Who makes it that "...US leads the world by miles..."?

[Ion]

I posted this in 'Hypothesis on Bush Campaign Strategy to Shake of Critics':
Originally posted by Ion

...
I come from Europe, where people are more educated and well-kept than the Americans.

What takes place in U.S. is islands of quality in a sea of mediocrity.

People in U.S. are still superstitious religion-wise, greedy money-wise, without social programs and unkept intellectually and in physical looks.

The islands of quality come from a quality of Americans that the Americans themselves are unaware of but that foreigners like me are aware of, and they come from the high standards of skills required in immigration to the U.S. ...
My claim is that who makes it that "...US leads the world by miles..." -as a journalist put it- is due to:

1.) high standards in skills required from immigrants;

2.) little known Americans navigating in a sea of US mediocrity.

(I will defend my claim as well as I can under time constraints)

Supporting 1.) are:
......................................

a.) there were two threads that I searched for and still need to find them, one that was stating information from US high-tech companies asking for a better US education in light of the higher education outside of the US, and another stating information from a US high-tech company that was considering foreign applicants when the local pool of applicants was exhausted -meaning a higher standard for importing foreigners than for finding locals-;

b.) being an insider in high-tech, I know that most of the science used in US technologies is foreign with US providing only the technicians for it;

(for example, the CDMA technology by Viterbi (US) and Jacobs (US) comes to mind as US providing technicians, while France's Laplace, Fourier, d'Alembert, le Galois, l'Hopital provide the mathematicians;

for example the US grade 12 and Bachelor are parodies of an European sylabus);

c.) two days ago I read in the paper that 64% of Americans are obese;

d.) US is predominantly religious, sign of a third-world country;

e.) there are numerous examples of importing extraordinary skills, like I quote below from the book 'Swimming: Character and Excellence' by Mike Gossman starting in page 33:

"...I knew the second I saw him that he was the new Hungarian coach I'd heard about...There were 14 people in that group when Jozsef began working with us; by the end of the week he and I were the only ones left. His workouts were extremely hard. No one else wanted to try to understand him or do the work he was demanding...
...
One of the Rockville coaches had told me that Jozsef had been "European Coach of the Year"...
...
I don't think Jozsef ever saw anything special in my strokes. What I think he saw was someone who was willing to put in the time and do the work...
...
I had to go from the traditional way of doing breaststroke to a new and innovative way of doing breaststroke...
..."

This innovative way of doing breaststroke that I see Americans lying today to take credit for was invented by Jozsef Nagy (Hun.) and gave Mike Barrowman (US) -an unheard of American hero compared to fatsos playing baseball and US football- a world record in swimming unassailable for years and a gold medal in the 1992 Olympic Games.

Supporting 2.) are:
......................................

f.) in entertainment, the Rolling Stones (UK) copied little known bluesman Muddy Waters (US), Joe Cocker (UK) copied little known Sharp (US) and Hawkins (US), etc., and became worldwide famous by exploiting it while US doesn't understand its own talent;

g.) in sports again, US doesn't know who represents them best in international competitions, like for example Lee Evans and Larry James did in Olympic running and Bobby Hackett did in Olympic swimming, but they sure waste time watching grandpas-like baseball locals struggling to move themselves on the fields.

h.) instead of the quality shown above, US is clogged by mediocrity Bush-style -notice the standards of US universities Yale and Harvard that produce Bushs-, is clogged by wannabe Bushies who are not as rich to go to US mill univesities, is clogged by political correctness to be non educated and pretend to be 'nice' instead and is clogged by the dog-eat-dog hunt for money when the society is missing.

[Matabiri]

Originally posted by Ion
g.) in sports again, US doesn't know who represents them best in international competitions, like for example Lee Evans and Larry James did in Olympic running and Bobby Hackett did in Olympic swimming, but they sure waste time watching grandpas-like baseball locals struggling to move themselves on the fields.


I'd like to add distaste at the US automatically assuming superiority in everything. Including sports that no-one else plays...

(Prompted by something about the Superbowl being "the biggest sporting event in the world". Nuts. Home TV audience of ~130 million, and no-one overseas cares. Oxford-Cambridge boat race, worldwide audience estimated to be around 400 million.)

But I digress.

[Iconoclast]

Originally posted by Matabiri
I'd like to add distaste at the US automatically assuming superiority in everything. Including sports that no-one else plays...

(Prompted by something about the Superbowl being "the biggest sporting event in the world". Nuts. Home TV audience of ~130 million, and no-one overseas cares. Oxford-Cambridge boat race, worldwide audience estimated to be around 400 million.)
How about the "World Series", a baseball competition only open to US and Canadian teams. The last time I checked, the Soccer World Cup commanded the highest TV audience, though the Indy 500 had the largest single day audience. That's probably all changed since the introduction of synchronised swimming.

[Iconoclast]

Originally posted by Ion
b.)being an insider in high-tech, I know that most of the science used in US technologies is foreign with US providing only the technicians for it;

(for example, the CDMA technology by Viterbi (US) and Jacobs (US) comes to mind as US providing technicians, while France's Laplace, Fourier, d'Alembert, le Galois, l'Hopital provide the mathematicians;

Are you talking about industrial and military technology or commercial? You've cited only a single example there, but I'd be willing to bet that no country comes up with more new technology than USA. If you go just on registered patents, USA is by far the largest inventor.

Originally posted by Ion
d.) US is predominantly religious, sign of a third-world country;

That one's hard to refute. USA seems to be the most religious country in the Western world. Can anyone name another western country with a higher proportion of religious people?

Originally posted by Ion
f.) in entertainment, the Rolling Stones (UK) copied little known bluesman Muddy Waters (US), Joe Cocker (UK) copied little known Sharp (US) and Hawkins (US), etc., and became worldwide famous by exploiting it while US doesn't understand its own talent;
Wait a minute, are you talking about creating new things or exploiting them? Sure, Japan is famous for taking technology invented in USA are creating truly great products, but the technology breakthroughs typically come from the Seppos. I guess it comes down to whether you believe the inventing part is harder than the innovating part.

As far as rock music goes, virtually all modern rock music can be traced back to one of two bluesmen: Robert Johnson and T-Bone Walker, both from USA. However, it's strange that you're trying to defend your argument by mentioning UK bands who built on the work of their US counterparts. ALL music is derivitive, all musicians take inspiration from the works of those before them.

I can't believe you chose to label Muddy Waters and (I assume you mean) Screaming Jay Hawkins "little known".


Still, you're not a bad troller...


[edited to correct some tysop]

[Darat]

Originally posted by Iconoclast

Are you talking about industrial and military technology or commercial? You've cited only a single example there, but I'd be willing to bet that no country comes up with more new technology that USA. If you go just on registered patents, USA is by far the largest inventor.

...snip....

Can I be a excused a small amount of trolling please? Well with or without permission here I go.

Perhaps registered patents is more to do with what you can patent in the USA rather then any indicator of quality?

[Matabiri]

Originally posted by Iconoclast

How about the "World Series", a baseball competition only open to US and Canadian teams.

Isn't the "World Series" so called because it was sponsored by a newspaper called the World, or something?

[Iconoclast]

Originally posted by Darat
Perhaps registered patents is more to do with what you can patent in the USA rather then any indicator of quality?
I thought someone would point that out, and I should have clarified my original post. If we take patented inventions with real uses, that the USA would be far ahead of any other country. This is simply a guess by the way, and I'm happy for someone else to prove me wrong.

Thomas till holds more patents than any other individual and by a fair margin. My understanding is that whenever someone working for Edison came up with a new idea, he'd lodge the patent under his own name, but since we can assume his employees were all US citizens that's neither here nor there in this discussion.

Just looking at the world altering inventions conjured up in USA we have:

- Printing Press
- Telegraph
- Telephone
- Cotton Gin
- Elevator
- Escalator
- Airplane
- Transistor
- Integrated Circuit
- Computer
- and let's not forget Foxy Boxing

[Iconoclast]

Originally posted by Matabiri
Isn't the "World Series" so called because it was sponsored by a newspaper called the World, or something?
Nope (http://www.snopes.com/business/names/worldseries.asp)

(from the link)

"The New York World never had anything to do with the World Series, however, other than being one of the many newspapers to report the results. The modern World Series (like its predecessor series waged between National League and American Association teams from 1884-1890) was so named not because of any affiliation with a corporate sponsor, but because the winner was considered the 'world's champion' -- the title was therefore simply a shortened form of the phrase 'world's championship series.' "

[Matabiri]

Originally posted by Iconoclast
"The New York World never had anything to do with the World Series, however, other than being one of the many newspapers to report the results. The modern World Series (like its predecessor series waged between National League and American Association teams from 1884-1890) was so named not because of any affiliation with a corporate sponsor, but because the winner was considered the 'world's champion' -- the title was therefore simply a shortened form of the phrase 'world's championship series.' "

Oh well, I take it back. The US are flagrantly arrogant after all...

[Chaos]

Iconoclast
That one's hard to refute. USA seems to be the most religious country in the Western world. Can anyone name another western country with a higher proportion of religious people?

I know one: the Vatican.

Okay, but that hardly counts...


Just looking at the world altering inventions conjured up in USA we have:

- Printing Press
- Telegraph
- Telephone
- Cotton Gin
- Elevator
- Escalator
- Airplane
- Transistor
- Integrated Circuit
- Computer
- and let's not forget Foxy Boxing

Beg your pardon, but the Printing Press was invented by the medieval Chinese or by Gutenberg in the 1400´s - depending on if you count the press without moveable letters (Chinese models) or with moveable letters (Gutenberg model).

Otto Lilienthal´s glider airplane came before the Wright brothers (in the 1890´s, I think), so if you count that as a real airplane, the USA is second again.

During WW2, the German Konrad Zuse developed at least two computer models, the Z1 and Z2 (I think the Z3 was a post-war model).

[Bottle or the Gun]

We don't drive on sidewalks and shower more often.

But seriously...if you take alot of social and economic programs and put them side by side each other, then a lot of what the US does falls short. Many countries have better health-care, less crime per capita, but then again many don't. Why then do other countries turn to the US for everything from economic bail-outs to military assistance? Maybe it is more fair to say the 'US leads the world in saving Europe from the Nazis'.

[Iconoclast]

Originally posted by Chaos
Beg your pardon...

I knew I was gonna pay for not checking first. And I should have been a lot more specific, sorry Chaos.

Originally posted by Chaos
...but the Printing Press was invented by the medieval Chinese or by Gutenberg in the 1400´s - depending on if you count the press without moveable letters (Chinese models) or with moveable letters (Gutenberg model).
Oh, I wasn't talking about the printing press per se, I was talking about.... ah.... modern pornographic magazines. Hugh Hefner. That's still probably wrong.

Originally posted by Chaos
Otto Lilienthal´s glider airplane came before the Wright brothers (in the 1890´s, I think), so if you count that as a real airplane, the USA is second again.

Bleh. Powered flight! Unpowered I guess would be the Montgolfier(sp?) Brothers wouldn't it?

Originally posted by Chaos
During WW2, the German Konrad Zuse developed at least two computer models, the Z1 and Z2 (I think the Z3 was a post-war model).
Since I listed the computer after the transistor and IC, I meant to say "digital" computers. Could the Abacus (China?) be considered the first computer?

[Bottle or the Gun]

The hamburger was invented in Ancient Rome.

[Jon_in_london]

Originally posted by Iconoclast
Since I listed the computer after the transistor and IC, I meant to say "digital" computers. Could the Abacus (China?) be considered the first computer?

Actually, I think the real original 'computer' was Babbage's analytical engine (which may be viewed in the Science Museum).

I saw something interesting about Bell and the telephone on TV, apprently he blatantly plagirised (sp?) someone else's patent (he bribed some patent clerks). However, even before that some Cuban/Spanish (?) bod was sending voices down cables. Apprently this chap is officially recognized as the telephone inventor in New York, and Im actually inclined to agree that he should get the credit.

[Iconoclast]

Originally posted by Bottle or the Gun
Why then do other countries turn to the US for everything from economic bail-outs to military assistance?
'cause they're suckers, they're like that geeky kid at school who'd give you his lunch money if you'd be his friend

[Iconoclast]

Originally posted by Jon_in_london
Actually, I think the real original 'computer' was Babbage's analytical engine (which may be viewed in the Science Museum).
He was building automatic looms or something wasn't he?

[Jon_in_london]

Originally posted by Iconoclast

He was building automatic looms or something wasn't he?

That where the inspiration came from.

The patterns for the cloth were programmed in on punch-cards.

[Jon_in_london]

Actually it seems his 'Analytical Engine' was never built.

According to the Science Museum http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/on-line/babbage/page5.asp
It would have been quite a job to cobble together!


The Engine would have been vast. Had it been built it would have needed to be operated by a steam engine of some kind. Babbage made little attempt to raise funds to build the Analytical Engine. Instead he continued to work on simpler and cheaper methods of manufacturing parts and built a small trial model which was under construction at the time of his death.



Its a replica of one of his Difference Engines that sits in the museum.

[Iconoclast]

Thanks Jon

[Jon_in_london]

Originally posted by Bottle or the Gun
Many countries have better health-care, less crime per capita, but then again many don't. Why then do other countries turn to the US for everything from economic bail-outs to military assistance? Maybe it is more fair to say the 'US leads the world in saving Europe from the Nazis'.

*ahem*
/Indignant Limey

It IS true that in many areas the US DOES lead the world by miles.

There are many areas in which the US is open to criticism, it certainly is a bit backward in some respects, it certainly is narcissistic, it certainly isnt perfect, but then no nation is perfect.

Its a fact that the US is by miles the most powerfull nation on earth both economically and militarily, personally I would rather have the US in this position than any other nation bar my own or the ex-Dominions or Ireland....

[Tmy]

I think the US has an excellent education system from top to bottom. Other places only focus on the top students and let the rest fall off the map. Sure other countries have these kids who can do long division off the top of their heads, big f'n deal a computer can do that. The US focuses more about individuality and creativity. And that leads to innovation.

Beauty: We americans are quite handsome. Thats what happens when you mix different backgrounds. (Really, have you seen the dental situation in England?)

Most importantly: Weapons! We got bombs baby. The strongest end up leading, its the law of nature.

Religion: C'mon, everyone knows that the most religious person in any family is that one grandma from the old country. Americans just play lip service to church.

[Iconoclast]

Originally posted by Tmy
The strongest end up leading, its the law of nature.How do you account for those midget Japanese dudes trumping US brands in your domestic automotive market?

[Tmy]

Originally posted by Iconoclast
How do you account for those midget Japanese dudes trumping US brands in your domestic automotive market?

Thats cause they now make them jap cars in the states!!! Plus how hard is it to beat Ford (aka Found On the Road Dead):p

[Jon_in_london]

Originally posted by Tmy


Thats cause they now make them jap cars in the states!!! Plus how hard is it to beat Ford (aka Found On the Road Dead):p

Some of them may be made in the states...
The car industry is quite global though....
That fancy new 'German built' BMW or Merc may just have been made in Africa!

[Larspeart]

Originally posted by Jon_in_london


*ahem*
/Indignant Limey

It IS true that in many areas the US DOES lead the world by miles.




Please start listing them. You have all taken such great pains to list where we fail. Now that you have admitted we are not total dogs, I want you to be 'fair and balanced' and start listing off areas where we, in fact, DO excel and, to quote you, 'lead the world by miles'.

It is always VERY easy to rattle off a laundry-list of a country/person/idea/invention's faults. VERY easy to do so. Now, start listing off where we excel.

I'll start it for you. . .

Food/Crop Production- We produce mroe of the world's food then anyone else. Many a nation/culture would have fallen into starvation or anarchy were it not for the food that we produce and send out to the world.


Now, it's your turn.

[Graham]

Originally posted by Bottle or the Gun
Maybe it is more fair to say the 'US leads the world in saving Europe from the Nazis'.

Some would say the Soviet Union had an edge on you in that one . . .

They're not around anymore but, of course, neither are the Nazis.

Graham

[Michael Redman]

We do a good job of providing foreign guests an opportunity to bash the US with impunity.

[Graham]

Originally posted by Michael Redman
We do a good job of providing foreign guests an opportunity to bash the US with impunity.

Tell that to Maher Arar (http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/arar/)

Of course, he didn't bash the US (that we know of) until after he was arrested, interrogated and deported to Syria to be tortured . . .

[Luke T.]

Originally posted by Ion
d.) US is predominantly religious, sign of a third-world country;


This is about as ignorant as it gets, and only plays here because of the open hostility toward religion many JREF forum members share with you.

If it wasn't for the religious backgrounds of the people who founded this country, we wouldn't have the concepts of freedom, liberty, universal suffrage and countless other invaluable assets that make us the great country we are. They invented the kind of democracy we enjoy and that the ancient Greeks couldn't even fantasize about.

[Ladewig]

The U.S.'s arrogance and stubborness is demonstrated by the thread's very title. 99% of the countries in the world use the (functional, simple, and mathematically elegant) metric system while the USAians steadfastly hold to the (antiquated, confusing) imperial system.

As for the claim that Europeans are "more educated and well-kept than the Americans," you win on the more-educated claim, but on the well-kept, I think the matter is closer than you claim. Europeans dress better (as evidenced by the ease with which one can spot an USAian outside of European capitals), but the U.S. does have laws to prosecute dog owners who do not curb their pets. Having walked in both Europe and the U.S., I must recommend that you folks look into that.

[Jon_in_london]

Originally posted by Luke T.

If it wasn't for the religious backgrounds of the people who founded this country, we wouldn't have the concepts of freedom, liberty, universal suffrage and countless.........

How does puritanism relate to universal suffrage? Wasnt any universal suffarge under the founding fathers that I have heard of....

[Jon_in_london]

Originally posted by Larspeart


Food/Crop Production- We produce mroe of the world's food then anyone else. Many a nation/culture would have fallen into starvation or anarchy were it not for the food that we produce and send out to the world.


Are you sure thats correct? Im not saying it isnt but...

Anyway, dont you think that its a bit unfair to just take agricultural output without considering the size and population of the country?

I mean you cant really expect small islands like the UK or Japan to match up to large countries like Russia, USA or China. Perhaps dividing food produced by area of arable land and total population would be a better measure.

[Luke T.]

Originally posted by Jon_in_london


How does puritanism relate to universal suffrage? Wasnt any universal suffarge under the founding fathers that I have heard of....

In the context of the times, there certainly was when you compare it to the monarchies of Europe.

[Ion]

I am surprised by the big response in such a short time to my opening post, I need to study it carefully, but right now I am going to be more superficial than how I want to be because of rushing to make more software for these 802.11A wireless cards so that the US can stay ahead in worldwide technology...

In a quick beat though:
Originally posted by Tmy
I think the US has an excellent education system from top to bottom. Other places only focus on the top students and let the rest fall off the map. Sure other countries have these kids who can do long division off the top of their heads, big f'n deal a computer can do that. The US focuses more about individuality and creativity. And that leads to innovation.
...

I disagree with that; in US univesities are costing money, in Europe they don't -they are funded by taxes-, so the European competition is higher; I don't think that "...US focuses more about individuality and creativity..." than Europe, I was a researcher in speech compression in a North American university and I think that it is the other way around.
Originally posted by Larspeart

...
...I want you to be 'fair and balanced' and start listing off areas where we, in fact, DO excel and, to quote you, 'lead the world by miles'.
...
Now, it's your turn.
"...US leds the world by miles..." from little known American's input, in Olympic sports, in entertainment like 'Screaming Hawkins' that I mentioned, and more.

A few years ago, Clinton deplored that an Olympic gold medalist died starving.
Originally posted by Luke T.


This is about as ignorant as it gets, and only plays here because of the open hostility toward religion many JREF forum members share with you.

If it wasn't for the religious backgrounds of the people who founded this country, we wouldn't have the concepts of freedom,
...

This is incorrect.

US has "...the concepts of freedom..." because of the Justinian Code that became the English common law.

The Justinian code is a legacy of the Hammurabi code originated in Mesopotamia, way before the Christ's myth came into history.

[Jon_in_london]

Originally posted by Luke T.


In the context of the times, there certainly was when you compare it to the monarchies of Europe.

*cough* England *cough* Parliamentry Democracy *cough* Bill of rights *cough*

In any case, you lot were a colony at the time.

[Jon_in_london]

Originally posted by Ion
I disagree with that; in US univesities are costing money, in Europe they don't -they are funded by taxes-, so the European competition is higher; I don't think that "...US focuses more about individuality and creativity..." than Europe, I was a researcher in speech compression in a North American university and I think that it is the other way around.


I disagree with you about tertiary education.

Fees have been introduced here mainly because our Universities are unable to compete with US universities for top academics. US universities produce around 50% of the global research output.

The performance of European universities as measured by research output is woefull.

[Luke T.]

Originally posted by Ion
This is incorrect.

US has "...the concepts of freedom..." because of the Justinian Code that became the English common law.

The Justinian code is a legacy of the Hammurabi code originated in Mesopotamia, way before the Christ's myth came into history.

Aside from being bunk as it applies to the U.S. concepts of democracy, the Hammurabi code had it origins in mythology as well.

The reason the Puritans left England was because of its oppressiveness and what they considered to be an immoral way of life.

[Tmy]

Originally posted by Ion

I disagree with that; in US univesities are costing money, in Europe they don't -they are funded by taxes-, so the European competition is higher; I don't think that "...US focuses more about individuality and creativity..." than Europe, I was a researcher in speech compression in a North American university and I think that it is the other way around.



I was misleading. Your right about the schools stifeling creativity. But I think the US culture as a whole promotes creativity and innovation. Everyone wants to be an entrepeneur.

Anyone have stats of % of Americans vs Euros who have a college degree??


As for Americans being un-kept?? I find Euros to be.........well STINKY! You can pick them up a block away. Do Americans have a sent I dont notice or sumthin.

[Luke T.]

The emigrants of New England brought with them the best elements of order and morality-they landed in the desert accompanied by their wives and children. But what most especially distinguished them was the aim of their undertaking. They had not been obliged by necessity to leave their country; the social position they abandoned was one to be regretted, and their means of subsistence were certain. NOr did they cross the Atlantic to increase their wealth; the call which summoned them from the comforts of their homes was purely intellectual; and in facing the inevitable sufferings of exile their object was the triumph of an idea.

The emigrants, or, as they deservedly styled themselves, the Pilgrims, belonged to that English sect the austerity of whose principles had acquired for them the name of Puritans. Puritanism was not merely a religious doctrine, but it corresponded in many points with the most absolute democratic and republican theories. It was this tendency which had aroused its most dangerous adversaries. Persecuted by the Government of the mother country, and disgusted by the habits of a society opposed to the rigor of their own principles, the Puritans went forth to seek some rude and unfrequented part of the world, whre they could live according to their own opinions, and worship God in freedom....

...A democracy, more perfect than any which antiquity had dreamed of, started in full size and panapoly from the midst of an ancient feudal society.

Alexis de Tocqueville, 1832.

[Jon_in_london]

Originally posted by Luke T.
The reason the Puritans left England was because of its oppressiveness and what they considered to be an immoral way of life.

Thats self-contradicting luke.

Saying that Puritans left England because it was oppresive and immoral would be like saying that the Taleban left Afghanistan for the same reasons!

Plently of puritans stayed behind tho' perhaps they left because they saw new lands, new wealth and new opportunities in the new world colonies?

[Luke T.]

Originally posted by Jon_in_london


Thats self-contradicting luke.

Saying that Puritans left England because it was oppresive and immoral would be like saying that the Taleban left Afghanistan for the same reasons!

Plently of puritans stayed behind tho' perhaps they left because they saw new lands, new wealth and new opportunities in the new world colonies?

See the quote from de Tocqueville. The Puritans left a life of comfort for one of extreme harshness.

[aerocontrols]

Originally posted by Jon_in_london
Are you sure thats correct? Im not saying it isnt but...

Anyway, dont you think that its a bit unfair to just take agricultural output without considering the size and population of the country?

I mean you cant really expect small islands like the UK or Japan to match up to large countries like Russia, USA or China. Perhaps dividing food produced by area of arable land and total population would be a better measure.

I would tend to agree that if one wants to fairly measure achievement rather than dominance, taking agricultural input without those considerations is not exactly valid.

But wouldn't those considerations also apply to the "fact that the US is by miles the most powerfull nation on earth both economically and militarily?"



As to the correctness of Larspent's claim, in 2000, developed countries donated 8,464,400 metric tons of grain (cereals) to developing countries.

The US donated 4,697,000 of those tons (55.5%)

Coming in second in grain donations was Japan at 719,600 tons (8.5%)

One presumes that Japan is buying grain from other producers and then donating it.

Source (http://earthtrends.wri.org/text/AGR/variables/211.htm)

Trends for all countries vary, (Canada seems to be one country that previously did a lot more than currently) but the US consistently contributes 50-60% of all worldwide grain aid.

MattJ

[Jon_in_london]

Originally posted by Luke T.


See the quote from de Tocqueville. The Puritans left a life of comfort for one of extreme harshness.

Because they were nutters who were disgusted that heinous crimes like dancing and having fun werent being punished by 200 lashes anymore (or something).

[Luke T.]

Originally posted by Jon_in_london


Because they were nutters who were disgusted that heinous crimes like dancing and having fun werent being punished by 200 lashes anymore (or something).

Well, lucky for us those "nutters" came here and laid the foundation for the greatest nation on Earth! :D

[Jon_in_london]

Originally posted by Luke T.


Well, lucky for us those "nutters" came here and laid the foundation for the greatest nation on Earth! :D

Of course they did! They were English! :D

(you have to admit though, the Puritans were a bunch of nutters- 'The Protestant Taleban' as I have heard them described.

[KelvinG]

Originally posted by Tmy

Most importantly: Weapons! We got bombs baby. The strongest end up leading, its the law of nature.

Great, so if I'm physically stronger than you and can beat you up, I'm your superior.
You'd make a wonderful chimpanzee, but your qualities as a human being are lacking.

[Shane Costello]

Originally posted by Ion:
d.) US is predominantly religious, sign of a third-world country;

Europe heavily favours the statist model of government, and statism is a surefire sign of a thirdworld country. I'm perplexed as to what you're doing in the US. If we take it as given that Europeans are smarter and better educated, then surely someone as smart as yourself should ahve no bother picking up a job in Europe.

So where did all that double digit unemployment come from?

[Segnosaur]

Originally posted by Ion

d.) US is predominantly religious, sign of a third-world country;


Although there is a large number of people in the U.S. who claim to be christian, it should be noted that European and other industrialized contries have their share of dumb beliefs. Not only that, the U.S. constitution actually has provisions separating church and state; compare that with the constitution of many other countries, which mention god, have state-funded religious institutions, etc.

Originally posted by Ion

f.) in entertainment, the Rolling Stones (UK) copied little known bluesman Muddy Waters (US), Joe Cocker (UK) copied little known Sharp (US) and Hawkins (US), etc., and became worldwide famous by exploiting it while US doesn't understand its own talent;


And the US never listens to any of its own 'home grown' artists. :rolleyes:

Originally posted by Ion

g.) in sports again, US doesn't know who represents them best in international competitions, like for example Lee Evans and Larry James did in Olympic running and Bobby Hackett did in Olympic swimming, but they sure waste time watching grandpas-like baseball locals struggling to move themselves on the fields.



Why would anyone really care what happens in 'international competitions'? Most of them are either corrupt (figure skating, synchronized swimming, etc.), or incredibly boring. As dull as baseball is, at least it has some variations, unlike swimming, running, etc. where its the same 'action' over and over again.

Maybe the Americans just recognized the bordom of those sports and have adjusted their viewing habits accordingly.

[Tmy]

Originally posted by KelvinG


Great, so if I'm physically stronger than you and can beat you up, I'm your superior.
You'd make a wonderful chimpanzee, but your qualities as a human being are lacking.

Step off your highhorse!

Truth is that no matter how advanced we think we always come back to caveman thinking. People get elected primarily cause of their looks, gender, race, religion. We have arbitrary invisable boarders that divide us. When countries have conflicts sometimes they hit a point where it becomes phyisical. Why do you think the UN is so powerless? They dont have an army!

Its might or money that controls.

[jj]

Originally posted by Ion
(for example, the CDMA technology by Viterbi (US) and Jacobs (US) comes to mind as US providing technicians, while France's Laplace, Fourier, d'Alembert, le Galois, l'Hopital provide the mathematicians;

Interesting that you select mathematicians that at least partially come before the US existed. Maybe you could deal with Graham, Kovacek, DeBauchies, and the like, too, if you don't mind. (I'll just name the ones I know personally for kicks here.)
two days ago I read in the paper that 64% of Americans are obese;

Good, good, you read that. Cite it?
d.) US is predominantly religious, sign of a third-world country;

So it Germany. Are they a third-world country? In Germany, your "church tax" is taken out of your paycheck when issued, at least in parts of Bavaria. Are you suggesting that Germany is a third-world country, then?

f.) in entertainment, the Rolling Stones (UK) copied little known bluesman Muddy Waters (US), Joe Cocker (UK) copied little known Sharp (US) and Hawkins (US), etc., and became worldwide famous by exploiting it while US doesn't understand its own talent;

I think you need to do a bit more research on that, fella, and get back to us with something a bit more accurate. Now, the Stones certainly have taken to heart some of Muddy Waters' style, but "copied" is a shade strong, to say the least.

Pleased to meet you,
...



Well, that was a waste of time. You state conclusions as arguments, mostly.

When you have some actual, meaningful statistics, please get back to us.

Do things like compare the same period(s) in history, remember to include engineering and industrial accomplishments in your review of scientific progress, don't leave out Bell Labs, which certainly had input from both domestic and foreign experts, oh, just to name a place I know about.

You talk about the music business, good, let's talk about Bell, Edison, Snow, all the RCA and Columbia guys, ... How about we do an even-handed review instead of your cherry-picking a few examples to try to support your bigotry, next time?

[jj]

Originally posted by Darat


Can I be a excused a small amount of trolling please? Well with or without permission here I go.

Perhaps registered patents is more to do with what you can patent in the USA rather then any indicator of quality?

That's only been true for the last 10 years, since RayGun's "reforms" finished gutting the patent office.

[jj]

Originally posted by Chaos
[Beg your pardon, but the Printing Press was invented by the medieval Chinese or by Gutenberg in the 1400´s - depending on if you count the press without moveable letters (Chinese models) or with moveable letters (Gutenberg model).

And it's not entirely clear that the Chinese were completely without movable type, either.

Otto Lilienthal´s glider airplane came before the Wright brothers (in the 1890´s, I think), so if you count that as a real airplane, the USA is second again.

There were also a variety of glider-builders in the USA, although their names and dates aren't returning to memory immediately.

During WW2, the German Konrad Zuse developed at least two computer models, the Z1 and Z2 (I think the Z3 was a post-war model).
We could go back to the 'engine', I suppose, for computers, too.

[Luke T.]

Originally posted by Segnosaur

Not only that, the U.S. constitution actually has provisions separating church and state;

Exactly! And that makes all the difference.

[jj]

Originally posted by Ion
I am surprised by the big response in such a short time to my opening post, I need to study it carefully, but right now I am going to be more superficial than how I want to be because of rushing to make more software for these 802.11A wireless cards so that the US can stay ahead in worldwide technology...


Good, good. But since we're so bad, why are you HERE doing that, instead of in Singapore or Thailand or Korea?


In a quick beat though:

I disagree with that; in US univesities are costing money, in Europe they don't -they are funded by taxes-, so the European competition is higher; I don't think that "...US focuses more about individuality and creativity..." than Europe, I was a researcher in speech compression in a North American university and I think that it is the other way around.


I was exactly the same thing and I disagree entirely with you. I also know an extensive list of people from both US and non-US universities in the same field, and my impression is that there isn't a lot of difference. Of course, your experience may vary with your school and advisor.

As to "costing money", it would appear that you wish to cherry-pick the economic system to throw in our face. If you want to be a socialist, fine, but admit what you just did there was support socialism, not find a problem with the USA.

If (I said "if", note) you're one of those people who thinks socialism is superior, come out and say that, and stop cherry-picking examples.


"...US leds the world by miles..." from little known American's input, in Olympic sports, in entertainment like 'Screaming Hawkins' that I mentioned, and more.

A few years ago, Clinton deplored that an Olympic gold medalist died starving.

Another cherry pulled from the tree. POP!

Bad things happen here, and everywhere else. Unless you can show that more bad things happen here, without injecting some kind of political philosophy, well, either get with it or get to apologizing.

US has "...the concepts of freedom..." because of the Justinian Code that became the English common law.

UUhh.................. Man, oh man, please to take a history lesson.

The Justinian code is a legacy of the Hammurabi code originated in Mesopotamia, way before the Christ's myth came into history.
***cough*** I suppose you can argue some roots there, but there's a lot more to it than that, and I think you'd find some parts of Hammurabi's code to be, well, less than acceptable.

Look, EVERYTHING is derived from something that came before it, practically speaking. Why don't you just insist that we owe everything to Ur and Sumer and get done with it, then?

[jj]

Originally posted by Jon_in_london


*cough* England *cough* Parliamentry Democracy *cough* Bill of rights *cough*

In any case, you lot were a colony at the time.


***cough*** Stamp act.
***cough*** Church of England
***cough*** Clearances.

That "Parliamentry Democracy" didn't do much good for us, did it?
Neither did any "bill of rights" from merry olde England those days, anything was good that kept the colonies in their places, the colonists poor and subservient, and the money flowing OUT of the colonies to mother AngleLand, eh?

'Suse me while I think of a good, handy Saxon word to describe that with.

[jj]

Originally posted by Luke T.


Well, lucky for us those "nutters" came here and laid the foundation for the greatest nation on Earth! :D

Uh, Luke, the people who founded the nation were not pilgrims nor were they puritans, SOME of them were descendents of them, but most of the people who founded the nation were in fact enthusiasts of the "enlightenment" movement, who came here partially to avoid suppression by religious and social mechanisms.

I'm not saying that the descendents of the Puritans didn't add anything, they most certainly did. They did, though, partially contribute in a most odd way, they offered a proximate example of why in fact religious tolerance was necessary, both by their presence and their sometimes intolerant acts.

[jj]

Originally posted by Segnosaur
And the US never listens to any of its own 'home grown' artists. :rolleyes:


Well, if one is completely unaware of any of the alternative lablels, underground, etc, one might actually think that in the USA.

At present, the "labels" are going through one of their periodic attempts to make us all listen to what they want to sell us, instead of what we want to listen to.

And look, if you will, at the sales results. :(

[epepke]

Originally posted by Jon_in_london
Its a replica of one of his Difference Engines that sits in the museum.

He never actually built a Difference Engine, either. Just bits and pieces.

The Science Museum project is way cool, but one of the reasons it was built is that, as Babbage never built one, many people over the years have wondered whether it was possible to build using the tolerances of machine equipment at the time. So it was built using gunmetal with deliberately approximate tolerances.

As far as the first electronic programmable digital computer goes, it appears only to have been for lack of a measley 45,000-pound-expenditure that prevented the ACE from beating Mauchley and Eckert's invention. The ACE also would have been a real modern computer, while the ENIAC was a bit of a kludge.

[epepke]

Originally posted by jj
Uh, Luke, the people who founded the nation were not pilgrims nor were they puritans, SOME of them were descendents of them, but most of the people who founded the nation were in fact enthusiasts of the "enlightenment" movement, who came here partially to avoid suppression by religious and social mechanisms.

The Mayflower people weren't pilgrims or puritans either. They were separatists, and they called themselves "Saints." The only reason they're called pilgrims is because of a poem by a mediocre poetess whose other contribution to culture was "The boy stood on the burning deck."

[Mike B.]

Originally posted by Ion

..."
f.) in entertainment, the Rolling Stones (UK) copied little known bluesman Muddy Waters (US), Joe Cocker (UK) copied little known Sharp (US) and Hawkins (US), etc., and became worldwide famous by exploiting it while US doesn't understand its own talent;

g.) in sports again, US doesn't know who represents them best in international competitions, like for example Lee Evans and Larry James did in Olympic running and Bobby Hackett did in Olympic swimming, but they sure waste time watching grandpas-like baseball locals struggling to move themselves on the fields.


Wow...What cogent criticisms...:p

GOD FORBID!!!
The US music style has went to Europe!!!

ALSO...
Our taste in sports is bad...!!!

[Mike B.]

Let's face it,

All of our early political ideas came from the mother country.

We were a backward colony that borrowed a lot of British ideas (i.e. Locke, Smith, Hobbes, etc.)

[jj]

Originally posted by epepke


The Mayflower people weren't pilgrims or puritans either. They were separatists, and they called themselves "Saints." The only reason they're called pilgrims is because of a poem by a mediocre poetess whose other contribution to culture was "The boy stood on the burning deck."

And they weren't too swift about agriculture, either.

[Mike B.]

Originally posted by Jon_in_london


Because they were nutters who were disgusted that heinous crimes like dancing and having fun werent being punished by 200 lashes anymore (or something).

Hehe.

As H. L. Menken said, "Being a Puritan was having the awful sinking suspicion that somebody, somewhere....was having a good time!!!"

[Jon_in_london]

Originally posted by jj

That "Parliamentry Democracy" didn't do much good for us, did it?

I beg to do differ

Neither did any "bill of rights" from merry olde England those days, anything was good that kept the colonies in their places, the colonists poor and subservient, and the money flowing OUT of the colonies to mother AngleLand, eh?

I dont really think that it was the case that there was a vast flow of money out of the colonies and into Britain, nor were the colonists 'poor and subservient'. You lots werent noble oppressed natives, you were the colonists!

The colonies were taxed to pay for their defense, unreasonable as that may seem! Eventually all the taxes were reduced to a tax on tea. Not that stopped anyone.

{insert taxation without representation argument here}

[Luke T.]

Originally posted by Mike B.
Let's face it,

All of our early political ideas came from the mother country.

We were a backward colony that borrowed a lot of British ideas (i.e. Locke, Smith, Hobbes, etc.)

They were so backward and so unoriginal :rolleyes: that they led the way to democracy!

[Mike B.]

Originally posted by Luke T.


They were so backward and so unoriginal :rolleyes: that they led the way to democracy!

You are right Luke. We might have been a two bit colony at one point...But hey we did alright for ourselves...;)

[epepke]

Originally posted by jj


And they weren't too swift about agriculture, either.

They weren't too swift about anything. The ship's manifest includes lots of luxury items but not even a single fishing line. They probably would have starved to death without the Indians.

[Jon_in_london]

Originally posted by Luke T.


They were so backward and so unoriginal :rolleyes: that they led the way to democracy!

Seriously Luke, they brought the British ideals of the rule of law and liberal* democracy with them. All your ideals are belong to us! :p :D

*as in freedom, not as in woolly-minded.

[epepke]

Originally posted by Jon_in_london


Seriously Luke, they brought the British ideals of the rule of law and liberal* democracy with them. All your ideals are belong to us! :p :D

*as in freedom, not as in woolly-minded.

Yes, American law is largely based on liberal English common law.

But we wrote it down, as opposed to having civil liberties be basically a gentleman's agreement.

And a First Amendment is better than having a policy where you can generally publish what you want if it doesn't conflict with the Official Secrets Act. With the post facto crap of the PATRIOT act, maybe not all that much better, but still better.

[Nikk]

Originally posted by Luke T.


They were so backward and so unoriginal :rolleyes: that they led the way to democracy!

How did they do that then? The idea that the executive was subordinate to the legislature was worked out in 17th century Britain as was the idea of constitutional government and the rule of law.

The really clever thing the colonists did was to create a working federation with a supreme court to keep legislation coherent all based on an easy to understand constitution. In some ways this followed naturally from the rather different nature of the original colonies of course. But still it was very original.

The other clever thing was that they were on the edge of a huge continent with vast resources and that the main opposition to expansion, the French, had been destroyed by the British.

Essentially the US has had the benefit of a vast free lunch.

Of course other nations such as Russia had a free lunch in terms of natural resources but they didn't have the good luck to be British colonists!

[Tmy]

BAH! Euro's fancy themselves so enlightend and wonder why they are so ahead of the rest of the world. How soon they forget how they played a major role in screwing up the rest of the planet.

"Look at meeeeeeee Im so evolved, I spend my free time going to London museums!!" Of course those museums are filled with misbegotten egyptian artifacts. :p

[Jon_in_london]

Originally posted by Tmy
BAH! Euro's fancy themselves so enlightend and wonder why they are so ahead of the rest of the world. How soon they forget how they played a major role in screwing up the rest of the planet.

"Look at meeeeeeee Im so evolved, I spend my free time going to London museums!!" Of course those museums are filled with misbegotten egyptian artifacts. :p

Hey, watch who you are calling a 'Euro'!

They are also filled with Greek so-called 'marbles'. Look like chunks of a demolished 1960s tower block to me.

[jj]

Originally posted by epepke


They weren't too swift about anything. The ship's manifest includes lots of luxury items but not even a single fishing line. They probably would have starved to death without the Indians.

Ok, I admit I've never even considered that there might be away to get even a summary manifest.

BUT THEY WENT ON A SEA VOYAGE WITHOUT A FISHING LINE?

E_IDIOTS_ON_BOARD

[Grammatron]

Originally posted by Jon_in_london


Hey, watch who you are calling a 'Euro'!

They are also filled with Greek so-called 'marbles'. Look like chunks of a demolished 1960s tower block to me.

Good job, now Ed and Cleopatra will spam this thread with who should have the marbles :)

[epepke]

Originally posted by jj
BUT THEY WENT ON A SEA VOYAGE WITHOUT A FISHING LINE?

E_IDIOTS_ON_BOARD

Bill Bryson in Made in America describes some of the things that were and were not on the manifest.

I suppose some of the sailors must have had fishing lines, but it isn't part of the separatists' manifests.

[Ion]

Originally posted by Jon_in_london


I disagree with you about tertiary education.

Fees have been introduced here mainly because our Universities are unable to compete with US universities for top academics. US universities produce around 50% of the global research output.

The performance of European universities as measured by research output is woefull.
A lot of research is 'publish or die'.

I discard that.

Universities are allegedly for teaching mainly, not wannabe research of 'publish or die' style.

From a teaching point of view, the point in the fact that the European universities are free is to say that the competition for admittance is not tainted by many students not being able to afford it like it is in the US.

For example, in France the 'classes preparatoires aux Grandes Ecoles' select the cream regardless of income, like it is in the US.

The result of this is that France has mathematicians at all levels, from top to the person walking in the street, while the US doesn't have and is pathetic.

[Michael Redman]

Originally posted by Grammatron
Good job, now Ed and Cleopatra will spam this thread with who should have the marbles :) Did somebody say something about the Greeks having lost their marbles?

[BTox]

Originally posted by Ion

For example, in France the 'classes preparatoires aux Grandes Ecoles' select the cream regardless of income, like it is in the US.

The result of this is that France has mathematicians at all levels, from top to the person walking in the street, while the US doesn't have and is pathetic.

All one needs to see the "quality" of the educational system in France is to read your posts. You're the poster child for a failed system!

[Ion]

Originally posted by Luke T.


Aside from being bunk as it applies to the U.S. concepts of democracy, the Hammurabi code had it origins in mythology as well.
...

Again, and I will type more slowly now so that you too can follow, the US law is driven from the English common law and the French revolution.

The Napoleon code stating that anyone is innocent until proven guilty, comes from the French revolution, and is adopted in the US too.

The English common law is driven from the Justinian code.

The Justinian code has amongst its influences the Hammurabi code, originated in Mesopotamia -which is present day Iraq-.

[Ion]

No:
Originally posted by BTox

...
You're the poster child for a failed system!
You are.

[epepke]

Originally posted by Ladewig
The U.S.'s arrogance and stubborness is demonstrated by the thread's very title.

You beat me to it. I was going to say that, while the US leads the rest of the world in miles, the rest of the world leads the US by kilometres.

99% of the countries in the world use the (functional, simple, and mathematically elegant) metric system while the USAians steadfastly hold to the (antiquated, confusing) imperial system.

Actually, besides the fact that the US legally switched to the Metric system in 1848 or 1849 (act of Congress), the US largely uses the Avoirdupois system, not the Imperial system. One might as easily claim that the metric system is only easier for people who have not progressed beyond counting on their fingers. Volume and weight measurements in Avoirdupois are based on powers of two, not powers of ten. (Computers, anyone?) The length measurements are, on the other hand, pretty silly.

As for the claim that Europeans are "more educated and well-kept than the Americans," you win on the more-educated claim, but on the well-kept, I think the matter is closer than you claim. Europeans dress better (as evidenced by the ease with which one can spot an USAian outside of European capitals), but the U.S. does have laws to prosecute dog owners who do not curb their pets. Having walked in both Europe and the U.S., I must recommend that you folks look into that.

Not to mention regular bathing. I worked at an international, multidisciplinary research program for a few years, and there were quite a few Europeans who maintained a rather potent miasma. From Frank Zappa's In France:

They got some coffee
Eatin' right through the cup
And when you go kaka
They make you stand up
Down in France...

If you're not careful
It'll stick to your cheeks.
You'll smell like a native
For a couple of weeks.
Down in France...

Of course, Europeans could say that people in the US are obsessed with cleanliness, and I've heard that comment before.

[BTox]

Originally posted by Ion
No:

You are.

See? Even more proof - your flame tactics are U.S. first grade level!

[Michael Redman]

Originally posted by Ion
From a teaching point of view, the point in the fact that the European universities are free is to say that the competition for admittance is not tainted by many students not being able to afford it like it is in the US.I like how you combine the strength of your conviction with the depth of your ignorance. You are the quintisential American.

Universities in the US give scholorships to top students. Only those who are poor and bad academic performers are unable to pay for college in the US. If I'm not mistaken, in Europe those folks don't even aspire to attend universities. It's hardly bad for academic competition when the worst students who also happen to be poor are not able to get a university education.



And where, exactly, is the French Revolution's influence on US law?

[Ion]

Originally posted by Shane Costello

...
If we take it as given that Europeans are smarter and better educated, then surely someone as smart as yourself should ahve no bother picking up a job in Europe.
...

If we take it as a given that you post here, why wouldn't you prepare yourself with some research about this forum's post before talking?

[Ion]

Originally posted by Segnosaur

...
As dull as baseball is, at least it has some variations, unlike swimming, running, etc. where its the same 'action' over and over again.
...

As I stated to someone elsewhere, it is like reading:

.) to someone who doesn't read, a reader is only turning pages for hours;

.) to someone who reads, there is content.

Content can be seen even by outsiders of the sports, when comparing a good 5'11" baseball player with a 38 waistline and wearing a goatee, with an average swimmer who is 6'2", has a waistline of 30 and broad shoulders.

[Ion]

Originally posted by BTox


See? Even more proof - your flame tactics are U.S. first grade level!
See?

I got more proof that your flame tactics are U.S. first grade level helped with affirmative action to it.

[jj]

Originally posted by epepke
The length measurements are, on the other hand, pretty silly.




Where else, for instance, is a measurement that is 1/2688th of a mile/hour defined?

[Skeptic]

Ion wrote:

Again, and I will type more slowly now so that you too can follow, the US law is driven from the English common law and the French revolution [and] the Napoleonic code

Hmmmmmmm.......

In chronological order:

U.S. Declaration of Independence -- 1776.

U. S. Constitution -- 1787.

U. S. Bill of Rights (first ten amendments) -- 1787.

French Revolution -- 1789.

The Napoleonic Code -- 1804.

You've got some explaining to do about that claim, "Ion".

[Michael Redman]

The State of Louisiana uses civil code inherited from its prior French rulers. If that's the support for the claim that US law is partly derived from France, I'm not impressed.

[Ion]

Originally posted by Michael Redman

...
And where, exactly, is the French Revolution's influence on US law?
and
Originally posted by Skeptic

...
You've got some explaining to do about that claim, "Ion".
I will explain it tonight, from home, with quotes from a history book that I have, written by Americans and taught in high-school in US.

A glimpse of my explanation will be that unlike what I saw claimed by popular belief in the U.S., the concept of one being innocent until proved guilty doesn't come from the English system but it comes from the French revolution instead.

I guess that the crux of my posts point to the fact that U.S. is mainly a land of immigrants and of immigrant ideas, with the locals doing some good that is not well acknowledged but mainly doing no-good.

[Otther]

As I stated to someone elsewhere, it is like reading:
.) to someone who doesn't read, a reader is only turning pages for hours;
.) to someone who reads, there is content. But that argument can be applied to anything from baseball to swimming, to jamming scissors into your crotch. Oh, you don't think repeatedly jamming sissors into your crotch is a sport? Well, it is! Because you just haven't spent enough time participating to learn the exhilarating subtle bits of it.


I got more proof that your flame tactics are U.S. first grade level helped with affirmative action to it. Does anyone else think this statement sounds like a high-school programming class' attempt at A.I.?

[Nyarlathotep]

So with one lone exception the consensus of Europeans on this thread is that the fact that I am an American makes me both stupid and ugly. While I will confess to to being ugly I don't think being American has anything to do with it and would like to point out that I have seen PLENTY of ugly Europeans. I take great offense at the implication that being American makes me stupid however.

And the people on this thread (http://www.randi.org/vbulletin/showthread.php?s=&threadid=30870&perpage=40&pagenumber=1) wondered where I came up with my opinions.....

[Ion]

Originally posted by Otther
But that argument can be applied to anything from baseball to swimming, to jamming scissors into your crotch.
...

The argument that a baseball player is 5'11" and has a waistline of 38 is not in favor of baseball.

I wrote this:
Originally posted by Ion

As I stated to someone elsewhere, it is like reading:

.) to someone who doesn't read, a reader is only turning pages for hours;

.) to someone who reads, there is content.

Content can be seen even by outsiders of the sports, when comparing a 5'11" good baseball player with a 38 waistline and wearing a goatee, with an average swimmer who is 6'2", has a waistline of 30 and broad shoulders.
Are you blind?

[Nikk]

Originally posted by Ion

and

I will explain it tonight, from home, with quotes from a history book that I have, written by Americans and taught in high-school in US.

A glimpse of my explanation will be that unlike what I saw claimed by popular belief in the U.S., the concept of one being innocent until proved guilty doesn't come from the English system but it comes from the French revolution instead.

I guess that the crux of my posts point to the fact that U.S. is mainly a land of immigrants and of immigrant ideas, with the locals doing some good that is not well acknowledged but mainly doing no-good.

The presumption of innocence can, in one form or another, be traced back to Roman and Greek times even if not expressed in such words.

[Nikk]

Originally posted by Nyarlathotep


So with one lone exception the consensus of Europeans on this thread is that the fact that I am an American makes me both stupid and ugly.



I don't remember a vote on that. I'm sure youre very sweet.

:kiss:

Bugrit, wrong choice of smiley. Never mind I'll post it anyway.

[Ælfgifu]

you have to admit though, the Puritans were a bunch of nutters- 'The Protestant Taleban' as I have heard them described.For what it's worth, the Puritans weren't prudes in the strictest sense of the word.

It was okay to drink as much alcohol as you want, so long as you didn't show that you were drunk.

Clothes were much more colorful than we give them credit for.

Two-thirds of all Puritan births happened less than nine months from the marriage of their Puritan parents.

And from what I remember, the Code Napolean was more progressive than the Constitution with respect to rights for more than just white male landowners.

Have a nice day,
Kelly :)

[Nyarlathotep]

Originally posted by Ælfgifu
For what it's worth, the Puritans weren't prudes in the strictest sense of the word.

It was okay to drink as much alcohol as you want, so long as you didn't show that you were drunk.

Clothes were much more colorful than we give them credit for.

Two-thirds of all Puritan births happened less than nine months from the marriage of their Puritan parents.

And from what I remember, the Code Napolean was more progressive than the Constitution with respect to rights for more than just white male landowners.

Have a nice day,
Kelly :)

They were also inclined to discuss their sex lives in church. There are records of church elders castigating individual men for not performing their 'husbandly duties' often enough and of them giving sermons telling their congregations that refraining from sex (with spouses of course) was against God's wishes.

[Ion]

Originally posted by Nikk

The presumption of innocence can, in one form or another, be traced back to Roman and Greek times even if not expressed in such words.
Allow me to quote on this the American history book that I am talking about, tonight.

[jj]

Originally posted by Ion

The argument that a baseball player is 5'11" and has a waistline of 38 is not in favor of baseball.


So you're an elitist? You allow only sports that skinny, undernourished people who spend 25 hours a day at the gym can play?

You don't want everyone to play sports, then? You just want the elite royalty of sport to play, and the rest of us will have to watch because we're not tall and thin-waisted?
[/B]

Ion, it's obvious that you have trouble with people who don't have:

1) the exact political viewpoint you have
2) the physical appearance that you favor
3) the cowardice required to cower when you spew your bigotry

I'm sure that there are other things, as well.

Let's go back to the scientific and mathematical aspects you raised. Would you mind replying to the substance, and instead of cherry-picking an example here and there, reply to the trend, the average, and the spread of prominant scientists, mathematicians, doctors, etc, rather than an example here or there.

Fourier was born before the USA, for instance, but you raised him in evidence. Was there some reason for that little stunt?

Laplace was born before the USA, but you cite him against Viterbi. What kind of stunt is that?

d'Alembert was born even earlier. Gosh, why did you forget to compare him to Shannon?

At least Galois was born after the USA was founded. Barely. How come you didn't compare him to, oh, Reeds, or Sloane? Did you forget?

You mentioned l'Hopital, but you forgot Lebnitz. You didn't mention Newton? Why wouldn't those both help your point? What about Watt? Brunel? Al-Jabar? Archemedes? Plato? desCartes (sp?)? Euclid?

Your entire argument about mathematics is based on the fact that each person builds on the accomplishments of his or her predecessors. Claiming that that somehow indicts the contributions of a 200 year old country in a 2000+ year old field is simply bizzare, misleading, and prejudicial.

How about:

Shannon

Nyquist

Atal

Flanagan

Rabiner

Gold

Jayant

Estiban

Galand

Malvar

Kovacik

deBauchies

Fletcher

Olive

Oh, just to name a few people you might recognize from your own field.

Of course, nearly all of those good French mathematicians you named come from before the Revolution. Why is that? Did you mean to imply that France fell at that time? Really? :p

[aerocontrols]

Originally posted by Ion
I guess that the crux of my posts point to the fact that U.S. is mainly a land of immigrants and of immigrant ideas, with the locals doing some good that is not well acknowledged but mainly doing no-good.

He does look up to no good.

http://www.loc.gov/about/books/posters/chief/chiefjoseph.jpg

[epepke]

Originally posted by jj
Where else, for instance, is a measurement that is 1/2688th of a mile/hour defined?

Just a guess (I'm too lazy to do the math) furlongs per fortnight?

At least a foot is about the amount that light travels in a nanosecond.

We should all thank our lucky stars that John Holmes wasn't an early English king. Because we wouldn't be using feet.

[epepke]

Originally posted by Ion

The argument that a baseball player is 5'11" and has a waistline of 38 is not in favor of baseball.

Well, if you want to see some serious examples of this, don't go to baseball--try Cricket.

A number of virtual teletubbies with facial hair have excelled in that sport.

Let me jeapordize my membership in the Ugly American Club by saying that I think cricket is much superior to baseball. It's much more of a team sport, as everone in a club (excepting catchers) has to be able to do everything well. There are more ways to lose, which adds extra dimensions, and there is more actual strategy.

[jj]

Originally posted by epepke


Just a guess (I'm too lazy to do the math) furlongs per fortnight?


You nailed it in 1 try!


At least a foot is about the amount that light travels in a nanosecond.


Yeah, and sound about (more about than light) 1 foot per millisecond, too.


We should all thank our lucky stars that John Holmes wasn't an early English king. Because we wouldn't be using feet.
:dl:
Oh the thought! Spotted, perhaps?

[Ion]

Let's see:
Originally posted by jj

...
Fourier was born before the USA, for instance, but you raised him in evidence. Was there some reason for that little stunt?

Laplace was born before the USA, but you cite him against Viterbi. What kind of stunt is that?

d'Alembert was born even earlier. Gosh, why did you forget to compare him to Shannon?

At least Galois was born after the USA was founded. Barely. How come you didn't compare him to, oh, Reeds, or Sloane? Did you forget?

You mentioned l'Hopital, but you forgot Lebnitz. You didn't mention Newton? Why wouldn't those both help your point? What about Watt? Brunel? Al-Jabar? Archemedes? Plato? desCartes (sp?)? Euclid?

Your entire argument about mathematics is based on the fact that each person builds on the accomplishments of his or her predecessors. Claiming that that somehow indicts the contributions of a 200 year old country in a 2000+ year old field is simply bizzare, misleading, and prejudicial.

How about:

Shannon

Nyquist

Atal

Flanagan

Rabiner

Gold

Jayant

Estiban

Galand

Malvar

Kovacik

deBauchies

Fletcher

Olive

Oh, just to name a few people you might recognize from your own field.

Of course, nearly all of those good French mathematicians you named come from before the Revolution. Why is that? Did you mean to imply that France fell at that time? Really? :p
In your rebuttal you mix non Americans like Leibnitz, a German, and Newton, an Englishman.

Plato and Archimedes were Greek.

Descartes that you mention, and Fermat were French.

Fermat's theorem is used in telecommunications in US for encrypting data.

Speaking of contemporaries, Magnier, was my French professor in mathematics and he is known.

Goertzel is German, is contemporary and his Fast Fourier Transform formula allows for tone detection in the central office when any U.S. slob presses a button on a cell phone.
That's Dual Tone Multi Frequency Detection for every non-slob paying attention here.

Lots to learn by U.S. from the world, and lots of immigrants to bring in the U.S. to make it civilized...

[Otther]

As I stated to someone elsewhere, it is like reading:

.) to someone who doesn't read, a reader is only turning pages for hours;

.) to someone who reads, there is content.

Content can be seen even by outsiders of the sports, when comparing a 5'11" good baseball player with a 38 waistline and wearing a goatee, with an average swimmer who is 6'2", has a waistline of 30 and broad shoulders.

Are you blind?

You know... for someone who accuses the US of being too religious, you seem to be incapable of considering that your opinion isn't some sort of cosmic law.

Tell me Ion, what makes your thoughts on baseball cross the line between universal truth and mere opinion?

[Ion]

Originally posted by Otther

...
Tell me Ion, what makes your thoughts on baseball cross the line between universal truth and mere opinion?
The fat in the baseball players.

As I stated earlier they are granpa-alike.

Regarding "...elitist...", make no mistake:

fatsos in baseball are millionaires, and elite swimmers are poor but really elite...

[epepke]

Originally posted by Michael Redman
And where, exactly, is the French Revolution's influence on US law?

Hmmm... Well, nothing really direct, and probably not what you're looking for, but I think that a negative reaction to the excesses of the French Revolution and its almost immediat supplanting by imperialism gave a big impetus to the American Enlightenment, the whole Elisableth Cady Stanton/Thoreau/Mark Twain/Robert G. Ingersoll schtick.

[Otther]

The fat in the baseball players.
Like I stated earlier they are granpa-like.

I truly do not understand how someone can have graduated from college without being able to grasp that opinions are relative.

Ion, do you think you're the typical european college graduate?

[jj]

Originally posted by Ion
Let's see:

In your rebuttal you mix non Americans like Leibnitz, a German, and Newton, an Englishman.



No, I don't mix anything. Please reread what I said, and then apologize. I mention a great lot of other founders you left out. I didn't say they were American. Why is it so important that when I mention people that are pre-USA as a world power, I dont' say they are pre-USA.

I guess if you're unsure of your history ....

WHAT I DID WAS:

I pointed out that you left out a whole bunch of other people.

It's only your imagination that I'm "mixing" anything.

How come you don't address Al-Jabar? What's wrong? Anything you say about the USA can be said about the French mathematicians, by simply pointing out Al-Jabar.



Plato and Archimedes were Greek.


DUH!

What about Euclid? Did you forget I mentioned Euclid?


Descartes that you mention was French, like Fermat.


Quite. Your point?


Fermat's theorem is used in US for encrypting data.


So? Al-Jabar invented the notation he used, so based on your own logic it's all Al-Jabar's doing, right? Fermat just did some derivitive stuff.

No, I don't actually think so, but that's EXACTLY the same argument that you're making when you say "Fermat's theorem is used in US for encrypting data." Applying a theorem is not necessarily entirely routine, just like applying a notation isn't necessarily just routine.

Oh, and we both left out Euler, oh say, and Cauchy, and Peano. Where would we be without them, I wonder?


Speaking of contemporaries, Magnier, was my French professor in mathematics and he is known.


Good for you.

Of course, there are, to this day, many good mathematicians in most any educated country, most certainly including France. What's your point? It would be very VERY odd if there weren't.


Goertzel is German, is contemporary and his Fast Fourier Transform formula allows for tone detection in the central office when any U.S. slob presses a button on a cell phone (that's Dual Tone Multi Frequency for all the non-slobs paying attention here).

Err, you want to reconsider that a bit? Didn't you leave out a few people there, oh, say, like Cooley and Tukey? What's more, DTMF signaling isn't necessarily done using FFT's, or using Winograd, or using any of a variety of things, sometimes they actually even use something like (gasp) matched filtering, yes, sometimes via FFT.

But why did you leave out Cooley/Tukey here? Isn't that just a WEE bit, um, odd to do when you mention the FFT? Or maybe wasn't it Gauss who did the original factorization, too?

Now, let's get modern again, and how about this list you ignored the first time:

Shannon

Nyquist

Atal

Flanagan

Rabiner

Gold

Jayant

Estiban

Galand

Malvar

Kovacik

deBauchies

Fletcher

Olive

Oh, and no, I'm not saying they are all "American" either, but, didn't you say you have a background in speech coding? I'd think those names would leap off the page at you. Your claim that Americans are living off of derivitive work is still completely unsupported. Perhaps you could put the above into come kind of taxonomy, oh, feel free to add people I've left out. Then you can explain again about how "americans" are derivitive.

And how about the fact that all those great French mathematicians you mentioned, with an exception here and there, came pre-French-Revolution.

What do you make of that?

And, of course, since they all used standard algebra, isn't it really all something that some old guy name of Al-Jabar invented, I mean, well I guess all those French mathematicians just did derivitive stuff based on an old Moorish guy, anyhow, right?

Your whole "argument" rests on unsupported claims, cherry-picking examples, confusing the issue with Goertzel vs. Cooley/Tukey/Wiener/Hartley/Hadamard et al, and a claim that while the people you mention aren't "derivitive workers" from the people who went before them, the other people mentioned ARE derivitive workers.

Your position is unsupportable.

[Ion]

Originally posted by Otther

I truly do not understand how someone can have graduated from college without being able to grasp that opinions are relative.
...

Fat is baseball is not relative.

Fat in baseball is absolute.

[jj]

Originally posted by Otther


I truly do not understand how someone can have graduated from college without being able to grasp that opinions are relative.

Ion, do you think you're the typical european college graduate?

S/He's not no matter what he/she thinks. I've worked with many in the DSP field, and s/he is simply not at all carrying the same attitude as most (if not all) others I've known.

[jj]

Originally posted by Ion

Fat is baseball is not relative.

Fat in baseball is absolute.

You must learn something about baseball, then, sometime.

[Ion]

Not at all:
Originally posted by jj

...
Your whole "argument" rests on unsupported claims, cherry-picking examples, confusing the issue with Goertzel vs. Cooley/Tukey/Wiener/Hartley/Hadamard et al, and a claim that while the people you mention aren't "derivitive workers" from the people who went before them, the other people mentioned ARE derivitive workers.

Your position is unsupportable.
Cauchy is French.

Gauss is German.

Euler is German.

Fermat, you don't know his theorem:

it's about how to have a number expressed by a multiplication of prime numbers.

He did that 100%, and the encryption is just technology many centuries after.

Regarding the pre-revolution, I work in Digital Signal Processing algorithms -the heart of telecommunications- and Fourier (Fr.), Laplace (Fr.), etc., they are the mathematical foundation of it in any book on telecommunications including American books.

The contemporary names that I gave you in mathematics are Magnier -a French- and Goertzel -a German-.

The point stands that U.S. has a lot to learn from immigrants and has lots of people to immigrate into U.S. before becoming civilized.

[jj]

Originally posted by Ion
Not at all:

Cauchy is French.

Gauss is German.

Euler is German.


And, this is important how? I haven't claimed otherwise, now, have I? So since I haven't claimed otherwise, why do you keep acting as though I have?


Fermat, you don't know his theorem:



EXcuse me? Exactly why do you DARE to make such an appalling accusation of incompetance on my part?

You are WAY out of line here, mister.

it's about how to have a number expressed by a multiplication of prime numbers.

And it gives us, via any number of methods, all sorts of trapdoor, knapsack, etc, encryption algorithms. He didn't, on the other hand, INVENT ANY OF THOSE.

But, of course, you're giving no credit to R,S,A?

You leave out the various modulo theorems, etc, too. I haven't a list handy, but there's a lot of other work in the middle here that you're simply ignoring when you make the claim that encryption is "just technology" based on Fermat's theorem.



He did that 100%, and the encryption is just technology many centuries after.

Regarding the pre-revolution, I work in Digital Signal Processing algorithms -the heart of telecommunications- and Fourier (Fr.), Laplace (Fr.), etc., they are the mathematical foundation of it in any book on telecommunications including American books.


Yes? This proves what? You're still pointing to work done by people born before the USA was born. WOULD YOU MIND ADDRESSING THIS BASIC, FUNDAMENTAL POINT? Finally? How about it?

Nobody, and I mean NOBODY has said that the USA didn't build on other work.

Fourier and Laplace also built on other work. So did Gauss, Hertz, and (*&& near everyone, all the way back to Greece and the Moorish empires, and the only reason we can't name their predecessors is because we don't know who they were.

EVERYTHING, practically speaking, is based on previous work. EVERYTHING. So what's your problem? What goes on here is no more derivitive than any other work of equal stature.


The contemporary names that I gave you in mathematics are Magnier -a French- and Goertzel -a German-.

WHAT ABOUT COOLEY AND TUKEY? Speak up, man!


The point stands that U.S. has a lot to learn from immigrants and has lots of people to immigrate into U.S. before becoming civilized.
As did the French from those before them.

It does not in any fashion justify your claim that nobody FROM the USA ever did any original work.

I now require an apology for your base accusation that I don't know what Fermat's theorem is.

AND SINCE YOU CLAIM TO BE IN MY FIELD, what about that other list of names? I repeat:

Shannon

Nyquist

Atal

Flanagan

Rabiner

Gold

Jayant

Estiban

Galand

Malvar

Kovacik

deBauchies

Fletcher

Olive


And that's just off the top of my head. And no, I didn't say they were all americans, either.

Time for you to either put up or be very, very quiet, I think.

[epepke]

Originally posted by aerocontrols


He does look up to no good.

This is a rather serious digression, but, has anybody else noticed the similarity between American Indian pose-scowls and Japanese pose-scowls?

[BTox]

Originally posted by jj


Time for you to either put up or be very, very quiet, I think.

This clown Ion is as whacked as Rouser - it is pointless to seriously debate them. Just have fun with them. ;)

[a_unique_person]

Originally posted by Luke T.

Re: Re: Who makes it that "...US leads the world by miles..."?

quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Originally posted by Segnosaur

Not only that, the U.S. constitution actually has provisions separating church and state;
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------



Exactly! And that makes all the difference.

That concept died out long ago. It may still be written in the constitution, and there are still skirmishes over the concept, but the horse has long bolted. Get "in god we trust" off your money and put a stop to the constant "god bothering" at political events and you might convince the concept still stands.

The idea that the constitution rules is pretty naive.

[a_unique_person]

Originally posted by Luke T.

Originally posted by Mike B.
Let's face it,

All of our early political ideas came from the mother country.

We were a backward colony that borrowed a lot of British ideas (i.e. Locke, Smith, Hobbes, etc.)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


They were so backward and so unoriginal :rolleyes: that they led the way to democracy!

Not quite a democracy, as I have learnt. The founding fathers abhorred the idea of democracy, hence the founding of a republic that was, in theory, ruled by the magic piece of paper that only they had the genius to create, the constitution. The vote was merely to elect politicians who were bound by the constitution. That idea is pretty well kaput now. A war can be started without a declaration of war, for example. The general idea that you can control a country with a piece of paper written by philosopher kings who are long dead is an amazing act of hubris. There is the amendment facility, but these are really not addressing the basic flaw of the whole concept in the first place.

Australia, for example, suffers from a similar problem. Countless millions of dollars have been spent on fattening up lawyers so they can argue of absurd interpretations of the meaning of the constitution, twisting around sentences to extract a meaning when the whole concept being argued was obviously not addressed in any rational manner by those who framed it centuries ago. The process reminds me of the Roman priests trying to interpret the entrails of dead animals. The outcome is not a rational process of logic, but one of who has the numbers on the bench at the time as to what meaning is extracted.

[a_unique_person]

Originally posted by Nyarlathotep
So with one lone exception the consensus of Europeans on this thread is that the fact that I am an American makes me both stupid and ugly. While I will confess to to being ugly I don't think being American has anything to do with it and would like to point out that I have seen PLENTY of ugly Europeans. I take great offense at the implication that being American makes me stupid however.

And the people on this thread (http://www.randi.org/vbulletin/showthread.php?s=&threadid=30870&perpage=40&pagenumber=1) wondered where I came up with my opinions.....

I don't subscribe to that school of thought, it is just the jingoism and blatant self promotion that are annoying. The US is not the only country that suffers from some of these faults, but it is the one that is most in your face.

I can read a day to day commentary on the US primaries, but I would doubt that the US is following the upcoming Australian election. A free-trade deal has just been signed with Australia that has been front page news everywhere and is generating a lot of news. Not a mention on CNN that I could find. However, if someone is eaten by shark, it is a pretty good chance it will get to the front page.

The US also promotes itself as one of the the great immigrant countries on the planet. Well, where did these immigrants come from? The whole US space and missile program was founded with stolen Germans who worked for the Nazi regime. The nuclear program by scientists who fled Europe from the Nazis. The US weapons at the start of WWII were pathetic. Not a decent tank or aircraft to be found.

[a_unique_person]

Originally posted by Ion

The argument that a baseball player is 5'11" and has a waistline of 38 is not in favor of baseball.

I wrote this:

Are you blind?

You obviously haven't seen any cricket players.

[Nyarlathotep]

Originally posted by a_unique_person


I don't subscribe to that school of thought, it is just the jingoism and blatant self promotion that are annoying. The US is not the only country that suffers from some of these faults, but it is the one that is most in your face.

I can read a day to day commentary on the US primaries, but I would doubt that the US is following the upcoming Australian election. A free-trade deal has just been signed with Australia that has been front page news everywhere and is generating a lot of news. Not a mention on CNN that I could find. However, if someone is eaten by shark, it is a pretty good chance it will get to the front page.

The US also promotes itself as one of the the great immigrant countries on the planet. Well, where did these immigrants come from? The whole US space and missile program was founded with stolen Germans who worked for the Nazi regime. The nuclear program by scientists who fled Europe from the Nazis. The US weapons at the start of WWII were pathetic. Not a decent tank or aircraft to be found.

Ion said nothing about jingoism and self promotion. He claimed, very specifically, that Americans are ugly and stupid. And nearly every non-American that replied to the thread agreed with him. Yes, my country has it's faults, so does yours, so does his, so does every country on this f*cking planet. But the fact that my country has faults, apparently makes me ugly and stupid. I am swiftly coming to the conclusion that I may be ugly and stupid but everyone else is an a**hole so it all evens out.

Hardly a day goes by that I don't read here or somewhere what utter sh!tbags Americans are. I am rapidly losing patience with the rest of the world and am very quickly beoming the very sort of American that you people claim that all Americans are anyway, even though I like to think I started out very differently. Congratulations, all of you....

[a_unique_person]

Originally posted by Nyarlathotep


Ion said nothing about jingoism and self promotion. He claimed, very specifically, that Americans are ugly and stupid. And nearly every non-American that replied to the thread agreed with him. Yes, my country has it's faults, so does yours, so does his, so does every country on this f*cking planet. But the fact that my country has faults, apparently makes me ugly and stupid. I am swiftly coming to the conclusion that I may be ugly and stupid but everyone else is an a**hole so it all evens out.

Hardly a day goes by that I don't read here or somewhere what utter sh!tbags Americans are. I am rapidly losing patience with the rest of the world and am very quickly beoming the very sort of American that you people claim that all Americans are anyway, even though I like to think I started out very differently. Congratulations, all of you....

I would certainly say the phrase "Ugly American" is a common one outside the US, in that it refers not so much to physical looks as much as the whole package. You only have watch Jerry Springer to see how ugly and pathetic some Americans are. The idea that no other countries have such people is clearly false, but I think Ion is over generalising a trend that is most apparent in the US to all Americans. The creation of the good consumer, someone who lives just to get some money and then spend it on useless goods. If there is one area the US clearly leads the world in, it is the creation of the consumer. They remind me of the surface dwellers from "The Time Machine".

[Grammatron]

Originally posted by a_unique_person


I would certainly say the phrase "Ugly American" is a common one outside the US, in that it refers not so much to physical looks as much as the whole package. You only have watch Jerry Springer to see how ugly and pathetic some Americans are. The idea that no other countries have such people is clearly false, but I think Ion is over generalising a trend that is most apparent in the US to all Americans. The creation of the good consumer, someone who lives just to get some money and then spend it on useless goods. If there is one area the US clearly leads the world in, it is the creation of the consumer. They remind me of the surface dwellers from "The Time Machine".

I'm simply amazed at some people on this forum. Your judgment of America comes from what you see on Jerry Springer? I knew you were ignorant, but you seem to strive for higher levels of it with every post. However, you have yet to reach the level of ignorance and elitism that Ion has achieved so you better make up more generalizations.

[Ion]

I promised to deal with this:
Originally posted by Skeptic
...
U.S. Declaration of Independence -- 1776.

U. S. Constitution -- 1787.

U. S. Bill of Rights (first ten amendments) -- 1787.

French Revolution -- 1789.

The Napoleonic Code -- 1804.

You've got some explaining to do about that claim, "Ion".
From 'A History of Western Society' by McKay, Hill and Buckler taught in U.S.:

"...In 1778 the French government offered a formal alliance to the American ambassador in Paris, Benjamin Franklin, and in 1779 and 1780 the Spanish and Dutch declared war on Britain.
...
Thus by 1780 Great Britain was engaged in an imperial war against most of Europe as well as the thirteen colonies..."

"...The French National Assemby moved forward. On August 27, 1789, it issued the Declaration of the Rights of Man, which stated...for the first time in history that "every man is presumed innocent until he is proven guilty"..."
Originally posted by jj

...
Shannon

Nyquist

Atal

Flanagan

Rabiner
...
Jayant
...
And that's just off the top of my head. And no, I didn't say they were all americans, either.

Time for you to either put up or be very, very quiet, I think.
jj,

I think that you need to consider the ratio of ink over data in your posts.

I am familiar with:

.) Trancoso and Atal's 'Efficient Procedures for Finding the Optimum Innovation in Stochastic Coders',

.) Rabiner, Cheng, Rosenberg and McGonegral's 'A Comparative Performance Study of Several Pitch Detection Algorithms',

.) Jayant and Noll's 'Digital Coding of Waveforms',

.) Peng and Cuperman's 'Variable-Rate Low-Delay Analysis-By-Synthesis Speech Coding',

(I worked with these on this exact algorithm derived from work by Cheng -mentioned above- and by Gersho -mentioned below-;

including in an all-pole short-term predictor lattice filter, a perceptual weighting filter tenth order pole-zero, a gain predictor, a pitch predictor's adaptation of the pitch period with an autocorrelation function, and in the adaptation of filter coefficients)

.) Gersho's 'Adaptation Filtering with Binary Reinforcement'

.) Kleijn, Krasinski and Ketchum's 'Fast Methods for the CELP Speech Coding Algorithms'

and I have these references in my apartment.

You are naive to try to lecture me.

They are why I make my point about U.S. being behind Europe in teaching, needing immigrants to catch up, U.S. self-promoting and why "...US leads the world by miles...":

.) in U.S. is 'publish or perish' wannabe discoveries;

.) U.S. is relying on foreigners to discover something to 'publish or perish' with the carrot of immigration at stake;

I have been there;

the local U.S. people don't venture themseves much in these fields, that's too much sophistication for them because the local U.S. people are sissies who don't need to immigrate, they are just born and bathing for a lifetime in mediocrity;

(for this point, see Cheng, Cuperman and Peng that I mention above;
have you been to U.C. Santa Barbara and U.C. San Diego, School of Electrical Engineering in the 90s?)

.) the European teaching is way more honest than this 'publish or perish' carrot offered to aspirant immigrants;

I have seen this honesty in the teachings by Magnier, a methematician of the Fields prize caliber, and simply I have seen the French school of mathematics cranking better results than U.S.' 'publish or perish' on the back of aspirant immigrants.

[a_unique_person]

Originally posted by Grammatron


I'm simply amazed at some people on this forum. Your judgment of America comes from what you see on Jerry Springer? I knew you were ignorant, but you seem to strive for higher levels of it with every post. However, you have yet to reach the level of ignorance and elitism that Ion has achieved so you better make up more generalizations.

Are you saying the people on Jerry Springer aren't Americans. I thought I made it clear that I didn't think those people were like all Americans. You can see other loony people on some other overseas shows, but never quite as loony. America leads the world in the creation this type of person, though. No one else has come up with anything quite as debasing. It also leads the world in reality shows that delight in humiliation. The Japanese invented the concept, but America has taken the idea to new levels.

[epepke]

Originally posted by Ælfgifu
t was okay to drink as much alcohol as you want, so long as you didn't show that you were drunk.

Talking about actual puritans, they also had a drink that was a 50-50 mixture of beer and milk. It was called "balderdash."

[epepke]

Originally posted by a_unique_person


You obviously haven't seen any cricket players.

Too late. I already mentioned Cricket.

[Nyarlathotep]

Originally posted by a_unique_person


I would certainly say the phrase "Ugly American" is a common one outside the US, in that it refers not so much to physical looks as much as the whole package. You only have watch Jerry Springer to see how ugly and pathetic some Americans are. The idea that no other countries have such people is clearly false, but I think Ion is over generalising a trend that is most apparent in the US to all Americans. The creation of the good consumer, someone who lives just to get some money and then spend it on useless goods. If there is one area the US clearly leads the world in, it is the creation of the consumer. They remind me of the surface dwellers from "The Time Machine".

Nope, I am quite familiar with the phrase "ugly American" and it's meaning. Despite what you and many others seem to think, I am NOT stupid despite the fact that I am an American. Reading his subsequent posts it is quite evident that he meant we are physically uglier than everyone else. Since he also called us inferior I can only assume that he intends to imply that we are subhuman. There seems to be a lot of agreement on that point too. Sad really...

[peptoabysmal]

Originally posted by Jon_in_london


*cough* England *cough* Parliamentry Democracy *cough* Bill of rights *cough*

In any case, you lot were a colony at the time.

:D
Yeah, but we were quicker to steal off the German scientists after WWII.
Now what was that about technology?

[a_unique_person]

Originally posted by Nyarlathotep


Nope, I am quite familiar with the phrase "ugly American" and it's meaning. Despite what you and many others seem to think, I am NOT stupid despite the fact that I am an American. Reading his subsequent posts it is quite evident that he meant we are physically uglier than everyone else. Since he also called us inferior I can only assume that he intends to imply that we are subhuman. There seems to be a lot of agreement on that point too. Sad really...

I would like to point out that obesity is a major problem of the US of A, but then, it is also a growing problem in Australia, which is apparently not far behind. As I said, are we breeding a race of perfect consumers?

[epepke]

Originally posted by a_unique_person
Are you saying the people on Jerry Springer aren't Americans. I thought I made it clear that I didn't think those people were like all Americans. You can see other loony people on some other overseas shows, but never quite as loony. America leads the world in the creation this type of person, though. No one else has come up with anything quite as debasing.

Yeah, it's not bad enought that Americans are jingoistic and arrogant and self important! Even worse, they're exactly the opposite in their self-abasement! Darn them all to heck!

[Hamhawk714]

Originally posted by Ion
I posted this in 'Hypothesis on Bush Campaign Strategy to Shake of Critics':

My claim is that who makes it that "...US leads the world by miles..." -as a journalist put it- is due to:

1.) high standards in skills required from immigrants;

2.) little known Americans navigating in a sea of US mediocrity.

(I will defend my claim as well as I can under time constraints)

Supporting 1.) are:
......................................

a.) there were two threads that I searched for and still need to find them, one that was stating information from US high-tech companies asking for a better US education in light of the higher education outside of the US, and another stating information from a US high-tech company that was considering foreign applicants when the local pool of applicants was exhausted -meaning a higher standard for importing foreigners than for finding locals-;

b.) being an insider in high-tech, I know that most of the science used in US technologies is foreign with US providing only the technicians for it;

(for example, the CDMA technology by Viterbi (US) and Jacobs (US) comes to mind as US providing technicians, while France's Laplace, Fourier, d'Alembert, le Galois, l'Hopital provide the mathematicians;

for example the US grade 12 and Bachelor are parodies of an European sylabus);

c.) two days ago I read in the paper that 64% of Americans are obese;

d.) US is predominantly religious, sign of a third-world country;

e.) there are numerous examples of importing extraordinary skills, like I quote below from the book 'Swimming: Character and Excellence' by Mike Gossman starting in page 33:

"...I knew the second I saw him that he was the new Hungarian coach I'd heard about...There were 14 people in that group when Jozsef began working with us; by the end of the week he and I were the only ones left. His workouts were extremely hard. No one else wanted to try to understand him or do the work he was demanding...
...
One of the Rockville coaches had told me that Jozsef had been "European Coach of the Year"...
...
I don't think Jozsef ever saw anything special in my strokes. What I think he saw was someone who was willing to put in the time and do the work...
...
I had to go from the traditional way of doing breaststroke to a new and innovative way of doing breaststroke...
..."

This innovative way of doing breaststroke that I see Americans lying today to take credit for was invented by Jozsef Nagy (Hun.) and gave Mike Barrowman (US) -an unheard of American hero compared to fatsos playing baseball and US football- a world record in swimming unassailable for years and a gold medal in the 1992 Olympic Games.

Supporting 2.) are:
......................................

f.) in entertainment, the Rolling Stones (UK) copied little known bluesman Muddy Waters (US), Joe Cocker (UK) copied little known Sharp (US) and Hawkins (US), etc., and became worldwide famous by exploiting it while US doesn't understand its own talent;

g.) in sports again, US doesn't know who represents them best in international competitions, like for example Lee Evans and Larry James did in Olympic running and Bobby Hackett did in Olympic swimming, but they sure waste time watching grandpas-like baseball locals struggling to move themselves on the fields.

h.) instead of the quality shown above, US is clogged by mediocrity Bush-style -notice the standards of US universities Yale and Harvard that produce Bushs-, is clogged by wannabe Bushies who are not as rich to go to US mill univesities, is clogged by political correctness to be non educated and pretend to be 'nice' instead and is clogged by the dog-eat-dog hunt for money when the society is missing.



You can't be serious,those arguements don't make any sense.What the hell does the breaststroke have to do with anything?Oh ya ,everytime I hear the the Stones i'm not sure if it's Muddy Waters or them sound just alike.What the F*** would that prove you IDIOT?









:big:

[Jon_in_london]

Originally posted by peptoabysmal


:D
Yeah, but we were quicker to steal off the German scientists after WWII.
Now what was that about technology?

Of course, you seppos began to outstrip us technology wise after WII. Britain being completely bankrupt (there was bread rationing after the war while there was no bread rationing during it), may have had something to do with it. We still got the worlds first jet-airliner though.

[Jon_in_london]

Originally posted by a_unique_person

The US weapons at the start of WWII were pathetic. Not a decent tank or aircraft to be found.

And British built tanks were so fantastic we left the whole lot to rust the Sahara desert and took only American tanks to Italy and Normandy.

[Giz]

Originally posted by a_unique_person

The US weapons at the start of WWII were pathetic. Not a decent tank or aircraft to be found.

(Excepting the B-17)!

So you blast GWB for upping spending to keep the US military at the cutting edge of technology, but back when there was a non-interventionist USA (what you'd seem to prefer) which was concentrated on domestic/civilian issues and innovation, heck you'd blast them too!

[Graham]

Originally posted by Nyarlathotep


Ion said nothing about jingoism and self promotion. He claimed, very specifically, that Americans are ugly and stupid. And nearly every non-American that replied to the thread agreed with him. Yes, my country has it's faults, so does yours, so does his, so does every country on this f*cking planet. But the fact that my country has faults, apparently makes me ugly and stupid. I am swiftly coming to the conclusion that I may be ugly and stupid but everyone else is an a**hole so it all evens out.

Hardly a day goes by that I don't read here or somewhere what utter sh!tbags Americans are. I am rapidly losing patience with the rest of the world and am very quickly beoming the very sort of American that you people claim that all Americans are anyway, even though I like to think I started out very differently. Congratulations, all of you....

Don't go nuts:

1) Ion is an idiot and one of three people I have on ignore.

2) Opinions are like farts - everyone has them but you only hear the loud ones and only smell the nasty ones.

3) Stereotyping other nationalities is a major international pastime. My wife informs me that, according to her Canadian relatives, Irish people are fat and jolly and always drunk. Apparently we're even more jolly when we're drunk (though how they know this since we're never sober is another question). We like to have fights every night at the pub and have big smiles on our jolly red faces as we beat each other to a (smiling, drunken) pulp.

Now if I was to take that personally, I'd be quite offended but I don't because I'm drunk. Ha, ha, ha. Now where's me shelaligh?

What was I saying? Oh yes, stereotypes are dumb - don't take it personally.

Graham

<table cellspacing=1 cellpadding=4 bgcolor=#660066 border=0><tr><td bgcolor=#660066><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" color=#ffffff size=1>Posted by Pyrrho:</font></td></tr><tr><td bgcolor=white><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" color=black size=2>Edited for language.
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[PogoPedant]

Originally posted by Graham

3) Stereotyping other nationalities is a major international pastime. My wife informs me that, according to her Canadian relatives, Irish people are fat and jolly and always drunk. Apparently we're even more jolly when we're drunk (though how they know this since we're never sober is another question). We like to have fights every night at the pub and have big smiles on our jolly red faces as we beat each other to a (smiling, drunken) pulp.

Now Graham, I may not have been to Ireland ever in my life, but I have lived with an Irish gentleman, and he was indeed fat and jolly and prone to the drink. So, based on my empirical research, you are wrong and Irishmen are all drunken santa rip-offs.

[shuize]

Originally posted by Nyarlathotep

... Hardly a day goes by that I don't read here or somewhere what utter sh!tbags Americans are. I am rapidly losing patience with the rest of the world and am very quickly beoming the very sort of American that you people claim that all Americans are anyway, even though I like to think I started out very differently. Congratulations, all of you....

No kidding. Same here.

Just one recent example: While trying marmite for the first time here in Japan, I joked to an English friend that I was glad the United States achieved independence before that particular food caught on. This was overheard by an older Japanese gentleman and I was subjected to a 10 minute lecture about how Americans, myself included, needed to learn that ours is not the only way of doing everything ... I very much wanted to encourage him to go fly a plane into a ship somewhere, but instead politely listened to his long rant in Japanese. Of course the irony that I was the only foreigner (and also the only American present) at the party who could understand his anti-American rant, much less function in Japanese, was lost on him.

[Tmy]

Originally posted by Ion

The argument that a baseball player is 5'11" and has a waistline of 38 is not in favor of baseball.

I wrote this:

Are you blind?

Hitting a major league fastball is THE hardest thing to do in ANY sport.

[Tmy]

As far as the US University system being out of reach forthe poor. Thats not really true. There are a number of govt grants and finanical aid packages. Not everyone can go to Harvard but there is an extensive state school system that is affordable to most people. You might have to work a little bit, but I say that higher ed is available to those who want it enough.

[Michael Redman]

Originally posted by Ion
I will explain it tonight, from home, with quotes from a history book that I have, written by Americans and taught in high-school in US. Oh, the irony. :rolleyes:

[Michael Redman]

The problem with Americans isn't that we're "jingoistic and arrogant". After all, only a fool would claim that their people are not also jingoistic and arrogant. The problem is that Americans are unique in the world in being wrong in their jingoistic and arrogant behavior. It's up the the rest of the World to make sure we know this, and this seems to be the primary purpose of media outside the US. An enlightened American is one who sees the light, and joins the effort to tell the rest of the country just what losers we are.

That must be why this American organization, headed by a man who chose as an adult to become an American, pays for a forum, administered by an American millitary officer, to give foreigners a place to tell us all how inferior we are to them. That must be the reason. These discussions certainly have nothing to do with the mission of the Foundation. There's not a skeptical thought to be found.

[Snide]

Originally posted by Tmy


Hitting a major league fastball is THE hardest thing to do in ANY sport.
I disagree. Hitting a major league curveball when you're looking for the fastball is harder.

Point well-taken, though. :)

edited typo

[Michael Redman]

Originally posted by Ion
"...In 1778 the French government offered a formal alliance to the American ambassador in Paris, Benjamin Franklin, and in 1779 and 1780 the Spanish and Dutch declared war on Britain. Yes, the French King supported the colonists in their fight against his English enemy. We know what that got him. "...The French National Assemby moved forward. On August 27, 1789, it issued the Declaration of the Rights of Man, which stated...for the first time in history that "every man is presumed innocent until he is proven guilty"..."The first time it was written down in a formal document? So? It was English Common Law! The US got it from common law. The French wrote it down to signal a change in their own system. The English didn't need to write it down in a foundational document because their law doesn't depend on foundational documents. The Americans adopted the concept when they wrote a Constitution protecting the rights and liberties of the common law they inherited from England.

Here's the obvious conclusion you are intentionally missing: The French adopted the concept from the English.

[Jon_in_london]

Originally posted by Michael Redman
After all, only a fool would claim that their people are not also jingoistic and arrogant.

Thats a ridiculous assumption you ignorant little foreigner!

[Michael Redman]

Originally posted by Jon_in_london
Thats a ridiculous assumption you ignorant little fat, ugly foreigner! I fixed it for you.

Besides, Jon, I'm not a foreigner, I'm an American! :D

[Ion]

Easy to answer this:
Originally posted by Hamhawk714

...
You can't be serious,those arguements don't make any sense.What the hell does the breaststroke have to do with anything?Oh ya ,everytime I hear the the Stones i'm not sure if it's Muddy Waters or them sound just alike.What the F*** would that prove you IDIOT?
...

That,

would simply prove that you are an idiot.

[Ion]

Originally posted by Graham


Don't go nuts:

1) Ion is an idiot and one of three people I have on ignore.
...
Now if I was to take that personally, I'd be quite offended but I don't because I'm drunk. Ha, ha, ha. Now where's me shelaligh?

What was I saying? Oh yes, stereotypes are dumb - don't take it personally.

Graham
Now,

you should add yourself too on ignore.

[Jon_in_london]

Originally posted by Michael Redman


Besides, Jon, I'm not a foreigner, I'm an American! :D

Looke you! anyone who isnt from the Home Counties is a foreigner to me!

[Ion]

No:
Originally posted by Michael Redman

...
It was English Common Law! The US got it from common law. The French wrote it down to signal a change in their own system.
...

The U.S. Bill of Rights was not perfectly written in 1787 and was upgraded with what the French Revolution did.

The French Revolution reverberated across the world.

[Skeptic]

I will explain it tonight, from home, with quotes from a history book that I have, written by Americans and taught in high-school in US.

But if it's written by Aemricans who taught in the US, it means it's a lousy, bad book, doesn't it?

[Ion]

Originally posted by Tmy


Hitting a major league fastball is THE hardest thing to do in ANY sport.
Even if hitting a major league fastball was the hardest things to do, so what?

Being 5'11" with a 38 waistline disqualifies baseball from civilization.

It's like you tell me sumo wrestling is hard.

So what?

Having a 52 waistline in sumo disqualifies sumo from civilization.

[Graham]

Originally posted by Skeptic
I will explain it tonight, from home, with quotes from a history book that I have, written by Americans and taught in high-school in US.

But if it's written by Aemricans who taught in the US, it means it's a lousy, bad book, doesn't it?

No, it's a fat, ugly book - do try to keep up :D

[Skeptic]

The U.S. Bill of Rights was not perfectly written in 1787 and was upgraded with what the French Revolution did.

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Ion]

Originally posted by Skeptic

...
But if it's written by Aemricans who taught in the US, it means it's a lousy, bad book, doesn't it?
To tell you the truth it is.

It has religious conotations in it.

Unlike secular Western Europe.

For example "...Many contemporary paleoanthropologists now suggest that the search for a missing link is a blind alley..." is in page 6.

I cite it to give you what your own culture in the U.S. is forced to recognize from the world facts.

It is beating you in your own culture.

[Ion]

Originally posted by Skeptic
The U.S. Bill of Rights was not perfectly written in 1787 and was upgraded with what the French Revolution did.

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Well, there were ten amendments in 1787.

Innocent until proved guilty was not in there.

The French Revolution influenced that worldwide.

[DanishDynamite]

Michael Redman:The problem with Americans isn't that we're "jingoistic and arrogant". After all, only a fool would claim that their people are not also jingoistic and arrogant. The problem is that Americans are unique in the world in being wrong in their jingoistic and arrogant behavior. It's up the the rest of the World to make sure we know this, and this seems to be the primary purpose of media outside the US. An enlightened American is one who sees the light, and joins the effort to tell the rest of the country just what losers we are.Finally, someone who understands. ;)

Regarding foreigners, I think we can all agree that the world would be a better place without them. :)

[Nyarlathotep]

Originally posted by Ion

Well, there were ten amendments in 1787.

Innocent until proved guilty was not in there.

The French Revolution influenced that worldwide.

The Bill of Rights was NOT upgraded after the French revolution. Had the powers that be decided to "upgrade" the constitution they would have done it through separate amendments. between the adoption of the bill of rights and the end of the Civil War there were precisely TWO amendments, one dealing with suits between states and one dealing with the election of the president and vice-president. Neither of these had anything to do with the French Revolution, addressing instead specific problems that had cropped up at the time within the US. Before you set yourself up as a constitutional scholar, I suggest you at least READ the d@mn thing and do at least SOME research on its history.

The concept of "innocent until pr oven guilty" is a legal convention that is prevalent in the US and other parts of the world but it never actually appears in the constitution. It very likely appears in Federal and state legal codes, a lawyer would have better resources to check that than I.

[Skeptic]

Unlike secular Western Europe.

The western Europe where the Queen is also the head of the Church, right?

Of course, Ion, if you hate the USA so much, nobody is forcing you to stay.

By the way, I like your argument: the USA has only inferior, second-rate culture... and it's all stolen from Europe anyway!

Not much of a recommendation of European culture, if you ask me...

[Nyarlathotep]

Originally posted by Graham


Don't go nuts:


I'll try. I realize full well that not all Europeans think like Ion. But the number that do still seems distressingly high to me and it and it really gets depressing to hear day after day after day what a scumbag I am simply because of where I was born.

[Michael Redman]

Originally posted by DanishDynamite
Regarding foreigners, I think we can all agree that the world would be a better place without them. :) I think that's the centerpiece of Bush's foreign policy. :p

(Actually, I fully agree with you.)

[Skeptic]

The concept of "innocent until pr oven guilty" is a legal convention that is prevalent in the US and other parts of the world but it never actually appears in the constitution.

It is part of the right to a fair trial, given in the sixth amendment (among other places).

[Snide]

Originally posted by Ion

As I stated to someone elsewhere, it is like reading:

.) to someone who doesn't read, a reader is only turning pages for hours;

.) to someone who reads, there is content.

Content can be seen even by outsiders of the sports, when comparing a good 5'11" baseball player with a 38 waistline and wearing a goatee, with an average swimmer who is 6'2", has a waistline of 30 and broad shoulders.
I've grown tired of this and similar types of debates.

Example:

X: What's your favorite sport?
Me: Golf.
X: Golf?? Golf isn't a sport! Fat guys can golf! 14-year-old girls can beat the best golfers!
(This is where most people argue back and forth over what is a sport, what is athletic, whether a NASCAR driver is as much an athlete as a sprinter, etc. ad nauseum. Strawmen, false dichotomies and red herrings fly left and right. I avoid this part in my discussions.)
Me: Fine. By my definition of sport, golf is my favorite. By your definition, it's something else. Name some of your favorite "sports," and I'll tell you which of those I like best.



Are world-class swimmers, on the whole, better conditioned than world-class baseball players? Yes.
Are they better athletes? Depends on one's definitions and values.

[DanishDynamite]

Nyarlathotep:I'll try. I realize full well that not all Europeans think like Ion. But the number that do still seems distressingly high to me and it and it really gets depressing to hear day after day after day what a scumbag I am simply because of where I was born. Seriously, Nyarlathotep, you need to:

a) Grow a thicker skin
b) Learn to differenciate between posters/trolls

I realize where you are coming from, though. I entered this board being quite pro-American and became steadily disillusioned during the first year. I have since learned to differentiate sharply between what credance I give each American poster. It's a long haul, but it is possible.

[Nyarlathotep]

Originally posted by Skeptic
The concept of "innocent until pr oven guilty" is a legal convention that is prevalent in the US and other parts of the world but it never actually appears in the constitution.

It is part of the right to a fair trial, given in the sixth amendment (among other places).

Sixth amendment says in its entirety

In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the state and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the assistance of counsel for his defense.

A better argument could be made for the fourteenth amendment which guarantees "due process" (which presumably would include being considered innocent until proven guilty) but Ion still doesn't have a leg to stand on, since the 14th amendment was written during the Reconstruction, long after the French Revolution was old hat and it's adoption had much more to do with Reconstruction politics than with "upgrading the Constitution" to be more like France.

[Segnosaur]

Originally posted by Ion

As I stated to someone elsewhere, it is like reading:

.) to someone who doesn't read, a reader is only turning pages for hours;

.) to someone who reads, there is content.

Content can be seen even by outsiders of the sports, when comparing a good 5'11" baseball player with a 38 waistline and wearing a goatee, with an average swimmer who is 6'2", has a waistline of 30 and broad shoulders.

First of all, you keep harping on the baseball player who is 'out of shape'... however, you ignore the fact that there are many baseball players (probably the majority) who are in shape, and you also ignore the fact that there are popular sports in the US, such as football (probably a more popular sport than baseball right now) requires exceptional phsical conditioning.

Harping on the phsical stature of the particpants does make you seem, well, a bit homosexual, not that there's anything wrong with that.

Secondly, your orginal argument was that Americans don't know who represents them in international competitions. I pointed out that perhaps Americans prefer sport with more 'variation' than swimming, running, etc. You have done nothing to adress that issue, other than to make some vague statement that there is "content" in swimming. Still, you haven't indicated where there is any significant variation in any particular race from day to day in the Olympics or any other competition.

[Nyarlathotep]

Originally posted by a_unique_person


Are you saying the people on Jerry Springer aren't Americans.

Fair enough. Steve Irwin is an Australian. Would it be safe for me to assume, then, that every Australian begins every third sentence with "Crikey!" and enjoys poking the local wildlife with sticks?

[jj]

Originally posted by Ion
jj,

I think that you need to consider the ratio of ink over data in your posts.


Again, you make an accusation, but you have NOTHING of substance to back it up.

AND YOU STILL HAVEN'T ADDRESSED THE ROLE OF COOLEY AND TUKEY REGARDING THE FFT.

NOW GET WITH IT!


I am familiar with:

.) Trancoso and Atal's 'Efficient Procedures for Finding the Optimum Innovation in Stochastic Coders',


No mention of LSP's, I see. How about something germane to the present. I'll bet Isabel will get a chuckle about that, though.


.) Rabiner, Cheng, Rosenberg and McGonegral's 'A Comparative Performance Study of Several Pitch Detection Algorithms',


No mention of his books, no mention of his pioneering work in the field (that would be Larry, although Aaron also deserves quite a bit of credit there, too), you show a limited view discussing pitch detection. No mention of the ASR work, filter design, etc.


.) Jayant and Noll's 'Digital Coding of Waveforms',

An easy find, since it's still available used (and good thing, too). Peter and Nikil won't, for some reason I don't quite understand, issue a second edition. I know they won't make a lot of money, but there is a good place for that book, especially if they clean up the notation.

.) Peng and Cuperman's 'Variable-Rate Low-Delay Analysis-By-Synthesis Speech Coding',

(I worked with these on this exact algorithm derived from work by Cheng -mentioned above- and by Gersho -mentioned below-;

Good for you. You've worked on some of the 99 flavours of CELP somewhere.

What have I worked on, then, since you're bringing in what people have done? You're the one who brought up experience, you figure it out. Report clearly and get back to us on that, will you? :D


including in an all-pole short-term predictor lattice filter, a perceptual weighting filter tenth order pole-zero, a gain predictor, a pitch predictor's adaptation of the pitch period with an autocorrelation function, and in the adaptation of filter coefficients)


Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know. What kind of postfilter? Or didn't you use one? Any noise shaping? Psychoacoustic or LPC-derived? A*PCM style or pre/postfilter style?


.) Gersho's 'Adaptation Filtering with Binary Reinforcement'


Interesting, you'd bring up Alan. At least you could go outside the list I mentioned. On the other hand, you're leaving some people off, too, curiously enough.


.) Kleijn, Krasinski and Ketchum's 'Fast Methods for the CELP Speech Coding Algorithms'


Baastian did some interesting things. It's interesting that you left out Ray Chen from all of this, how come?


and I have these references in my apartment.

You are naive to try to lecture me.

You, sir, are truly stunningly ignorant, naive, and offensive if you presume to lecture on this subject to me.


They are why I make my point about U.S. being behind Europe in teaching, needing immigrants to catch up, U.S. self-promoting and why "...US leads the world by miles...":


Now address the rest of the people in my list.


.) in U.S. is 'publish or perish' wannabe discoveries;

Look who's talking, someone who lists perhaps some of Rabiner's most minor work. Someone who's left out a whole bunch of the people cited at him, and who won't address the role of Cooley and Tukey in the FFT.

Your examples are cherry-picking at its worst. You select out of literally 10's of thousands of voice coding papers ones that make your point.

In fact, you are correct that presently grad students are primarily immigrants. Your reasoning why, however, would appear to be a few beers short of a six-pack.

.) U.S. is relying on foreigners to discover something to 'publish or perish' with the carrot of immigration at stake;

At the PhD level, I agree on the first half, "publish or perish". The second half is not exactly what I'd call a fair summary. While the "publish or perish" part is something you don't like, obviously, I will point out that in the REAL world that if you can't explain it and publish it, nobody will ever USE what you did. That will do neither you or the idea any good. Perhaps you're objecting, in effect, to the idea that the US is perhaps a great deal more practical than some other places regarding education. If so, I'd agree, but also point out that that is not entirely a bad thing. (It's not entirely a good thing, either.)

I have been there;

Well, given your accusations, your obvious bigotry, and your clearly intentional slanted presentation that ignores thousands of papers (no mention of Flanagan, Cumminsky, and Weber, for instance, that's a stunning omission, or Jayant and Mitra, also stunning), no mention of Aaron Goldberg, you didn't rise to either Estiban or Galand, didn't say anything about Malvar, ... You didn't even raise examples that might help make your point, examples that are enormously more germane both to SigProc and voice coding than some of the ones you raised here.

Come to think of it, you've not raised Itakura, which would read to your advantage, neither Akagiri. Neither have you raised the issue of Fraunhofer IIS in music coding, but then of course, you'd have to acknowledge Johnston's contributions, which would run entirely counter to your point, wouldn't it?

What IS your point? You seem to think that by firing off a few selected examples you can prove a trend, and we both know that's simply a statistical fallacy. Given the education you claim, and that you do seem to demonstrate to some degree at least, you should know very well that you're relying on a serious statistical fallacy. I mean, you obviously have to know a bit about stoichastic processes, so you KNOW what it means to select a few samples here and there from the data and represent them as anything meaningful.

the local U.S. people don't venture themseves much in these fields,

I don't, hunh? Want to prove that?

that's too much sophistication for them because the local U.S. people are sissies who don't need to immigrate,

No, you mean that the college can get more money to support the foreign-born grad student. Oops, we forgot about that little deal, didn't we? (Note, it's not true in all cases, and some schools do have a reasonable admissions policy, but with the utter disaster in engineering jobs here, not many people who LIVE here actually want one, they'd rather get something that they see as marketable.)

they are just born and bathing for a lifetime in mediocrity;

Son, you're just like the people in town who told me that since my dad worked in the mill, I would. You are a bigoted, proud, overweening child, with no grasp of the subject you're discussing.

(for this point, see Cheng, Cuperman and Peng that I mention above;
have you been to U.C. Santa Barbara and U.C. San Diego, School of Electrical Engineering in the 90s?)

I've been to UCSD last week, how's that? I haven't been to UCSB lately, but I do talk to people there and discuss various review issues with them on a fairly regular basis. Let's see, where have I been this last year or so? Uppsala, Princeton, Rutgers, UW, MSU, Chalmers, Howard U, NJIT, U of Fla Jax (whichever that one is, I forget), oh, and I'm sure I've forgotten a few. I've talked to people from MIT, CMU, UC, Stanford, and a whole bunch of other places on review and/or technical matters.

Is that good enough? I wonder, why didn't you bring up USC? That would have been a good example for your side, wouldn't it. I mean, I know an asian grad student who left there because he decided he wasn't asian enough, basically. Good fellow, too, and with the record to show it, now.

.) the European teaching is way more honest than this 'publish or perish' carrot offered to aspirant immigrants;

Now that implies that american teaching isn't "honest". I will point out that your IEEE oath requires you to file an ethics complaint about that. Have you? (No, I'm not going to, I don't think there's anything to what you're saying.)

I won't comment on the European teaching, except to say that I know a lot of good people from Cambridge, Oxford, U Erlangen, TUB, various places in France, a whole list of places. Good people are good people because they are good, where the come from only seems to matter until they have a chance to catch up.

I have seen this honesty in the teachings by Magnier, a methematician of the Fields prize caliber, and simply I have seen the French school of mathematics cranking better results than U.S.' 'publish or perish' on the back of aspirant immigrants.

Now you've repeated that accusation. I have a sense that you may have had an unpleasant experience here, but I have no idea what it was. Perhaps that would be the subject of another thread.

On the other hand, telling me that I, personally, am fat, dumb, ugly and stupid, because I'm american, is simply an act of sheer, disgusting bigotry.

I will admit I'm not particularly pretty, so it goes. I wasn't born to be a movie star, and it's not very important once one grows up beyond their testosterone-poisoned (or dual chemicals for females) years, in my experience.

Substance, on the other hand, does matter.

What I see from you is that you put form ahead of substance, that you care greatly about appearance and accident of birth, and that you support your "arguments" with data selected to prove your point.

You're not very convincing, and you're quite annoying.


PLEASE ADDRESS THE ISSUE OF COOLEY AND TUKEY REGARDING THE FFT.

Now, how about

Shannon

Nyquist

Estiban

Galand

Olive

Fletcher

Malvar

Kovacik

deBauchies


Is there a reason you won't address Claude Shannon? Harry Nyquist?

Oh, and Ben Gold.

While you're at it, let me add:

Crochiere
Kaiser
Moore (Dr. F. R. because it's a common name)

Just a couple of more names that come to mind off the top of my head.

There is a common thread to the people I mention, at least for the most part, but I'll let you figure it out, especially since you tell me that I'm "naive" to lecture the world-class sociology and speech-coding expert YOU claim to be on this subject. If I am, you should be able to figure out the common thread to those people just about instantly.

Oh, and remember. Cooley and Tukey. Shannon. Sloane, for that matter. Speak up, now.

[jj]

Originally posted by Nyarlathotep


Nope, I am quite familiar with the phrase "ugly American" and it's meaning. Despite what you and many others seem to think, I am NOT stupid despite the fact that I am an American. Reading his subsequent posts it is quite evident that he meant we are physically uglier than everyone else. Since he also called us inferior I can only assume that he intends to imply that we are subhuman. There seems to be a lot of agreement on that point too. Sad really...

What's ironic is what the term "Ugly American" originally meant when Burdick wrote it.

[jj]

Originally posted by Jon_in_london

We still got the worlds first jet-airliner though.

Yeah, but didn't the wings fatigue and fall off?

[jj]

Originally posted by Ion
Easy to answer this:

That,

would simply prove that you are an idiot.

No, it demonstrates that you communicate poorly in english. I thought farce, satire and sarcasm were in fact well-understood in France, too.

[Grammatron]

Originally posted by jj


Yeah, but didn't the wings fatigue and fall off?

Wasn't it something to do with the shape of the windows?

[jj]

Originally posted by DanishDynamite
Nyarlathotep:Seriously, Nyarlathotep, you need to:

a) Grow a thicker skin
b) Learn to differenciate between posters/trolls

I realize where you are coming from, though. I entered this board being quite pro-American and became steadily disillusioned during the first year. I have since learned to differentiate sharply between what credance I give each American poster. It's a long haul, but it is possible.

In people like "American", NTW, and the former Jedi Knight, we have examples of some of the absolute worst of American culture. Do try to remember that the next time they spew.

[Nyarlathotep]

Originally posted by Grammatron


Wasn't it something to do with the shape of the windows?

Nope it had to to with little micro fractures caused by the stress of pressurization and de-presurization.

I used to do Non-Destructive testing of airplane parts and that story is pretty familiar to people int hat field.

[DanishDynamite]

jj:In people like "American", NTW, and the former Jedi Knight, we have examples of some of the absolute worst of American culture. Do try to remember that the next time they spew. Do try to realize I have learned to differentiate. Which was my point to Nyarlathotep.

[jj]

Originally posted by Grammatron


Wasn't it something to do with the shape of the windows?

Sorry, don't remember any more.

[jj]

Originally posted by DanishDynamite
jj:Do try to realize I have learned to differentiate. Which was my point to Nyarlathotep.

Understood. Just wanted to point out that here you get exposed to some of the more slick versions of the worst of the lot.

[Ion]

Originally posted by jj

...
I have a sense that you may have had an unpleasant experience here, but I have no idea what it was.
...
Oh, and remember. Cooley and Tukey. Shannon. Sloane, for that matter. Speak up, now.
jj,

there are problems with your posts:

.) your replies are within my quotes for the most part, so it would be slower for me to copy the entire forum page then trim it to only what I respond to when I want to dissect them; when I hit 'reply' that's faster but it gives me only a portion of your posts, the portion that you didn't embed within my quotes;

reply outside my quotes like anyone else;

.) your replies focus on DSP and they deserve a dedicated thread to DSP teachings;

remember that I opened this thread because a comment that I made elsewhere was challenged by you there in some aspects then my comment deserved this dedicated thread;

.) it was posted in this thread that '....US leads the world by miles but Europe leads the world by kilometers...' and that '...US publishes lots of research but the Europeans are woeful...';

the DSP part that is relevant to this in my experience is that research in the fields that I mentioned with people that I mentioned taught me that a lot of research in North America is 'publish or perish' done by parasites riding the coattails of wannabe immigrants while the local population doesn't get much involved in Engineering;

the local US population thinks that being a lawyer is a success;

overall, US imports Engineers or wannabe Engineers because the US locals don't do much of Engineering;
this is a fact that the US Labor Department deals with by issuing work visas on quotas;
so that US can lead "...the world by miles..."

some of the research published in IEEE that I mentioned in my list is literally plagiarized just to play the 'publish or perish' US make-believe, and I saw by who from whom;
the plagiarizing was done by someone famous, who I know from daily interactions that is of feeble abilities;
one of the North American professors said "For me a good graduate student is a student that never asks questions.";

in contrast the Europeans are less arrogant about making publishing noises, they publish when having something new to say, and being a teacher and researcher in Europe is more being a person with a passion and vocation;
I even gave you a name like this from France who epitomizes passion and vocation, and there are more typically produced by the French system.

[jj]

Originally posted by Ion

jj,

there are problems with your posts:


Indeed there are. You can't answer the question about Cooley and Tukey, for instance.

Would you mind?


.) your replies are within my quotes for the most part, so it would be slower for me to copy the entire forum page then trim it to only what I respond to when I want to dissect them; when I hit 'reply' that's faster but it gives me only a portion of your posts, the portion that you didn't embed within my quotes;

Stop making excuses. If you are going to assert something, be prepared to support your assertion.

reply outside my quotes like anyone else;

You do NOT have the power to tell me how to reply. I keep my replies in context because of a long history, both here and elsewhere, of people starting to escape from context left, right, up, down and in the '+-i' direction when they haven't any other argument left to offer.

.) your replies focus on DSP and they deserve a dedicated thread to DSP teachings;

No, they directly read on your assertion that all of us born-in-the-USA types are fat, stupid, and ignorant. A number of the people I've mentioned show unquestionably that your assertion is false, bigoted, and offensive.

remember that I opened this thread because a comment that I made elsewhere was challenged by you there in some aspects then my comment deserved this dedicated thread;

Yes, you made a bigoted statement about american-born people. I recall. That's what this thread is about. DSP is involved because YOU stated expertise in DSP, so I'm using your subject. Isn't that convenient for you? Hello?

Yes, as you probably finally noticed, it's also a very convenient subject for this fat old white boy from Ohio to discuss.


.) it was posted in this thread that '....US leads the world by miles but Europe leads the world by kilometers...' and that '...US publishes lots of research but the Europeans are woeful...';

The first would seem to be a credit to Europe, yes? The second is in fact inaccurate, because the US also suppresses a lot of research publication, in fact some of the best, due to ownership and proprietary considerations.

That does not justify your attack on *all* american-born people in any fashion.

the DSP part that is relevant to this in my experience is that research in the fields that I mentioned with people that I mentioned taught me that a lot of research in North America is 'publish or perish' done by parasites riding the coattails of wannabe immigrants while the local population doesn't get much involved in Engineering;

I see, now it's "much involved", instead of not involved. Well, I'm an old white boy from Ohio, guess what, and I *&*( well am involved in engineering. I'm your counterexample. I have, among the people I've named, named you JUST a few more, some more of them also born in unlikely, out of the way US places, just the ones you castigated so thoroughly.


the local US population thinks that being a lawyer is a success;

And you think it's not?

some of the research published in IEEE that I mentioned in my list is literally plagiarized just to play the 'publish or perish' US make-believe, and I saw by who from whom;
the plagiarizing was done by someone famous, who I know from daily interactions that is of feeble abilities;

Really? You HAVE reported this plagarization, then, haven't you?

You are obligated to do so, you know, if you're an IEEE member.

Speaking as someone who has sometimes functioned as editor and often as reviewer, I am well aware of that kind of problem, thank you.

one of the North American researchers said "For me a good graduate student is a student that never asks questions.";

I suppose I won't say you're lying, but if somebody said that to you, well, yes, you're quite reasonable in being upset with that particular individual, if it's presented in context. Asking questions is what research is all about. I have rarely had a student or collegue who asked too many questions, in fact I don't think I ever have.

I hold the same opinion as just about all of those people I listed; the only dumb question is the one you didn't ask.

That is, to my knowledge, just about what everyone I've worked with thinks, too.

overall, US imports Engineers or wannabe Engineers because the US locals don't do much Engineering;
this is a fact that the US Labor Department deals with it by issuing work visas on quotas;
so that US can "...lead the world by miles..."

Well, if being an engineer paid better than being a lawyer, then we might see more engineers from the USA. Fact is, industry as exploited the bouncing job market for years to keep engineering salaries down here, and they get what they pay for, at least in terms of residents. Obviously it's quite sensible for someone from a worse situation to come here, and no, I'm not saying they shouldn't. The fact they do does, after all, testify to their wisdom.

And where do they come? THEY COME HERE.

in contrast the Europeans are less arrogant about making publishing noises, they publish when having something new to say, and being a teacher and researcher in Europe is more being a person with a passion and vocation;

Oh, now just hold on a minute or 14 there. The most blatantly commercial, self-motivated self-enriching engineers I know of come from Europe. Sorry, that's just not a general tendency of Europeans you're stating there, I've too much experience to even consider it.

Some are, I agree.

I even gave you a name like this from France who epitomizes passion and vocation, and there are more typically produced by the French system.

So? There are as many here. I won't embarrass my collegues by naming them, but there are many very dedicated researchers and teachers here in the USA, and yes, I happen to know a lot of them in the DSP field.

Once more: Address the role of Cooley and Tukey regarding the FFT. Why did you leave out Ray Chen while discussing CELP? You know of Alan, but you didn't mention Ray? Whence Claude Shannon?

[Ion]

jj,

answer out of my quotes, by quoting small bits of my quotes and commenting on them.

Then, in return I will quote your quotes.

My take in the mini-debate that I have with you in this thread, is that:

1.) US imports Engineers and wannabe Engineers because there are not many locals who study Engineering;
most US locals look the part of being mentally untrained and physically unkept;

2.) in this process, research in US is 'publish or persih';
lots of this 'publish or perish' is without much teaching and is on the back of immigrants which I have seen in speech compression with DSP;

in fact, this:
Originally posted by jj

...
Why did you leave out Ray Chen while discussing CELP? You know of Alan, but you didn't mention Ray? Whence Claude Shannon?
is adressed by 2.)

3.) this is inferior to Europe;

4.) for DSP specifics or ramblings that do not apply to 1.), 2.) and 3.)

like:
Originally posted by jj

Once more: Address the role of Cooley and Tukey regarding the FFT.
...

open a separate thread.

[jj]

Originally posted by Ion
jj,

you should answer out of my quotes, by quoting small bits of my quotes and commenting on them.

No. Don't try to disguise your unwillingness to cope with my unwillingness to provide a potential escape from context.
]
My take in the mini-debate that I have with you in this thread, is that:

1.) US imports Engineers and wannabe Engineers because there are not many locals who study Engineering;
most US locals look the part of being mentally untrained and physically unkept;


You didn't say "most" at the start.

You confuse looks with ability, you admit? Yes?

How come I know so many american EE's then?


2.) in this process, research in US is 'publish or persih';
lots of this 'publish or perish' is without much teaching and is on the back of immigrants which I have seen in speech compression with DSP;


You have seen, you have seen. Yeah, I hear you saying it. I don't see what you have seen, how, or why, in any detail, though. I'm not sure it's something I should know, it may be private and maybe you should keep it that way, I don't know.

Ok, explain. But not as "I have seen". I have seen a lot of PhD students, of all sorts. Close to all of them learn fast, ask questions, and wouldn't tolerate a prof who told them that asking questions was bad. That's my experience. Obviously yours varies.


3.) this is inferior to Europe;


You haven't proven that, demonstrated that, or even suggested that. The ONLY thing you've done is shown that there are European experts, and nobody else has suggested otherwise.

Proving that a european expert exists doesn't say ANYTHING about the existance or validity of american experts. You are WAY too educated to be unaware of that!


4.) for DSP specifics that do not apply to 1.), 2.) and 3.) you should open a separate thread.

You brought up the issue of FFT's.

What is the role of Cooley and Tukey regarding the FFT.

I've seen your assertion, now cope with the common literature, and tell me where it goes wrong. I can pull Rabiner and Gold off the shelf tonight if you like, (*&(, I can call Larry and ask him what he thinks if it comes to that.

I want you to admit that not only were your examples selective and a misrepresentation by their selectivity, but also that some of your examples were arguably wrong.

You threw out a whole lot of bollocks when challenged. Perhaps you didn't mean to bump into somebody who happened to know some of the field, but that's tough. You made the claim, now pay the toll.

What did Cooley and Tukey have to do with the FFT you cited?

That long list of names, one per line. What is the common factor there?

[Ion]

Well I will go more in-depth with you when you conform to posting in the standard way which I can quote.

Otherwise, no.

Basically is my same points with public statistics.

[jj]

Originally posted by Ion
Well I will go more in-depth with you when you conform to posting in the standard way which I can quote.

Otherwise, no.

Basically is my same points with public statistics.

Now, that is perhaps the lamest excuse yet that I've seen to justify not backing up one's claims.

Allow me to paraphrase your excuse: Waaah! I don't like how you cite things in a way that makes them harder to extract from context!

You're starting to sound just like Sylvia and John Edward, Ion. You do realize that.

Now, please explain to use the role of Cooley and Tukey regarding the FFT. Explain how it is consonant with your claim that the FFT is a European invention.

Either prove your assertions, or admit that you can't.

Since it's obvious you haven't any statistics, and that you can't provide evidence of your claim with "public statistics" or you'd have done that in a flash, you're getting more transparent by the minute. Why pretty soon you're going to be as easy to see as the Cottingly Faeries.

Now, about your accusations of plagarism. You have, have you not, fully filed the necessary complaints with the IEEE ethics committee, since it's obvious that it's SigProc that's involved.

[Ion]

Originally posted by jj

...
Now, please explain to use the role of Cooley and Tukey regarding the FFT. Explain how it is consonant with your claim that the FFT is a European invention.
...

Well,

Fourier and Laplace, were French.

Goertzel is German.

Kleijn -who I mentioned earlier- is Dutch.

When you get Ray Chen at U.C. Santa Barbara, you get what makes it that "...U.S. leads the world by miles..." under the conditions that I mentioned two posts ago.

[jj]

Originally posted by Ion

Well,

Fourier and Laplace, were French.

Goertzel is German.

Kleijn -who I mentioned earlier- is Dutch.

When you get Ray Chen at U.C. Santa Barbara, you get what makes it that "...U.S. leds the world by miles..." under the conditions that I mentioned two posts ago.

Please, once again, explain why you mention Goertzel in connection with FFT's, but not Cooley and Tukey.

Evasion is not going to work. I do standards as well as DSP for a living, and you're either going to ANSWER THE QUESTION or everyone is going to know you didn't.

You're just as bad as "not a false prophet" Bethke.

[Ion]

Originally posted by jj

Please, once again, explain why you mention Goertzel in connection with FFT's, but not Cooley and Tukey.
...

Simply because is faster to compute than nLn(n), so is being used as a standard in U.S. Dual Tone Multi Frequency detection.

The context I did bring it in is U.S. implementing what foreign brain thinks.

[jj]

Originally posted by Ion

Simply because is faster to compute than nLn(n), so is being used as a standard in U.S. Dual Tone Multi Frequency detection.

The context I did bring it in is U.S. implementing what foreign brain thinks.

So, what about Cooley and Tukey. You were complaining about plagarism, etc, but you don't mention Cooley and Tukey? Now, I'm not saying that anyone (Goertzel, Cooley, Tukey) plagarized anyone else in this case, but you were SO upset about proper credit, how come you won't even MENTION Cooley and Tukey?

You are OBLIGED to do that to be fair and unbiased.

BTW, I know what an FFT does, please, you don't need to explain it. Matlab did about 100,000 of them for me today.

For extra credit, though, you can explain how to use it in TDMA, if you'd like.

[Ion]

Originally posted by jj

So, what about Cooley and Tukey. You were complaining about plagarism, etc, but you don't mention Cooley and Tukey?
...

Simply, Goertzel's is the fastest Discrete Fourier Transform out there.

Cooley and Tukey are not as fast as Goertzel.
I have the number of computations required for each.

Goertzel, the German, is the U.S. standard now in D.T.M.F. detection, U.S.-wide:

pressing buttons on cell phones, on telephones, and connecting thru modems sends sine-waves whose frequencies are identified (hence it is identified what buttons were pressed, for example button '2' when dialing '211') thru Goertzel the German mathematician, U.S.-wide.

I will go exercise now, and I will see you in a few hours from the convenience of my place where I have the numbers of the computations required for Goertzel.

[jj]

Originally posted by Ion

Simply, Goertzel's is the fastest Discrete Fourier Transform out there.

Un huh. HIs was built on whose?

Cooley and Tukey are not as fast as Goertzel.
I have the number of computations required for each.

Unh, hunh, and his was built one shose?

Goertzel, the German, is the U.S. standard now in D.T.M.F. detection, U.S.-wide:

Uh huh, and his was built on whose?

I will go exercise now, and I will see you in a few hours from the convenience of my place where I have the numbers of the computations required for Goertzel.

Once more, Goertzal's work built on whose work?

Do tell us that, please. Don't pick some intermediary, go back to the folks that wrote up the FFT first.

After that, you have a lot to explain.

[Ion]

Originally posted by jj

Once more, Goertzal's work built on whose work?

Do tell us that, please. Don't pick some intermediary, go back to the folks that wrote up the FFT first.

After that, you have a lot to explain.
You want to say Cooley and Tukey.

In 1965 they published an algorithm for the computation of the discrete Fourier Transform that is applicable to composite numbers.

It triggered research in a number of algorithms for faster Fourier Transforms.

Goertzel's (Ger.) algorithm is the fastest discrete Fourier Transform so far, calculated from a number of input samples by as many multiplications as that number raised to the power two is, and by as many additions as that number raised to the power two and multiplied by two is.

However Fourier (Fr.) invented the series and the transform, Gauss (Ger.) performed Fourier Transforms in 1805, Runge (Ger.) described in 1905 Fourier Transforms for which the computation was proportional to the (number of input samples)xLn(number of input samples), then Danielson (U.K.) in 1942 reduced the computation a little bit.

The Fourier Transform of a sine-wave is the Dirac (U.K.) function peaking at the central frequency that corresponds to the frequency of the sine-wave.

The frequency of the sine-wave sent when pressing a button on a cell phone is recognized distance away in a central office by detecting the peak of this Dirac function when measuring the area of the signal received:

Riemann (Ger.) demonstrated that the peak of the Dirac function -not one of the harmonics of the signal, but the peak of the signal- has an area of pi.
(i.e.: Riemann demonstrated that integral from minus infinity to plus infinity of the function sin(x)/x -which is integral of the Dirac function- equals pi)

In all this process, Goertzel performs the Fourier Transform of the sine-waves that are sent the fastest.

Goertzel's algorithm, that's the standard employed in every central office in U.S. for recognizing what buttons people press on their phones.

This is Dual Tone Multi Frequency (D.T.M.F.) detection in a nutshell, and is historically European theory and implementation.

Posts ago I said in this thread that the science is European and the technicians are Americans.

D.T.M.F. detection in U.S., illustrates this.

U.S. acadamics' 'publish or perish' is too shallow for this fundamental science and is not a factor here.

Now let's do the same with Finite Impulse Response digital filters that are stable based on where their poles sit after performing a Laplace (Fr.) transform on their transfer (i.e.: output divided by input) function.

[jj]

Ion's blatherings in boldOriginally posted by Ion

You want to say Cooley and Tukey.


No, I want YOU to admit that Goertzal's work is derivitive of theirs, which you do below. Unfortunately, then you try to hide the fact that you attempted to sieze credit from Cooley and Tukey.

So, now I COULD say "how come Europeans have to copy americans" based on Cooley and Tukey except that we both know that criticism would be just as nonsensical as your bigoted accusations about americans.

Goertzel is the fastest discrete Fourier Transform so far, calculated from a number of input samples by as many multiplications as that number raised to the power two is, and by as many additions as that number raised to the power two and multiplied by two is.

You can assume that I know what a logarithm is.

Have you bothered, yet, to figure out that you're way, way out of your depth?

Will you also admit that Cooley-Tukey is proportional to N log N for an N point FFT, radix 2? Or are you going to try to weasel around that? Is there some reason about your snowstorm regarding N log N for a full transform, or something less for a partial one? Are you trying to obscure that the only thing under discussion here is a proportionality constant that is something between 6 and 3?

However Fourier (Fr.) invented the series and the transform, Gauss (Ger.) performed Fourier Transforms in 1805, Runge (Ger.) described in 1905 Fourier Transforms for which the computation was proportional to the (number of input samples)xLn(number of input samples), then Danielson (UK) in 1942 reduced the computation a little bit.

Evade, evade, evade all you want, you just admitted that Cooley and Tukey have primacy here, and that Goertzal did a good job with a refactored transform that does a good job of taking 1's and 0's in the twiddles into account. Yes, I agree, he did. But that doesn't excuse your misleading statement previously that appeared to steal credit for the whole thing from Cooley and Tukey. You're trying to connect Goertzel directly to Fourier without admitting an essential step in the middle. That's theft of credit!

The Fourier Transform of a sine-wave is the Dirac (UK) function peaking at the central frequency that corresponds to the frequency of the sine-wave.

Trying to baffle somebody here with basic Fourier mathematics, are we? Um, I do teach this subject to people, you know. (No, not in college, in industry, to people who are already experts in other things.)

The frequency of the sine-wave sent when pressing a button on a cell phone is recognized distance away in a central office by detecting the peak of this Dirac function when measuring the area of the signal received:

DOH. Look, child, I know the guys who invented the flippin touch-tone phone down in Holmdel. I also know (knew, they're gone) most of the people who did the previous set of multitone signals that weren't for consumers. What's your point? You can look this up on the internet and spew it back or something? Do you even know what the OTHER multitone signalling I'm talking about is? Would the words "Captain Crunch" mean anything to you? (and what a pain in the neck that was, too)

Riemann (Ger.) demonstrated that the peak of the Dirac function -not one of the harmonics of the signal, but the peak of the signal- has an area of pi.
(i.e.: Riemann demonstrated that integral from minus infinity to plus infinity of the function sin(x)/x -which is integral of the peak of the Dirac function- equals pi)

Basic Fourier mathematics, founded by people born before the USA existed, and therefore utterly lacking in relevance to your accusation against US scientists and engineers. What's your point? You're just blowing all this smoke to hide the fact that you took credit from Cooley and Tukey.

In all this process, Goertzel performs the Fourier Transform of the sine-waves that are sent the fastest.

blah, blah, cite basic fourier mathematics, and then you try to link this back to Goertzel, who did find a better factorization, and how? By figuring out better how to use the '1' and '0' terms of the twiddles. A refinement to Cooley and Tukey, one that you insist on representing as the whole ball of wax. That's simply cheap and deceptive. It's a good refinement, indeed, and deserving of recognition and credit, but to use that as an example of how the US steals from Europe is outright dishonest. You can even argue "major refinement", I have no trouble with that, but when you jumped from Fourier to Goertzel, and you repeatedly left out Cooley and Tukey, you simply stole credit from them outright.

FFT's transform any kind of sampled data, btw, why are you on about sine waves?

Goertzel's algorithm, that's the standard employed in every central office in U.S. for recognizing what buttons people press on their phones.

Cool, you mean even those old ESS1a offices? Really? Do tell!

This is Dual Tone Multi Frequency (D.T.M.F.) detection in a nutshell, and is historically European theory and implementation.

That, sir, is theft of credit. Are you claiming that touch-tone phones were invented in Europe? Are you claiming that the US system was invented in Europe?

You must know that detecting the tones is only teeny-tiny bit of that system design, one that allows for massive system distortions while still recovering the tones without great difficulty, don't you?

Posts ago I said in this thread that the science is European and the technicians are Americans.

And in doing so, you stole credit and you slighted Cooley and Tukey entirely.

Why was that?

Now, you need to admit that it's Cooley and Tukey who came up with the FFT, and somebody in Europe refined it.

(not that there's anything at all wrong with that)

D.T.M.F. detection in U.S., illustrates this.

It does nothing of the sort. You owe a huge apology to a nice Chinese gentleman who used to live in Holmdel, you know.

However the matched filter (tone detector) is implemented (and an FFT is one such way) is a very small part of the overall problem.

Now let's do the same with Finite Impulse Response digital filters that are stable based on where their poles sit after performing a Laplace (Fr.) transform.
Whoa, there, sampled filters depend on the LAPLACE transform?

Really?

REALLY?

That last quote of yours is absoutely, completely, 100.00% mistaken. Sampled filters do not use the Laplace Transform, they are not written in 's' at all.

Was this another attempt at deception on your part, or are you simply uninformed?

Or are you illigitimately trying to take credit from another couple of folks from MIT here, by claiming that Laplace somehow anticipates the set of transforms that DOES apply to sampled filters?

You do know that transforms are a dime a dozen, and there's a whole functional theory built around lots of different kinds, don't you? It's almost the basis-vector-of-your choice, even (within some bounds, of course).

Are you asserting that a discrete time (i.e. sampled) filter is stable if its poles don't get into the right half-plane? Is that what you're saying?

DO be specific, please.

And, just as advice, I would suggest that you be very, very careful to not leave out credit where it is due, here. Also, do please check out your assertion that Laplace transforms are what sampled filters are written in, please, before this goes on any farther.


Edited to add:

Oh, and do you have any proof of your allegation that I don't know what Fermat's Theorem is? That was a very serious allegation you made, and I'd like to see some evidence to back up your claim. The theorem, which if I recall correctly was proven later, is rather, um, simple to express, isn't it?

N.B. to others, this is not "Fermat's Last Theorem", that's something else.

[Ion]

Originally posted by jj
...
Will you also admit that Cooley-Tukey is proportional to N log N for an N point FFT, radix 2?
...

Danielson and Lanczos described in 1942 Fourier algorithms for which the computation was proportional to N log N.

Cooley-Tukey (1965) is proportional to N log N for an N point FFT, radix 2, when N is a product of two or more integers.

Cooley-Tukey is a case of the Fourier formula -a formula designed by Fourier (Fr.)- when N is a composite number.

[Jon_in_london]

Originally posted by Nyarlathotep


Nope it had to to with little micro fractures caused by the stress of pressurization and de-presurization.

I used to do Non-Destructive testing of airplane parts and that story is pretty familiar to people int hat field.

The comet was built by De Havidland, who were very good at building very fast and very light planes (eg. mosquito).

To make it light enough for the early jet engines, the skin was so thin it could be dented just by the air pressure on the nose at normal flight conditions. Thats why it was so prone to failure. It actually had nothing to do with square windows at all.

There was nothing wrong with the later comets but by then public trust had been lost and airlines bought the 707 instead.

We Brits are very good at inventing stuff but totally hopeless at making them commercialy viable. :nope:

[ktesibios]

Originally posted by jj


What's ironic is what the term "Ugly American" originally meant when Burdick wrote it.

Read the book back around 9th grade. Was utterly outraged at how the movie version travestied it. Am still outraged every time I see the phrase "Ugly American" bandied by someone who obviously isn't familiar with the novel from which it came. (This has nothing to do with any nationalistic feelings, but my feelings about ignorance.) Was going to point that out, but jj beat me to it.

Thanks, jj.

Somewhere above someone mentioned our continuing use of avoirdupois measurements. We're not exactly alone in finding ways to use measurement units to make life more entertaining for the poor buggers who actually get their hands dirty.

Ever work on an SSL 4000 console (a UK product)? Some of the fasteners are metric standard, some are BA. You get to guess which are which. Such fun it is! ;)

[Nyarlathotep]

Originally posted by Jon_in_london


The comet was built by De Havidland, who were very good at building very fast and very light planes (eg. mosquito).

To make it light enough for the early jet engines, the skin was so thin it could be dented just by the air pressure on the nose at normal flight conditions. Thats why it was so prone to failure. It actually had nothing to do with square windows at all.

There was nothing wrong with the later comets but by then public trust had been lost and airlines bought the 707 instead.

We Brits are very good at inventing stuff but totally hopeless at making them commercialy viable. :nope:

Perhaps I should have been clearer. I know the cracks weren't in the windows, they were in the body of the plane. I used to do tests to find pre-existing cracks from the manufacturing process that could enlarge or weak points that could crack under stress of use. You could say that I used to spend 8-12 hours a day, 5-7 days a week looking for crack:)

[jj]

Originally posted by Ion

Danielson and Lanczos described in 1942 Fourier algorithms for which the computation was proportional to N log N.


Whoa, you're leaving something out there, now tell us what that is, please. :D


Cooley-Tukey (1965) is proportional to N log N for an N point FFT, radix 2, when N is a product of two or more integers.


Okay...


Cooley-Tukey is a case of the Fourier formula -a formula designed by Fourier (Fr.)- when N is a composite number.
No, Cooley-Tukey is a case of the DFT, not of the Fourier Transform, if we want to get real sticky here. The Fourier transform is not as general as the DFT, you know.

Gosh, if I were you (but I'm not) I'd say that Fourier made a mistake by not creating the discrete orthonormal version first, but no, it wasn't a mistake, he had different goals, and he certainly gets the credit for that particular transform.

Now, about your claim that Laplace transforms determine the stability of FIR filters. FIR filters, mind you, with "poles".

Would you like to consider that some more, and explain it to all of us? Which kind of sampled FIR filters with poles was it you had in mind, anyhow, and how does LAPLACE have anything to do with this?

After that, you can explain your evidence that I don't know what Fermat's Theorem is. I guess I just know that a binary prime that ends in 01 must be the sum of two squared integers.

[jj]

http://www.randi.org/vbulletin/showthread.php?s=&threadid=35422

Contains technical questions for Ion regarding this thread.

[Ion]

I will address the technical questions tonight.

I am at work now running behind schedules, then I will swim competitively in a club, and after that I will address the technical questions tonight.

[jj]

Originally posted by Ion
I will address the technical questions tonight.

I am at work now running behind schedules, then I will swim competitively in a club, and after that I will address the technical questions tonight.

I know you're very competitive. That's obvious.

It's not so obvious . . .

[Ion]

I answered this:
Originally posted by jj
http://www.randi.org/vbulletin/showthread.php?s=&threadid=35422

Contains technical questions for Ion regarding this thread.
just now, in that new thread.

[Jon_in_london]

Originally posted by ktesibios

Ever work on an SSL 4000 console (a UK product)? Some of the fasteners are metric standard, some are BA. You get to guess which are which. Such fun it is! ;)

Heh, I used to drive a 72 mini which had some bits metric and some bits imperial. I had a massive box of spanners because I had to have one of both!

[Michael Redman]

Originally posted by Jon_in_london
I had a massive box of spanners because I had to have one of both! Stop whining. All Americans have to have to carry around both sets. It's what makes us so strong and agressive.

And it's called a "wrench", not a "spanner". Learn the language, foreigner!

[jj]

Originally posted by Ion
I answered this:

(regarding my questions for Ion in SMM&T)

just now, in that new thread.

Your evasions and mistakes have been thoroughly dismembered in that form.

Readers are advised to go there if they even care.

[Ion]

Originally posted by jj

Your evasions and mistakes have been thoroughly dismembered in that form.
...

When?

The dismemebering is not there...