General Questions Thread

[Zakoo]

Though the last time I used poisson law or any other statistical laws was some years ago, I believe you are right, the two statistics #Amount of Asian children being under the poverty line and #Global number of Asian people in US population, are dependent

Unfortunately, probably what the man meant, is that you misunderstood what a dependence is in statistic, dependence is nothing more than a correlation, and yes, if what he meant was this, I can understand why he said so, because you base your reasoning as if the population under poverty line would reproduce faster than the asian population above the poverty line. I don't know whether it is wrong or right, but at this point others sources need to back up your argument.

If he didn't mean this, then yes Saintess explained everything.

[Dhomochevsky]

The correct questions to ask are:
How many percent of the asians in the US are poor?
How many percent of the whites in the US are poor?
Same for other parts of the population.

This eliminates the problem that they are different sized groups.

But if the numbers you cited, "asians are 6% of the population" and "13% of all poor are asian" are correct, then they are by no means privilliged.
Their part in the poor group is more than double their part in the population group!

[ArchmageXin]

Here is my calculation, simple they might be

Census 2012 Census #Poor kids % of poor kids

White 196,817,552 66% 5,002,000 3%

African American 37,685,848 13% 4,817,000 13%

Asian American 14,465,124 5% 547,000 4%

Hispanic 50,477,594 17% 6,110,000 12%

Total: 299,446,118

So yea, I guess 5% asian America has 4% poor, but using the same logic, Hispanics have 17% population and 12% poor.

I still don't understand why Asians are this magic race that is "unfair" to other minorities.

[oompa loompa]

Originally Posted by ArchmageXin

Here is my calculation, simple they might be

Census 2012 Census #Poor kids % of poor kids

White 196,817,552 66% 5,002,000 3%

African American 37,685,848 13% 4,817,000 13%

Asian American 14,465,124 5% 547,000 4%

Hispanic 50,477,594 17% 6,110,000 12%

Total: 299,446,118

So yea, I guess 5% asian America has 4% poor, but using the same logic, Hispanics have 17% population and 12% poor.

It doesn't matter if only 5% of the U.S is Asian, what matters is only 4% of the asian population (using children, obviously) is BPL. OTOH for all other minorities this figure is significantly higher. Based solely on this data, if you were trying to say that asian americans are not better off, at least financially, than the other minority groups, you've just done the opposite. Then again, whether income is the best judge of whether a minority has an 'advantage' is questionable, so even though this does say asian americans are better off financially, take it with a grain of salt at as to whether that really means they have an advantage, and i guess look at other avenues. Just don't look at mean standardized test scores, or G.P.A's; it will not help your argument. Also, the number of poor children can be a misleading statistic, as ( I don't know, it might not make a difference), but the average number of children per household by minority may differ. #Households BPL is probably a better statistic, I would be surprised if it wasn't available if #Poor children was.

[ArchmageXin]

Originally Posted by oompa loompa

It doesn't matter if only 5% of the U.S is Asian, what matters is only 4% of the asian population (using children, obviously) is BPL. OTOH for all other minorities this figure is significantly higher. Based solely on this data, if you were trying to say that asian americans are not better off, at least financially, than the other minority groups, you've just done the opposite. Then again, whether income is the best judge of whether a minority has an 'advantage' is questionable, so even though this does say asian americans are better off financially, take it with a grain of salt at as to whether that really means they have an advantage, and i guess look at other avenues. Just don't look at mean standardized test scores, or G.P.A's; it will not help your argument. Also, the number of poor children can be a misleading statistic, as ( I don't know, it might not make a difference), but the average number of children per household by minority may differ. #Households BPL is probably a better statistic, I would be surprised if it wasn't available if #Poor children was.

Actually, white at 66% only have 3% poor children, one could argue that is miles ahead of Asians. And Hispanics have 17% of pop against 12% poor, so wouldn't they be better off than Asians as well?

[erneiz_hyde]

White isn't a minority, and iirc your friend didn't mention Asian as the master race, only that they're more well off like the whites.

When viewed in actual numbers, it may not seem much, but when you consider it in the ratios, what your friend says make some sense based on that data alone. Ignore that Hispanics made up 17% the population, just that the whole Hispanics have a 12% percentage of BPL. Your friends' point lies in that ratio, not the actual number of people BPL.

The rest is as oompa loompa says.

[ArchmageXin]

Originally Posted by erneiz_hyde

White isn't a minority, and iirc your friend didn't mention Asian as the master race, only that they're more well off like the whites.

When viewed in actual numbers, it may not seem much, but when you consider it in the ratios, what your friend says make some sense based on that data alone. Ignore that Hispanics made up 17% the population, just that the whole Hispanics have a 12% percentage of BPL. Your friends' point lies in that ratio, not the actual number of people BPL.

The rest is as oompa loompa says.

Wait, if Hispanics made up 17% of the population, but only 12% of Hispanic children are below poverty line, isn't that a good thing?

I mean, there are certainly more Hispanic children under poverty than Asians, but Asians are a very small % in the first place, and not likely to produce equal number of poor babies.

[erneiz_hyde]

Originally Posted by ArchmageXin

Wait, if Hispanics made up 17% of the population, but only 12% of Hispanic children are below poverty line, isn't that a good thing?

I mean, there are certainly more Hispanic children under poverty than Asians, but Asians are a very small % in the first place, and not likely to produce equal number of poor babies.

It's that bolded part that keeps you from getting your friend's point. Your friend most likely does not take that into account at all. All he did was probably comparing 12% to 4%.

[LeoXiao]

Originally Posted by ArchmageXin

Wait, if Hispanics made up 17% of the population, but only 12% of Hispanic children are below poverty line, isn't that a good thing?

12% of Hispanics are below the poverty line, but only 3% of whites are below it, meaning that whites are 4 times less likely to be poor.

I mean, there are certainly more Hispanic children under poverty than Asians, but Asians are a very small % in the first place, and not likely to produce equal number of poor babies.

The % of the total U.S. population doesn't factor into it. If we magically increased the number of Asians to 17% of the population but kept the poverty level (4%) the same, then the Hispanics would still have an 8% lead in poverty. So Asians are quite well-off, just after whites.

[ArchmageXin]

Originally Posted by erneiz_hyde

It's that bolded part that keeps you from getting your friend's point. Your friend most likely does not take that into account at all. All he did was probably comparing 12% to 4%.

Please note, this was an argument about how affirmative action hurts Asians. His argument was apparently society "favor" Asians because there are less Asians in the poor bracket than blacks or Latinos. I.E Latinos have 6 million kids under poverty compared to Asian's mere 575K.

As if all Asian families can afford spent thousands of dollars to tutor their kids, put them through cram schools etc.

My argument is that Asians are a small % of population. So the number of Asian poor babies would be smaller than other minorities.

So there is no way they are any way "advantageous" than blacks or Latinos. In fact, when I demanded he point out how does society favor Asians by law or social custom, he go back to I need to learn elementary stat, etc.

The % of the total U.S. population doesn't factor into it. If we magically increased the number of Asians to 17% of the population but kept the poverty level (4%) the same, then the Hispanics would still have an 8% lead in poverty. So Asians are quite well-off, just after whites.

But wouldn't the overall population mix changes, and thus poverty level change? Because the number of "poverty kids" is a static number. If more Asian ladies are pumping babies and exceed black/latinos, then the possibility of Asian poverty rate would change.

[LeoXiao]

Originally Posted by ArchmageXin

Please note, this was an argument about how affirmative action hurts Asians. His argument was apparently society "favor" Asians because there are less Asians in the poor bracket than blacks or Latinos. I.E Latinos have 6 million kids under poverty compared to Asian's mere 575K.

As if all Asian families can afford spent thousands of dollars to tutor their kids, put them through cram schools etc.

My argument is that Asians are a small % of population. So the number of Asian poor babies would be smaller than other minorities.

So there is no way they are any way "advantageous" than blacks or Latinos. In fact, when I demanded he point out how does society favor Asians by law or social custom, he go back to I need to learn elementary stat, etc.

Yes, but the fact that Asians are a small percent of the entire population is not relevant. What does matter is that a small percent of the Asians is poor, compared to blacks and Hispanics.

As for whether or not society favors Asians, just remind him that almost all Asians were banned from immigrating to the US for like a century, and those who did get in were subject to huge amounts of racism because they supposedly "cheated the white man" by working too hard.

[oompa loompa]

Originally Posted by ArchmageXin

Actually, white at 66% only have 3% poor children, one could argue that is miles ahead of Asians. And Hispanics have 17% of pop against 12% poor, so wouldn't they be better off than Asians as well?

Look, maybe this will make it clearer; If hispanics make up 17% of the population, and asians make up 5%, then the ratio of asian people to hispanic people is 5/17. Similarily, its 5/13 for asians vs african americans. Now, 4% of the asian population is BPL, and 12% of the hispanic population is BPL. So, the ratio of asian people BPL to hispanic people BPL is (4/12)(5/17) = 5/51, which is way less than the previous ratio I mentioned. Since the ratio decreases, asians have relatively less people BPL than the other minorities

[monir]

Originally Posted by oompa loompa

Look, maybe this will make it clearer; If hispanics make up 17% of the population, and asians make up 5%, then the ratio of asian people to hispanic people is 5/17. Similarily, its 5/13 for asians vs african americans. Now, 4% of the asian population is BPL, and 12% of the hispanic population is BPL. So, the ratio of asian people BPL to hispanic people BPL is (4/12)(5/17) = 5/51, which is way less than the previous ratio I mentioned. Since the ratio decreases, asians have relatively less people BPL than the other minorities

Let this be the last observation to this chicken-or-egg esque question. If you gentlemen feel the need to engage in further discussion over this, then please take it to PM/VM.

[ellifeedn]

Could I make a thread ranting about how much I hate the changes YouTube is doing?

[Daniel E.]

Originally Posted by ellifeedn

Could I make a thread ranting about how much I hate the changes YouTube is doing?

There are several threads about YouTube already, but they are focused on a specific topic each. I could see some use on a General topic for this, but I don't want to simply see a bunch of posts saying "YouTube sucks" now. Yet another thread, where people post a ton of YouTube videos in every post is not my moe either.

If you can show me a solid intro post via PM (one that could generate discussion), then I would be happy to consider your request.

[Irenicus]

Tech speculation question from a noob:

Generally speaking, are wireless connections between routers -- one at the modem, the other turned into a repeater -- stronger than between a router and an adapter?

I know repeaters help extend range, at least, but I mean something like recycling a router when one upgrades, and connecting the PC to the old router-turned-repeater with an ethernet cable like it's a big, big external adapter instead of just using...an adapter. Would that be an exercise in pointlessness?

I know there's a whole bunch of variables in this (brand, quality, compatibility, signal standards), so there might be different answers for a few scenarios; say, these two:

1) Same generation and similar quality level (the "control group")
2) Older, say, top class router vs new generation adapters at various price points

Moreover, as a whole, are routers from 2013 faster and more reliable than 2009 in the first place, not counting the shift from N to ac standards?

[Dextro]

Originally Posted by Irenicus

Tech speculation question from a noob:

Generally speaking, are wireless connections between routers -- one at the modem, the other turned into a repeater -- stronger than between a router and an adapter?

I didn't fully get the question but I think I can still help. The quality of a wireless connection will always be limited by the weaker of the two antennas. Let's say you have a router that has a theoretical range of 50m and an adapter with equal range. That case is easy: you would be able to get a connection up to 50m of distance. Now if you were to upgrade your router with another that provided a 100m range you would still be capped at 50m because your receiving adapter can't output any further. Unlike with a FM Radio broadcast, in wifi both devices need to be able to ear and speak so the weakest of the two defines what kind of range you get.

Now what a repeater does is place a second router to cover extra distance while deferring to the main router all the network management (IP handling in particular).



(In this picture the adapter can communicate with the repeater but not the main router. The connection will be relayed by a cable from the repeater to the main router and then to the internet)

Btw I would recommend against using an older router as a wireless repeater. They don't tend to work that well in that scenario. Using one as a wired repeater though works rather well in dd-wrt in my experience and there's also some good and relatively accessible hardware by TP-Link that handles wireless range extension like a champion.

Originally Posted by Irenicus

I know repeaters help extend range, at least, but I mean something like recycling a router when one upgrades, and connecting the PC to the old router-turned-repeater with an ethernet cable like it's a big, big external adapter instead of just using...an adapter. Would that be an exercise in pointlessness?

It's a tricky thing to do. It'll work if you have the proper software running on the routers (check out if you can get both of them running something like dd-wrt) and it works better if both of them share the same wireless chip maker (Broadcom, Atheros).

The real issue with using an old router as a repeater is that every wireless security setting has to be exactly the same. As long as you keep that and the SSID exactly the same it should work. The recommendation for using routers with the same chip maker is down to implementations: if there's a slight variance in the way a chip handles the encryption, for example, it may make your devices get a bit mixed up and degrade your wireless quality a bit.

Originally Posted by Irenicus

Moreover, as a whole, are routers from 2013 faster and more reliable than 2009 in the first place, not counting the shift from N to ac standards?

I can guarantee you that they'll be faster and handle far more concurrent connections for the same price now than they did in 2009 simply because the processors inside them have increased clock speeds and it's cheaper to add extra ram today. As for reliability that's a whole different matter and I can't really tell you if they are better or worse. Depends a lot on who makes them really.

[Dhomochevsky]

What is an 'adapter'?
Do you mean an external wifi usb adapter?

I understand the question as 'Would it make sense to use an older router instead of an usb adapter'?

The bandwidth you will be getting from the wifi connection is mostly dependant on a few factors:
a) technology: the connection will use the best standard that both sides support. So in this respect a new router will only be able to use its full potential with a state of the art adapter, not with another, older router.
b) interference: wifi is a shared medium and the bandwidth is a limit for all devices using the same channel (frequency) in the area, no matter if they are talking with your devices or not. If any other devices are using the same channels, you have to substract their bandwidth from your total. As you have no controll over other peoples' devices, you should try to find the channel that is mostly unoccupied. Can be done with both setups.
c) signal quality: where signal quality is less than optimal, the devices will compensate by lowering the data throughput until the number of transmission errors is on an acceptable level. You can get better signal quality by using better antennas, more amplifying power, or placing the devices where there is less obstruction between them. Here the second router will come in handy, as it usually comes with superior antennas, has its own power supply and can be placed away from the PC in an optimal spot.

So I'd say the setup with the second router makes sense if they both support the same transmission standards, you have a need for the improved signal quality gained, because your pc is somewhat far away from the main router and you do not care about the slightly higher electrical bill.
As a bonus you can now plugin devices liks NAS or network printers in thesecond router and use them without switching on the pc (which is really the only reason I'd do something like that).

I have used such a setup before in a two party household sharing one internet connection:
brand new router A: sits at the DSL splitter, normal operation, internet gateway <- all wireless devices, such as laptops, phones ect connect here
older router B: next to my PC and TV, bridging mode connects to router A
TV, HTPC, NAS, printer, PC all connected to the older router's ethernet ports over gigabit ethernet

->
only one router instead of many adapters,
wifi connection to main router slower because of the older router but still vastly faster than my internet connection
gigabit ethernet between TV <-> NAS for streaming video and between PC <-> NAS for backups
if supported by firmware, the older router can act as an additional security layer, screening my part of the LAN from the other households by filtering packets from the wifi connection that originate anywhere else than the internet gateway

[Irenicus]

Thank you, you two.

Yes, the question is nebulous and doesn't entirely make sense because I myself don't have a clear idea of how networking really works.

I'm really just thinking out loud. The personal scenario that brought the question is TL;DR'd below:

TL;DR…

 

Sorry; dynamic content not loaded. Reload?

But all that is specific to me. Your posts were quite enlightening as to how wireless works (Dextro), and how a real world scenario might benefit (Dhomochevsky's implementation) or might not (mine, lol).

[Dextro]

Originally Posted by Irenicus

Thank you, you two.

Yes, the question is nebulous and doesn't entirely make sense because I myself don't have a clear idea of how networking really works.

I'm really just thinking out loud. The personal scenario that brought the question is TL;DR'd below:

TL;DR…

 

Sorry; dynamic content not loaded. Reload?

But all that is specific to me. Your posts were quite enlightening as to how wireless works (Dextro), and how a real world scenario might benefit (Dhomochevsky's implementation) or might not (mine, lol).

I see what you're trying to do now. I tried to do exactly the same thing when I replaced my old Asus WL520GU with a Linksys E1200: setup my old asus as a wireless receiver that relayed the network from devices connected to it's ethernet ports. I'm sad to say that it didn't particularly help. The router was any better than devices connecting themselves wirelessly to the main router. The only thing I gained was a single point of failure.