Wong's lies about my education

[tjhairball]

If it's difficult to get in and difficult to survive the program, then it's a difficult program. If, on the other hand, almost no one ever actually flunks out of this program, then how hard can it be?

UW engineering is well-known for flunking a lot of students; more than half in the first year alone. You don't just progress to third and fourth year in UW engineering; you're glad to survive to third and fourth year. Hairball, on the other hand, says nothing about this.

My first math class at Appalachian had ... oh... something like a 20% pass rate and an average final score (on a ten point scale) of about 40. That professor has since stopped handing out occasional negative grades on exams, fortunately for subsequent classes.

There are a kajillion introductory physics sections... and exactly one sophomore physics section. People wash out of physics and switch to an easier major (like Econ) at a high rate at App in spite of the friendliness of the instructors and small size of the classes.

Speaking as someone who has observed the dramatic difference between a crappy teacher and a great teacher, failure rate isn't a good measure of a program. A much lower percentage drop out of MIT than Waterloo.

[Kane Starkiller]

I remember back on the first and second year I was loosing friends left and right.
And I see that high-school grade inflation is not just a problem in Croatia. That's why my faculty has an admission exam which carries 600 points and high-school math and physics grades carry 400 points.
Since half of applicants fail on the admission exam even before enrolling I guess that must mean the faculty sucks using hairball's peculiar logic.

[tjhairball]

Reply to most of the misguided souls speaking in this thread since my last. Click the link to see what's being replied to what. Evidently Ossus missed where I replied to him earlier.

A last good nail in the coffin for the SDN crowd.

I responded to your uninformed assertion. You neither understood what classes corresponded to what or what checklists mean what. (Yes, it's a bit of a mess sorting through all the checksheets and figuring out what's actually needed for a degree.)

None of which, incidentally, I would've had lower than average incoming SAT scores (or outgoing GRE scores) at.

App State is a fairly large public university. The good students there would be good students anywhere, and the upper level courses are geared appropriately for that.

Besides which, you're drawing a bad comparison. The engineering program at Waterloo is huge - something like 5,000 students out of 23,000 - and Waterloo accepts 66% of the students who apply there. About a quarter to a third of those actually decide to go to Waterloo.

You're not going to convince me that this is an elite population of students to start with, even if it is a world reknowned program. Heck, Appalachian accepts 68% of the students who apply, and 37% of those actually go to Appalachian.

Actually, I had more than that in department, let alone in concentration (i.e., including the various applicable math classes.) What I took relevant to concentration was no less than 75 credit hours, or 15 out of 20 units as you measure it.

Three times the relevant education.

TJ: Took over thirty courses in math and physics, only 10 at the freshman/sophomore level.
Wong: Was required to take about a dozen courses that could pass for physics or math courses, most at the freshman/sophomore level.

TJ: Demonstrated above average competence in his fields in nationwide competition and examination.
Wong: Managed to get certified to work as an engineer.

TJ: Went on to graduate study.
Wong: Didn't.

TJ: Graduated with honors from an obscure (outside of the region) mid-sized public university that admits 68% of applicants.
Wong: Graduated without honors from a well known (in Canada) large public university that admits 66% of applicants.

TJ: Took broadly applicable courses in philosophy. (Only one philosophy course - philosophy of mind - doesn't relate to anything that's commonly discussed comparing Star Trek and Star Wars.)
Wong: Took narrowly applicable courses in mechanical engineering, almost none of which have proven relevance.

TJ: Took (and passed) >60 actual courses as an undergraduate.
Wong: Took ~40 actual courses as an undergraduate.

TJ: Took his general classes seriously enough to be invited to join half the departments he took a class in.
Wong: Can't be arsed to see the positive point of courses outside of a major.

TJ: Aced four straight courses on logic.
Wong: Probably hasn't even taken one.

TJ: Capped off his undergraduate work with a senior thesis.
Wong: Thesis? What?

TJ: Guilty of over-acting and bad acting. (I am utterly preposterous!)
Wong: Guilty of dishonesty.

Now, you may dispute my assessment that I have three times the relevant education... but I feel fairly comfortable asserting my superior education, just as I assert the ridiculousness of Wong claiming that only someone with an education like his can make arguments worth debating.

[SCRawl]

Not that Mike's educational background needs defending, but I thought I'd point out some facts. I have a friend who went to UW's Electrical Engineering program around the same time DW did, so I have a passing understanding of the content. I'm pretty sure that more of the hairball's assertions are false, but I don't have specific enough information to refute them directly right now.

TJ: Graduated with honors from an obscure (outside of the region) mid-sized public university that admits 68% of applicants.
Wong: Graduated without honors from a well known (in Canada) large public university that admits 66% of applicants.

I find it hard to believe that UW admits 66% of its applicants to the engineering program. It's actually quite difficult to get in.

TJ: Took broadly applicable courses in philosophy. (Only one philosophy course - philosophy of mind - doesn't relate to anything that's commonly discussed comparing Star Trek and Star Wars.)
Wong: Took narrowly applicable courses in mechanical engineering, almost none of which have proven relevance.

And philosophy courses are highly applicable to the debate because....

TJ: Took his general classes seriously enough to be invited to join half the departments he took a class in.
Wong: Can't be arsed to see the positive point of courses outside of a major.

In an engineering program at UW, there aren't any classes outside the department. There might be one or two electives available for the whole degree.

Now, you may dispute my assessment that I have three times the relevant education... but I feel fairly comfortable asserting my superior education, just as I assert the ridiculousness of Wong claiming that only someone with an education like his can make arguments worth debating.

You may consider your assessment to be in dispute.

[brianeyci]

The admission rate means nothing. The failure rate, and the admissions controls do. Am I to believe that a university is utter shit based solely on the number of people they do or don't let in? Just how stupid do you think people are? Do you even know what elite means? By definition engineering programs which prepare you to be a licensed engineer are elite, or are you too stupid to see that?

Waterloo has placed in the Putnam mathematics competition consistently, ranked 17th and placing in the past few years with the likes of MIT, Harvard, Princeton. Where the fuck is your university? Is it there at all? Do you think people are fucking stupid?

Are you going to stop claiming a lofty vantage point and three times the education you dickweed? That claim is not only meaningless, but a lie. It is not simply your style. Saying someone has three times an education is a very specific claim requiring evidence, and just because you major in three things that doesn't mean you have three times the education. The fact that you made an impossible to prove claim doesn't exonerate you from the stupidity of said claim.

You still don't get it retard. Wong issued the challenge, for people with math and science degrees to come out and talk with him. He doesn't have to accept people with philosophy degrees if he doesn't want to, end of story. If you had come in and said, yeah I got a science major, let's duel, he would have given it thought. It's not about you being an ass, it's about you saying you got more education than him and that being a lie. You burned your credibility with lies. All you've got is the equivalent of a science major at best, which doesn't support your exagerrated claims. An exagerration is a lie.

Nobody is going to be fooled by a science major saying he's got a better education than an engineer, unless said science major has a specialist concentration high in mathematics and science (around 70% or more of credits) at a reputable university. Too bad you're too stupid to see that.

[Kuja]

There are a kajillion introductory physics sections

Is that an exact number?

[brianeyci]

TJ: Graduated with honors from an obscure (outside of the region) mid-sized public university that admits 68% of applicants.
Wong: Graduated without honors from a well known (in Canada) large public university that admits 66% of applicants.

I find it hard to believe that UW admits 66% of its applicants to the engineering program. It's actually quite difficult to get in.

It's probably another half-assed lie. Anybody interested in engineering in Canada with a 70 applies to UW. Notice how he doesn't mention engineering at all, so the 66% of applicants could include all disciplines.

Universities need fodder at the bottom to feed their top tier programs. Why the fuck does he mention public? Are public universities a poor education in the US? Oh yeah who could forget ACM, the collegiate extension of the computer programming contests in high school. Judge a university by its top, not its bottom.

No doubt hairball will now claim Mike was at the bottom, even though his university and program are not even in the same league as Mike's. It's like a car versus an ant. A science major does not have as rigorous a program as an engineer: a specialist might, but major means 8/20 credits and specialist means 14+/20 credits so there is a huge difference. Hairball belongs to the former, not the latter, with the rest in philosophy. Science majors compared to specialists, although impressive in their own right, are like Canada fighting the US in a war. A specialist could effortlessly crush a major, and majors are a dime a dozen compared to specialists.

No doubt he'll bring up tons more red herrings to distract from the main point: he was a fool to mention his education outclassed everybody else's.

[Luke Starkiller]

It's interesting how he goes on about how many students go on to complete PhDs (with no regard for the quality of those PhDs or where they are taken), loudly and repeatedly proclaiming that this is the ultimate test of the difficulty of a program, when the most obvious tests of the difficulty of a program would be the admission requirements and failure rate. Particularly failure rate, given the trend of high-school grade inflation. If it's difficult to get in and difficult to survive the program, then it's a difficult program. If, on the other hand, almost no one ever actually flunks out of this program, then how hard can it be?

UW engineering is well-known for flunking a lot of students; more than half in the first year alone. You don't just progress to third and fourth year in UW engineering; you're glad to survive to third and fourth year. Hairball, on the other hand, says nothing about this. As I said before, everything hairball says about his education reeks of resume inflation and self-promotion.

They did the whole "look to your left, look to your right, one of you will graduate on time" spiel in my first year Intro to Engineering course (Aerospace at Carleton). Lo and behold, come graduation roughly one third of the guys I knew in first year had dropped or failed out and another third were taking an extra year or two to finish their degrees, not counting the guys doing co-op.

[NecronLord]

How so? I'm fairly certain he is, given the similarity in name theme, style, and most importantly that on strek-v-swars he spoke of tjhairball's time here as if he were the same person.

From my interactions with him, I've concluded that TJ's a 'it depends on who's writing it' and 'documentary style analysis is useless because fiction is inconsistant' type. He also mentioned, when asked how a 'generic' GE-vs-UFP scenario would go, the 'stromtrooper effect' with regard to Star Destroyers.

From what I've observed, BHMM 'gets' the vs thing a lot more, in that he holds to the idea of treating it like a documentary, rather than dismissing it as inconsistant and saying "it seems fair to assume a 50/50 probability of victory." He doesn't seem to regard the difference of throwing in a Death Star or two as permuting this probability, either. BHMM is of course, a complete moron that thinks Worf could fight Wankhammer 40Ks genetically engineered space marines by slitting their throats with a broken beer bottle...

BHMM 'gets' the whole concept, but is obviously an outrageously biased kiddie with no education. TJ seems to treat it as some kind of philosophical exercise, comparing plotlines and themes as much as guns and armour.

[Darth Servo]

Hariball, haven't you embarrassed yourself enough already?

[tjhairball]

Replied:

The admission rate means nothing. The failure rate, and the admissions controls do. Am I to believe that a university is utter shit based solely on the number of people they do or don't let in?

You claimed a selective population of elite students. High rates of acceptance and low rates of decision deny that probability. You may have some very good students in the mix, but it's hard to say that one that just scraped by in the program without scoring any honors or accolades - as Wong did - is going to be a student who would've gotten in anywhere.

Waterloo has placed in the Putnam mathematics competition consistently, ranked 17th and placing in the past few years with the likes of MIT, Harvard, Princeton. Where the fuck is your university? Is it there at all? Do you think people are fucking stupid?

Large universities that take serious effort in training their Putnam teams do well on it. When my father was going through his undergraduate work in math, he and all the other honors student were put in a seminar whose purpose was basically to train them to take the Putnam.

Personally, I rolled out of bed one morning and was told that I ought to take the Putnam. I got a 19 on it. I was disappointed, of course, but perhaps you should explain a few things to the audience about the Putnam before you continue to talk shit about my education.

Nobody is going to be fooled by a science major saying he's got a better education than an engineer,

I would have thought nobody would be fooled into thinking someone who is primarily vocationally trained has a better general education than someone with roughly three times the math and physics coursework.

I'm sure the ME program at Waterloo trains very fine engineers. That doesn't mean those same engineers are also capable mathematicians or physicists in comparison to, you know, actual majors.

Why the fuck does he mention public? Are public universities a poor education in the US?

Not at all. Appalachian's sister school in the system, UNC - which it is frequently compared with locally, and rarely comes off too badly in the comparison - is top notch. Certainly more widely ranked and known than Waterloo. North Carolina has a very good public university system, supplemented with a high quality community college system.

I find it hard to believe that UW admits 66% of its applicants to the engineering program. It's actually quite difficult to get in.

UW admits 66% of all applicants to come study. Approximately 20-25% students at Waterloo are actively in the engineering school to gauge by what I've read on Waterloo's site (5,000 out of 20,000-25,000, IIRC).

[Kane Starkiller]

None of this changes the pathetic 10 hours a week schedule which makes 5 years of your program worth about 2 years of that from my own university which is pretty standard for an engineer.

[brianeyci]

Engineers are very good at math you dumbass. At least as good as majors, given there is considerable overlap in courses. What part of that don't you understand? What part of Wong set the criteria for debate with him don't you understand? What part of it's your burden of proof to show you have a better education than him, given you made the wild claim that you have "three times better education" don't you understand?

Replied to where, to troll kingdom? A place for trolls? I don't have a fucking account there, and I'm not going to get one. Why don't you reply over here you douche. Are you afraid of people editing your crap? You claimed that people edited your stuff yet you still have no proof.

If you rolled out of bed and got 19 on the Putnam, you're either smart or a liar. Either way it doesn't justify your claim that your education is three times better, has three times more math, or is three times anything. Why don't you ask your professors if your education is three times better than the Waterloo engineering program? Who is talking shit about your education? You're trying to go around, saying your education is three times better and three times greater and you have a "lofty" vantage point, and you attacked the credibility of UW. Remember that: you attacked the credibility of someone else's education first then they went after you, and you attacked it based on nothing other than you have more majors.

Do you think people are retarded? The thread is stickied for everybody to see, forever. That probably ticks you off. Hopefully when people search for Thomas MacIntee in Google, Stardestroyer.net comes on as the first hit. Its already hit number three ahahahahaha.

Engineers may be vocationally trained, but they study science and math, and have very little room in the way of electives. You took philosophy as your electives, end of story. Maybe you should keep talking. Maybe Mike would call one of your graduate advisors and tell them about the claims of "three times more education" and "lofty vantage."

You've swung your tiny dick around enough. There's already people who said they had engineering degrees, science degrees, and even math degrees in this thread and other threads, and you claimed that none of them had as good an education as you. You got caught red handed bragging like moron that you're better than everybody else, and looks like you're at best as good if not worse.

By the way it's pretty funny that you mention your daddy. What does your daddy's accomplishments have to do with anything? Just as much as your philosophy does to Mike's challenge to find a science or math major, I imagine. You bluffed, you got called, you lose the pot.

===

As an aside, someone with more spare time than me should seriously verify if this man is Thomas MacIntee. Now that the stardestroyer.net thread is on google, it could do serious damage to his reputation, and it's not good to be used if this tjhairball guy isn't MacIntee but using his name to tar it.

[SCRawl]

None of this changes the pathetic 10 hours a week schedule which makes 5 years of your program worth about 2 years of that from my own university which is pretty standard for an engineer.

I've already said it, but I think it bears repeating, since I don't think you understood me earlier. This is where the 10 hours/week comes from:

10+ hours per week per course is very typical of physics courses at Appalachian. The 3 credit hour standard is supposed to correspond to about 10 hours of work.

That tells me that for one course -- say, for instance, Physics 2H03, a thermodynamics course I took back in second year -- one would be in class for three hours per week, and would put in a total of 10 hours per week in work related to that course (including the lectures). An undergraduate science student would typically have five or six courses at any given time, so, excluding labs, 15-18 hours of lectures per week. If all courses require the same amount of work outside the lecture hall (they don't), then this would indicate a 50 to 60-hour week for a student with a full course load. This seems about right for a serious student in just about any discipline.

There's no way that a student with a full course load in any discipline could get away with only 10 hours of in-class work per week.

[tjhairball]

Engineers are very good at math you dumbass. At least as good as majors, given there is considerable overlap in courses.

Which is why I've taken close to three times the math that a bachelor's mechanical engineer does?

Engineers don't take courses in quantum. They don't address relativity. They don't deal with exotic phenomena. Engineers deal with tables, approximations, and very practical ranges of reality - something that's rare in fiction.

If you rolled out of bed and got 19 on the Putnam, you're either smart or a liar.

Given that a 19 is in the top 500 list circulated to all participating universities, I'd be pretty dumb to lie about it. It's completely legit.

So's my physics GRE score, which is well above average if not quite as impressive.

Now chew on that. Think about your preconceptions for a minute, and mull over the fact that I am one of those folks who is talented in every academic field I try my hand in, and the fact that my credentials are, in fact, quite solid and exactly what I've told you they are.

Either way it doesn't justify your claim that your education is three times better, has three times more math, or is three times anything.

Three times as broad. Three times as relevant to the sort of crap talked about here.

Wong is a specialist in plastics making assertions about epistemology, logic, ethics, and more. He's way out of his field - at best.

and you attacked the credibility of UW.

Not once have I attacked the credibility of UW. I have consistently described UW as a very good school, in fact (although, see above, it isn't actually highly selective in general admissions terms. Neither, for in-state students, is UNC). See, here's one of the things I really don't like about you folks - you distort constantly what others say. Then the next person quotes you and distorts what you said, and before you know it, something completely different is being claimed than what was actually said.

I have attacked Wong as completely untrained in philosophy and horribly wrong, as well as being completely ridiculous in his posturing in claiming that nobody with a real science degree would disagree with him.

I pretty damn well have a real science degree. Ergo, he's flat out wrong.

There's already people who said they had engineering degrees, science degrees, and even math degrees in this thread and other threads, and you claimed that none of them had as good an education as you.

I claimed that probably none of them matched my credentials. In part an act calculated to produce hostility; in part completely true prediction, as not one of you has produced a philosophy degree, which is, IMO, the most important part.

Now that the stardestroyer.net thread is on google, it could do serious damage to his reputation, and it's not good to be used if this tjhairball guy isn't MacIntee but using his name to tar it.

You worrying about lawsuits now that it's public enough to constitute slander?

[SCRawl]

I would have thought nobody would be fooled into thinking someone who is primarily vocationally trained has a better general education than someone with roughly three times the math and physics coursework.

Okay, now that's just stupid. These are engineers we're talking about here, not plumbers. At my alma mater they take some of the same courses as the pure math and physics students. Okay, so they don't take courses in general relativity or higher quantum mechanics, but really, is that so important to what you call the relevant education that you're willing to dismiss it as vocational training?

Honestly, I think that you need to get a good grip of what engineers learn in school these days.

[tjhairball]

Okay, now that's just stupid. These are engineers we're talking about here, not plumbers. At my alma mater they take some of the same courses as the pure math and physics students. Okay, so they don't take courses in general relativity or higher quantum mechanics, but really, is that so important to what you call the relevant education that you're willing to dismiss it as vocational training?

Typically, engineers don't even deal with special relativity or any serious quantum mechanics. Or the philosophy of science, or logic, or any of those other goodies.

And yes, that's highly relevant to a handful of the claims and explanations produced regarding the VS debate... and the education of the person making it is completely irrelevant to whether or not the claim is correct or worth addressing.

THAT is what my dramatic entrance was all about. As I thought I said already. That, and the absolutely ridiculous claim that nobody who was well educated would disagree with him.

[CaptainChewbacca]

If those concepts highly relevant to a 'hanful' of claims, wouldn't that mean they aren't relevant at all to the great majority of Mike's claims, and that he is able to discuss them on the same level as you?

[tjhairball]

And with that, I'm going to say this: Show's over, folks. Actor is retiring from the stage.

I will say I'm sorry that I didn't try the polite approach, but I always overact. It's why I never got far in theater. That, and my low tolerance for dishonesty, which is the only reason why I have made such a remarkable fuss following the lies and outright slander laid upon my person and my alma mater.

[CaptainChewbacca]

I broke the thread...

[SCRawl]

Okay, now that's just stupid. These are engineers we're talking about here, not plumbers. At my alma mater they take some of the same courses as the pure math and physics students. Okay, so they don't take courses in general relativity or higher quantum mechanics, but really, is that so important to what you call the relevant education that you're willing to dismiss it as vocational training?

Typically, engineers don't even deal with special relativity or any serious quantum mechanics. Or the philosophy of science, or logic, or any of those other goodies.

And again...so what? Special relativity is awfully simple stuff -- one second-year course worth of material gives you everything you need to know -- and QM doesn't come into the VS debate at all. The only times QM or particle physics become important is for the Trek writers to add something to the script that sounds really really smart. And you're going to drag the philosophy of science into this? I'm interested to read what aspect of the debate you feel requires this particular discipline.

And yes, that's highly relevant to a handful of the claims and explanations produced regarding the VS debate.

See above.

and the education of the person making it is completely irrelevant to whether or not the claim is correct or worth addressing.

You got that much right. It's been a while since I read the main site, but I don't believe that DW makes the claim that because he's a mechanical engineer, his argument carries more weight.

THAT is what my dramatic entrance was all about. As I thought I said already. That, and the absolutely ridiculous claim that nobody who was well educated would disagree with him.

I always felt that that was an expression of confidence on Mike's part. I've read all of the material here on the main site, and quite a bit elsewhere on this topic, and I find his argument more compelling.

But let's examine your argument for a moment. Would you say that, prior to your having summited to your lofty perch, you had a strong pre-conception of which side of the debate was the more correct one? Would you say that the education you've gained has given you greater insight into this question, which you've used to re-examine your pre-conceptions, or does it merely elevate your perch so all can see you better?

While it's by no means the final argument, I would point to the relative paucity of learned men and women on the Trek side of the debate as a fair indicator. If you are indeed their only standard-bearer with significant credentials, then that should give you an even better reason to re-examine your pre-conceptions.

[SCRawl]

I broke the thread...

Yeah, thanks a lot. I spent almost 15 minutes composing my retort. Now how am I going to get that time back, I ask you?

[CaptainChewbacca]

I broke the thread...

Yeah, thanks a lot. I spent almost 15 minutes composing my retort. Now how am I going to get that time back, I ask you?

I have the plutonium, do you have a DeLoreon?

[Kuja]

And with that, I'm going to say this: Show's over, folks. Actor is retiring from the stage.

I will say I'm sorry that I didn't try the polite approach, but I always overact. It's why I never got far in theater. That, and my low tolerance for dishonesty, which is the only reason why I have made such a remarkable fuss following the lies and outright slander laid upon my person and my alma mater.

Minor piece of amusing trivia, at the exact moment I was reading the bolded portion of this post, the bottle of coke I'd been drinking caught up to me and I suddenly realized I had to go take a monster shit.

Just an FYI.

[SCRawl]

I broke the thread...

Yeah, thanks a lot. I spent almost 15 minutes composing my retort. Now how am I going to get that time back, I ask you?

I have the plutonium, do you have a DeLoreon?

You have plutonium? You might not want to broadcast that quite so publicly.