Slashdot Mirror

From the web page of one of the authors: Acoustic echoes reveal room shape (pdf).

From the web page of one of the authors: Acoustic echoes reveal room shape (pdf).

This "it can't happen to me" mentality is how highschool kids live their lives. Eventually you grow up and realize it CAN happen to you.

I couldn't agree more. Your belief that firearms make you safer is based purely on a "it cant happen to me" attitude. You are gambling against the odds, assuming that your outcomes will be better, without applying facts and real world statistics.

Word of the day: subsidence.

It doesn't matter whether there's a few more or less millimeters of water if you lose an inch of land per year. For NY, it looks like this study says 40% of the change in New York's sea level is due to New York sinking.

Obama's no centrist, he's thoroughly right-wing. Unfortunately, the Republicans are extreme right-wing, so your choices are 1) right-wing, and 2) even more right-wing.

Because left-wing countries don't engage in government surveillance? If you believe that, you might be missing out on some history. Or do you think that left-wing countries wouldn't do something about terrorist attacks against their people? Communist China does. Or is it that your politics are so fringe left that you can't see the real right in the US and assume Obama is therefore "right wing"?

Obama is a man of the left, but he is constrained to work within the American system since he won office by election, not revolution. There is also the problem that many on the left are confused as to what policies are pursued once the left is in power.

The link below shows Anita Dunn, then White House Communications Director , quoting Chairman Mao. That is Mao Zedong, Chairman of the Communist Party of the People's Republic of China, also known as communist China. Apparently all of the American, British, Canadian, Australian, French, and other assorted quotes were all used up.

Remember this... Anita Dunn On Mao

EDITORIAL: What would Mao do?

Mao bore no small responsibility for the enormous loss of life in China during communist rule, as many as 60,000,000 people.

The Black Book of Communism

Oh, and also because she was ironically quoting GOP strategist Lee Atwater, but you missed that while you were watching the Glenn Beck show - probably because his out-of-context attack didn't mention that key tidbit.

. . . Here, you should try reading this:

Why read misleading commentary when you can watch her and figure it out for yourself? Or does that not suit your purpose?

Remember this... Anita Dunn On Mao

She isn't quoting Lee Atwater, she is quoting Chinese Communist Party Chairman Mao Zedong. Were all of the Washington, Jefferson, Hamilton, Lincoln, Grant, Sherman, Theodore Roosevelt, FDR, Eisenhower, MacArthur, Truman, JFK, Reagan, Clinton, Churchill, Thatcher, Ghandi, Lord Beaverbrook, or even de Gaulle quotes used up? There was no other leader with a quote to illustrate that point besides Mao? If Lee Atwater in truth played any role in this at all, it was in the vanishingly small part of making her aware of the quote in some unknown context 20 odd years ago, which you apparently think is a smoking gun. But either way she was still the one that chose to use it in 2009, wasn't she? It is a very long stretch to try to attribute this in any way to something which may or may not have been uttered during the Reagan administration. Get real.

Or maybe it's because it's not "one of Obama's close advisers", but one of his debate coaches that served as White House communications director for 7 months.

Yes, she was the White House Communications Director, the person who is responsible for projecting the public face of the administration of President of the United States Barack Obama. You would think that would be just the person who shouldn't be quoting the leader of a nation that managed to kill approximately 70 million people, for which he bore no small responsibility, regarding political wisdom to use in guiding one's actions. I've noticed most White House Communications Directors have been able to stay away from quotes by Lenin, Stalin, Mussolini, Tojo, Hitler, Castro, and Ho Chi Minh for quite some time now, so why not Mao?

Unlike you, I'm willing to enlighten a dim-witted mind.

You seem to be getting ahead of yourself.

For those not familiar with implicit association tests, they are based on measuring your reaction times when matching certain types of data according to different specified criteria. For example a gender association test might measure time for matching gender with staying at home raising children versus working outside the home.

Harvard has plenty of sample tests.

Having taken some of the tests I can say that the results can be quite surprising and point out biases that you are unaware of. I definitely found that some associations were much easier for me than others. (Happy to say that the gender example above was not a problem for me.)

Any research on guns funded by the CDC is operating under a strong conflict of interest, because of the CDC's strong anti-gun pre-bias. http://reason.com/archives/1997/04/01/public-health-pot-shots

Wintemute's methods may be sound, but the hypotheses he chooses to research are unspeakably biased and designed to fit a pre-made bias. He is clearly not interested in studying the actual effects of firearms in the civilian population. He is interested in conducting research that demonizes firearms.

I'm well aware of the controversies surrounding John Lott. There are many other researchers who have conducted research regarding firearms, not funded by the CDC or the NRA. For example, this paper written by Don Gates and Gary Mauser is a much better example of unbiased research by authors working in their field (unlike Wintermute, who is not actually qualified to perform research in this field). http://www.law.harvard.edu/students/orgs/jlpp/Vol30_No2_KatesMauseronline.pdf

What the judges need to understand is that fundamentally, people are general purpose machines. Without any training at all, people are not capable of solving many problems. However, people can solve all sorts of problems based on what you teach them. Sure, you aren't going to be able to get a bushman in the Serengeti to be able to build the Apollo but, the potential is there given enough training. If that same bushman were to go to school and eventually graduate from college, they would be just as capable as anybody else. So how is receiving training through college or a technical school any different than a computer receiving a new set of instructions on how to solve a particular problem?

Computers only run algorithms (which aren't supposed to be patentable).

Except that 35 USC 101 explicitly says that processes are patentable, and a process is an algorithm. You have to go a bit deeper into understanding why the Supreme Court said that algorithms weren't patentable to understand the distinction. Specifically, they wanted to draw a line between thought and action: because one of the remedies for patent infringement is an injunction, you have to be able to order people to stop infringing. And while you can tell someone to stop performing the process for curing rubber, for example, you can't tell them to stop thinking of the equation for determining when to remove the rubber from the oven.

One way of drawing this line...

They follow a set of instructions step by step and can't do anything that you and I can't do with a pencil and piece of paper. (They just can do it a lot faster.)

... is to require that the claimed process has steps that you or I can't do with a pencil and piece of paper, no matter how slowly. So, for example, a patent claim of triangulating a position given three signals is not patentable, because we could do that on paper. But a patent claim that includes receiving those signals from a GPS satellite with an antenna is patentable. Think of it as a system - there's a black box that takes an input of some numbers and outputs some other numbers. You or I could do that as well as a computer (albeit slower), and it's unpatentable. But add on additional hardware that provides that input, or additional hardware that reacts to that output, and it's no longer something that we can do solely in our heads or on paper - you now need to perform an action of getting signals from something else, or closing a switch elsewhere, or whatnot. And so that's patentable, and you can be ordered not to take those physical steps that would infringe.

Gravitational lensing surveys have pretty much ruled out this Dark Matter explanation for black holes (or any other dark compact objects) with masses > about 10^-7 Solar Masses, and it is very hard to see how smaller black holes could have ever formed.

http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/press-releases/medical-liability-costs-us/

Malpractice isn't why the US pays so much for health care. Please correct your knowledge base.

A couple other things about small claims court:
1) You generally give up your right to appeal by filing there. (You can still appeal counterclaims, if you want.)
2) In the jurisdiction I am in, I was informed that you generally have 15 minutes to present your case.
3) (again, in my jurisdiction) there is a mandatory mediation session between the parties. Perhaps easier than going before the judge.
4) as participants are generally non-lawyers, lawyering (legal terms, etc) will generally raise the bar for your side, on the assumption you "know what you are doing".

A couple other things about small claims court:
1) You generally give up your right to appeal by filing there. (You can still appeal counterclaims, if you want.)
2) In the jurisdiction I am in, I was informed that you generally have 15 minutes to present your case.
3) (again, in my jurisdiction) there is a mandatory mediation session between the parties. Perhaps easier than going before the judge.
4) as participants are generally non-lawyers, lawyering (legal terms, etc) will generally raise the bar for your side, on the assumption you "know what you are doing".

Low-income high-achieving students at these schools have close to 100 percent odds of attending an Ivy League school or other highly selective college...

"These schools" are "from 15 large metropolitan areas. These areas often have highly regarded public high schools, such as in New York City or in the Washington, D.C., area." It's the 30% of low-income high-ability students outside those metro areas that aren't heading to elite universities. Harvard also claims that 20% of its class falls under the $65k/year threshold and therefore pays nothing.

Epidemiological studies say otherwise: restricting access to means of suicide just changes the method. It has no impact on the suicide rate. Ban guns, and people switch to hanging, or wrist-cutting, or stepping in front of trains, or...

With all due respect, you are completely full of shit.

individuals in a firearm owning home are close to five times more likely to commit suicide than those individuals who do not own firearms. Gun Violence and Suicide

Additional citations: Guns in the home -- American Journal of Epidemiology, Gun availability is a risk factor for suicide - Harvard Univerisity

Why do you assume zero? I think you'll find defunding mental health treatment wasn't a liberal policy.

Moreover, the data shows that lack of gun availability really does reduce suicide rate(page with a list of citations covering numerous different examinations of this ), but we're not allowed to research that in the U.S. Generally speaking suicides are impulsive acts, and the person committing suicide isn't willing to go through a complicated process to do so. Mental health treatment for suicidal thoughts, however, hasn't been shown to dramatically affect suicide rates(though it does work for other things).

Just because what you're saying sounds nice and protects guns doesn't mean it does anyone any good. (And I think there's no point to gun control without repealing/altering the 2nd amendment)

Here's some documentation on why it's bad.

The Black Book of Communism
 

I must not have made my point clear enough. A homeowner is much less likely to actually defend their home with a gun in the states that have no castle doctrine law. Such states also tend to have much more strict gun laws. Pennsylvania is the 10th most gun-restrictive state in the US according to the Brady Campaign, an anti-gun PAC. Gun laws also correlate with lower gun ownership from state to state. I encourage you to compare Brady state scores with the FBI's data on violent crime and murder rates by state and by year.

Regarding your assertion about socio-economics not mattering...have you read this study?

Have you cross-referenced gun ownership by country vs. firearm homicide rate by country vs. income inequality by country?

Regarding your assertions on criminal behavior in the US...where is your evidence? Are you involved in law enforcement in the US? Do you have a criminal psychology background? Are there studies or raw data from the FBI, CDC, or other neutral parties supporting your assertion? Have you examined numerous case studies to come to your conclusion? Does your evidence match your confidence?

3.5% is lower than the number in America. http://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/astounding-increase-in-antidepressant-use-by-americans-201110203624

With increased of around 400% in a decade and nearly a quarter of women aged 40 to 50 on them and 14% of non Hispanic white people, I think it's fair to say America is more reliant on popping pills. The concern is as well how few see a professional over their problems. They just rely on pills and ironically usage among those who are more likely to be poor and have real problems use fewer anti-depressants. It's good the pills exist but they're not the answer to every problem. They're even advertised on TV which I find a bit concerning. They're prescription drugs and shouldn't need advertising. If you're feeling down then you see a professional and they can determine the best course of action to resolve your problems.

Here's the lab at Harvard that developed this robot. There's more cool stuff on the YouTube channel.

The minimum design lifetime isn't the actual lifetime of the mission. I believe there is enough helium for three years, but the multistage cooler is designed to be able to run in the event of coolant loss. ASTRO-H replaces ASTRO-E2 which suffered a catastrophic coolant loss. There are more details here, but it's behind a paywall.

It's not dogma unless someone is willing to burn you at the stake for it.

League of Militant Atheists --- Ordinary secret police will do as well, which is what was used in most Communist countries to suppress religion.

Now trying to distort the world to fit your worldview... THAT is dogma. You can't handle the fact that you are out of touch with some or most of the modern world so you find the need to attack or subvert it.

That would be officially and militantly atheistic Communism. The results weren't pretty.

It's not dogma unless someone is willing to burn you at the stake for it.

League of Militant Atheists --- Ordinary secret police will do as well, which is what was used in most Communist countries to suppress religion.

Now trying to distort the world to fit your worldview... THAT is dogma. You can't handle the fact that you are out of touch with some or most of the modern world so you find the need to attack or subvert it.

That would be officially and militantly atheistic Communism. The results weren't pretty.

That's what the Palestinians said ;-)

I understand the point you are trying to make, but shall we examine the facts instead? The original inhabitants of the land at the turn of the 20th Century is about 5% of the current population. In the 19th Century and earlier the population hadn't changed for about 400 years. What does this mean? It means that there has been immigration and massive birth rate increases for both Jews and Arabs in Palestine. The Arabs have been in Palestine for about 1300 years and the Jews for about 3000 - but both in relatively small numbers in the last 500 years. The notion that the Jews displaced the Arabs in a sparsely inhabited country is not borne out by the known populations. What was scarce was arable land until the Jews set about draining the swamps. Meanwhile, many Arab farmers abandoned tracts of land due to the predations of the Bedouin. Please have a read of the following research from Harvard
http://www.hcs.harvard.edu/~hireview/content.php?type=article&issue=spring01/&name=myth

What this means is that claiming that the Palestinian Arabs were displaced is a myth. What happened is that after hundreds of years of extremely low population growth the Palestinians started breeding and immigrating from other Arab countries. Meanwhile the many non-Arabs also immigrated and their birth rate also went up. They simply made more land area from swamp and filled the empty land (when I visited the area I couldn't believe what an empty and barren dump Samaria is - as they say, "the fighting is so vicious because the stakes are so small" [plus, there are the genocidal goals of the religious folks too - on both sides, but Government sponsored on the Arab side]). The Jews and Jewish Agencies also purchased land from willing sellers - as the article points out. That means the sentiment of your statement is not historically correct. Given the inflammatory nature of the subject it is better not to put false memes out there and try stick to the facts where they are known. Sound good?

Are you talking about MDs or MD/PhDs? I agree with you that MDs doing research are typically not very productive, but MD/PhDs are typically a completely different story, especially if they come from an NIH-funded MSTP (medical scientist training program). The MD/PhDs that come out of the Harvard-MIT MD/PhD program (which was what I was referring to in my prior post, by "HMS MSTP") are no joke - as an MIT grad student who works alongside them on a daily basis, they are just as good at doing science as myself or any of my grad school classmates, and are just as dedicated to basic research as we are.

No, seriously. Up until 60 Minutes came along News was considered a sort of loss leader for networks. It was something they felt required to have but no one expected to make money at it. They simply reported the facts and tried to guess the weather. Then 60 Minutes came along. No one expected it would make money. I mean a news show making money? No way! Surprise, it made money. It did REALLY well. Everyone had to have one and then they began to realize they could draw eyes to their news shows. Ever since then it's been downhill. We now have multiple channels dedicated to nothing but "news" and by god if there's nothing exciting going on we'll dig something up! Investigative reporting? Meh, not so much. That requires time and work and someone might scoop us! No, now they just report things as fast as they can and they make them as exciting as they can to draw eyes. The more fear the more people turn on their TV sets and gawk at the shows and yes inevitably the ads. the commercialization of "news" was one of THE worst things to happen to television and hell even print media. One need only look as far as the grocery checkout to figure out how that went too. Why we've even got news channels that skew and spin their views for specific markets. How else can you explain the Faux News channel and CNN and MSNBC all spinning the same stories in different directions? they have all targeted a demographic for their "news" and want eyeballs for their ads.

Frankly it's pretty damned disgusting and disheartening. If you're old enough at all to remember a time when we had news shows with just a scrap of integrity you realize just how far we've fallen all in the name of making a fucking dollar. Bleah!

P.S. Think I'm full of it? My citation after a 5 second Google search... http://www.nieman.harvard.edu/reports/article/102153/The-Transformation-of-Network-News.aspx

The only science I care about is published in reputable journals.

Like the discovery of "N rays". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N_ray
And the discovery of "Potassium Flares" in the spectra of stars. http://adsabs.harvard.edu/full/1967PASP...79..351W
Not to mention the discovery of Cold Fusion by Pons and Fleishmann. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0022072889800063

'Fascist Dictatorship' is verging on hate speech.

Dictatorship of the Proletariat should be no more loved a term than "Fascist Dictatorship," but for some reason it gets a pass. That should be the last thing that happens, given the record - 100,000,000 killed in the last 100 years. (And don't look now - North Korea might just be warming up.)

The 1970s, when many of the communications were written, were probably both the high point of Communist and Soviet Power and the struggle between Communism and freedom. It is unlikely that Communism would have collapsed as soon as it did in Eastern Europe, and most of the world, if freedom hadn't endured in the West to give aid and hope to the oppressed, and some remember that.

So, when will Wikileaks start releasing Soviet and Communist archive material? Thats right, Assange probably doesn't consider them "bastards" to be crushed. Well, he going to Ecuador if he can, isn't he?:

The following human rights problems continued: isolated unlawful killings and use of excessive force by security forces, sometimes with impunity; poor prison conditions; arbitrary arrest and detention; corruption and other abuses by security forces; a high number of pretrial detainees; and corruption and denial of due process within the judicial system. President Correa and his administration continued verbal and legal attacks against the independent media. Societal problems continued, including physical aggression against journalists; violence against women; discrimination against women, indigenous persons, Afro-Ecuadorians, and lesbians and gay men; trafficking in persons and sexual exploitation of minors; and child labor.

Because that's not true: it can and it is controlled, all the time.

"The Internet cannot be controlled" was certainly the belief in the late 90s, when it seemed that governments were just too stupid to grasp this whole Internet thing, and would always be several steps behind. Alas, the joy didn't last long, and it was precisely France who started fighting against this new "power" of the people.

Several people (Jonathan Zittrain, Tim Wu, Bruce Schneier, Yochai Benkler, among others) have written a lot about this. Actually, Schneier and Zittrain gave a talk about it, last week in Harvard.

Internet is definitely not what it used to be, or what it seemed like it would be.

That depends on the rules of the known universe. in 1915, Karl Schwarzchild transformed Einstein's theories of relativity into a form that would require black holes. This means that Einstein's formulas can only be correct if the universe allows black holes. If the universe does not allow black holes, then Einsteins formulas must be wrong - though less wrong than the aether theory they replaced.

If some (not yet understood) quantum effect would prohibit the mass-density required for a black hole, e.g. the minimum radius of a mass would be 1 ppm above the Schwarzschild Radius, general relativity would have no defect without existence of black holes.

Black holes have been observed many times.

Strong gravitational fields have been observed but no black holes. If the radii of the generating masses are 1 ppm above Schwarzschild Radii the observed effects would be the same as with black holes. There are indications for black holes but no real proof a sure observation would be.

All so-called "discoveries" of black holes are attributed to their supposedly enormous gravitational effects on their surroundings, but they never themselves have been found. The same is true of dark matter. The link you gave is all about how the gravity supposedly affects the surroundings of a black hole.

http://www.cfa.harvard.edu/seuforum/bh_reallyexist.htm

ALL the observations in that article can be explained by the operation of a force 36 orders of magnitude greater than gravity. This force is electromagnetism as evidenced by cosmic plasmas that can be accurately modeled not only with computers, but with real physical experiments in the lab. Most of the universe is not nicely electrically neutral, like here on earth, but consists of highly charged electrically active plasma. Most atoms in the universe don't have all their electrons nice and neatly orbiting their nuclei.

Scientists are observing immensely powerful cosmic rays and other radiation from many sources in the universe. All this radiation involves the electric force and has nothing to do with gravity. Scientists have postulated that there should be gravity waves and have spent gobs of money to try and detect these, but so far that has been money wasted since they have not found such waves. In addition, there are measurements of immense magnetic fields in space and on the sun. It is a firmly established principle of science, that magnetic fields can be generated easily by the motion of electric charges.

The large-scale universe is controlled by electrical forces that are far greater than gravity. Gravity is only a controlling factor in electrically neutral environments such as we have here in our corner of the universe. Even if only one atom in 100 billion loses one of its electrons, the force generated by this tiny charge imbalance is far greater than the gravity generated by those 100 billion atoms. You can verify that by doing an experiment right in your own home. Just pick up a few bits of Styrofoam with a charged glass or plastic rod. Charge the rod by rubbing it with a silk cloth. The electric charge on the glass rod will easily overcome the gravity generated by the entire Earth.

Assuming you're not trolling, that's a nice story, but that's not how science works.

The trouble is that "what we know about black holes" is all theoretical and mathematical.

Usually, the first step in science is to observe something. In the case of black holes, our knowledge of their existence can be traced back to a few experiments, which provided pretty solid evidence against the prevailing theories of aether. The observation that doesn't match the expectation means that the theories aren't right, and must be changed.

In fact, many of today's experiments are simply re-running old trials, but with more precise technology. Rather than dropping rocks off a tower, we can measure how fast individual atoms fall, giving us a more exact understanding of gravity. Usually the results are a perfect match for what's expected, but sometimes they aren't.

Black holes were invented to explain present-day theories about the motion of stars and galaxies.

Next comes the theory. Starting from the results of those experiments, Einstein hypothesized his theories of relativity, which are really little more than a collection of relationships derived from the assumption that the speed of light in a vacuum is constant. His theories explained the results of previous experiments, and importantly, provided a set of formulas that can be used to make predictions for future experiments.

Mathematics are very useful in describing measured experiments and observations in the physical universe. As soon as mathematics and computer simulations go beyond what is actually observed and measured, it no longer describes the real world were living in.

The relationships in the physical world are described with mathematics. Sometimes, when math is insufficient to easily describe a particular relationship, new mathematical forms are invented to accommodate the real world. Ultimately, though, every physicist knows that the mathematical models do not prescribe reality, but describe our understanding of it. Again, we use those models to predict the outcome of future experiments.

At the center of these hypothetical, theoretical black holes is this mathematical entity that has been called a "singularity". This is another mathematical fiction that can't exist in the known universe.

That depends on the rules of the known universe. in 1915, Karl Schwarzchild transformed Einstein's theories of relativity into a form that would require black holes. This means that Einstein's formulas can only be correct if the universe allows black holes. If the universe does not allow black holes, then Einsteins formulas must be wrong - though less wrong than the aether theory they replaced.

Perhaps it is time to examine some of these widely held theories that require these mathematical fictions.

That's what experiments are for.

No one has ever directly observed a black hole and thereby shown that these things even exist in the real world.

Black holes have been observed many times.

In 1929 an astronomer named Edwin Hubble discovered that "red shift" of distant galaxies. Then he made the assumption (belief, faith) about the cau

Assuming you're not trolling, that's a nice story, but that's not how science works.

The trouble is that "what we know about black holes" is all theoretical and mathematical.

Usually, the first step in science is to observe something. In the case of black holes, our knowledge of their existence can be traced back to a few experiments, which provided pretty solid evidence against the prevailing theories of aether. The observation that doesn't match the expectation means that the theories aren't right, and must be changed.

In fact, many of today's experiments are simply re-running old trials, but with more precise technology. Rather than dropping rocks off a tower, we can measure how fast individual atoms fall, giving us a more exact understanding of gravity. Usually the results are a perfect match for what's expected, but sometimes they aren't.

Black holes were invented to explain present-day theories about the motion of stars and galaxies.

Next comes the theory. Starting from the results of those experiments, Einstein hypothesized his theories of relativity, which are really little more than a collection of relationships derived from the assumption that the speed of light in a vacuum is constant. His theories explained the results of previous experiments, and importantly, provided a set of formulas that can be used to make predictions for future experiments.

Mathematics are very useful in describing measured experiments and observations in the physical universe. As soon as mathematics and computer simulations go beyond what is actually observed and measured, it no longer describes the real world were living in.

The relationships in the physical world are described with mathematics. Sometimes, when math is insufficient to easily describe a particular relationship, new mathematical forms are invented to accommodate the real world. Ultimately, though, every physicist knows that the mathematical models do not prescribe reality, but describe our understanding of it. Again, we use those models to predict the outcome of future experiments.

At the center of these hypothetical, theoretical black holes is this mathematical entity that has been called a "singularity". This is another mathematical fiction that can't exist in the known universe.

That depends on the rules of the known universe. in 1915, Karl Schwarzchild transformed Einstein's theories of relativity into a form that would require black holes. This means that Einstein's formulas can only be correct if the universe allows black holes. If the universe does not allow black holes, then Einsteins formulas must be wrong - though less wrong than the aether theory they replaced.

Perhaps it is time to examine some of these widely held theories that require these mathematical fictions.

That's what experiments are for.

No one has ever directly observed a black hole and thereby shown that these things even exist in the real world.

Black holes have been observed many times.

In 1929 an astronomer named Edwin Hubble discovered that "red shift" of distant galaxies. Then he made the assumption (belief, faith) about the cau

Assuming you're not trolling, that's a nice story, but that's not how science works.

The trouble is that "what we know about black holes" is all theoretical and mathematical.

Usually, the first step in science is to observe something. In the case of black holes, our knowledge of their existence can be traced back to a few experiments, which provided pretty solid evidence against the prevailing theories of aether. The observation that doesn't match the expectation means that the theories aren't right, and must be changed.

In fact, many of today's experiments are simply re-running old trials, but with more precise technology. Rather than dropping rocks off a tower, we can measure how fast individual atoms fall, giving us a more exact understanding of gravity. Usually the results are a perfect match for what's expected, but sometimes they aren't.

Black holes were invented to explain present-day theories about the motion of stars and galaxies.

Next comes the theory. Starting from the results of those experiments, Einstein hypothesized his theories of relativity, which are really little more than a collection of relationships derived from the assumption that the speed of light in a vacuum is constant. His theories explained the results of previous experiments, and importantly, provided a set of formulas that can be used to make predictions for future experiments.

Mathematics are very useful in describing measured experiments and observations in the physical universe. As soon as mathematics and computer simulations go beyond what is actually observed and measured, it no longer describes the real world were living in.

The relationships in the physical world are described with mathematics. Sometimes, when math is insufficient to easily describe a particular relationship, new mathematical forms are invented to accommodate the real world. Ultimately, though, every physicist knows that the mathematical models do not prescribe reality, but describe our understanding of it. Again, we use those models to predict the outcome of future experiments.

At the center of these hypothetical, theoretical black holes is this mathematical entity that has been called a "singularity". This is another mathematical fiction that can't exist in the known universe.

That depends on the rules of the known universe. in 1915, Karl Schwarzchild transformed Einstein's theories of relativity into a form that would require black holes. This means that Einstein's formulas can only be correct if the universe allows black holes. If the universe does not allow black holes, then Einsteins formulas must be wrong - though less wrong than the aether theory they replaced.

Perhaps it is time to examine some of these widely held theories that require these mathematical fictions.

That's what experiments are for.

No one has ever directly observed a black hole and thereby shown that these things even exist in the real world.

Black holes have been observed many times.

In 1929 an astronomer named Edwin Hubble discovered that "red shift" of distant galaxies. Then he made the assumption (belief, faith) about the cau

Meanwhile, there's a crime epidemic in sydney's underworld, with a constant stream of shootings and executions.

http://www.law.harvard.edu/students/orgs/jlpp/Vol30_No2_KatesMauseronline.pdf Read that paper, maybe it will teach you a thing or two about the realities of gun control.

In medical tests, people are given a placebo and yet claim to feel better or feel the same effects as people who are given the real medication. These must be the same people who rail against mp3s.

Don't dis the placebo effect, it works (for some limited benefits), even in cases where the subjects were aware that they were receiving a placebo
The most similar analogy would be to say that someone can enjoy lossless music more than lossy music. This could be true even if they can't tell them apart in a blind study. Of course, under these assumptions, they'd also enjoy lossy music more than lossless music if the labels were switched and they believed the labels. It's enjoyed more simply because of what it is believed to be. That may be silly, but hey, who am I to crap on someone's enjoyment?
On the other hand, making the claim that you can tell the difference, i.e. discriminate between then, is more directly challengeable and probably false in most cases.

Homeopathy treatments have been tested repeatedly against placebo and there is no difference in response. Not surprisingly since they're just sugar pills and water.

Usually just water, but yes, that's my point. They're tested against the Placebo effect _because_ it demonstrates that they do fuck-all that wouldn't be possible with a placebo.

Nonsense. The only effect of a placebo is in someone's imagination.

Hmm. No. http://www.health.harvard.edu/newsletters/Harvard_Health_Letter/2012/April/putting-the-placebo-effect-to-work

This stuff just fascinates me. I've known about Keppler's Supernova for years, but this is interesting new info. I'm gonna have to see where magnesium fits in stellar nucleosynthesis.

The Great Observatories Program is finding all sorts of cool stuff. :)

Here's another good picture: Cassiopeia A. The Chandra Observatory analyzed that supernova remnant and determined that the star literally blew itself inside out.

http://chandra.harvard.edu/photo/2012/casa/

"In June 2010, Liquid Machines was acquired by Check Point Software Technologies Ltd, an Israeli Internet and data security company best known for its ZoneAlarm firewall software."

You have got to be shitting me ! ! !

Personally I prefer universities when they fight corporatism

You do realize that almost all universities (including Harvard) are corporations? Corporatism is hard to fight when it is the default organizational style for everything beyond the size of a few people.

Actually, malpractice insurance is around 2.4% of the overall cost.

http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/press-releases/medical-liability-costs-us/

You can find a long description of why it is spelled that way here http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1996Obs...116..313G

Wow, such willful ignorance. That's equivalent to reinforcing your roof to withstand a nuclear bomb, moron.

Not all meteorites are that powerful. Of course, since those it would help with are so unlikely, why opt for individual protection anyway?

Actually there have been quite a few. The largest death reported death toll was "tens of thousands" in Shanxi, China, in 1490. There's a lot of doubt about the accuracy of that number, but it's pretty likely there were mass casualties. Plenty of other more recent cases where a big rock killed handfuls of people at a time.

http://adsabs.harvard.edu/full/1997JIMO...25..222G

Are you familiar with Eric Mazur's research in physics education? He's not interested in technology as an end in itself, but in developing more effective techniques for the teaching of science. Technology has a role. I saw him speak about this work about 10 years ago and it was compelling. Too bad his group's Web site seems to be missing links to most of his papers, but the short blurbs there give an idea of his findings.

Are you familiar with Eric Mazur's research in physics education? He's not interested in technology as an end in itself, but in developing more effective techniques for the teaching of science. Technology has a role. I saw him speak about this work about 10 years ago and it was compelling. Too bad his group's Web site seems to be missing links to most of his papers, but the short blurbs there give an idea of his findings.

There is and always will be legal system to go hand in hand with a free market.

Anyone who thinks a free-market = highest bidder is pretty sad. There are always non-profits, mutual, regulatory systems, legal systems, voluntary organizations....

The key to a free market is not maximum profit, but freedom of choice.

In any case, domain name registration is not just a bidding process. There are other concerns such as trade mark and if you have a genuine interest in the name. There have been many legal cases about it in the past.

http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/property00/domain/main.html

It is perfectly valid for anyone to use the legal system to give them their due rights. I'm not a lawyer to know if he's in the right here. Suffice to say the domain name is HIS NAME, but the registrants are currently using his name in good faith. But I think it is a valid case to take to the regulatory bodies to sort out.

Property rights are the foundation of all rights.
That is not the question.
The question is if his *name* is his property and how to handle that conflict.

Suffice to say those who currently own ronpaul.com should not be left without due compensation from either Ron Paul or the regulatory body.

And our resolution sucks. The closest star is only a few pixels wide. We're going to need bigger telescopes to see *anything* directly. Unless something is aiming a signal directly at us, we wouldn't receive it.

Practical example (using default values here) - a 3-meter antenna transmitting at 100,000 watts can only be detected at a range of 1.8 light years. Let's say we used 10MW and transmitted from Arecibo... the detectable range would be 1805 light years. It would only take about a 30kW transmitter using that dish to send a directed signal to a range of 100 light years.

Interstellar communication takes specialized transmitters and receivers. Are we sending anything to those Kepler targets or do all beings take a listen-first approach?

If you are in the Metro-Boston area, or trust your child in Cambridge for the summer, Harvard Summer School admits high school students and has 2 good courses this summer: "Great Ideas in Computer Science with Java" and "Intensive Introduction to Computer Science Using Java." The later sounds like a better match if you're worried about courses that are too simple or slow-paced. "Building Mobile Applications" may be more compelling than more traditional programming courses, but has a higher barrier in terms of prerequisite programming experience and required hardware.
http://www.summer.harvard.edu/courses/subject/computer-science
http://www.summer.harvard.edu/programs/secondary-school

Unfortunately, if he is not near or cannot get to Cambridge, MA, USA, there does not seem to be any good distance courses offered this summer.

Also, Harvard's CS50, Introduction to Computer Science, is available online. This includes lecture video, hand-outs, problem sets, and quizzes. This is a good option if he is truly a self-starter and will allow him to work at his own pace. This is not the usual online tutorial. This is the same lectures and materials presented to students of Harvard College and the University Extension.
http://cs50.tv/

At one point the CS50 lectures were also available on iTunes. I don't know if this is still true.