kstahmer’s Comments

• Jun 20th, 2012 @ 7:42pm

  Human hubris

  on DailyDirt: Are Animals Getting Smarter?
  Our pre-conceptualizations are incorrect, based on two human misconceptions:
  
  1. Animals are smarter than we realize, and
  2. Humans are dumber than we realize.
• Mar 12th, 2011 @ 11:24am

  Distributive law

  on The Changing Way That Math Is Taught To Children
  It's the distributive law. In this particular case:
  
  36 * 24 = (30 + 6) * (20 + 4) = 30 * 20 + 30 * 4 + 6 * 20 + 6 * 4
  
  In general: (a + b) * (c + d) = ac + ad + bc + bd
  
  That's all well and good as long as kids are also taught the distributive law and thoroughly understand it.
  
  And that's the problem. Too many kids are taught the method, but don't understand the underlying theory which justifies the method. Either they were poorly taught or they were never taught.
  
  There many times where dyscalculia resides within the teacher, not the student.
• Nov 15th, 2010 @ 2:01pm

  Bye Bye Brazil

  on Brazilian TV Host Gets Court To Demand Google Censor Results Pointing To A Movie She Was Once In
  Brazil, if your goal is to make yourself irrelevant and appear ridiculous, you succeeded.
• Nov 5th, 2010 @ 8:55am

  It makes sense

  on If You Discover A Privacy Data Breach, You Probably Shouldn't Wait Three Months To Tell Users
  Interesting juxtaposition: Insurance firm Wellpoint pays $300,000 for criminally irresponsible late disclosure of its 470,000 medical record security breaches and RIAA is awarded $1,500,000 for 24 illegally downloaded songs.
  
  It makes sense. Why does it make sense?
  
  It makes sense because Insurance firms and RIAA have bought off Congress, which makes the laws, and the criminal justice system, which enforces the laws.
• Oct 6th, 2010 @ 10:27am

  Keep him busy

  on Canadian Spammer Who Ignored US Judgment Discovers Canadian Courts Are Willing To Uphold US Rulings
  O Canada, you did the right thing.
  
  Yes, it's a preposterously large judgment, which Guerbuez will never pay. And that's not final judgment. It'll be orders of magnitude smaller.
  
  But while Guerbuez is desperately trying to weasel out of paying, Canada and the United States will be aggressively pursuing his assets, which will keep him extremely busy, which will severely curtail his spamming.
  
  So I'm all for this judgment, no matter how preposterous.
• Jul 1st, 2010 @ 6:20am

  Finland knows

  on Broadband Is Now A Legal Right In Finland
  Am reminded of a line from Earth Girls Are Easy: "Finland knows what you want."