On Thu, 15 Aug 2013 00:10:51 -0400, Wes Groleau
wrote:

On 08-13-2013 09:43, Gordon Shumway wrote:
That is exactly correct. Our culture, not the ghetto culture, is what
matters. If they want to live in our culture, and prosper, they need
to understand our culture -- not the ghetto culture. Many of them
have failed, or in many cases, refused to assimilate. That is their
choice and their problem, not mine.

A test that measures understanding of "our" culture, is _obviously_ a
culturally biased test!

In this country "our" culture is what our laws are based and you are
absolutely correct that our culture is biased. Isn't every other
country's culture, also?

If you don't like our bias I would invite you to find another country
that has a culture that gives you a warm and fuzzy feeling and make
that your new home. But yet, you're still here.

"Wes Groleau" wrote in message

stuff snipped

There are no black people. There are no white people.
We're all six billion shades of brown.
-- Bill Nye

Ironically recent advances in genetics proves this statement and relates us
all back to the original bushmen of the Kalahari who may be maintaining the
only existing "prototypical" DNA pool on the planet. Think of the
pharmaceutical possibilities for diseases caused by mutations.

As humans spread out from Africa they moved to different climates and areas
with different food sources and conditions. Genetic mutations favored light
skin in the snow belt countries but more melanin in areas exposed to heavy
sunlight. Many other mutations appeared and survived.

Some geneticists would say that SM's (and all our) ancestors looked
something like this:

http://robertlindsay.files.wordpress...pg?w=255&h=300

Which is part of an interesting "piece" on how white people emerged from a
much darker "stock." I can't vouch for its accuracy, but it is amusing:

http://robertlindsay.wordpress.com/2...aucasian-race/

Here's another interesting picture that I am dying to label but I'll take
the high road. (-:

http://robertlindsay.files.wordpress...pg?w=243&h=300

This map shows the main routes of migration.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Pe...of_eurasia.jpg

The thing I find most fascinating is that much of this work is the result of
an Italian biologist,
Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza, collecting and preserving blood samples from all
over the world decades ago.

http://www.pulitzer.org/archives/6129

While DNA did not exist at the time, when it was discovered and perfected
the vials of blood proved to be an incredible resource for checking
different areas and populations for relationships. That's how the migration
map was eventually drawn. Sometimes guys like Luigi Sforza and Leonardo
DaVinci make me think Italians really can see into the future. Sforza
*knew* there was some differentiating factor in the blood he was collected
and that we would someday be able to read it.

There's a sad counterpoint to this. Art restoration techniques have
advanced so much in just the last decade that it's clear that much early
restoration was butchery or worse. Some scientists believe it should be
theoretically possible to "play back" sounds that occurred when varnish was
drying on a 2,000 year old Egyptian funerary box because it's an orderly
process that responds to vibrations. We just don't know quite how to read
it but they've been able to decode palimpsests (erased and rewritten texts)
using some pretty advanced techniques when in years back, they used chemical
washs that destroyed as often as they revealed the erased text underneath
the newer writing.

Multispectral imaging, undertaken by researchers at the Rochester
Institute of Technology and Johns Hopkins University, recovered much of the
undertext (estimated to be more than 80%) from the Archimedes Palimpsest. At
the Walters Art Museum where the palimpsest is now conserved, the project
has focused on experimental techniques to retrieve the remaining text, some
of which was obscured by overpainted icons. One of the most successful
techniques for reading through the paint proved to be X-ray fluorescence
imaging, through which the iron in the ink is revealed. A team of imaging
scientists and scholars from the USA and Europe is currently using spectral
imaging techniques developed for imaging the Archimedes Palimpsest to study
more than one hundred palimpsests in the library of St. Catherine's
Monastery in the Sinai peninsula.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palimpsest

Anybody remember a sci fi story about "Slow Glass?"

--
Bobby G.

"Wes Groleau" wrote in message
news:kuhi0d$7cu$1@dont-

stuff snipped

Paring Knife
Philips Screwdriver
Teaspoon
Garden Spade
Hacksaw

and of course his "culture" led him to think about what he would use
them for. After he thought about it a long time, he chose the Philips
Screwdriver because "all the others could be used to separate stuff from
itself."

Well done! That should remind me not to underestimate you in the future.
(-:

If I have noticed anything stereotypical about the Hispanics I've hired,
it's that they pay a lot more attention to craftsmanship than others. I'll
never forget the cleaning guy from Honduras I would see when I worked late.
He would be on his knees in front of the elevator cleaning the brass track
for the sliding doors with a bottle of Brasso and a toothbrush until it was
spotless.

When I was really ill and had to visit an MD across town a Nigerian cab
driver who could barely speak English took me almost 25 miles, much of it
through Wash DC, without hitting any traffic lights or looking at a map
once. I thought after 30 years of driving here that I knew a lot of
shortcuts. Ha! I was stunned and wished I had brought a video camera to
capture them all. How do you evaluate a brain that can hold the map of an
entire city and that is constantly improving his ability to get somewhere
faster and more efficiently?

There are a remarkable number of dimensions to intelligence. Paper tests
clearly can't capture them all.

--
Bobby G.

On 8/15/2013 6:17 PM, Robert Green wrote:
"Wes Groleau" wrote in message
news:kuhi0d$7cu$1@dont-

stuff snipped

Paring Knife
Philips Screwdriver
Teaspoon
Garden Spade
Hacksaw

and of course his "culture" led him to think about what he would use
them for. After he thought about it a long time, he chose the Philips
Screwdriver because "all the others could be used to separate stuff from
itself."

Well done! That should remind me not to underestimate you in the future.
(-:

If I have noticed anything stereotypical about the Hispanics I've hired,
it's that they pay a lot more attention to craftsmanship than others. I'll
never forget the cleaning guy from Honduras I would see when I worked late.
He would be on his knees in front of the elevator cleaning the brass track
for the sliding doors with a bottle of Brasso and a toothbrush until it was
spotless.

I think that is more likely the result of poverty or limited
resources....take care of your stuff, because you can't buy another if
you lose or break it. Or just the pride in good appearances; certainly
not limited to Hispanics for gosh sakes).

On 08-15-2013 17:58, Robert Green wrote:
Some scientists believe it should be
theoretically possible to "play back" sounds that occurred when varnish was
drying on a 2,000 year old Egyptian funerary box because it's an orderly
process that responds to vibrations.

This is the second time I heard something like this. The first was a
science fiction novel.

Google says 1975, but I read it in high school--and I graduated in 1972.

http://books.google.com/books?id=f-QnnQEACAAJ

Perhaps the author heard about the other idea and tossed it into the
book near the end as an afterthought.

--
Wes Groleau

¡Qué quiero realmente hacer es comer un perrito caliente!
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http://Ideas.Lang-Learn.us/WWW?itemid=463

On 8/15/2013 10:36 PM, Wes Groleau wrote:
On 08-15-2013 17:58, Robert Green wrote:
Some scientists believe it should be
theoretically possible to "play back" sounds that occurred when
varnish was
drying on a 2,000 year old Egyptian funerary box because it's an orderly
process that responds to vibrations.

This is the second time I heard something like this. The first was a
science fiction novel.

Google says 1975, but I read it in high school--and I graduated in 1972.

http://books.google.com/books?id=f-QnnQEACAAJ

Perhaps the author heard about the other idea and tossed it into the
book near the end as an afterthought.


Many of the SciFi stories I read as a kid contained elements that are
science fact today. I read my first science fiction novel when I was in
grammar school and have been a fan of the genera ever since. I love to
watch bad, no make that really bad SciFi and old Japanese monster movies
because they make me laugh. ^_^

TDD