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He did pontificate against human colonization and terraforming of Mars. (He didn't exactly say he was "against" it: what he said was that he thought it would never happen). ...

200 years ago, some idiots were saying the same about Antarctica, ...

I'm with you there :)
https://hieroglyph.asu.edu/sto...

The evils of a long copyright duration have long been discussed going back to at least 1841:

* A Speech delivered in the House of Commons on the 5th of February, 1841, by Thomas Babington Macaulay
* A Speech delivered in a Committee of the House of Commons on the 6th of April, 1842, by Thomas Babington Macaulay

Though, Sir, it is in some sense agreeable to approach a subject with which political animosities have nothing to do, I offer myself to your notice with some reluctance. It is painful to me to take a course which may possibly be misunderstood or misrepresented as unfriendly to the interests of literature and literary men. It is painful to me, I will add, to oppose my honorable and learned friend on a question which he has taken up from the purest motives, and which he regards with a parental interest. These feelings have hitherto kept me silent when the law of copyright has been under discussion. But as I am, on full consideration, satisfied that the measure before us will, if adopted, inflict grievous injury on the public, without conferring any compensating advantage on men of letters, I think it my duty to avow that opinion and to defend it.

The first thing to be done, Sir, is to settle on what principles the question is to be argued. Are we free to legislate for the public good, or are we not? Is this a question of expediency, or is it a question of right? Many of those who have written and petitioned against the existing state of things treat the question as one of right. The law of nature, according to them, gives to every man a sacred and indefeasible property in his own ideas, in the fruits of his own reason and imagination. The legislature has indeed the power to take away this property, just as it has the power to pass an act of attainder for cutting off an innocent mans head without a trial. But, as such an act of attainder would be legal murder, so would an act invading the right of an author to his copy be, according to these gentlemen, legal robbery.

Now, Sir, if this be so, let justice be done, cost what it may. I am not prepared like my honorable and learned friend, to agree to a compromise between right and expediency, and to commit an injustice for the public convenience. ...

We have, then, only one resource left. We must betake ourselves to copyright, be the inconveniences of copyright what they may. Those inÂconÂveÂniÂences, in truth, are neither few nor small. Copyright is monopoly, and produces all the effects which the general voice of mankind attributes to monopoly. ...

Now, I will not affirm that the existing law is perfect, that it exactly hits the point at which the monopoly ought to cease; but this I confidently say, that the existing law is very much nearer that point than the law proposed by my honorable and learned friend. For consider this; the evil effects of the monopoly are proportioned to the length of its duration. But the good effects for the sake of which we bear with the evil effects are by no means proportioned to the length of its duration. A monopoly of sixty years produces twice as much evil as a monopoly of thirty years, and thrice as much evil as a monopoly of twenty years. ...

...

and (emphasis added)

...

Sir, I have no objection to the principle of my noble friends bill. Indeed, I had no objection to the principle of the bill of last year. I have long thought that the term of copyright ought to be extended. When Mr. Serjeant Talfourd moved for leave to bring in his bill, I did not oppose the motion. Indeed, I meant to vote for the second reading, and to reserve what I had to say for the Committee. But the learned Serjeant left me no choice. He, in strong language, begged that nobody who was disposed to reduce the term of sixty years would divide wi

Yeah, right until you look up the actual authors and realize, no actually, not a millennial. http://csi.asu.edu/people/ed-f...

But hey why deal in facts when you can make baseless assertions?

At least not conceptually: you improve the curriculum and the teachers, and then student performance rises. That's what the evidence shows: better instructors using better curricula get better results. That should be pretty intuitive, but better than that it's what the data tells us.

So why don't more places try improving teaching and curricula?

I think it's because people don't want schools to be very different from what they experienced, even when (or *especially* when) they have nothing but contempt for the schools they went to. So instead they tinker with superficial quick fixes. Many of these, like increased student testing, or computer in the classroom, would have value in a school that is already on the right track. In a school that is not making progress betting in a big way on computers alone is like putting a giant wing on your Honda Civic to make it go faster.

There are two summer research articles, both from the MTBI at Arizona, that come to mind:

Prison Reform Programs, and their Impact on Recidivism, and Minimizing recidivism by optimizing profit: a theoretical case study of incentivized reform in a Louisiana prison.

I'm aware the keyword here is 'theoretical', and there's a chance that the equations brought out by the research may have to be updated for other unseen problems, but I can't help but wonder if any of these articles have been put to good use.

There are two summer research articles, both from the MTBI at Arizona, that come to mind:

Prison Reform Programs, and their Impact on Recidivism, and Minimizing recidivism by optimizing profit: a theoretical case study of incentivized reform in a Louisiana prison.

I'm aware the keyword here is 'theoretical', and there's a chance that the equations brought out by the research may have to be updated for other unseen problems, but I can't help but wonder if any of these articles have been put to good use.

While correct, I'd say that the models hired for these events make more money than being a woman in IT. Attractive people always make better sales people. You may not like that fact, but human nature (that fact) does not care how you feel. (Plenty more citations for you to find if you are interested in those pesky things called studies.

Some people aren't trying to protect the children, they actually don't find human larva and all things related to them beautiful

Minor nit: Nymphs, not larvae. Humans metamorphose incompletely.

While our bodies create D and creative, you can't reliably get enough from plants. As the three white papers noted, vegetarians are more often than not deficient in both.

Anyways, agreed about the cow thing, but a better (also tastier) substitute for beef is ostrich:

http://cronkitezine.asu.edu/fa...

Regarding the last point, about thinking very differently about imaginary numbers and quaternions, you might find this paper interesting; it is a readable and easily accessible introduction to the topic of geometric algebra, with an emphasis on its pedagogical applications in physics. This mathematical formalism goes back over a century to Grassmann and Clifford, and has been repopularized in physics by Hestenes. I believe some people are also using the formalism for computer graphics. The short version is that you can unify vectors, quaternions, and complex numbers into a single geometric formalism, if you just treat scalars, vectors, planes, and cubes all as first-class objects in a general geometric space, and that this leads to more intuitive geometric interpretations.

Many people are not aware, but it's been known for a number of years amongst physics education researchers how to actually measure the change in conceptual comprehension (actual assimilation of new concepts into the part of the mind that does real-world problem-solving) that results from a semester-long class. Force concept inventories (FCI's) can be administered both before and after a class, and these tests have already been given to tens of thousands of students. These tests have revealed very serious problems with public comprehension of science that starts on day 1 of the first mechanics physics course, suggesting that it is the lecture and problem set approach which is causing the problem. Eric Mazur has made a name for himself by discovering this problem at Harvard. What he found, by studying his own students, is that the plug-and-chuggers can ace their rote memorization exams, and yet still completely fail conceptual questions in the same exact domain/topic.

See Confessions of a Converted Lecturer, or the first two devastating paragraphs of the abstract here.

The college loans are not the only scandal happening at the universities. We should also be seeking to make sure that our straight-A students actually understand the materials they are memorizing, by instituting the FCI's. This would also help parents to determine the effectiveness of the various programs, and programs would once again compete on instruction.

And what of orphaned works? Works in which the copyright owner cannot be found or has died and that person's copyright were never handed down. There are thousands of works which will fall into the abyss of time because of IP giants who want to continue commercialy exploiting their few copyrights. http://www.public.asu.edu/~dka...

"Meanwhile, absolutely no-one has ever argued that all craters on the Moon are of impact origin and none of volcanic origin, in the same way that no-one has (TTBOMK, and I am actually a geologist) seriously argued that all terrestrial craters are of volcanic origin and none of impact origin. We know of craters and other structures on both bodies, of both origins."

Then you failed to indicate how his "science is wrong". A volcanic cavern or tube formed a few billion years ago or 20k years ago wouldn't really make a difference on usability if it remained untouched/undamaged, would it?

You seem to be under the misapprehension that volcanic glasses are of necessity "recent" (if not "Recent", or Holocene).

I was under no impression about "recent" activity -- just that it *did* occur. Your original post seemed to dismiss lunar volcanism having any meaningful role. Your most recent post clarified what you intended.

As for recent activity, I recall a few papers (i'm not a geologist but I have wide interests and a useless superpower -- I can read wicked fast) discussing flows as early as 100 million years ago.

http://lroc.sese.asu.edu/posts...

Heinlein's writing in the 1960s was based on the (incorrectly) accepted science of the 1950s.

That general statement is essentially true for all SF writers in any time -- but when the science *IS* right and they have insight they can describe a utility that may not be realized for decades -- or even centuries. I believe with regards to the utility of volcanic caverns, Heinlein's insight is most definitely correct.

Frankly, any aliens able to travel here from another world are so far ahead of us, it wouldn't make any difference if we detected them or not.

However, you asked the question... so...

Our space detection system is largely aimed at Earth. For example, to warn of us of ICBM launches the first system put into space was called MIDAS between 1960 and 1966.

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

The GPS satellites have nuclear detonation detectors, which doesn't do any good, but it another example of how our systems are aimed at Earth.

All the stuff pointed out into space, like the Hubble Space Telescope, are designed to see VERY far away and aren't looking for ships. Given the small likely size of any ships compared to planets and moons, we aren't likely to be able to see them even if we're looking for them, until they are on top of us.

After all, we still don't have a telescope that can see the moon landing sights. Pictures taken from sats in lunar orbit have gotten some pictures, but they aren't as good as you'd expect.

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

This is the best image I could find of Apollo 11's landing site, and this was after the LRO was moved into a lower orbit:

http://featured-sites.lroc.asu...

Yea, you can tell what it is, because you know what you're looking at, but if you didn't even know where to look? You could stare at the moon for a month with such a camera and see nothing.

--

TL;DR - We likely would have no notice whatsoever of aliens until they entered orbit of Earth, and even then, it is just as likely to be a random person with a telescope who spots them as anyone from the government.

Unless of course they can be seen with the naked eye, if their ships are big enough and they are in low orbit, that is possible.

That's actually the opposite of true. Many techniques (http://static.usenix.org/event/woot09/tech/full_papers/paleari.pdf, http://roberto.greyhats.it/pro..., http://honeynet.asu.edu/morphe..., http://www.symantec.com/avcent...) exist to identify the presence of a CPU emulator, because these things aren't (and will likely never be) perfect. Most of those techniques don't even rely on timing attacks. Once you introduce timing attacks (*especially* if there's an external source of time information), all bets are off.

You do realize that Bochs does software emulation of each instruction, and that you can control every aspect of the emulated computer don't you?

If you are running something under Bochs or something like it and don't care about the performance you can actually make it lie to the software underneath about timing so that the software still thinks it is running at the normal rate but in reality it isn't - Bochs after all implements the base system clock not relying on an external source. This is also why Bochs can be used to run x86 software on a non-x86 platform (f.e Sparc, PowerPC, ARM).

Yes, Bochs is dog slow; but it's a matter of how you configure it. And to be truthful, because of how Bochs is implemented I'm sure that it can be made to fool any of those detections.

That's actually the opposite of true. Many techniques (http://static.usenix.org/event/woot09/tech/full_papers/paleari.pdf, http://roberto.greyhats.it/pro..., http://honeynet.asu.edu/morphe..., http://www.symantec.com/avcent...) exist to identify the presence of a CPU emulator, because these things aren't (and will likely never be) perfect. Most of those techniques don't even rely on timing attacks. Once you introduce timing attacks (*especially* if there's an external source of time information), all bets are off.

Really, has NASA done that badly?

Yes. Look at what's missing from your analysis. How much it cost and whether it could have been done more often, faster, better, and cheaper.

Come to think of it, you don't mention manned spaceflight at all. They spend at least a quarter of their budget on that. I'm not going to say that NASA's current manned spaceflight program is worthy of mention in your list - it's not. But that's a quarter of NASA that didn't make the "not do badly" cut.

The key two things missing from usual analyses of NASA are opportunity cost and the economics and engineering of more frequent rather than bigger or more costly activities.

Since we're discussing the features of NASA's unmanned space program, it's worth noting that NASA has peculiar lapses of attention. For example, they have yet to conduct any non-impact surface missions on the Moon since Apollo. They have four impact missions (LCROSS was the only impact mission which was oriented around the impact). Does anyone really believe that there is nothing more to discover about the Moon since Apollo that we couldn't have sent more lunar landers?

Another example to consider is the Hubble Space Telescope. We have an extremely useful space probe. probably one of the top two or three unmanned space-side scientific instruments so far in existence in terms of productivity and flexibility. Further, it had a huge backlog. So why not launch another space telescope to help handle that backlog? This is particularly grating given that the funds used in repairing the Hubble Telescope since its launch could have instead gone to building and launching two or three more such telescopes - without the flaws that damned the first telescope.

These two examples demonstrate the first problem of NASA space activities. They are still driven by prestige and status signalling, not by the desire for scientific output or other relatively valuable considerations.

My final example are the recent Mars surface probes, the Mars Exploration Rovers (MER) and the subsequent Mars Science Laboratory mission. THE MER probes, called "Spirit" and "Opportunity" were launched in 2003 and landed the following year. MSL was currently in early stages of development by this point. It launched in late 2011 and landed the following year. That's eight years after the MERs landed.

But here's a demonstration of opportunity cost. For the same cost as MSL took to develop, build, launch, and operate, including the inevitable cost overruns, we could put 5 or 6 more MERs on Mars (depending largely on whether the cheaper Delta II could be used for future launches or not). And if we launched two more every two years (during the optimal launch window to Mars), we could have all of them on the ground all over the surface of Mars and gathering data before MSL even launched. The MSL is somewhat more capable, but that came at a considerable sacrifice in time and money. Mars researchers don't live forever. Money doesn't grow on trees. Capacity isn't the only consideration, it's also important what you're going to do with that capacity.

The key driver of the lower costs of the MERs is that R&D is a one-time cost. Once you design them and figure out how to make them, those costs don't happen again. There are other one time costs, such as the three year selection of landing sites. In addition, some costs like operations, scale well with multiple vehicles. Directing 8 MER probes is not significantly harder or requires much more man-power than directing 1 MER. The communication bandwidth of 8 MER is not significant different than the bandwidth of a single MSL probe plus 2 MER.

My view is that the reason NASA went with the MSL option is because it generates more funding for NASA recent centers and more profit for NASA contractors. It has nothing to do with the capabilities of the MSL or the drive for something of val

"We do not have a shortage of CS workers in this country, we have a surplus, and with some provinces having over 10% unemployment rates Harper is seemingly doing everything he can to keep Canadians out of Canadian jobs."

If you think anyone of the parties in government gives a damn about you then you need to learn about the myth of "balance" in capitalist societies

http://homepages.law.asu.edu/~...

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

Overthrowing governments

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

http://www.amazon.com/War-Rack...

"I helped make Mexico, especially Tampico, safe for American oil intersts in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefits of Wall Street. The record of racketeering is long. I helped purify Nicaragua for the international banking house of Brown Brothers in 1909-1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for American sugar interests in 1916. In China I helped to see to it that Standard Oil went its way unmolested." [p. 10]

"War is a racket. ...It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives." [p. 23] "The general public shoulders the bill [for war]. This bill renders a horrible accounting. Newly placed gravestones. Mangled bodies. Shattered minds. Broken hearts and homes. Economic instability. Depression and all its attendant miseries. Back-breaking taxation for generations and generations." [p. 24]

The 9 trillion dollar bank bailout

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Libor scandal

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

Rule of law is impossible under capitalism, since the kings of business (he who has the gold makes the rules) get to do whatever they want and the public gets fucked.

http://williamblum.org/

So if you want to fight corruption "the traditional way" (electoral politics), you're dead in the water because most people aren't going to give up their deeply felt emotions and aren't very bright. This way of doing things is limited because of the limits of history and the amount of energy it takes to transform the minds of a large population and the fact that the media is co-opted. There are things that can be done but you'd have to be really committed and not a change the world 'faker' like most people are (aka they don't want to risk anything).

http://therealnews.com/t2/

You need to know that most people who are voting in electoral politics don't live in reality (that's a sizeable chunk, many millions of people, totally oblivious). The real news is the cure for that. Hang out in places where smart people exist, avoid traditional media mostly and always keep them at arms length.

Corporate greed vs individual entitlement. Both extremes are wrong and harmful

You're a moron if you believe this...

The myth of "balance" in capitalist societies:

http://homepages.law.asu.edu/~...

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

Overthrowing governments

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

http://www.amazon.com/War-Rack...

"I helped make Mexico, especially Tampico, safe for American oil intersts in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefits of Wall Street. The record of racketeering is long. I helped purify Nicaragua for the international banking house of Brown Brothers in 1909-1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for American sugar interests in 1916. In China I helped to see to it that Standard Oil went its way unmolested." [p. 10]

"War is a racket. ...It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives." [p. 23] "The general public shoulders the bill [for war]. This bill renders a horrible accounting. Newly placed gravestones. Mangled bodies. Shattered minds. Broken hearts and homes. Economic instability. Depression and all its attendant miseries. Back-breaking taxation for generations and generations." [p. 24]

The 9 trillion dollar bank bailout

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Libor scandal

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

Rule of law is impossible under capitalism, since the kings of business (he who has the gold makes the rules) get to do whatever they want and the public gets fucked.

http://williamblum.org/

So if you want to fight corruption "the traditional way" (electoral politics), you're dead in the water because most people aren't going to give up their deeply felt emotions and aren't very bright. This way of doing things is limited because of the limits of history and the amount of energy it takes to transform the minds of a large population and the fact that the media is co-opted. There are things that can be done but you'd have to be really committed and not a change the world 'faker' like most people are (aka they don't want to risk anything).

http://therealnews.com/t2/

You need to know that most people who are voting in electoral politics don't live in reality (that's a sizeable chunk, many millions of people, totally oblivious). The real news is the cure for that. Hang out in places where smart people exist, avoid traditional media mostly and always keep them at arms length.

The impact of warming on food yields is complex. The latest research suggests that food yields will decrease with a warming of 2 degrees Celsius.

Neal Stephenson and Keith Hjelmstad who is at Arizona State University have looked into this. The thought is to build a structure that reaches the stratosphere and then launch rockets from the top.

The Tall Tower

I have no idea if this is easier or harder then a fulls space elevator. I would guess not as hard. Sadly, the web site has little activity since I firsrt saw it. Still, it's interesting in the context of a space elevator.

"The wholesome copyright which now exists will share in the disgrace and danger of the new copyright which you are about to create. And you will find that, in attempting to impose unreasonable restraints on the reprinting of the words of the dead, you have, to a great extent, annulled those restraints which now prevent men from pillaging and defrauding the living. "

-- Thomas Babington Macaulay, Speech to House of Commons, 1841

http://homepages.law.asu.edu/~...

Probably not rocks of this size, but there is plenty of evidence that mars winds can move a lot of material.
http://redplanet.asu.edu/?p=24...

There are some hellatious dust storms on mars, some of nearly planet covering size.

BU is the research institute in Boston that runs an undergrad school on the side.

BU is one of nine R1 research universities in the metropolitan Boston area, accounting for about 10% of all R1 universities in existence (the Research Universities 1 term is strictly American). There are 58 institutions of higher education in metropolitan Boston.

BU is ranked 19th best in the country for research while MIT is #2 and Harvard is #5, so BU isn't "the research institute in Boston" either since it's the third best in the area. (according to the "Top American Research Universities" list from The Center for Measuring University Performance 2012 report [PDF]).

This guy is a Roboticist. I think he's more interested in getting his own projects funded than anything.

As ridiculously shallow as the TFA is, there is some work on nanoparticle-liquid suspensions:

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S135943111200511X

Nanoparticles in Thermoelectric Power Plant Cooling Fluids

Nanoparticle Additives Boost Industrial Cooling Systems (That Means Saving Energy)

I'll try to make sense of it (can someone more competent provide a Cliff's-notes version, please?).

Meanwhile, sorry to rain on the bash party.

You don't understand anything about the public domain. You're just too historically illiterate to grasp my argument.

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

See more here:

http://homepages.law.asu.edu/~dkarjala/opposingcopyrightextension/default.htm

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

Please provide examples of a university cutting the position of an existing tenured faculty member for financial reasons (without cause, in other words).

In 2009, Arizona State closed four dozen academic programs, including layoffs of staff and academic faculty http://www.asu.edu/budgetcuts/

"Copyrights is actually a good thing. But like many other thing, too much a good thing can become bad, very very bad."

You're ignorant of the law. People said the same when copyright was first implemented long time ago, the "just the right amount people" have no credibility. See here:

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

Copyright has been extended EVERY single time, there was not a time where copyright was NOT extended at request of corporations/greedy rich stars.

For those interested in the law and history of law relating to copyright see here:

http://homepages.law.asu.edu/~dkarjala/opposingcopyrightextension/default.htm

And this speech for good measure for all the "copyright moderates". The same thing was said long before you all were born.

http://homepages.law.asu.edu/~dkarjala/opposingcopyrightextension/commentary/MacaulaySpeeches.html

My personal view is there is not going to be a legal solution forthcoming because most human beings are not concerned/too ignorant/stupid/illiterate.

"Copyrights is actually a good thing. But like many other thing, too much a good thing can become bad, very very bad."

You're ignorant of the law. People said the same when copyright was first implemented long time ago, the "just the right amount people" have no credibility. See here:

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

Copyright has been extended EVERY single time, there was not a time where copyright was NOT extended at request of corporations/greedy rich stars.

For those interested in the law and history of law relating to copyright see here:

http://homepages.law.asu.edu/~dkarjala/opposingcopyrightextension/default.htm

And this speech for good measure for all the "copyright moderates". The same thing was said long before you all were born.

http://homepages.law.asu.edu/~dkarjala/opposingcopyrightextension/commentary/MacaulaySpeeches.html

My personal view is there is not going to be a legal solution forthcoming because most human beings are not concerned/too ignorant/stupid/illiterate.

... basically property as an idea has expanded into every domain it doesn't belong in because of commercial interest and public ignorance/stupidity and a complicit media that does everything their corporate masters say.

http://homepages.law.asu.edu/~dkarjala/opposingcopyrightextension/commentary/MacaulaySpeeches.html

"I've read a lot of your comments on intellectual property reform and I can't help but feel that it just isn't compatible with capitalism."

This is a lot of nonsense, public domain has been effectively destroyed by intellectual property. If you don't believe it look here:

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

and here:

http://homepages.law.asu.edu/~dkarjala/opposingcopyrightextension/commentary/MacaulaySpeeches.html

Take all the abandonware games and all the "IP's" that didn't sell, corporations still sit on them an hoard them leading to deadweight loss (inefficiency). Whole entire tracts of culture and industry are cut off by monopolistic IP laws.

FS2 open trailer
http://www.opcoder.com/projects/chrono/

Things like the below only occur at the rare benevolence/luck of when a dev is allowed to release source-code.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xhAR8rWPluQ

Freespace 2 has been modified and fixed up over the last 10 years, a thing which is impossible under current IP law. To say not being able to repair and update your software is "not compatible with capitalism" is just a lot of garbage. No one would accept being told what to do with their car they purchased. The fact that it is accepted in domains of software is just because the public is not informed and/or too stupid to understand the implications because it doesn't directly effect their lives and annoy them like say having to get permission from a corporation to use your car (insanity).

But somehow this insanity is allowed in software (DRM - steam).

The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera (LROC) is effectively color. The Wide Angle Camera (WAC) on LROC has seven visible-band and two UV filters.

Color is all done with filters. The CCD just detects light. You select for color by placing a filter in front of it to only let a chosen wavelength band through, depending on what you want to look for. You can make a color composite (what is commonly called a "color picture") by taking the same image in three different wavelength bands.

While it is amazing, LROC isn't really the right instrument for this observation. If the ice is covered by dust, it will be hard to see in visible light. The LAMP (Lyman-alpha), LEND (neutron), and Mini-RF (the RADAR used in this study) are better for detecting buried water ice.

The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera (LROC) is effectively color. The Wide Angle Camera (WAC) on LROC has seven visible-band and two UV filters.

Color is all done with filters. The CCD just detects light. You select for color by placing a filter in front of it to only let a chosen wavelength band through, depending on what you want to look for. You can make a color composite (what is commonly called a "color picture") by taking the same image in three different wavelength bands.

While it is amazing, LROC isn't really the right instrument for this observation. If the ice is covered by dust, it will be hard to see in visible light. The LAMP (Lyman-alpha), LEND (neutron), and Mini-RF (the RADAR used in this study) are better for detecting buried water ice.

You wrote:

>Think about an isolated hunter gatherer society. They spend all of their time trying to survive.

What unmitigated bullshit! Foraging on average takes 6.5 hour per day in foraging societies which were studied by anthropologies. Proof: http://courses.washington.edu/anth457/timeallo.htm

In some cases, it is as little as 3 hours per day nearly year-round: http://ihhr.asu.edu/AMH/AM/1990%20Seasonality%20in%20a%20Foraging%20Society-%20Variation%20in%20Diet,%20Work%20Effort,%20Fertility,%20and%20Sexual%20Division%20of%20Labor%20Among%20the%20Hiwi%20of%20Venezuela.pdf

Please stop pulling made up "facts" out of your ass when it's clear you're completely ignorant of that which you speak of--not to mention that the rest of your argument falls apart due to its reliance on this flawed assumption.

Plus ... sometimes, the questions are phrased in ways that make it really difficult to parse. Sometimes they use humor, satire, sarcasm, etc. For example, some of these questions wouldn't be so trivial, I don't think, in a simple information Google-esque ranking search. :)

Heck, ideally I'd say hold a class-wide experiment once a month or so to figure something out - students work in small "research groups" attacking the problem from different angles, but by the end of the "research window" (days?, weeks?) everyone needs to reach a consensus on what the "real" answer is, with some sort of prize (pizza party? movie break?) if they're correct within a certain margin of error so that they actually care. Then, once everyone has agreed, bring in a professional who can provide a conclusive answer in an understandable manner to verify the results. Not only would that provide a taste of real science, but it would also provide a periodic reminder of the fact that in the face of an implacable universe the best speakers and most inspiring/popular/attractive students generally aren't the ones you want to be listening to if you want to get it right.

Your statement bears some relation to how Modeling Instruction works, although the research/lab experiences are usually a bit more frequent than once a month, at least if the class is keeping up with the expected pace. There is no pizza party, and usually no "professional" providing a conclusive answer. The 'answers' come from the students' analysis of their data and reaching a consensus through group-group interaction.

ASU has used "Gmail" for their official email since I was there in about 2006-ish. http://help.asu.edu/sims/selfhelp/SelfhelpKbView.seam?parature_id=8373-8193-5025

I can't tell if this is the same policy or type of account that Hawaii is using though.

Science should NOT be corporate-funded, it should be grant-funded -- directly from a scientific organization like NIST, or indirectly via university (or other educational) departments. Corporations should be entitled to push money into a grant pool and should also be entitled to suggest problems to study, but there should be absolutely NO link between the providers of the money and the providers of the science. Scientists MUST be free to say a claim is wrong, obtain negative results or otherwise get results corporations aren't going to like. Sorry, the universe doesn't give a flying what your CEO says.

Have you considered that your system increases the incentive for scientists to just not say anything that government, or the NIST, or whoever manages the grant pool won't like? Or do you think that it'd be better to just give money to anyone who asks for it? If not, then someone has to decide. That someone ends up being the one that influences the scientists.

At least with a corporation, they're generally funding in the expectation of getting something useful at the end of the process. With too many government fundings, they're just looking for a bureaucratic check box or a way to protect their budget against everyone else by seeming to be more important than they really are.

Are you aware that the U.S. does 43% of the research in the world and industry funds 66% of that, the federal government 28% and colleges, non-profits and state governments the other 6%? You seem to think most research is political. It's not, it's looking for new things that will be useful and then figuring out how to turn them into something for people to actually benefit from. Your proposed system would likely wipe that out and the world would be a much poorer place as a result.

So we are only discussing civil rights, not "loaded" civil rights, so it's ok to infringe on our civil rights as long as they aren't "loaded"? So making the atheists sit outside would be fine because nobody likes the pretentious atheist assholes, not even other atheists?

This isn't civil rights, this is breach of contract. Don't agree to follow rules and cry foul when caught.

If the owners establish an acceptable usage policy, then fail to follow it, did they wrong those who paid for access to the network?

The owners did not violate it, users did by direct violation of acceptable use (see below), otherwise we wouldn't be discussing this. Since you've obviously not read it, I'll cite it for you:

"...Users of ASU’s computing and communications resources are required to comply with this policy, other applicable ASU and regents’ policies and state and federal laws. When necessary, enforcement will be consistent with other applicable Board of Regents’ policies and ASU administrative policies and procedures."

AND

"Use of ASU computer resources for private business or commercial activities, fund-raising or advertising on behalf of non-ASU organizations is prohibited." emphasis mine.

Some of the finest people I've worked with in software have degrees distantly related to computer science, math, or software engineering. Music, religion, "interdisciplinary studies", and an accounting dropout are included in that mix. They are right to pish-posh it away. Actually, as an art person, you wouldn't happen to live near Phoenix, know Java well, and be interested in working on GIS applications for remote sensing, would you? We have a good product that probably could use a techie with an art background to improve its UI.

You want someone with a background in Human Computer Interaction (HCI).

If you're looking for local hires, Arizona State has an HCI program: http://technology.asu.edu/appliedpsych

Projects like Modeling, http://modeling.asu.edu/ , are designed to ferret out misconceptions. They're typically deeply entrenched and you really have to address them head-on in really thoughtful ways. When you do, deep learning may then occur. Watching videos, not designed to ferret our misconceptions, isn't nearly as likely to do this.

This is totally anecdotal, but I've heard of reports of modeling instructors getting pressured to use Khan's videos. The former has sound pedagogy and tons of research behind it demonstrating improved student understanding and the latter has neither. Sigh.

To really assess you learning (if you're doing Newtonian Mechanics), see if your instructors will give you the "Force Concept Inventory." It's a standard in physics education research. For more on it, see http://modeling.asu.edu/r%26e/fci.pdf . As they put it, "(1) commonsense beliefs about motion and force are incompatible with Newtonian concepts in most respects, (2) conventional physics instruction produces little change in these beliefs, and (3) this result is independent of the instructor and the mode of instruction." At last count, Google Scholar reports 1,400 citations to this paper. It's that important. With Khan's videos as taped lectures, this research implies that they don't produce much deep learning.

Projects like Modeling, http://modeling.asu.edu/ , are designed to ferret out misconceptions. They're typically deeply entrenched and you really have to address them head-on in really thoughtful ways. When you do, deep learning may then occur. Watching videos, not designed to ferret our misconceptions, isn't nearly as likely to do this.

This is totally anecdotal, but I've heard of reports of modeling instructors getting pressured to use Khan's videos. The former has sound pedagogy and tons of research behind it demonstrating improved student understanding and the latter has neither. Sigh.

To really assess you learning (if you're doing Newtonian Mechanics), see if your instructors will give you the "Force Concept Inventory." It's a standard in physics education research. For more on it, see http://modeling.asu.edu/r%26e/fci.pdf . As they put it, "(1) commonsense beliefs about motion and force are incompatible with Newtonian concepts in most respects, (2) conventional physics instruction produces little change in these beliefs, and (3) this result is independent of the instructor and the mode of instruction." At last count, Google Scholar reports 1,400 citations to this paper. It's that important. With Khan's videos as taped lectures, this research implies that they don't produce much deep learning.

At least in physics there is a HUGE body of evidence that telling is basically not teaching, be it lectures or videos. That is, one must confront student misconceptions and more generally understand how people learn. We don't learn deeply by watching. Seriously, what elite athlete learned by watching and listening?

Try out these links:

"Khan Academy and the Effectiveness of Science Videos" https://fnoschese.wordpress.com/2011/03/17/khan-academy-and-the-effectiveness-of-science-videos/

"Improved Learning in a Large Enrollment Physics Class" http://www.cwsei.ubc.ca/SEI_research/index.html

"Why Not Try a Scientific Approach to Science Education?" http://www.cwsei.ubc.ca/resources/files/Wieman-Change_Sept-Oct_2007.pdf (the author is both a Nobel Laureate and a U.S. University Professor of the Year; he's currently Deputy Science Adviser to the President for science education)

It is a sad commentary that methods that have rigorously been shown to work, like http://modeling.asu.edu/ , could really use more funding when Khan gets such funding on just the publicity.

Well, if velocity is distance/time along a direction, relativity just redefines distance and time and direction rather than saying the velocity has changed. Examples: the advance of the perihelion of Mercury - relativity says that there is a shorter distance around that orbit near the bottom of a big gravity well, so Mercury has less distance to travel, thus the planet's phase advances. Relativity also says that time runs more slowly close to a sun, and the space-time warp results in the observed bending of light. But the phenomenon is essentially indistinguishable from light moving through a region with a gradient of increasing refractive index matching the gradient of gravity, and increasing the refractive index is equivalent to decreasing the speed of light. Light does not move faster than it would in "empty, field-free space" (a favorite phrase of Einstein'd, BTW), but it does move more slowly in a gravitational field if we treat it as a euclidean rather than a warped space, and the answers come out the same either way. The refractive-index view is more easily visualized, and makes a good heuristic for teaching, and doing GR in a flat spacetime is even mathematically valid. (With a mixed-signature Clifford algebra, though.)

I think Geometric Algebra (GA) has a better formulation than the traditional tensor way of doing relativity. It's not only easier to understand, but it's easier to use and the same math can also be far more easily applied in other areas of physics.

A capsule: There are 4 basic dimensions, (usually denoted "e_n" with n from 0 to 3) but let's call them: x,y,z and t. The squares of the first 3 are negative, but the square of t is positive. These basis vectors can be combined to create bivectors: the regular planes of rotation xy, xz, yz, as well as xt, yt, zt. The latter three are still planes of rotation, but due to the mixed sign of the squares, the rotation is hyperbolic rather than circular - calculations use sinh and cosh instead of sin and cos. The interesting thing is that these planes of rotation involving t are velocities (Lorentz boosts). Velocities are hyperbolic rotations, and the speed of light is a 90 degree rotation. GA has a simple way of handing multiple rotations which allows easy solution of problems that are seldom even attempted using the conventional approach.

"A Survey of Geometric Algebra and Geometric Calculus" by Alan Macdonald
Gives a good introduction to the basics and applications of GA, including relativity. You would need to at least get through the section on rotations before skipping down to the section on Spacetime Algebra. Also see "General Relativity in a Nutshell"from the same author, which gives a mathematical but not dense introduction to General Relativity in 100 pages, not using GA.

"Gravity, Gauge Theories and Geometric Algebra" by Anthony Lasenby, Chris Doran, Stephen Gull
General Relativity using GA - interestingly, curved space-time is not required using GA.

"Primer on Geometric Algebra for introductory mathematics and physics" by David Hestenes
Another good intro, much less dense than Macdonald's, with more diagrams and basic applications.

"Geometric Algebra Primer" by Jaap Suter
Gives a gentle introduction and reference for the basic GA operations.

"3D Euclidean Geometry through Conformal Geometric Algebra (a GAViewer tutorial)" by Leo Dorst & Daniel Fontijne
Gives a hands-on, step-by-step tutorial using the free open-source GA visualization software GA Viewer. This tutorial uses the conformal model which is more advanced than the regular 3-D model. Other tutorials are available at the same site. Their book Geometric Algebra for Computer Science, an Object Oriented Approach to Geometry" is also highly recommended, and can be previewed at Scribd.

I think Geometric Algebra (GA) has a better formulation than the traditional tensor way of doing General Relativity. It's not only easier to understand, but it's easier to use and the same math can also be far more easily applied in other areas of physics.

A capsule: There are 4 basic dimensions, (usually denoted "e_n" with n from 0 to 3) but let's call them: x,y,z and t. The squares of the first 3 are negative, but the square of t is positive. These basis vectors can be combined to create bivectors: the regular planes of rotation xy, xz, yz, as well as xt, yt, zt. The latter three are still planes of rotation, but due to the mixed sign of the squares, the rotation is hyperbolic rather than circular - calculations use sinh and cosh instead of sin and cos. The interesting thing is that these planes of rotation involving t are velocities (Lorentz boosts). Velocities are hyperbolic rotations, and the speed of light is a 90 degree rotation. GA has a simple way of handing multiple rotations which allows easy solution of problems that are seldom even attempted using the conventional approach.

"A Survey of Geometric Algebra and Geometric Calculus" by Alan Macdonald
Gives a good introduction to the basics and applications of GA, including relativity. You would need to at least get through the section on rotations before skipping down to the section on Spacetime Algebra. Also see "General Relativity in a Nutshell"from the same author, which gives a mathematical but not dense introduction to General Relativity in 100 pages, not using GA.

"Gravity, Gauge Theories and Geometric Algebra" by Anthony Lasenby, Chris Doran, Stephen Gull
General Relativity using GA - interestingly, curved space-time is not required using GA.

"Primer on Geometric Algebra for introductory mathematics and physics" by David Hestenes
Another good intro, much less dense than Macdonald's, with more diagrams and basic applications.

"Geometric Algebra Primer" by Jaap Suter
Gives a more gentle introduction and reference for the basic GA operations.

"3D Euclidean Geometry through Conformal Geometric Algebra (a GAViewer tutorial)" by Leo Dorst & Daniel Fontijne
Gives a hands-on, step-by-step tutorial using their free open-source GA visualization software, "GAViewer". This tutorial uses the conformal model which is more advanced than the regular 3-D model. (2 extra dimensions, of a very odd but useful type) Other tutorials are available at the same site. Their book Geometric Algebra for Computer Science, an Object Oriented Approach to Geometry" is also highly recommended, and can be previewed at Scribd. (The 2nd edition is worth getting on paper. It has some very useful reference pages not available online, and many corrected errata.)

As far as I can tell from that list, Dr. Pratt is the only hard scientist. The others are more involved in managing the program (Meyer) or designing the instruments (Christensen, Dundas, McEwen).

Translation: It's only important if you're getting the test tubes dirty. The rest of it isn't 'real' science. After all, having a Master's in oceanography and specializing in research on extremophiles (Meyer) is meaningless. Dr Christensen's 11 page CV (PDF link) showing 30 odd years of work involving Martian geology - beneath consideration! They're 'just' managers and instrument designers... Heck, anyone could do that.
 

Interestingly, there are no post-docs or graduate students listed, and they would have been the lead investigators doing the actual work -- perhaps this is a reaction to the Felisa Wolfe-Simon snafu?

Um, no. Post-docs and graduate students aren't listed precisely because post-docs and graduate students *aren't* lead investigators on a major project like this. (And what constitutes 'actual' work is largely a matter of bias rather than of fact anyhow.)
 
Seriously, you have a deeply flawed and juvenile vision of how large, complex, and long running scientific investigations like this are conducted. It's a team effort and the managers and instrument designers are just as important as the 'hard' scientists.

But the real question is: would you have come up with a less lame excuse for building a realistic robot in your own image (using the university's money and labs) ?

I'm sure there are better usage of college funds

http://clas.asu.edu/node/10122

I have spent the past two years implementing Modeling Physics in my high school classes. It is based on a solid few decades of ongoing physics education research and has been recognized as one of the most effective physics education methods yet developed. The Department of Education agrees.

What it does not include in any significant amount is lecture. And while I'm not a top level expert in modeling physics just yet, I do my best to keep students engaged in the learning cycle as we go through each physics phenomenon to model, from constant velocity motion through forces and energy and beyond.

I can honestly see using the Khan academy as an aide to students who need practice with the mathematical problem solving that comes after we study a physical phenomenon, but it can't substitute for the inquiry, investigation, experimentation, and construction of various types of models that have replaced lecture.