America is brilliant, it has has more Nobel Laureates

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Casper Bang

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Aug 19, 2010, 4:37:00 AM8/19/10
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On Aug 19, 10:10 am, Kevin Wright <kev.lee.wri...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Jitesh:
> America is brilliant, it has has more Nobel Laureates than anyone else
>
> Me:
> Perhaps, but that's only because it has more people in total, it's actually
> pretty low down the scale if measured per-capita
> Wikipedia says so too
>
> Jitesh:
> No, no, no.  By "more" I actually meant "better" and that they were by
> smarter people
> It's clear you didn't understand that because you just wanted to start
> comparing things by using numbers!
> You just don't get Nobel prizes at all, they're actually a lot like cricket
>
> Me:
> ...

Jitesh, the society in the US is unique. They grow the elite (those
with talent and money) and sets the expectations really high with the
result that those 5% who does make it "up on top" truly are good. The
price of this model however is that they loose the bottom 20%
completely, resulting in probably the biggest social gab in any
western country. Another way to see this "price" is how the US has 5%
of the worlds population, but also 25% of the worlds incarcerated
population (people in prison).

So if you apply standard normalization, you will come to quite a
different conclusion then you currently do.

Kevin Wright

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Aug 19, 2010, 4:45:32 AM8/19/10
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If you genuinely want to explore this stuff, there's a few great resources out there:

Newsweek, "best countries in the world"

GapMinder:
TED Talks by Hans Rosling, mostly on the subject of GapMinder:



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Rakesh

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Aug 19, 2010, 5:21:47 AM8/19/10
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I don't know why some of you respond to Jitesh, he's either a
professional troller at worst or an AI experiment into convincing us
he's all human and not a computer program, at best. His responses add
absolutely nothing new to any thread on here.

I've gone and created a 'special' gmail rule for his responses!

Rakesh

Kevin Wright

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Aug 19, 2010, 5:29:27 AM8/19/10
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That's just made my day :)

Carl Jokl

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Aug 19, 2010, 5:46:51 AM8/19/10
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Special Gmail rule? My goodness! It could have been any of us.

*runs away screaming*

The US does seem to be the land of extremes. I visited Boston and
liked it very much but had the impression Boston was one of the
extremes and not typical.

I see the UK as having the problem that its social welfare system has
been totally abused from what it is supposed to do. Lots of things
have been done in the name of closing the gap between rich and poor.
In the end it seems like those who work hard and educate themselves
get nothing (well no help at least, the UK really does nothing to look
after its professionals and skilled people). There was a time i.e.
industrial revolution where trying to even the wealth was prudent and
worked out well. These days it feels like the professionals and those
who work hard get taxed to death to pay for the people living on
welfare. As a cruel twist of irony sometimes our professionals
struggle to keep their heads above water while some individuals who do
not go out to work at all can afford satellite TV and some luxuries
which some of our struggling professionals cannot afford. The whole
system doesn't seem to encourage people to be sensible and
responsible. It is all very wrong.

In spite of the US having high percentages of people in Jail count
yourselves lucky that you can lock your criminals up. The UK prisons
are full so people who really should be going to jail are either
having sentences too short or punished some other way.

"Well you did murder these people and I would like to send you to jail
but unfortunately there is no room so we are going to slap you on the
wrist and let you go."

I suppose it is no surprise that recently it was announced on the news
that crime levels in the UK have overtaken those in the US.

Kevin Wright

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Aug 19, 2010, 6:06:59 AM8/19/10
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No argument about the UK there, I've worked out that living in just the one house with my fiance is financially stupid.

We just pretend to break up, then she moves into a new place, and gets the benefits system to pay her council tax, rent, etc. etc.
She'd even get cash thrown at her for being a single parent AND disabled (she gets no disability benefit when living with me, as it's means-tested against my salary)
and I think even tax credits on top of her disability allowance, because being disabled doesn't quite get classified as being jobless
Even I would be able to pay 25% less council tax, as a single resident.

Between the two of us, the net benefit would easily be over £1000/month

It does make me laugh when I hear government ministers rambling on about how they must encourage "family values"
It's quite simple, start paying people to stay in families, not to break up from them.



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Rakesh

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Aug 19, 2010, 6:25:17 AM8/19/10
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so which society has it right? I hear good things about Scandinavia or
is that a myth? Or perhaps the Scandinavian model doesn't scale when
you have 50 million+ people....

Rakesh

Kevin Wright

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Aug 19, 2010, 6:29:14 AM8/19/10
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Yeah, Scandinavia pretty much has it right :)

But it's so different in so many ways that I could never see the US making that transition.
The latest health care reforms represent around 0.1% of what would be needed.

Fabrizio Giudici

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Aug 19, 2010, 6:41:09 AM8/19/10
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>
> On 19 August 2010 11:25, Rakesh <rakesh.m...@gmail.com

> <mailto:rakesh.m...@gmail.com>> wrote:
>
> so which society has it right? I hear good things about Scandinavia
> or is that a myth? Or perhaps the Scandinavian model doesn't scale
> when you have 50 million+ people....
>

Of course, the number of inhabitants has a deep impact on this kind of
things; the larger the country, the harder to manage it.

- --
Fabrizio Giudici - Java Architect, Project Manager
Tidalwave s.a.s. - "We make Java work. Everywhere."
java.net/blog/fabriziogiudici - www.tidalwave.it/people
Fabrizio...@tidalwave.it
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jitesh dundas

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Aug 19, 2010, 6:59:17 AM8/19/10
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Thanks FOR THE HONOUR. I will just give my opinion, if you don't like
it-ignore it..
Anyways , I will not ignore your comments.
I think you understood by now that I am just ignoring your
comments,unless specifically informative.

Next time,I will not even reply like this.

The last time you replied,there was some information in it.

Regards,
jd

jitesh dundas

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Aug 19, 2010, 7:13:44 AM8/19/10
to java...@googlegroups.com, Kevin Wright
Kevin,

India is known for having people who really have brains right-the
booming IT industry is a feather for us.

Why then we still have no noble laureates ,and we celebrate an NRI
expert who doesn't work in India..

A Cambridge professor won the noble prize.He had trouble (and failed)
getting into IITs in India(th e best in India for Engineering )..The
NRI doctor who operated on our former PM was an NRI -who was denied
admission ..

The point is that we are discussing the quality of science..The
breakthroughs, the willingness to persue R&D..

Have you looked at how China has improved..

We are concerned about sizes or economic distress..The point is..who
is creating the most value via R&D (hard sciences ).

Kevin, sorry you felt that way but I still think USA is better than UK
in research quality.See the rankings of universities..
I am going to reply to some Java threads and shut the 'Gmail rule' fiasco..

Thanks ,I will keep posting ..Please create as many rules as you want Sir..

Atleast I am polite..

And yes, boston is really a nice place..I wish India could Create a
boston in here..There is so much difference..
Nobel prizes don't get measured on units,but quality of work..The
keyword is Nobel Laureates...How many and why not others..

Thanks,
jd

Casper Bang

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Aug 19, 2010, 7:12:41 AM8/19/10
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> I've gone and created a 'special' gmail rule for his responses!

And I've added a GreaseMonkey script:
https://docs.google.com/document/pub?id=1tCKEXJmKWCJ0zNGQL5L8aXvWHRlr0uuJIKF_g-9rl3M

jitesh dundas

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Aug 19, 2010, 7:23:34 AM8/19/10
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Let us stop talkIng about people & discuss why does US have the
largest number of nobel laureates..

a) India is beyond comparison ..cannot even imagine the level of
work,though there is improvement..There are govt schemes to bring back
scientists who went abroad.sigh..We are not self-sufficient..
b) USA has cultivated a liking for nobel laureates - an attractive
option to think for any researcher..

Let us find out the things that we could do better to make UK get more
nobel laureates..and more later..

Education..quality of research..expert faculty..
And just FYI..the maximum number of students who go abroad (us) are
Indians..why? ask yourself.it is not just money..It is career -the
chance to do things that they cannot do here./

I just met a students who was unhappy as he didn't have facilities to
persue his experiments! And we expect ourselves to win the nobel
prizes..
Face facts..I am judging countries on parameters ..just one
thing..nobel prizes..who and why..

Quality matters in science and not the number of people..

Thanks,
jd

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jitesh dundas

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Aug 19, 2010, 7:25:30 AM8/19/10
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Thanks Casper.that will make me better..

Kevin Wright

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Aug 19, 2010, 7:31:11 AM8/19/10
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You've got to be be so careful with metrics of any kind comparing countries.
Given any random activity X and country C then the number of people from C who do X will be proportional to the population of C

India has a large population, and therefore a large (absolute) number of Indians travel and work abroad.
This is true, but what really counts is the *proportion* of Indians who travel abroad.  The same logic must be applied to any metric, for any country.

The real outliers on any statistical analysis will be the small countries, usually because they have very, very different natures.
For example, does it even make sense to measure the average age of leaving education in the Vatican?

jitesh dundas

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Aug 19, 2010, 7:48:18 AM8/19/10
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Dear Kevin,

Thank you for your reply.

'India has a large population, and therefore a large (absolute) number


of Indians travel and work abroad.
This is true, but what really counts is the *proportion* of Indians
who travel abroad.  The same logic must be applied to any metric, for

any country.'
----
THE problem is that the CREAM goes abroad .The measurement of

cream going abroad / total cream .....

for an activity X as you mentioned.

You are right about me being careful.

I am out of this thread.Moving to technical stuff.Rather discuss Java ..

Thanks for the discussion Kevin.Learnt a lot!

Regards,
jd

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Rakesh

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Aug 19, 2010, 8:34:37 AM8/19/10
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he's a machine goddamit!

Congratulating Casper!!!! Classic!!!

Rakesh

jitesh dundas

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Aug 19, 2010, 8:57:20 AM8/19/10
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Thanks Rakesh. My only concern would be to improve my work and knowledge.

I guess being a village boy who faced hardships in gaining knowledge
is reason for that...
Heard of Dr Ambedkar or Gandhi by any chance.

See you in other threads Rakesh..Anything informative to share lately
my friend :)..

Regards,
JD

On 8/19/10, Rakesh <rakesh.m...@gmail.com> wrote:

Rakesh

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Aug 19, 2010, 9:40:52 AM8/19/10
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Thanks Jitesh. There is so much to know I wonder if its possible to
know it all....

Being frightfully attractive also has its downsides. Maybe it may be
possible to discuss further around Bernard Manning.

Some elephants remember things for a long time they say.

Rakesh

jitesh dundas

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Aug 19, 2010, 9:56:08 AM8/19/10
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No thanks Rakesh.I want to discuss Java. We are from different worlds
with different perceptions.

Please excuse if I ignore your non-informative emails henceforth. Just
consider this as a bad habit of mine..

Bye & see you in other threads..Plenty to learn from everyone..

Thanks,
jd

Romain Pelisse

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Aug 19, 2010, 8:47:16 AM8/19/10
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But it's so different in so many ways that I could never see the US making that transition.
The latest health care reforms represent around 0.1% of what would be needed.

... plus the fact that some US citizen may react to those changes by screaming "Communist !" - which will not make the transition easier (if doable).

 
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Alan Gutierrez

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Aug 19, 2010, 2:07:29 PM8/19/10
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Kevin Wright wrote:
> You've got to be be so careful with metrics of any kind comparing countries.

Specially in a Java language listserv thread. How is any of this not
petty nationalism?

And as a follow up:

U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A!

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jitesh dundas

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Aug 19, 2010, 2:18:23 PM8/19/10
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No comments....


--

work only

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Aug 20, 2010, 10:58:16 AM8/20/10
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what does this have to do with Java?

work only

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Aug 20, 2010, 11:06:48 AM8/20/10
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Plus you can't use Nobel laureates by country because you can get a Nobel Prize by doing peace work.

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

By the way USA 300 million people and 1.039798279 per capita number 16

Faroe Islands is number 1
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