- luv-talk - luv.asn.au

Re: [luv-talk] How to know when a field is worth learning? (was Victorian Liberals want to privatise ABC and SBS)
by Tim Josling 01 Jun '13

01 Jun '13

How to know if it's worth learning a field of knowledge? --------------------------------------------------------------------------- This discussion raises an interesting and important question: how to decide when it is worth spending time and money investigating some field of knowledge or understanding a viewpoint? The book I recommended is only $12 or so, but I agree that the time investment is substantial. How do you know a field of knowledge has any value, without investing a lot of time learning it at which point it is too late? Personally I have wasted a lot of time learning about things that proved to have little or no value to me e.g astrology, deconstruction, literary 'theory', psychoanalysis, behaviorism, string theory, semiotics and post-structuralism . Other things like religion and gender feminism seem to be important IMHO only as social or political phenomena. Others have snippets of goodness within large piles of dross eg modern marco-economics, Austrian economics, Marxism, academic music post ~1920, sociology. I am interested in any ideas beyond these: http://lesswrong.com/lw/4ba/some_heuristics_for_evaluating_the_soundness_of/ Another set of heuristics is to ask, "Does a field allow its practitioners to: 1. Build novel things that work, or 2. Make correct and falsifiable prediction of the future, or 3. Explain the otherwise inexplicable?" As an example, studies suggest that marriage counsellors have less skill in predicting which marriages will survive than simple regresion analyses, and do not reduce the incidence of marriage breakups. My conclusion is that they basically know nothing. In contrast the theory of relativity satisfies all three criteria (GPS needs relativity time adjustments), predicted gravitational red shift and starlight bending, and explained the orbit of Mercury. Psychiatiry may have some grain of truth Its practitioners seem to have no skill in making people well again other than suppressing the symptoms with drugs, have less skill in predicting the behaviour of their patients than simple regressions, but Freud's nephew seems to have had enormous success in inventing modern public relations using some of the insights of his uncle. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Bernays ----------------------------------- On Mon, May 27, 2013 at 5:13 PM, Russell Coker <russell(a)coker.com.au> wrote: > Firstly please don't edit text that you quote. I've edited it back to > what I > originally wrote. > My intention was to edit it back to my original satirical text, but I did not make that clear. > You can suggest that I waste some money and a lot of time reading a book, > but > it's not going to happen. > > Looking at your posting history and web site, and this discussion I don't see any evidence you know much about these issues or that you have any will to learn about them so I guess there is not much point continuing beyond these couple of points. It may seem obvious that spending money on welfare payments, for example, will make people better off. But this ignores second order effects, which are often more important. Recently the ALP introduced changes to make the supporting parent benefit less appealing. They did not do this merely because they are mean and heartless, but because they realise that encouraging people to have children who are going to live on welfare has all sorts of harmful side-effects, such as increasing the number of children who are born into deprived circumstances. Such policies are also costly for the rest of the community in financial terms and in terms of dealing with the dysfunctional and/or criminal adults who come disproportionately from such situations (these effects persist even after correcting for income). The recognition in the US of the downsides of the welfare state has reached the point where some black commentators are arguing that Johnson's Great Society was a plot to put down the black man. Not that I agree with that, but the fact that blacks can argue this shows that people perceive a problem. > Please cite some examples of "community based cooperative solutions" that > have > worked in practice. Before the welfare state, there were many cooperative organisations such as churches, clubs, service organisations, mutual societies, and charities which helped people in need. People also saved more money as a nest egg for hard times. Families supported each other more strongly. These solutions were not perfect but neither is the welfare state. The welfare state has had a destructive effect on many of these organisations and mechanisms eg mutual societies have been mostly turned into for-profit companies (eg AMP). Tim Josling

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conspiracy theories
by Russell Coker 31 May '13

31 May '13

http://www.verifiedfacts.org/ Interesting site about conspiracy theories. I wonder how many people believe the theories it publishes. -- My Main Blog http://etbe.coker.com.au/ My Documents Blog http://doc.coker.com.au/

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Phone cables wanted
by Russell Coker 31 May '13

31 May '13

If you have any spare phone cables (usb for Android phones, iPhone 4 or 5) then please donate them to the hardware library. Lots of chargers come bundled with both iPhone and Android cables so there should be a lot of unused cables gathering dust. I know someone who needs a few iPhone cables and I'm sure that we have luv members who need android cables. -- My blog http://etbe.coker.com.au Sent from a Galaxy S3 Android phone with K-9 Mail.

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ADSL modem for long line?
by Tony Langdon 31 May '13

31 May '13

Been having a bit of fun and games with ADSL since moving house. Have had the issue checked out, and other than some extra unused wiring in the house, which the Telstra tech disconnected, there are no known issues on the line. The Telstra tech's test unit can sync at nearly 4Mbps, and a Bigpond router (not sure what brand these are) will sync at 4.2 Mbps. However, I haven't had so much luck. A loan Netcomm router from Internode was able to hold just under 3 Mbps, which was acceptable, however, that has since been returned. According to Internode, the line is 4.6km long, and I can expect 3-4 Mbps. What I'm looking for is a router that is known to work well on long lines. Doesn't need to be anything fancy, I will most likely put it into bridge mode and put the existing router behind it (which will give me VoIP, IPv6, etc). Just need something that can hold sync at a reasonable throughput on a long line. -- 73 de Tony VK3JED http://vkradio.com

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Re: [luv-talk] Victorian Liberals want to privatise ABC and SBS
by Pidgorny, Slav (GEUS) 27 May '13

27 May '13

Not really. Heavy drinking is a big problem in Ukraine (especially the East) and Russia. Was your trip after August 1998? That's when financial crisis hit, was quite depressive time even by our quite low standards. -----Original Message----- From: luv-talk-bounces(a)lists.luv.asn.au [mailto:luv-talk-bounces@lists.luv.asn.au] On Behalf Of Petros Sent: Monday, 27 May 2013 3:42 PM To: luv-talk(a)luv.asn.au Subject: Re: [luv-talk] Victorian Liberals want to privatise ABC and SBS P.S. I could not help but feel I have written something stereotyping and sounding bad. Sorry Peter (The German insensitive one) "If they were going to be like that, then I just wished they hadn't actually been German. It was too easy. Too obvious. It was like coming across an Irishman who actually was stupid, a mother-in-law who actually was fat, or an American businessman who actually did have a middle initial and smoked a cigar. You feel as if you are unwillingly performing in a music-hall sketch and wishing you could rewrite the script. If Helmut and Kurt had been Brazilian or Chinese or Latvian or anything else at all, they could then have behaved in exactly the same way and it would have been surprising and intriguing and, more to the point from my perspective, much easier to write about. Writers should not be in the business of propping up stereotypes. I wondered what to do about it, decided that they could simply be Latvians if I wanted, and then at last drifted off peacefully to worrying about my boots." ― Douglas Adams, Last Chance to See _______________________________________________ luv-talk mailing list luv-talk(a)lists.luv.asn.au http://lists.luv.asn.au/listinfo/luv-talk "This e-mail and any attachments to it (the "Communication") is, unless otherwise stated, confidential, may contain copyright material and is for the use only of the intended recipient. If you receive the Communication in error, please notify the sender immediately by return e-mail, delete the Communication and the return e-mail, and do not read, copy, retransmit or otherwise deal with it. Any views expressed in the Communication are those of the individual sender only, unless expressly stated to be those of Australia and New Zealand Banking Group Limited ABN 11 005 357 522, or any of its related entities including ANZ Bank New Zealand Limited (together "ANZ"). ANZ does not accept liability in connection with the integrity of or errors in the Communication, computer virus, data corruption, interference or delay arising from or in respect of the Communication."

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Re: [luv-talk] Victorian Liberals want to privatise ABC and SBS
by Petros 27 May '13

27 May '13

From: "Slav Pidgorny (GEUS)" <slav.pidgorny(a)anz.com> > It's a bit too simplistic to equate Soviet Union to Russia. Georgia was > also a part of USSR and now is #65 in the world. And they have been > through wars and occupation. Yep, that's true. It is also fair to say that there is a gap between the Russian empire and Germany even before communism came (you shared your experience in the Soviet Union after I mentioned mine in East Germany). Russia had an urbanisation of 14.8% in 1915 http://www.iisg.nl/publications/respap44.pdf in Germany it was more than 60% in 1910. http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hochindustrialisierung_in_Deutschland (sorry, it is German but believe my translation of "Im Jahr 1910 lebten nur noch 40% in Gemeinden mit weniger als 2000 Einwohnern" - in 1910 less than 40% lived outside towns with 2000 people or more) 1998, last time when I travelled through the former Soviet Union, mostly by train (Russia, Ukraine, Kazakstan, Uzbekistan), I saw countries very poor compared to East Germany before 1989. Your sad experience do not surprise me but I am not sure how much they have to do with communism. What I noticed was a difference in attitude in the former Soviet Union. Russia and Ukraine was very sad to see, with people drunk already in the morning (even hotel porters in "good" hotels) and a lot of "there is no hope" ("Why are you here? I leave as quickly as I can", I heard many times) while in Central Asia people seemed to be more upbeat (even if not really better off in materialistic values - and Uzbek democracy isn't invented yet..) I wouldn't be surprised if Alcoholism plays a major part in bringing down Russian life expectancy. Regards Peter

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Bias? What Bias?
by Petros 23 May '13

23 May '13

Hi, at work I am involved in an upgrade of dedicated connections between Interstate offices. It is a very tiresome process involving new copper cables to the premises etc. We acquired a company in Tasmania. Their speed is very very very slooow (I could read the websites for them so slow are they appear in their browsers), and for a "decent price" I may get 1M download / 256k upload speed. Not more. My boss emphasises how important it is to have better connectivity. Anyway, my boss is a staunch Liberal supporter. As soon as I mutter the word NBN he goes through the roof (duck;-) Regards Peter

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Re: [luv-talk] Fwd: Victorian Liberals want to privatise ABC and SBS
by Petros 23 May '13

23 May '13

Hi, quality TV is part of civilisation, I think. I hope more people share this view and become active before a valuable aspect of my family's and other people's life gets destroyed, just because we are silent all the time. The silence of the Australian public is sometimes worrying, I find. That makes the loud (and most of them paid) voices so powerful. I expected some remarks (I am not using it etc. and the "bias" thing) Regards Peter

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Re: [luv-talk] Bias? What Bias?
by Petros 23 May '13

23 May '13

Quoting "Arjen Lentz" <arjen(a)lentz.com.au> > Perhaps the site in Tas already has NBN access, in which case it can > become a nice example of how FTTH works out well. No, not yet. "Commencing within one year". Well, as Turnbull will.. > If your boss is unhappy with the speed/connectivity/quality that a > Liberal/Coalition network might deliver, then that is something for > him to consider, in general or in the context of his business. Seems > worthwhile. You don't need to point that out to him, that indeed is > going to agitate. I don't rub it in.. I just thought about "bias". Which is a lefties' thing here in Australia. Coalition voters are perfectly reasonable beings. I find it amazing how much the view differs if the thing is painted red or blue or green. Thanks for the answer - I will see how I may get us on NBN if it comes to that. Regards Peter

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eeePC900A, key-board problem
by Rohan McLeod 23 May '13

23 May '13

Assembled Illuminati; presumably a hardware problem. My eeePC900A after many years of nearly faultless service , has developed a key-board problem. I say nearly, because I long ago augmented the track-pad with a USB mouse, after one button became effectively 'dead' (wish I had done it earlier !). Some time ago I also augmented the keyboard with a USB one. I say augmented because the original keyboard still functions , ..........unfortunately for me. The problem is after warming up intermittently; some keys on the built in keyboard become stuck 'down' rendering what is otherwise a working machine unusable......... any suggestions, particularly from eeePC / laptop owners ? regards Rohan McLeod

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