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geomarkon California moves to recommend delaying algebra to 9th grade statewide

Definitely agree that it's a data literacy problem. But I consider that part of STEM education. For example, people should be able to look at plots of daily infections early in the pandemic and consider that they likely are growing at an exponential rate and the implications for that, rather than dismissing the dangers because the daily case numbers are still small. And understand how false positive and false negative rates of tests implicate policy decisions.

But you are ultimately correct in that most people don't really care to understand it.

geomarkon California moves to recommend delaying algebra to 9th grade statewide

TT Rockstars https://ttrockstars.com/ Most kids get into it.

geomarkon California moves to recommend delaying algebra to 9th grade statewide

I would say a strong counter to your argument is that Covid highlighted the need for much better STEM education, because of how painfully obvious it was that so many do not understand "the science". That's in quotes because that's the phrase that was bandied about so often.

geomarkon Nukemap

You're right!

geomarkon Nukemap

If the technology you allege to exists really does exist, then the MH370 probably would have been found by now.

Keep in mind that the spooks are loathe to reveal their best technology so would never reveal it for something like finding the MH370.

geomarkon How to make a CPU – a simple picture-based explanation

Ok. I was never a process guy, but worked with some back in the day and they told me that one of their phosphorus sources was phosgene gas.

geomarkon How to make a CPU – a simple picture-based explanation

So he "only" did metal deposition to make the interconnects? I haven't read the story, but I was thinking that there's no way you would handle some of the toxic chemicals used for doping.

geomarkon SARS–CoV–2 Spike Impairs DNA Damage Repair and Inhibits V(D)J Recombination

I think because they aren't sterilizing vaccines. They don't prevent infection or transmission. They just reduce severity of the disease.

geomarkon SARS–CoV–2 Spike Impairs DNA Damage Repair and Inhibits V(D)J Recombination

Many fewer vaccinated people are getting infected than unvaccinated

I think the data is showing that isn't true, that the numbers are nearly equal in places with a high percentage of the population vaccinated. The only benefit is that the vaccinated don't get as severely ill.

geomarkon SARS–CoV–2 Spike Impairs DNA Damage Repair and Inhibits V(D)J Recombination

Doesn't seem like a competent approach, does it?

geomarkon SARS–CoV–2 Spike Impairs DNA Damage Repair and Inhibits V(D)J Recombination

Since the vaccines have been shown to reduce severity of the disease, they will result is less load on medical services. I believe that is the only legitimate reason for mandates.

geomarkon SARS–CoV–2 Spike Impairs DNA Damage Repair and Inhibits V(D)J Recombination

Yes. I read the study when it was posted before, and I don't understand it well enough to know if it is flawed. I want to hear from some experts - we know you are here - the HN community is amazing.

geomarkon The Engineered Student: On B. F. Skinner’s Teaching Machine

What happened to the comment about a learning platform called Primer? Was that removed for being too spammy?

geomarkon The Engineered Student: On B. F. Skinner’s Teaching Machine

My kid's school also used TT Rockstars in school before the pandemic. Seemed to work well for kids that age for giving them fast recall of memorized times tables. Beyond that, I didn't see any other effective gamified learning tools. Seems like it would be very much subject and age dependent.

geomarkon I introduced my 5-year-old and 2-year-old to startx and xmonad (2012)

There is more research if one is willing to look.

There is [1] - a study where MRI was used to measure the myelination in young children's brains, comparing high screen time and low screen time kids. It was a small study and relied on self-reporting by parents, but there's a physically measurable affect.

[1] https://www.technologyreview.com/2019/11/04/132071/screen-ti...

geomarkon Thank you, GitHub

In some places the family name tips them off. Like here in Thailand a Thai woman who is married to a westerner and has his last name will have to fill out a form stating whether or not they are a US person.

geomarkon Docs for Developers: An Engineer’s Field Guide to Technical Writing

What's that about? I'm a native English speaker and know a few Dutch people but haven't noticed some effect like that.

geomarkon Learn electronics technology, IT and fiber optics technology

Even several decades when I was a technician most of the new EEs where I worked had very little practical experience. It was worse than them not being able to do basic repairs; their wonderful designs would usually not work and they were unable to figure out why.

geomarkon The Venus Project

I haven't seen that. In fact, in capitalism the winners usually win by giving the masses something they want. So everybody wins; the masses all win a little by getting a little boost in quality of life and the big winners win by getting a ton of money.

geomarkon The Venus Project

If the history books haven't been completely falsified, it would seem that it has raised hundreds of millions of people out of abject poverty.

geomarkon Chernobyl’s Blown Up Reactor 4 Just Woke Up

If I was going to college I would get a degree in nuclear engineering. It has to be the future.

geomarkon Pandora papers: biggest leak of offshore data exposes financial secrets of rich

We have all this teeth gnashing about how the rich won't pay their fair share of taxes because they want to keep it all for themselves. But among those rich are people who don't want to pay taxes because of the things the government does with those taxes. Afghanistan anyone? War on terror? on and on.

geomarkon Leaded gas was a known poison the day it was invented (2016)

Is this on HN because of the news that Algeria, the last country in the world that was still using leaded gas, has now stopped? [1]

[1] https://news.sky.com/story/leaded-petrol-phased-out-in-the-a...

geomarkon The Road to Self-Reproducing Machines

Good article and references some excellent books.

geomarkon OSHA to require employers with 100 employees vaccinate or test workforce

No. The difference between 95% and 99-100 % is a very large difference.

geomarkon OSHA to require employers with 100 employees vaccinate or test workforce

That's not what the referenced links says. It says the polio vaccine has 99 to 100% efficacy. The published numbers for Covid vaccines show the virus vector and mRNA vaccines are around 95% efficacy. That's a large difference.

geomarkon OSHA to require employers with 100 employees vaccinate or test workforce

No, I'm comparing the much higher efficacy of the polio vaccine and low prevalence of the polio disease to the significantly lower efficacy of the Covid vaccines and the high prevalence of Covid at present. That means the fact that the polio vaccine is non-sterilizing isn't very important, while the fact that the Covid vaccines are non-sterilizing is a big deal and undermines some of the public health policy decisions.

geomarkon OSHA to require employers with 100 employees vaccinate or test workforce

Given that the polio vaccine has >99% efficacy [1] and the fact that US has been polio free since 1979 [2], with the only threat being the occasional traveler to a region with polio, being nonsterlizing doesn't seem to be an issue. Quite different from our current situation.

[1] https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/vpd/polio/hcp/effectiveness-dur...

[2] https://www.cdc.gov/polio/what-is-polio/polio-us.html

geomarkon OSHA to require employers with 100 employees vaccinate or test workforce

What do you mean by "most peoples' meaning"? Do you mean most people don't understand the difference between a sterilizing and non-sterlizing vaccine?

geomarkon A generation of American men give up on college

Some downsides of trades I have not seen mentioned yet are that many of them are hard on the body and/or somewhat risky. So you don't have as long a useful career as in most professions. My dad was a carpenter and I worked with him a few summers when I was young. He asked me how many 50-year-old roofers I had seen during those summers. A friend of his told me there is a reason you never see old welders and painters.