Ok. But I wouldn't consider Eton as an education system. I do not doubt that it works in isolated cases. Usually even "private" schools receive massive public funding through public research funds.

Great. 500000$ are maybe 20 teachers (without infrastructure) for 1 year. It is indeed great that Google donates money to schools and I do not want to belittle that fact. However phrases like these leave me baffled:

  Google aren't prepared to wait for government or someone else to fix the problems...

Not Google, nor any other private company or entity is going to fix the education system. That is the whole point of having public schools. Without the state committing to education you are screwed. There is not a single example in history where a private education system succeeded in the long run.

You mean the funding of the Taliban? Or the invasion to kill the Taliban... err :-Z.

Least squares is also often used in parameter fitting. Suppose you have a simulation with an somehow unknown parameter p. First you use a first guess as a value of p. That you run your simulation and get observed values y_obs.

Now you compare the computed values y_obs with the measured values y_mes using squares: cost = (y_obs - y_mes)^2.

By computing d p / d cost you may adapt p and redo the above steps till the squares are minimized... thus a least squares problem.

This is too simple as an explanation for me. People as those on the streets during the London riots are the espected long-term effect of 30 years of Thatcherism. They are not "well-fed" in terms of dignity and education. To just name a few lacking key features of a sane human being. Of course they can shovel in burgers and PS3 games all day long.

This sounds rather narrow minded to me. We just live in a society of human beings. That's the way it is. You benefit from a lot of achievements done by other people. In fact I assume that most of us profit more from the achievements of other people than the other way around. At least this holds true for myself.

The planet is doing just fine. In fact, the planet will always survive. But have WE been around back then?

Today the US haven't signed the Kyoto protocol, the third world has still its debt and alternative energy sources are starting to make their first profits without being subsidized (at least here in Europe).

If you pay you get to listen to the music you want and not the music the ads industry wants you to listen to.

Well let's hope the ads decide that your show doesn't get cancelled. Sooner or later those shows will stay, which attract people relevant for the advertisment industry and influenced by ads. Which unfortunaltely I am not. So I better keep paying. Which I can.