mchannon

7 ms·

31.
by mchannon 2y ago
The US Government already has my DNA. Because of 23andme, I was able to discover I had one copy of delta-32, and that’s pretty cool. I was also able to find out where I came from and connect with distant relatives. To those who are tightly
32.
by mchannon 2y ago
I applaud that approach. The first year of a Ph.D. program could be reformulated to become 75% replicating the research of others, preferably that of unaffiliated research organizations. A lot of this research is very involved and esoteric,
33.
by mchannon 2y ago
This leads to a tragedy of the commons. Say a random nation, say, Sweden, devotes 100% of their governmental and university research budgets toward replication. 70% of the studies they attempt are successfully replicated. 20% are inconclusi
34.
by mchannon 2y ago
Far more likely he was at the (a?) satellite camp at Lompoc. Minimum security satellite camps share a small percentage of their facilities with a nearby low or medium: R&D (that's Receiving & Discharge to you), warehouse, mail
35.
by mchannon 2y ago
Clearcutting in practice is bad from an ecological perspective, but let's not pretend that it exacerbates global warming. Most of that tree mass becomes lumber, which keeps a lot of carbon out of the atmosphere. Once cleared, new trees
36.
by mchannon 2y ago
If you're going to claim numbers make your position superior, I'd suggest using more meaningful numbers. 93% vs. 91% is a rounding error. What's the p-value for that? Makes me wonder. Was Steve Jobs qualified to attend Reed C
37.
by mchannon 2y ago
I submit you're looking for the wrong thing. We can assume every person at the top of both piles has a perfect GPA and a near-perfect SAT score, so this is not likely to help us figure anything out. The real figure of merit in this dis
38.
by mchannon 2y ago
I think you do need to sacrifice some rigor to reach a level of perfect balance, or at least sacrifice the appearance of rigor. So let's agree to differ on that one. I think we would agree about most aspects of college admissions being
39.
by mchannon 2y ago
To the contrary, it presumes that the right edge of the curves for both applicant pools do _not_ connect at n - ~100. Given the size difference between cohorts, I argue the curves would never meet at all. If the sizes were identical or clos
40.
by mchannon 2y ago
In the event you're not just trolling (the downvotes seem to make it clear most people think that) and you actually believe what you wrote, I suggest you consider the possibility that I'm arguing something else entirely.
41.
by mchannon 2y ago
They did publish all (or a sufficient subset of) the data, most schools do publish that and break it down by gender, and you’re wrong. I recognize the hurry to get a comment in, but an appeal to ignorance instead of googling it and using wh
42.
by mchannon 2y ago
Starting anything with “whether you like it or not” is a sure sign you’re not arguing to learn or teach but arguing to win (win what? the internet?) Schools are not communities, they have communities within them, but they are more than just
43.
by mchannon 2y ago
Disagree. In my argument I used “talented and impressive” to mean as the admissions group saw them. It’s subjective, it’s likely inaccurate, but it’s consistent with itself. Essentially the admissions group stack-ranked a male pile and a se
44.
by mchannon 2y ago
No, yours. I think it does, though it’s not as to the point as it could be.
45.
by mchannon 2y ago
The problem I’m trying to solve is reducing the amount of ignorance associated with this milestone, and not much more than that. I don’t have a problem with the Caltech admissions organization doing what they do as long as everyone isn’t af
46.
by mchannon 2y ago
Interesting perspective, so I should just assume all these get-girls-interested-in-STEM initiatives should instead be focused on boys, since your argument means that boys suck so much more at STEM?
47.
by mchannon 2y ago
Unfortunately this is a textbook straw man fallacy, the epistemological Fourier transform from the actual argument to a domain where your position is solvable. Let’s start with the assumption that the most qualified women applied to Caltech
48.
by mchannon 2y ago
Because I googled it. 58:42 ratio of applicants. While I could accept that the bottom 16 of males and bottom 0 of females are joke applications, these each included a substantial application fee ($75).
49.
by mchannon 2y ago
I spent a few seconds googling Caltech admissions (we’ll table the topic of how many commenters can’t google the actual number before accusing me of assuming wrong). Google’s AI assistant (which is often wrong) cited a 58 male:42 female app
50.
by mchannon 2y ago
Given the option as an 18-yo male I’d probably opt for 5% male, but that’s strictly a matter of personal preference, and not a basis for admissions. I endured 75+% male and didn’t particularly enjoy it, but that’s not why I attended my simi
51.
by mchannon 2y ago
This is a third rail of conversation, regarding gender equality and equity, so please hold your downvotes if you differ from my positions. Some might value the perspective, and I feel we all could learn something here. I can guarantee you t
52.
by mchannon 2y ago
You have that backwards. Open seating (the way WN does it) involves boarding families with children between the A and B groups. They're not getting front row, but they mathematically can sit together no matter how many of them there ar
53.
by mchannon 2y ago
As someone who used to take two WN flights a week, I dislike these changes, and I predict they won’t last, if they ever take effect at all. The CEO’s “research” appears shambolic and dumbs down what engenders such loyalty to Southwest. Next
54.
by mchannon 2y ago
Call it being in a rut, or a funk, or getting the blues, but please don't say like prison unless you've experienced prison. What you're describing is close to the opposite of my experience in prison. Every day was one day clo
55.
by mchannon 2y ago
They become hamburger, basically. Some kind of “failure bond” where the company puts up a security in case of failure might be an option. Most cryobanks don’t seem like they’d have this problem, but when you move into the decades timescale,
56.
by mchannon 2y ago
While that's very British, you forget the obvious: The BTU is the British Thermal Unit. Can't get any more British than something with British in its name. Not to mention it's very widely used in practice, though it's up
57.
by mchannon 2y ago
Missing from this article is the correlation between train length and use of sidings when opposing trains need to pass. It’s well known the reason Amtrak sucks is because freight trains run on the same tracks and their sidings are too short
58.
by mchannon 2y ago
Recommend you visit a casino someday. The game you’re thinking of is roulette. Blackjack doesn’t have colors to bet on. Putting it all on black is only theft if you lose. FedEx’s founder famously bet half his employee payroll on black and w
59.
by mchannon 2y ago
Solar panels are already almost free, under $1/W. If you neglected the labor costs of installation, along with the inverters, racking, permitting, etc., they'd pay for themselves in _under a year_ in PG&E territory, which list
60.
by mchannon 2y ago
A Sprint bankruptcy may have been inevitable, but Verizon and AT&T would have been forced to steer clear (a failed merger having made that inevitable). The private market would have provided a bounty of suitors for Sprint if it couldn&#

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