15-year-old son, and my wife wasn't with us. I don't see what a photocopied birth certificate proves (with regard to either kidnapping or smuggling contraband on my motorcycle) - but either way it was made abundantly clear to me that "privacy" is not a relevant concept at an international checkpoint. In fact the Canadian agent even claimed I shouldn't be taking him between US states without documentation, since I had no way to prove I had "permission", which really made my head spin.

Yeah, I guess. It's like pointing out that overseas freight might be opened by Customs - which is to say, yeah, it might. I practically got a proctological exam just crossing over into Canada this summer. What is more secretive and nefarious is the tapping of a line between 2 nations (or within one nation) by a third party.

Despite the mountains of hard scientific evidence to the contrary, the political dogma, at least where I live, is that we are all born as blank slates and any measurable difference between individuals is due to environment. We would all be as good as Tiger Woods at golf if we lived his life. This includes differences between the sexes, and isn't hyperbole or an exaggeration.

How do you claim to know what people are thinking? There is a vast difference between feeling that people are (in whatever sense) identical, vs. believing they should be treated equally, especially in the political sphere. When you advocate discrimination, you not only assert that there is a difference, but that you, or society (will be a just arbiter) in assigning people to differential treatment. And that differential treatment will not cause even further divergence over time.

If history has shown anything, it's that those assumptions are absolutely false.

You have to be very careful attributing things to genes rather than environment. Testosterone level, since you mentioned it, rises and drop in response to winning or losing in competitions, and increases in response to exercise. The nature of our encounters with others (dominance) and exercise (which depends on job function) are both clearly culturally influenced.

Do you?

"That omission has wasted millions of dollars for higher education for those that can't learn." - Bzzt, wrong. There's nothing in this research that claims anybody "can't learn."

"Not to mention the money wasted on 'equal opportunity' and 'head start' programs." - Bzzt, wrong again, and 0 for 2. There's nothing in this research that shows equal opportunity or head start programs don't help, much less that they are a "waste."

Your post, and the one we are responding to, are good examples of why people have become "PC" and afraid of certain facts - because history is so full of people with political ends who (unconsciously) twist the facts to support their subjective beliefs, sometimes with disastrous results.

You are confusing two different things: 1) the assumption that all people have equal intellectual ability (which practically nobody believes), with: 2) the assertion that only those with high potential are deserving of the nourishment needed to reach one's own personal potential. I can see different levels of intellectual ability in my own children; do I pull the less-able one from math? No! If anything, she will benefit more from the extra time devoted to mastering times tables than my other kids would benefit from learning a little more geometry.

Secondly, you completely confused about equal opportunity. There is nothing in this study that says people of equal potential will reach equal levels of attainment if the potential of one is developed while the potential of the other is neglected or discouraged.

Perhaps it might have enjoyed more success if they had added x86 emulation and LLVM-esque runtime support to Visual Studio and C++ so a large portion of desktop apps could be recompiled for it.

The whole reason Microsoft was arm-twisted into making RT in the first place was because processors that could fit in a tablet form factor (with a tablet-sized battery) did not have enough power to run desktop applications - let alone through an emulator! Only with Pro 3 is Microsoft (thanks to Intel) finally able to fit a PC into a tablet - and still with a rather high cost, and it could still be smaller / lighter than it is.

Did you mean to provide a link to "these guys"?

I don't think that figure can be correct. Using a rate of $0.10 / kWh (it actually starts at $0.0906 for the first 450kWh used each month and goes up from there), you would make $483 of electricity if there were only the equivalent of 4 hours of peak sunshine per day. (483*10/365/3.3 = 4.0100) The link I posted claims the equivalent of 6 hours of peak sunshine per day on average, which is actually conservative based on this table.

I just looked up St Petersburg and Los Angeles in the NREL Prospector and the average annual DNI for St Petersburg is 5.22 kWh/m2/day vs. 5.72 for Los angeles, so only 10% less.

(Lucky me, it is 7.54 here in Albuquerque. Now excuse me while I put on another layer of sunscreen.)

The cost for 3 cottages was quoted as 106,000 dollars but I keep seeing where in California people are installing panels for a tiny fraction of that. I guess that shows just how much of the cost is being subsidized.

Nah, here is what the prices are where I live - both before and after the credits. For my house (2 adults and 4 kids) we need the 3.3 kWh system which is $13.8K before credits, $8.3K after. That is parts + installation + 25 year warranty on inverter and panels. (This works out to a break-even of 7 years after the credits because it would offset $100/mo in electricity bills.)

I am left wondering how it could be $35K / cottage in Florida. Maybe it's to go off-grid altogether, thus requiring storage? I'm getting just enough to ensure I'll rarely produce a net excess in any single month. The rate at which the power company buys excess electricity isn't attractive so I don't want to over-produce long-term, but you can over-produce during the day and 'bank' it until night, and carry a little (up to $50 worth) over from one month to the next.

I got lasik and my doctor kept saying, over and over and over again, "you will still need reading glasses eventually, just like anybody else!" I guess he was worried I'd come after him or something.

But for running and skiing, and especially for motorcycle riding (wind, dust and grit) it is SO much better than glasses or contacts (which I never could really get comfortable with). And I can use $10 Walmart sunglasses again.

The reason this study found a higher cost for solar was they accounted for intermittency - the basic problem is that even if solar were generating 50% everybody's power, you'd still need about the same amount of baseline power available - nuclear or fossil fuels - for when the sun isn't out.

Early solar adopters aren't bearing this cost because the power company charges them same amount for power whether or not the sun is shining - it's not really an issue until solar is a bigger power source. Germany IS already there, leading the way with solar and wind, and has been paying outrageous prices for electricity at certain moments when there is a crunch - up to 400 times the normal rate! But as you can imagine this is a huge financial incentive to create new solutions.

I question the study because the transition to solar will be gradual, and it's hard to say what more efficient means we might come up with to store power. If we had a smart grid that could communicate fluctuating electricity prices to devices, there might be a lot they could do.

I do think there's a risk of not getting our money's worth from the F35 if the missions we need to do all continue to be more suitable for cruise missiles (is that a drone?)