Mashups, intellectual property laws, bootlegs, copyright. While those are all valid concerns today, they're hardly anything new. Just ask Charlie Chaplin.
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Fuzzy math turns a C into an A.Illustration by Lisa Larson-Walker
Florida Education Commissioner Tony Bennett resigned Thursday amid claims that, in his former position as superintendent of public instruction in Indiana, he manipulated the state?s system for evaluating school performance. Bennett, a Republican who created an A-to-F grading protocol for Indiana schools as a way to promote educational accountability, is accused of raising the mark for a school operated by a major GOP donor. Bennett calls that charge, which arose from emails among Bennett?s staff obtained by the AP, ?malicious and unfounded? and ?frankly so off base.? He offered a different explanation for why the grades for Indianapolis charter school Christel House Academy?whose mark soared from a C to an A?and 12 other schools were changed at the last minute. According to Bennett, he was just correcting a simple math mistake.
Bennett?s explanation is perfectly mathematically reasonable, and it would get him off the hook. The only problem is that the story he?s telling appears to be totally false.
Bennett told AEI?s Rick Hess, ?As we were looking at the grades we were giving our schools, we realized that state law created an unfair penalty for schools that didn't have 11th and 12th grades. Statewide, there were 13 schools in question had unusual grade configurations. The data for grades 11 and 12 came in as zero. When we caught it, we fixed it.?
Bennett?s stated rationale makes sense. Here?s an analogy. You?re teaching a course with three exams, and each student?s overall exam grade for the class is computed as an average of her three individual exams
(1/3) * (exam 1) + (1/3) * (exam 2) + (1/3) * (exam 3)
But what happens if a student misses exam 3, with a justified absence, and the test can?t be made up? Then we have what?s called a ?missing data? problem?we have to infer something about the student?s performance without the full complement of data we have for everybody else. One natural approach is to compute that student?s overall exam grade as the average of the exams she did take:
(1/2) * (exam 1) + (1/2) * (exam 2).
What you shouldn?t do is give the student a zero for the exam and average it into her grade.
Christel House had started out as a middle school and was adding one high school grade each year; for the 2011-12 school year, it served students through the 10th grade. High schools, according to Indiana statute, were to be graded on four metrics, averaged like so:
30% * (English scores) + 30% * (algebra scores) + 30% * (graduation rate) + 10% * (college and career readiness score)
But, as Bennett said in an official statement, ?Christel House only served students in grades K-10, thus the graduation rate and college and career readiness measures could not be calculated because the school did not serve grades 11 and 12.? So it faced a missing data problem, like the student who had to miss an exam.
Indeed, it wouldn?t be fair to count those scores as zero! The obvious fix, just as with the student, is to grade such a school on the two scores that it does have:
50% * (English scores) + 50% * (Algebra scores)
Does that mean Bennett really did get railroaded, and he was just fixing an obvious error?
No?because the ?fixed? version of the grade was what Indiana was already using before Bennett started tinkering with the gears. When you dig into the numbers, the story about the unfair zeroes looks like a complete fabrication.
Christel?s ninth- and 10th-grade students got brutally low scores on the English and math tests, with only 70 percent passing English and just a third passing math. Here?s how Jon Gubera, then the Education Department?s chief accountability officer, described Christel?s performance in one of the emails released by the AP:
?OK, here is their breakdown ...
They served grades K-10 in 2011-12 so they are a combined school but do not have any graduates. So their grade is a combination of the standard E/MS model and the HS 9&10 model which only counts ECA proficiency.
E/MS results: 3.00 on E/LA (no growth bonuses) and 4.00 on math (bottom 25% bonus) = 3.50 points (B)
HS results: 2.00 on E/LA (70% pass rate) and 0.00 on math (33% pass rate) = 1.00 points (D)
Final Combined results: E/MS 3.50 x .76 (76% of school is in grades 3.8) = 2.66 + HS 1.00 x .24 (24% of school is in high school) = .24. Thus overall grade is 2.66 + .24 = 2.9 (C).
Bottom line: their terrible 10th grade Algebra I results (33% passing) was the principal factor in earning a C grade."
Christel?s grade 3?8 scores came to a 3.50, or a B, and their high school scores, thanks to the algebra fiasco, were a 1.00, or a D. The school?s score is then an average of the grade 3?8 scores and the 9?10 scores, weighted according to the proportion of students in each group.
Where are the zeroes for the graduation rates and readiness score that got averaged into Christel?s score?the ?unfair penalty? that Bennett claims he fixed? They?re not there, because that?s the part that Bennett, as far as I can tell, simply made up.
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WVEC.com
Posted on July 31, 2013 at 1:28 PM
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CHESAPEAKE - Chesapeake Police are looking for a woman who robbed a credit union Wednesday morning.
It happened around 10:30 a.m. at the Chartway Federal Credit Union on Portsmouth Blvd. near Chesapeake Square Mall.
A surveillance camera image shows the woman police say pulled a gun and demanded money. After getting cash, she walked out, police stated.
If you can help police identify her or know anything about the robbery, call Detective Ryder at (757)382-6251 or to call 1-888-LOCK-U-UP.
Source: http://www.wvec.com/news/Woman-wanted-for-Chesapeake-credit-union-robbery--217782681.html
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The Washington Redskins are in a rather favorable situation with most positions on their roster, and that is that they are not short on talent.?
Between their competitive running back stable and mix of veteran and upstart wide receivers, this is a good problem to have.?
The backup running back position is perhaps their most interesting offensive camp battle so far.?
They have a trio of guys with experience who have proven they can be valuable runners, and they recently picked up two more running backs in the draft who will be in the mix for a roster spot.?
Offensive line is also a position in which they are pretty set at, besides right tackle. The most competition on the O-line is definitely with the interior linemen; there are several young guys who can play and play well if given the chance.?
With preseason upon us and roster cuts looming, there is much speculation surrounding which players on Washington?s roster bubble will end up making the team and which will end up looking for work by the time summer ends.?
There will be many broken-hearted players when the Redskins make their final cuts, but there will also be a couple of surprises regarding some of these guys on the bubble.
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Evan Royster, RB
While Alfred Morris has the starting running back spot sewn up, there is a ton of competition behind him.?
It is unlikely that Washington will keep more than three running backs, so the guys who will earn the backup and third-string slots will have to prove that they can bring a spark to the Redskins? running game.?
Evan Royster has shown flashes of being a dependable back in the past, but has done especially well with catching the ball out of the backfield and grinding out yards as the game goes on.?
He may not put up a great yards-per-carry average, but he is a solid change-of-pace, outlet pass-type of guy whom Kyle Shanahan can plug into most packages in relief of Morris.?
He surely doesn?t make the type of impact that Morris does, but he can get the job done in a minimized role.
?
Maurice Hurt, OL
Maurice Hurt is one of those guys who had a pretty good future lined up for him in Washington, that is until the right tackle position got extremely crowded.?
While the group isn?t exactly littered with talent, there is competition.?
It is evident that incumbent starter Tyler Polumbus is not the long-term answer, and Tony Pashos and?Jeremy Trueblood are stop-gap solutions for now. The only other player with any sort of promise is Xavier Nixon, a rookie from Florida who has great athleticism and a tremendous skill set.?
While neither Hurt nor Nixon is really ready to step in and become ?the guy,? Washington still needs a dependable starter at right tackle.?
When it comes down to who is better between these two guys, you have to go with the more experienced player. Nixon will probably end up being the better overall player, but Hurt is familiar with the system and could be a pretty good player while Nixon still adjusts to life in the NFL.
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Devery Henderson, WR
This may come as a surprise to some of you, but Devery Henderson will have a great chance at making this roster.?
While he certainly isn?t the best receiver on Washington?s roster, he has a solid set of hands and can become a reliable fourth or fifth option for Robert Griffin III.?
With Pierre Garcon and Josh Morgan firmly atop the depth chart at wide receiver, and Santana Moss holding it down as the third receiver, Henderson could find his way onto the roster by proving he can be more consistent than Leonard Hankerson and Aldrick Robinson.?
Henderson isn?t particularly tall or anything, but he possesses good speed for a veteran and has the ability to be a contributing factor on offense for Washington.?
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Wagoner jail escape: Two inmates who escaped from a Wagoner, Okla., jail cell Monday night were recaptured today. In Arkansas, a man jumps through a counter window and escapes.
Authorities in Wagoner County say they've captured both inmates who escaped from the county jail after overpowering a guard and locking him in a cell.
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Sheriff Bob Colbert says the jailbreak happened at about 9 p.m. Monday. He says 38-year-old Mickey Staggs and 25-year-old Larry Cotton took the jailer's keys after locking him up.
The jailer wasn't seriously injured.
The sheriff says Cotton was arrested without incident Tuesday inside a vacant apartment in south Wagoner. Staggs was apprehended at about noon Tuesday walking in a wooded area near Sperry.
Cotton was awaiting trial on several charges, including possession of a stolen vehicle and endangering others while attempting to elude police officers.
Staggs was also awaiting trial on weapons charges and possession of a stolen vehicle.
Another jailbreak - in Garland County, Arkansas, was captured on video (see above).
Derrick Estell can be seen talking on a phone in jail Sunday, and when a police deputy turns his back, Estell dives through a counter window, runs out the door, across a parking lot to a waiting car. The deputy dives through the window and chases him.
Police say that Estell had help.
"Police say William Harding, 58, was taken into custody for allegedly assisting in the escape. Officials say he began talking to deputies in order to divert their attention and have them go to the other side of the booking room to look up answers," reports CBS affiliate KTHV in Little Rock, Ark.
A woman, identified by police as Tamara Upshaw, was reportedly waiting in the parking lot for Estell with the passenger door to her car open.
Police have issued an arrest warrant for Upshaw and Estell, but they are still on the lamb.
Copyright 2013 The Associated Press.
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?What I do is I have code that minimizes things,? says Robert Vanderbei, a Professor of Operations Research at Princeton University. He can minimize the light coming into a telescope from stars ? to better see if there are more-softly lit planets traveling in their wakes. He also uses the code to analyze climate data.
But it works for other things, too.
?I was surprised to know that what I?m good at is useful for n-body problems,? he tells me.
The n-body problem is a classic in physics. Its solutions are configurations in which objects ? planets, say ? can travel around in each other?s gravity in a stable manner. (The moon and Earth perform a modified version of a 2-body solution ? they travel in each other?s gravity, but also that of the Sun, and other planets. The n-body problem assumes bodies that are of equal mass, and in an environment where there is no other gravity. I?ll keep calling them planets, but understand that they are not ordinary planets.)
To find a solution to the n-body problem is to minimize something called an action functional, which describes the energy of group of planets ? the accumulated difference between the kinetic and potential energy, to be more specific about it ? as they swing and pull and dance around each other. The result is the path of least resistance, the way that the planet?s motion will naturally fall into place, without an external forces ? a purely gravitational path. Out of these paths, the ones that are periodic ? that is, the planets swing around in the same motion for at least some extended period of time ? are the solutions to the n-body problem.
Vanderbei first learned of a solution to the n-body problem called the figure 8, discovered by physicist Cris Moore, the first physicist who used a computer to solve the n-body problem.
?I said wow, that is amazing,? he tells me. And then he went home and tried to figure it out with his minimizing code. In a couple hours, he had reproduced Moore?s figure 8:
?I take other people?s ?aha? moments and run with them,? says Vanderbei, who works on the n-body problem sometimes when he gets home in the evenings, coming up with animations for solutions that are out there, and making tweaks of his own.
?Its totally for fun. Well, 99%.?
When I speak to him, he?s in the middle of putting together a presentation for conference at Princeton on the payload for a pair of former-spy telescopes ?which could include instruments that hunt for planets, a la Kepler.
?The solutions to the n-body problem could inform what we might find out there. I always worry that [our] minds aren?t open enough.?
Source: http://rss.sciam.com/~r/sciam/basic-science/~3/YI6Vbc01hNc/post.cfm
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If I had a bucket list, building an extreme treehouse (or even an entire tree neighborhood) would be on it. I loved being in trees when I was a kid. I love being in trees as an adult, too, though I think my chances of breaking bones when I fall are higher these days.
Recently I found myself browsing treehouses.com, a website that primarily focuses on treehouses in Oregon. However, the site also has a parts department that features the coolest selection of custom-engineered treehouse hardware I've ever seen. Oh, what a new world of design possibilities has been opened up unto me. The company sells brackets designed to connect wood to trees in dozens of creative ways, all of which allow the tree to grow naturally and the manmade structure to sway gently with the breeze. Before you take on your own extreme treehouse build, head over there and gear up.
Tim Layton is a home and DIY blogger for Popular Mechanics. Follow him on Twitter: @RemodelingGuy
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