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You won't be driving the space shuttle down any roads. They're now museum pieces.

Also, not all glass is created equal. Some glasses can withstand 400 psi, which is far more pressure than a semitrailer tire produces on the road, unless you inflate the tire to more than 400 psi, which you won't do if you value your life. Structural glass is coming into wider use, as the transparent floor of walkways and dance floors, and resists wear longer than acrylics. It's even been used to make bridges between two buildings that have no steel supporting members, and staircases with no steel.

He also misrepresents the entire process of modern agriculture - namely, none of the inputs are implicitly dependent on the active production of more CO2

I think you forgot about tillage.

What about that is implicitly dependent on CO2 producing means?

It doesn't matter what fuel the tractors burn. Tillage produces CO2 because it oxidizes the organic matter in the soil. It's basically burning coal millions of years before it becomes a rock. FYI: Soil oxidation and erosion generates 12-15 times more CO2 annually than the burning of all fossil fuels combined.

As a result, clearing fallow land in the name of corn based biofuels has increased CO2 and increased world hunger and starvation. Ethanol is all about increasing the price of corn for midwestern US farms. If you believe anything else, you're deluding yourself.

But don't listen to a thing I say, because I'm skeptical of the IPCC and their conclusions. <sarcasm>Obviously I am receiving funds from some oil company with no scientific basis for my opinions.</sarcasm>

Noted that the poster should have written copyrights.

The fact is the copyrights would most likely be determined to be invalid, at least in the U.S., where there is plenty of precedent, and actual rules:

http://www.k-state.edu/academicpersonnel/intprop/webtutor/tsld007.htm

Note second and third bullet points.

We also have the Biosecurity Research Institute.

http://www.bri.k-state.edu/

The location is proposed to be near that building, so while the new facility is built there is speculation that research can be under way in the BRI.

After seeing the BRI a few times I don't have much concern for a tornado. I'd be more concerned about someone making a mistake and releasing pathogens, people aren't perfect even if the buildings they work in are failsafe. JMO.

Oh. Wow. Its a level 3. News release with the goods in it.

Here is a google street view of our Level 3 oncampus lab. Street view level look. You may have to look east to see it. Its the one with all the fancy fence around it. The new place will be just north of this one.

The problem, as always, is training. Computers and math are anathema to elementary ed majors. (If you disagree, please explain to me why elementary education teachers can get away with just College Algebra and "Introduction to Contemporary Mathematics," a course likely dominated by one or two math adverse majors)

Here's what happened when I was a young student: 5 minutes lining up as a class, quietly walking to the lab. 5 minutes getting everyone into computers and putting floppy disks in Apple IIs. 5 minutes explaining what logo is and how to start it. 5 minutes explaining how to make a turtle draw a square. 5 minutes of kids with no typing abilities enter in REPEAT 4 [FW 10 RT 90]
5 minutes putting things away, lining up and quietly returning to the classroom. It wasn't until much later that I discovered that logo was a much much richer environment than that, and that when properly used, can express the fundamentals of Computer Science.

When was this? When a friend in elementary education came to me asking for help with LOGO. She had enrolled in a graduate level education course on Logo in the classroom (as part of a certification or emphasis I think). Now, our traditional programming course in the CS department equally fulfills the requirements, but their advisors advise against it. She came to me asking for help implementing a pig latin translator in logo, which interested me. Not just because she had never heard of Pig Latin, but I didn't know Logo had anything relevant to implement something like that in a simple manner.

Long story short, understanding recursion and drawing a tree in logo is extra credit, and I have no hope for the future of CS education in K-12.

Plowing up new land creates *lots* of CO2 via soil oxidation too, and quite possibly at a faster rate than the fossil fuels they are "replacing."

Soil oxidation/erosion contributes an order of magnitude more CO2 to the atmosphere each year than the burning of *all fossil fuels* combined. Don't let any inconvenient truth stand in your way though.

Reducing CO2 emissions futile? No, I'd say pointless and costly.

Aside from the fact that you are now heralding an unproven, imaginary system as a solution to a problem you and the other members of Heaven's Gate created.... You aren't listening.

It's quite likely you are creating more CO2 by plowing new land than you would have created by burning the fossil fuels you "replaced." Soil oxidation/erosion contributes an order of magnitude more CO2 to the atmosphere each year than the burning of *all fossil fuels* combined. Don't let any inconvenient truth stand in your way though.

Oh, well wonderful. You're going to solve a problem you created yourselves and it will only cost us millions in taxes, REAL environmental damage in the Gulf of Mexico, and thousands of human lives snuffed out by starvation because you thought it'd be a good idea to burn food in your God damned SUV. Great job, Jim Jones!

Ahhh what the heck, here's what just 2 minutes of actually looking turns up on the health dangers of kids and cigarette butts... I guess you weren't reading "the literature" all that often.

From: http://www.fammed.unc.edu/enter/fact_sheets/Parent sFactSheetl.pdf
"The American Association of Poison Control Centers receives 7,900 reports of potentially toxic exposure to tobacco products among children 6 years old or younger, primarily by young children ingesting cigarettes, cigarette butts, and other tobacco products they find around the house, in ashtrays, and in the garbage." Center for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC). Ingestion of cigarettes and cigarette butts by children,Rhode Island, January 1994-July 1996. MMWR. Feb. 1997;46(6):125-128

From: http://www.cfc-efc.ca/docs/cccf/00000056.htm
"Eating even one or two cigarette butts can make a baby seriously ill."

From: http://www.eparentingnetwork.ca/pdf/HomeSafety/Hom e%20Safety%20Fact%20Sheet%202.pdf
"Safely dispose of cigarette butts. If your child swallows just 1 unsmoked cigarette or 2 cigarette butts, they could get very sick"

http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/press/1995/DECEMBER /19953.HTM

http://www.k-state.edu/media/newsreleases/seasonal /listpoisonous102102.html

One reason is called "Research." I2 access can greatly improve access time to some incredibly large databases that are infeasible to ship. It also allows for teleconferencing classes, but that's kind of a toss up. That might not really be worth 300k a year though. However, a 2 million dollar grant to research high bandwidth internet technologies pretty much requires I2. And the physicists seem to love the I2 as well for research. I suspect that for most degree granting institutions, the costs far exceed the benefits of nonexistant research. However, I refrain from naming institutions that conduct no research "Universities."

The costs of I2 is rather small if you're actually using it for something more than a fast pipe for mirroring linux .isos and bittorrent. It's even smaller when you recieve a grant

Plain and simple the vast majority of CIS/IT programs are absolutely worthless. For a BS in CIS, they give you an intro to what a computer is. You will have one programming language that will take 2 semseters to work with (the year long work is worth about a .5 semseter java class in CS-100). You may be introduced to several others for a grand total of 1 week each (that is 2-3 classes). You may learn about a DB; That is how to do a select * from table, perhaps an insert, update, and delete. You will not find out what a subquery is, let alone a join, or even a predicate on a select. Most PhDs programs that I have seen in CIS do not even measure up to a half way decent BS in CS, Software Engineer or CE program. Here is a a weak CS and strong CIS program. Even then, the CIS is worthless. Really not worth hiring.

Look, a BS is 4 years of a life. That is nothing in the scope of things. Most people today view the degree as a job, not as an education. If somebody is looking at the degree, then you have to think where you will be in 20-30 years. Assume that you do not go back to school. Then you need the best field that will leave you opportunites in the future. Your best bet is CE, followed by CS or SE. The CE will enable you do hardware and create your own hardware. The CS/SE will offer you the best chances for LONG term jobs esp. if combined with a business degree.

If you decide to go back for an advanced degree, then go after an MBA in management or something similar.

Finally, my degrees; First one was in Microbio/Genetic Engineering back in early 80's. After working in the field for several years and seeing multiple civilian projects converted to DOD work, I obtained a CS degree. Since then, they offered the CE degree. That is where the money (and jobs) is.