The CSS transforms are hardware accelerated by Chrome, but I can imagine this animation is still a bit too much for an EeePC GPU. Maybe with a static map it runs more smoothly, since GMaps is also a bit heavy. However, running smoothly was not the intention of this experiment ;)
I too am no expert, but isn't discrimination on the basis of skin colour a 'feature' of the selection process? The novel thing here is that non-white students are not being discriminated in favour of for a change. Anonymising would prevent universities from discriminating on grounds of skin colour and could as a result get them into trouble with the government.
I'd be surprised if it turned out they had any say in the matter. Imagine if the proud and venerable Brî'tíšh people had the power to block the usage of such words as "Windows" to describe a software product.
Matt Siegler is simply following the modern trend amongst Apple People in viewing Google negatively. Has Matt posted anything negative about Apple re iCloud? Because I've heard bad things about it from other Applists. In summary: if I want this kind of stuff I'll go to the master: Gruber.
Manufacturing output in the USA hasn't shrunk. Productivity gains mean there are fewer people employed in the sector. So I don't believe your scary statement is backed up by the facts.
Yeah, I saw some things like that. I couldn't find the original sources, but CPI dollars doesn't seem like the right way to view it. Instead, I think the right approach would be versus GDP, or versus dollar value of manufactured goods consumed.
It's also not clear whether that number is gross manufacturing output or net of imported parts. With cars, for example, a lot of what is nominally made here is put together out of imported pieces.
I spent a while looking for useful numbers, but couldn't find anything.
1) Manufacturing output is dropping relative to GDP, but that isn't a bad thing; it just means that GDP in services is surging. The versus consumed is basically the trade deficit. I would accept per capita manufacturing output over time as a more fair comparison though.
Looking at the data, the US is still the biggest in the world by these metrics. Per capita it is easily in the top 5 large countries. Maybe 20% below Germany and Japan
The computers and software we celebrate make the one-man machine shop of today orders of magnitude more productive than it was even 20 years ago. To the point where every time someone pops up on a manufacturing forum asking if he can start a business with a few manually operated machines, he's immediately told not to waste his time. A couple of guys cranking handles on even the best manual machinery is no match for even a low-end CNC machining center.
My SW dev. desk is directly above the manufacturing floor of the company I work for. No, we don't make cheap, shiny consumer products, but as I look at the complexity of the machines that my software controls, I find it hard to believe anyone who says we've lost manufacturing strength.
I did look. I didn't find, and it's not my job to prove somebody else's assertions.
Since you've seen it all over the web, I'm sure you'll be able to find it for me quickly, though. In particular I'm looking for time series data showing value added via manufacturing for the last 50 years or so, plus similar data on consumption of manufactured goods. Ideally in actual dollars of the day. Or if it's inflation-corrected, then it will be documented well enough that I can subtract that effect.
> I find it hard to believe anyone who says we've lost manufacturing strength.
I recommend starting with the blog "Evolving Excellence", written by a manufacturer and a manufacturing consultant. They're pretty clear on it.
If you do a GIS for "US manufacturing output" you'll see what the GP is talking about. Worker productivity has shot up over time, as has output. In return, far fewer workers are needed.
I see this as a simple truth: We have arrived at a time where we have far fewer jobs than workers, and this won't be getting better any time soon. Either we decide to become a country of wildly disparate classes being the norm (think the favelas of larger Brazilian cities), or we need to find a way to spread the wealth, as our current economic model isn't doing it.
And I don't necessarily think some socialist fantasy will save us; I don't know the answer. I just know what we have isn't getting people who want to work, paid. Maybe eliminating the minimum wage will encourage employment. Maybe we do need to bite the socialism bullet, and instead of Social Security, give everyone a guaranteed minimum income with a negative income tax. Maybe we just need to make the legal work week 32 hours. (Or more strictly enforce 40.)
I'm not claiming to have an answer. But the jobs are leaving, both our nation, and existence due to increased productivity and increased automation. Wealth is concentrating, and becoming idle. This is bad for us all.
Maybe we do need to bite the socialism bullet, and instead of Social Security, give everyone a guaranteed minimum income with a negative income tax.
I'm a small-l libertarian and I support that in principle, because it's no more socialist than what we have today. We've already decided that we aren't going to let people starve, or die due to lack of basic health care. So given that, it's more efficient to just give everybody enough money for survival than to have hundreds of government agencies trying to fulfill specific needs, or to impose protectionist policies for the purpose of keeping inefficient jobs. That would also get rid of the perverse incentives that the working poor often face, where it's possible to get a raise and end up worse off because your benefits go to zero.
