From: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org (fegmaniax-digest) To: fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Subject: fegmaniax-digest V17 #291 Reply-To: fegmaniax@smoe.org Sender: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk fegmaniax-digest Sunday, November 15 2009 Volume 17 : Number 291 Today's Subjects: ----------------- 11 of 12 [Michael Sweeney ] Re: 11 of 12 [FSThomas ] Re: 11 of 12 [2fs ] RE: 11/12 ["Brian Huddell" ] Re: 11/12 [FSThomas ] Re: 11/12 [2fs ] "White-Line Fever" For The Win! ["Nectar At Any Cost!" ] Re: Hm, maybe I ought to listen to [James Dignan ] political quiz [James Dignan ] Re: 11/12 [Capuchin ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 14 Nov 2009 21:33:17 +0000 From: Michael Sweeney Subject: 11 of 12 >I missed the amount of troops in Afghanistan as well... >- - c ...yeah, me too, and it seems that's the only one that should even momentarily throw anyone whose head is not currently up their ass on news and day-to-day events... ...Still, of course, opinions (and amount of knowledge and connection to the REAL world and etcetera) may vary... MLS _________________________________________________________________ Hotmail: Trusted email with Microsoft's powerful SPAM protection. http://clk.atdmt.com/GBL/go/177141664/direct/01/ http://clk.atdmt.com/GBL/go/177141664/direct/01/ ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 14 Nov 2009 16:48:28 -0500 From: FSThomas Subject: Re: 11 of 12 Michael Sweeney wrote: > ...yeah, me too, and it seems that's the only one that should even > momentarily > throw anyone whose head is not currently up their ass on news and day-to-day > events... > But if their claim that the majority of people typically get 3-6 correct, then that's not good. ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 14 Nov 2009 16:05:15 -0600 From: 2fs Subject: Re: 11 of 12 On Sat, Nov 14, 2009 at 3:33 PM, Michael Sweeney wrote: > >I missed the amount of troops in Afghanistan as well... > >- - c > > > > ...yeah, me too, and it seems that's the only one that should even > momentarily > throw anyone whose head is not currently up their ass on news and > day-to-day > events... On the other hand, it's nice to know that only 40% of people know who Glenn Beck is. Or: 60% of people remain blissfully unaware that a significant portion of the population takes its cues from a blowhard moonbat. - -- ...Jeff Norman The Architectural Dance Society http://spanghew.wordpress.com ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 14 Nov 2009 15:17:49 -0600 From: "Brian Huddell" Subject: RE: 11/12 I educated-guessed on two of them, got 12/12. TC's right about the overall results -- those people are walking among us, presumably craving tasty brains, and voting. > -----Original Message----- > From: owner-fegmaniax@smoe.org [mailto:owner-fegmaniax@smoe.org] On > Behalf Of Carrie Galbraith > Sent: Saturday, November 14, 2009 2:48 PM > To: Singing Policemen > Subject: 11/12 > > I missed the amount of troops in Afghanistan as well... > - c > > > > "The great thing about being a Slayer is kicking ass is comfort food." > - Buffy ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 14 Nov 2009 19:26:03 -0500 From: FSThomas Subject: Re: 11/12 Brian Huddell wrote: > I educated-guessed on two of them, got 12/12. TC's right about the overall > results -- those people are walking among us, presumably craving tasty > brains, and voting. > Yet there's no litmus test for voting. There's a disconnect there. Shouldn't someone have to have a better grasp on the issues than what party someone is affiliated with to put them into power? Dunno. It's akin to having to secure a "license" to get married, but nothing short of opportunity and functional plumbing to make a baby. WTF? - -f. ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 14 Nov 2009 19:56:54 -0600 From: 2fs Subject: Re: 11/12 On Sat, Nov 14, 2009 at 6:26 PM, FSThomas wrote: > Brian Huddell wrote: > >> I educated-guessed on two of them, got 12/12. TC's right about the >> overall >> results -- those people are walking among us, presumably craving tasty >> brains, and voting. >> >> > > Yet there's no litmus test for voting. There's a disconnect there. > Shouldn't someone have to have a better grasp on the issues than what party > someone is affiliated with to put them into power? Dunno. > > It's akin to having to secure a "license" to get married, but nothing short > of opportunity and functional plumbing to make a baby. WTF? Well now I'm sure you're aware of the history of various "tests" administered to potential voters to see whether they should be eligible to vote... One problem is, even in a world of angels (if some of them dumb ones) in which those who'd administer such tests would never, ever be doing so for political reasons that might lead certain groups of people to be disqualified more than others, is this really the place to make such a determination? And I'm not sure what determination there might be behind any similar test for child-having... I would say that if we're concerned about ignorance, the place to look is the institution whose job it primarily is to replace it with knowledge: our schools. (And secondarily, at the institution whose job it primarily is to distribute knowledge about what's going on: journalism). While schools aren't really well-placed to teach truly current events, they could at least do better at emphasizing the basics of US govt. (or the govt. of your land, whereever that may be). And journalists...well, it would surely be helpful if they (a) weren't so dependent upon "access" that buddy-buddying is so prevalent and (b) not married to an absurd, dysfunctional notion of "objectivity" that allows blatant untruths to roll uncorrected across our screens and pages on the grounds that, hey, this speaker's from one side and we heard from the other side, so we can't say anything. Like hell they can't: any public figure who makes a clearly false statement, or anyone being asked for their opinion who makes a clearly ignorant statement, should find their statements instantly corrected by the media (strictly with regards to fact) and made to feel like the morons they are. No doubt, practical problems would arise...but better than the pusillanimous disregard for reality and truth that prevails among journalists now. - -- ...Jeff Norman The Architectural Dance Society http://spanghew.wordpress.com ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 15 Nov 2009 12:30:32 -0800 From: "Nectar At Any Cost!" Subject: "White-Line Fever" For The Win! . ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 16 Nov 2009 10:21:27 +1300 From: James Dignan Subject: Re: Hm, maybe I ought to listen to >Oh and one other thing: does anybody here have a lead sheet for Mexican God? To go with the tinfoil hat, presumably? James - -- James Dignan, Dunedin, New Zealand -.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.- =-.-=-.-=-.- You talk to me as if from a distance .-=-.-=-.-=-. -=-. And I reply with impressions chosen from another time .-=- .-=-.-=-.-=-.-=- (Brian Eno - "By this River") -.-=-.-=-.-=-.-= ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 16 Nov 2009 10:21:53 +1300 From: James Dignan Subject: maths & music >Whence the canard that music is somehow inherently "mathematical"? I run >into this constantly (admittedly, mostly from first-year college >students...hardly a sampling of the forefront of humanity's intellect), but >it's always seemed like a weird idea to me, based almost entirely on the >fact of Western music's being based largely on symmetry, and on the fact >that time signatures look like (but aren't, really) fractions. I can't speak for everyone here by a long way, but for me the two are completely intertwined due to mild synaessthesia. If I'm working on a complex mathematical problem I hear it as music. FWIW, thios was apparently also the case with Feynman (who was, erm, somewhat better at maths than me,in the same way that a jet aircraft is somewhat faster than a tiger moth). On the other hand, RH sees chords as colours, so... But, as someone untrained at music but who has virually perfect pitch and can play by ear iust about any instrument I pick up within a few minutes, and who - though untrained at maths used to race pocket calculators and win an High School, even beyond synaesthesia I definitely see there as being something inherently mathematical about the structure of music. James - -- James Dignan, Dunedin, New Zealand -.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.- =-.-=-.-=-.- You talk to me as if from a distance .-=-.-=-.-=-. -=-. And I reply with impressions chosen from another time .-=- .-=-.-=-.-=-.-=- (Brian Eno - "By this River") -.-=-.-=-.-=-.-= ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 16 Nov 2009 10:30:11 +1300 From: James Dignan Subject: political quiz 7/12 ain't bad for someone from outside the US - I'd rate it as very low for someone in the US, but apparently I was better than 66% of Americans - astonishing. Wonder how many Yanks could get 7/12 on a similar quiz on NZ politics (or even a combination of easy questions on Europe, the UK, Canada and Mexico) Badly worded quiz, though. Several of the questions started with "Do you happen to know who..." For which the correct option would have been "No I don't" James - -- James Dignan, Dunedin, New Zealand -.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.- =-.-=-.-=-.- You talk to me as if from a distance .-=-.-=-.-=-. -=-. And I reply with impressions chosen from another time .-=- .-=-.-=-.-=-.-=- (Brian Eno - "By this River") -.-=-.-=-.-=-.-= ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 15 Nov 2009 15:29:59 -0600 (CST) From: Capuchin Subject: Re: 11/12 On Sat, 14 Nov 2009, 2fs wrote: > I would say that if we're concerned about ignorance, the place to look is > the institution whose job it primarily is to replace it with knowledge: our > schools. (And secondarily, at the institution whose job it primarily is to > distribute knowledge about what's going on: journalism). See, I don't blame either of those. I blame public discourse and a general disdain for discussion of current events, politics, or indeed any meaningful thing as impolite or argumentative. Little distinction is made between informed, consistent, coherent opinion and other kinds and so equal reverence is given to every viewpoint leaving no means for establishing a point of view as wrong and bad. So the stuff just isn't discussed out of a misguided sense of polite inclusiveness leaving us without a culture of open information-sharing nor the expectation of informed beliefs. J (12/12) . ------------------------------ End of fegmaniax-digest V17 #291 ********************************