What is the newest installment of 'Random Thoughts' on Physics Forums?

[WWGD]

And

Long ago I worked with a man whose parents had immigrated to the US from China. They came here when Harry Truman was President, to whom they were very grateful. So Mr and Mrs Dong decided to name their first son Harry, in honor of Truman. True story.

And they ultimately got married. And Ivana Dong is a happy woman.

 

[WWGD]

Thought it w

Hmm, same here. I thought it was correlated, although I do not have an explanation. Is it due to the underlying SIR model, or due to the same negligence in dealing with the situation? Probably both.

Yes, SIR!

 

[WWGD]

Mainly in red states. Note for example below, US, Florida, California [twice the population of Florida]
View attachment 288633

View attachment 288634
View attachment 288635

Don't believe that, those color lines in maps don't exist in reality. Believe me, I 've searched.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Don't believe that, those color lines in maps don't exist in reality. Believe me, I 've searched.

You have to look from space. It's like the Nazca lines.

 

[WWGD]

You have to look from space. It's like the Nazca lines.

No, careful, cars at that speed will kill you. But strange pronounciation. Reminds me of the guy who had a lisp only in writing. And now they drive on a track, not in the Peruvian(?) desert.

 

[WWGD]

Shouldn't the computer language LISP be called LITHP?

 

[Ivan Seeking]

No, careful, cars at that speed will kill you.

Not with an astronaut driving!

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Masks? Pfffft! We don't need no stinkin masks!

Fly Delta Airlines

 

[kyphysics]

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/china-says-private-tutors-not-075010233.html

SHANGHAI (Reuters) -China on Wednesday banned private tutors from giving classes online or in unregistered venues such as residential buildings, hotels and coffee shops, ramping up its effort to stamp out all for-profit tutoring.

Authorities this year banned for-profit tutoring in subjects on the school curriculum in an effort to ease pressure on children and parents.

A competitive higher education system has made tutoring services popular with parents but the government has sought to reduce the cost of child-rearing in an effort to nudge up a lagging birthrate.

But, doesn't tutoring improve kids' educational success/foundation, which can lead to higher earnings and greater productivity later in life...which would presumably, in turn, help them afford to have a bigger family later down the line?

What about the tutors' ability to earn an income for themselves (which can affect their ability to have children too)?

 

[WWGD]

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/china-says-private-tutors-not-075010233.html

But, doesn't tutoring improve kids' educational success/foundation, which can lead to higher earnings and greater productivity later in life...which would presumably, in turn, help them afford to have a bigger family later down the line?

What about the tutors' ability to earn an income for themselves (which can affect their ability to have children too)?

Then again these are the same people who prohibited images of Winnie the Pooh, so all bets are off.

 

[gmax137]

But, doesn't ...

Reason number 47 to trust the free-market over central planning.

 

[WWGD]

Reason number 47 to trust the free-market over central planning.

Comme on, don't you think it deserves to be tried again? Some 100 failures are not enough to tell if it works \ Sarc

 

[Keith_McClary]

But, doesn't tutoring improve kids' educational success/foundation, which can lead to higher earnings and greater productivity later in life.

Or it could be gaming the system to get rich kids into prestige schools.

 

[WWGD]

Or it could be gaming the system to get rich kids into prestige schools.

It's difficult to gauge the full impact but at least in market economies fortunes tend to disappear after 3 generations, so the problem sort of takes care of itself.

 

[Frabjous]

Economists tend to be big fans of education, which is perhaps not surprising given how much of it they consume and how well their textbooks can do. Alfred Marshall, writing in 1873, hoped that education would help erase the “distinction between working men and gentlemen”. Gary Becker of the University of Chicago reimagined education as an investment in “human capital” that would earn a return in the market much like other assets. Harvard University’s Greg Mankiw, whose books have educated more than most, once calculated that differences in human capital between countries could account for much of their otherwise inexplicable differences in prosperity.

But economics can also be scathing about schooling. The theory of signalling likens many educational credentials to peacock’s tails: costly encumbrances, useful only as conspicuous proof that their owners are intellectually strong enough to bear them. And in “The Social Limits to Growth”, a book published in 1976, Fred Hirsch, once a writer for this newspaper, pointed out that education is often “positional” in nature. What matters is not only how much you have, but whether you have more than the next person. For many students it is not enough merely to acquire a good education. They must obtain a better education than the people jostling with them in the queue for sought-after jobs.

Positional goods are, by their nature, in strictly limited supply. Everyone can in principle live in a good neighbourhood, attend a good school, and work in a good job. But logic sadly dictates that not everyone can enjoy the nicest neighbourhoods, best schools or most prestigious jobs. As Hirsch pointed out, “what each of us can achieve, all cannot.”

An unhappy corollary is that one family’s outlays on schooling raise the bar for everyone else. Families are drawn, often unwittingly, into educational arms races. They spend money and time on after-school tutoring or extra-curricular activities (so-called shadow education) in the expectation that it will improve their child’s position in the queue for advancement. But they quickly discover that everyone else is doing the same, leaving them in the same position as before. They are in fact worse off, because of the costs and frustration incurred. “If everyone stands on tiptoe, no one sees better,” Hirsch noted. And their feet also hurt.

These arms races are often particularly ferocious in East Asia. In China and South Korea, schoolchildren face nationwide “high-stakes” tests—the gaokao in China and the suneung in South Korea—that play a big role in determining whether and where they can go to university. In China’s cities, pupils spent 10.6 hours a week on after-school tutoring, according to a report by Frost & Sullivan, a market-research firm.
…
The arms race is notably less intense in parts of Europe. In Norway and Sweden parents show little demand for tutoring—the wealthy even less than others, according to Steve Entrich of the University of Potsdam. And overeducation is less common in Germany and other countries that sort children early into academic or vocational schools, with little mobility between the two, according to a study by Valentina Di Stasio of Utrecht University together with Thijs Bol and Herman Van de Werfhorst of the University of Amsterdam. Vocational schools are supposed to teach what employers want recruits to know. That may limit the scope for credential inflation. For better or worse, they also remove large numbers of students from the race for more academic laurels…

 

[Mayhem]

Quantum chemistry: When lonely physicists decided that their psychotic ideas should be my problem.

 

[WWGD]

New fad: Not wearing deodorant. Claim is that armpits smell only because deodorant has killed local ( armpit) biome so that it does not function well. Some have extended it to showering. Dubious.

 

[phinds]

New fad: Not wearing deodorant. Claim is that armpits smell only because deodorant has killed local ( armpit) biome so that it does not function well. Some have extended it to showering. Dubious.

Yeah, I've read that there are a couple of known Hollywood stars who've pretty much given up bathing because of some kind of fad out there that says it's not healthy. These are GUYS of course. I think women prefer not to stink.

 

[WWGD]

Yeah, I've read that there are a couple of known Hollywood stars who've pretty much given up bathing because of some kind of fad out there that says it's not healthy. These are GUYS of course. I think women prefer not to stink.

I imagine these are actors that have already made it. Matt McConeghy( Sp?) is one of them.

 

[phinds]

I imagine these are actors that have already made it. Matt McConeghy( Sp?) is one of them.

I think he bathes, he just doesn't use deodorant.

 

[WWGD]

I think he bathes, he just doesn't use deodorant.

His name/reputation ( and smell) precede them. Aka, he needs no introduction. Just open your nose a bit. And then close it.

 

[fresh_42]

Y'all may turn up your nose, but smells good comes to a price that shouldn't be disregarded! It interrupts essential biological processes like finding a suited partner or identifying ovulation.

 

[WWGD]

Y'all may turn up your nose, but smells good comes to a price that shouldn't be disregarded! It interrupts essential biological processes like finding a suited partner or identifying ovulation.

Yes, it is bizarre to first use soap to make yourself clean, which kills smell of pheromones, then using cologne, perfume to restore them.

 

[BillTre]

After camping for a few days (and therefore not showering), the apparent build-up of body oils seemed to keep the mosquitos away.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

New fad: Not wearing deodorant. Claim is that armpits smell only because deodorant has killed local ( armpit) biome so that it does not function well. Some have extended it to showering. Dubious.

A fad ripe with opportunity.

However my natural body attracts women from over 20 yards away. So it makes sense for me to avoid using deodorant.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

I was able to resolve a near altercation at a local store today between a furious elderly Asian man, and the checker. He didn't speak English and didn't understand an issue with his credit card. And she had no idea what he was saying or what to do. I went over to help when I heard him hitting things and screaming. But everyone left happy.

Being a peacemaker is boring. I don't even get to use my evil laugh.

 

[fresh_42]

Being a peacemaker is boring. I don't even get to use my evil laugh.

Hope you didn't need a peacemaker.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Hope you didn't need a peacemaker.

I was the peacemaker. It was so out of character for me. Not nearly as much fun as trolling at PF.

 

[fresh_42]

I was the peacemaker. It was so out of character for me. Not nearly as much fun as trolling at PF.

I had (have?) a news feed from an Australian pop science site on FB. There was a time when they regularly had medical subjects. What shall I say? It makes fun to annoy anti-vaxxers.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

I had (have?) a news feed from an Australian pop science site on FB. There was a time when they regularly had medical subjects. What shall I say? It makes fun to annoy anti-vaxxers.

One time when I was about 55 I went to a relationships forum to whine about the trials and tribulations of having a hot 26 yo girlfriend. What I didn't realize was that it was run by a bunch of very religious and highly conservative people. LOL! Ooops. They came swarming down on me like flying monkeys from the land of Oz.