Slashdot Mirror

You're talking about this slashdot entry from 5 months ago: http://hardware.slashdot.org/story/11/03/28/239212/artificial-leaf-could-provide-cheap-energy
Not exactly a dup; they link to different articles.
This one's article has a video showing the prototype in operation, which is kind of cool.
The old one's article has no video, but they basically make the same points in text.

Economic models show that in a competitive market, prices fall until the marginal producer is making zero profits. Cable TV is not very competitive (barriers to entry in the form of laying cables etc) but still it is not a pure monopoly either. Even in such a market, prices can be raised by bundling. Breaking the bundles are more likely than not to decrease prices for individual customers.
The paper specifically uses Cable TV as an information good and shows how bundling works http://ebusiness.mit.edu/erik/Bundling%20Competition685305.pdf

M.I.T. had two 150th birthday conferences on A.I. this year. This would give some ideas on the state of the art and the players. Its not a systematic, pedagogical presentation.

MIT has tons of material on AI, on their OpenCourseWare site, especially in the Electrical Engineering and Computer Science section.

MIT has tons of material on AI, on their OpenCourseWare site, especially in the Electrical Engineering and Computer Science section.

Further investigation at OpenMIT yielded the following positive results!! There you go OP

Artificial Intelligence

Game Theory

Further investigation at OpenMIT yielded the following positive results!! There you go OP

Artificial Intelligence

Game Theory

Not sure if they'll have anything, but worth a shot if you haven't looked here. http://ocw.mit.edu/index.htm

The original question is a false dichotomy; the question isn't whether or not college should go online or not. The question is under what circumstances is the application of information technology and integration of online access and collaboration to the university education process appropriate and to what degree?

I am the Moodle Coordinator for the University of the People, a completely online tuition-free university. We have students from 119 countries learning in a collaborative fashion through online discussion forums, downloadable resources, and assignments including peer-assessed work and online quizzes, exams, and projects.

The mission of the university is to provide "universal access to quality, online post-secondary education to qualified students". Without the online component (through the open-source Moodle LMS), the university could not hope to fulfill this mission without charging a large tution and pricing most of the world's population out of the market. All coursework is online, and from my own perusal of the course materials, I find the curriculum to be challenging.

While this model will not and should not completely replace the traditional university, it is a viable model for providing a quality education, particularly to those who would not otherwise have the opportunity for financial or other reasons. For example, the university has a number of students from Haiti who, due to the 2010 earthquake, would have no other options.

I agree with several other posters who state that there is something to be gained from the interaction with professors, students, and others in the university community. That, of course, does not preclude posting resources online, creating discussion forums, and having students collaborate through the Internet. As an undergraduate (at Penn State) I had several undergraduate courses with 300+ students - my largest had over 1000. The professors in these courses mostly lectured; why couldn't the lecture be posted online and the quizzes, exams, and papers be submitted online? Not to mention there were students who did not attend class, but rather purchased the notes from one of the note-taking companies on campus. What's the difference?

A strong argument could easily be made that the blended approach is best; the workplace is increasingly becoming more diffuse and more and more collaboration is done between remote locations; in my case I live in Japan and collaborate with my university colleagues in the US and Israel and with intructors and students from around the world. The modern university education needs to adapt to and reflect this reality.

On a side note, it would be great if more world-class unveristies and colleges put their coursework online for all to see like MIT is doing with its OpenCourseware project.

The statements above reflect my own personal opinions; I do not speak for or represent the University of the People in any way, shape, or form.

For those of you interested, here is more information on the University of the People.
Wikipedia
Inside Higher Ed

Well, the first university I checked said this:

(...) In general, students may retain ownership of thesis copyrights when the only form of support is (a) teaching assistantships (the duties of which do not include research activities) and (b) NSF and NIH traineeships and fellowships (although the trainee or fellow may be required to grant certain publishing rights to NSF or NIH). (...)

That would not fly in the US. I do believe that in some countries universities may have copyright claim on student work but this is simply not the case in the US unless there is a contract and funding making it a work for hire or copyright assignment. I am not aware of any US schools which have such requirements and I study and practice in the field of education.

Well, then you aren't paying attention. Here's the rules MIT has - it looks like they get the copyright if they paid for any part of your research or you used their facilities, which means almost everybody.

http://hst.mit.edu/servlet/ControllerServlet?handler=PublicHandler&action=browse&pageId=457#Intellectual_Property_Copyright_Publication

The true cost of the employee should be salary plus benefits.

It's salary + benefits + employer's share of SS, Medicare/Medicaid taxes + unemployment insurance + worker's comp insurance + hiring/training costs + travel expenses (many contractors "commute" by flying out on Mondays, living in a rented apartment, and flying home on Fridays). I would assume the government is paying for workspace and equipment, but if they're not, tack that on as well. Many smaller companies without a lawyer on staff also have employment practices liability insurance to protect them from the cost of a lawsuit filed by an employee.

A 2:1 ratio between what it costs the company to retain and maintain a tech employee vs. what the employee receives in salary + benefits sounds about right to me. This MIT/Sloan page says a tech worker at a fully managed company costs about 2.7x his/her base salary. So 2:1 is in the right ballpark.

There is a program at MIT where the students develop low tech and appropriate technology for the developing world. I guess that teaching locals to make their own biochar that burns cleaner than wood or cow dung and will reduce air pollution inside people's homes so they don't die of lung cancer is an evil plot to support the establishment?

Same goes for water purification systems, grain mills I guess too?

http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/engineering/gonzo/4273674

http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2007/smith-talk.html

Does anyone have a link to this Pinwheel design house? I'm not as up on my modern architecture as I should be I guess. Wikipedia is surprisingly unhelpful

Sure, here you go.

The real inflation is north of 10%, I count [slashdot.org] closer to 13%.

No, it is not. Or is MIT in on the scam too?

By the way, we can measure the spectral radiance both at the top of the atmosphere and down here on Earth. The measurements confirm F.

What measurements? Listen to Curry again:

"The result can be determined by fitting a regression line through the simulation results from radiative transfer models with no reference to changes in the Earth’s temperature. the use of this expression is mainly as an hueristic in the context of simple back of the envelope arguments."

F is the result of a *model*, not a measurement. Let's look back at the history of this *calculated* value:

Wigley (1987): Delta F = 6.333 ln (C/C0)

Houghton et al 1990: Delta F = 6.3 ln (C/Co)

Myhre et al 1998: Delta F = 5.35 ln (C/Co)

Lindzen and Choi 2011:
http://www-eaps.mit.edu/faculty/lindzen/236-Lindzen-Choi-2011.pdf

If Lindzen is correct that sensitivity is 0.7C per doubling of CO2, the corresponding change in forcing should be

delta F = (1.2)(delta T) = .84 W/m2 = 1.2*ln(2)

thus the “IPCC formula” “should be” approx.

delta F = 1.2*ln(C/Co)

Say it again with me "F is the result of a *model*, not a measurement." :)

So therefore you cannot prove that volcanoes have an impact on the climate?

Not without making a falsifiable hypothesis statement. You're mistaking the game of common sense for the game of science. The science game has rules, common sense is just convention.

Can you provide proof that would satisfy the bottomless pit of incredulity that is HSThompson?

You're asking me to prove *your* point for you? Now what kind of science game is that!?

Look, you want to argue religion, that's fine - I'm more than happy to tear down your beliefs. If you want to argue science, start with your falsifiable hypothesis statement.

Are you at MIT and is your benefactor David Koch? Because in that case, we have some researchers up at the Plasma Science and Fusion Center that do simulation work that could definitely use access to a bigger cluster. As long as you can compile FORTRAN on it, the TRANSP runs and GYRO simulations that we do are already run on a (smaller) cluster. This falls under "energy research" and is way cool to boot.

I'm not joking, if you are at MIT, please get in touch with Martin Greenwald (contact info on the PSFC staff page).

+ Insufficient radiative forcing of CO2
+ Warming attributed to Sun (correlated change is solar irradience)

I don't think you're being very honest with yourself here. Let's be more specific about your two points, and see if we can get some clarity.

"Insufficient radiative forcing of CO2", I take it, means simply calculating based on spectral analysis, a proposed theoretical radiative forcing. (References below from: http://www.john-daly.com/bull-121.htm)

Wigley (1987): Delta F = 6.333 ln (C/C0)

So in 1987, one might say, "if Delta F does not equal 6.333 ln (C/Co), radiative forcing of CO2 is insufficient to support the AGW hypothesis". That's a specific prediction, and an acceptance of falsifiability. What happens next?

Houghton et al 1990: Delta F = 6.3 ln (C/Co)

So now it's 1990. Radiative forcing has now been calculated slightly lower. Has AGW been falsified? Nope, we simply lower the bar (or shift the goalposts), and now we state "if Delta F does not equal 6.3 ln (C/Co) radiative forcing of CO2 is insufficient to support the AGW hypothesis". Another specific prediction but an avoidance of responsibility for the first one. What happens next?

Myhre et al 1998: Delta F = 5.35 ln (C/Co)

So now it's 1998. Radiative forcing has now been calculated even more significantly lower. Has AGW been falsified?

How much lower do we need to go before we can no longer avoid responsibility for our predictions, and accept AGW as falsified?

Lindzen and Choi 2011:
http://www-eaps.mit.edu/faculty/lindzen/236-Lindzen-Choi-2011.pdf

If Lindzen is correct that sensitivity is 0.7C per doubling of CO2, the corresponding change in forcing should be

delta F = (1.2)(delta T) = .84 W/m2 = 1.2*ln(2)

thus the “IPCC formula” “should be” approx.

delta F = 1.2*ln(C/Co)

So now we're even farther away from the original prediction. Has AGW been falsified? How about this devil's advocate position - it isn't falsified until Delta F goes negative, because it is theoretically possibly to attribute 100% of all CO2 in the atmosphere to humanity, and if we accept that CO2 *always* adds warming (a stipulation at this point), then no matter how small the warming effect of CO2, we can assert AGW is at the very least technically true.

Now, are you arguing for the "at the very least technically true AGW"? Again, I don't want to put up a straw man you're not trying to defend, but you're not being specific enough in your assertions of what AGW really is.

+ Warming attributed to Sun (correlated change is solar irradience)

Okay, this one is a pretty obvious logical fallacy - the argument from ignorance. Saying that "if you don't have a better explanation, then my explanation must be true" is not a scientific argument, even if it *is* clever. The null hypothesis, I think we can both agree, is that climate changes due to natural forces. We can trivially observe that climate change existed before humanity, and there is no particular reason we should believe that humanity (as opposed to say, the rise of the arthopods, or dinosaurs, or any other widespread lifeform on the planet) has the unique ability to suddenly take control of the weather and climate. Note, I'm not saying it isn't *possible*, I'm simply saying that it must be held to strict scrutiny.

And again, devil's advocate - even if solar irradiance explained 99% of the warming observed (assuming we has some rock solid understanding of all the other confounding variables), even 1% of uncertainty there could leave AGW *technically* true, even if miniscule.

So here are the questions outstanding to you:

1) did the change in the calculated forcing over the decades falsify AGW?
2) can any change in the calculated forcing falsify A

Son said the 2,000 kilometer (1,200 mile) nationwide power grid he proposed could eventually be expanded to all of Asia, in a massive grid that would run 36,000 kilometers and link Japan with countries including India, China, and Russia.

I have never heard of the idea of running power-lines on the ocean floor. For anyone interested, this idea has come-up before.
The benefits of an intercontinental energy grid
Solar Energy as a Major Replacement for Fossil Fuel

Also, I hope that if Japan does this, they don't become dependent on China for their power needs. They should always have enough to fill their own appetites, considering how easy it would be for a military power to cut them off.

That makes me wonder if I could just create a college term paper creator that goes out and writes paper after paper much like the postmodernism essay generator or whatever it is called. It could look for quotes on other sites and then mangle them in 40 bazillion ways. Then i just create "blogs" that dynamically generate essay after essay, and let turnitin spider them. High school students could make use of the site as well. :)

You may recall the automatic CSci paper generator that was featured here some time ago... It could make for a decent starting point.

You're seeing the PR side of the mission, of course they're going to use imperial units because that's what non-scientific folks expect. The GRAIL mission used SI units during development and does do for mission operations. See http://moon.mit.edu/design.html for more info.

Another expense might be making the GRAIL orbiters dual-string (duplicate almost everything on a single orbiter, two main computers, two batteries, etc). According to http://moon.mit.edu/spacecraft.html GRAIL is single-string because that matches the mission reliability requirements.

Also - I was on the GRAIL development team and I'm currently working GRAIL mission operations, so I'd also be employed for a little while longer if we repeated this experiment at Mars.

This patents is for the algorithm and the hardware that actually makes it possible. Minority Report contained neither of those things.

The technology depicted in Minority Report is very real. It was designed and developed by MIT's John Underkoffler and is called G-Speak. See MIT article, videos
here and here.

The correct order should be:

1. Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs by H.Abelson and G.Sussman with J.Sussman
2. Structure and Interpretation of Classical Mechanics (sic!) by G.Sussman and J.Wisdom with M.Mayer
3. Operating Systems Design and Implementation by A.Tanenbaum and A.Woodhull
4. Modern Operating Systems by A.Tanenbaum
5. The Art of Computer Programming Volume 1 by D.Knuth
6. The Art of Computer Programming Volume 2 by D.Knuth
7. The Art of Computer Programming Volume 3 by D.Knuth
8. The Art of Computer Programming Volume 4 by D.Knuth

I am sure that The Art of Computer Programming Volume 5 by D.Knuth will be next on the list. I have seriously been counting the years to the estimated 2020.

I only regret that Gerry Sussman hasn't written more books and hasn't recorded more talks. I will buy everything he writes and I will listen to everything he says. Please, Gerry! If you read this then please drop everything you do and just start talking to the camera. I have watched your every talk and lecture that I could possibly find on the Internet many times - from the 1986 lectures at MIT to your lecture on mechanical watches. I seriously believe that everything you say should be recorded for future generations. I don't know anyone else who can talk about anything at all and I listen breathlessly like I was hypnotized. I'm sure that many people here could say the same. Let this be an open letter to Gerald Jay Sussman: Please write more books and please record more lectures for the sake of the future of computer science. And thank you for your outstanding contribution that you have made so far. It is something that has shaped literally generations of passionate enthusiasts of programming. Thank you.

The correct order should be:

1. Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs by H.Abelson and G.Sussman with J.Sussman
2. Structure and Interpretation of Classical Mechanics (sic!) by G.Sussman and J.Wisdom with M.Mayer
3. Operating Systems Design and Implementation by A.Tanenbaum and A.Woodhull
4. Modern Operating Systems by A.Tanenbaum
5. The Art of Computer Programming Volume 1 by D.Knuth
6. The Art of Computer Programming Volume 2 by D.Knuth
7. The Art of Computer Programming Volume 3 by D.Knuth
8. The Art of Computer Programming Volume 4 by D.Knuth

I am sure that The Art of Computer Programming Volume 5 by D.Knuth will be next on the list. I have seriously been counting the years to the estimated 2020.

I only regret that Gerry Sussman hasn't written more books and hasn't recorded more talks. I will buy everything he writes and I will listen to everything he says. Please, Gerry! If you read this then please drop everything you do and just start talking to the camera. I have watched your every talk and lecture that I could possibly find on the Internet many times - from the 1986 lectures at MIT to your lecture on mechanical watches. I seriously believe that everything you say should be recorded for future generations. I don't know anyone else who can talk about anything at all and I listen breathlessly like I was hypnotized. I'm sure that many people here could say the same. Let this be an open letter to Gerald Jay Sussman: Please write more books and please record more lectures for the sake of the future of computer science. And thank you for your outstanding contribution that you have made so far. It is something that has shaped literally generations of passionate enthusiasts of programming. Thank you.

I'm an elementary school teacher, and we have 2nd graders using Scratch at my school with great success. Having them create interactive multimedia may be a better way for you to start - create some characters, program them to do or say things in sequence and interact when they touch each other. Be sure to check out the in-program help section and print out the "Scratch Cards" as an easy way to get kids started. Also, check out http://scratched.media.mit.edu/ for lesson plans and ideas from teachers around the world.

Another idea - I just downloaded and started reading some documents on "CT" - Computational Thinking from ISTE and CSTA ( http://www.iste.org/learn/computational-thinking.aspx - free registration required to download). Haven't read it all or used it with kids yet, but it looks interesting. There are suggested activities that don't involve computers, similar to a few mentioned in previous posts to get kids to think about processes, algorithms, etc... including stuff for younger kids.

A projector, and Scratch?
http://scratch.mit.edu/

Mindstorms could also make sense?

To explain a programming I would demostrate how changes to a simple piece of code changes something that you can see, like an animation (scratch) or a robot's behavior (mindstorms).

LEGO WeDo is also a good programming language for younger kids--7+

Introduce them to Scratch. http://scratch.mit.edu/ It's an easy programming environment where they can actually create something. You can demo programs other kids have written and depending on the time you have, they could actually create programs themselves.

A projector, and Scratch?
http://scratch.mit.edu/

Mindstorms could also make sense?

To explain a programming I would demostrate how changes to a simple piece of code changes something that you can see, like an animation (scratch) or a robot's behavior (mindstorms).

I was lucky enough to hear Nancy Kanwisher give a talk summarising her lab's work, it's all pretty impressive. There are some ingenious experiments in there, yet they are still comprehensible to non-neuroscientists.

http://web.mit.edu/bcs/nklab/

The summary links to a reply of a critique of a 2009 paper. The original paper (with brain imaging goodness) can be found here.

I work in cosmology and use general relativity extensively in my day to day work. I have also fielded similar questions from friends and undergraduates, so I can provide you with advice based on my experience.

What approach you use depends on how well you want to understand. I am going to assume that you want to understand the equations and how to manipulate them --- that when asked about the anomalous procession of Mars, you could sit down with a pencil and graphing calculator for an hour and tell them that GR accounts for ~40 arcseconds/century. To get there, you will need to cover a series of courses: Classical Mechanics, Linear Algebra, Special Relativity, Multivariable Calculus, and then General Relativity. If you also study Electromagnetism and Differential Equations, you will get a bit more out of it, but those subjects are not necessary.

Classical Mechanics (prereqs: none): You don't need anything beyond an AP physics level understanding of mechanics, but you do need that. MIT has all of the 8.01 (classical mechanics) lectures online.

Linear Algebra (prereqs: none): You need to understand what a vector is, what a matrix is, what a linear transformation is, and what traces and determinants are. You probably have this knowledge from stats. If not, trys Jacob or any similar text.

Multivariable Calculus (prereqs: Linear Algebra): A standard undergrad book is fine. You need to know how to transform variables and use multivariable differential operators. A standard course is online.

Special Relativity (prereqs: Classical Mechanics, Linear Algebra): Special Relativity is essential for understanding General Relativity. Of particular importance is the 4-vector notation and the Lorentz transformation. A. P. French is one of the classic textbooks.

General Relativity (prereqs: Special Relativity, Multivariable Calculus): The nice thing about introductory Physics texts is that they teach you all the differential geometry you need to understand. The unfortunate thing is they tend to be aimed at Physics graduate students. There are a few undergrad textbooks, but they are not as rigorous and not as worthwhile to read. The classic General Relativity textbook is Misner, Wheeler, Thorne, but MWT is better as a reference text than as a first course. Better textbooks would be Wald, General Relativity, and Carroll, Spacetime and Geometry . Of the two, I would recommend the latter.

You should keep in mind that the texts will be hard and the learning curve will be steep. The best way to understand the material is to do most of the problems in the undergraduate books or all the problems in the graduate texts, and ideally, have someone read over your problem sets. It will, however, be rewarding.

I work in cosmology and use general relativity extensively in my day to day work. I have also fielded similar questions from friends and undergraduates, so I can provide you with advice based on my experience.

What approach you use depends on how well you want to understand. I am going to assume that you want to understand the equations and how to manipulate them --- that when asked about the anomalous procession of Mars, you could sit down with a pencil and graphing calculator for an hour and tell them that GR accounts for ~40 arcseconds/century. To get there, you will need to cover a series of courses: Classical Mechanics, Linear Algebra, Special Relativity, Multivariable Calculus, and then General Relativity. If you also study Electromagnetism and Differential Equations, you will get a bit more out of it, but those subjects are not necessary.

Classical Mechanics (prereqs: none): You don't need anything beyond an AP physics level understanding of mechanics, but you do need that. MIT has all of the 8.01 (classical mechanics) lectures online.

Linear Algebra (prereqs: none): You need to understand what a vector is, what a matrix is, what a linear transformation is, and what traces and determinants are. You probably have this knowledge from stats. If not, trys Jacob or any similar text.

Multivariable Calculus (prereqs: Linear Algebra): A standard undergrad book is fine. You need to know how to transform variables and use multivariable differential operators. A standard course is online.

Special Relativity (prereqs: Classical Mechanics, Linear Algebra): Special Relativity is essential for understanding General Relativity. Of particular importance is the 4-vector notation and the Lorentz transformation. A. P. French is one of the classic textbooks.

General Relativity (prereqs: Special Relativity, Multivariable Calculus): The nice thing about introductory Physics texts is that they teach you all the differential geometry you need to understand. The unfortunate thing is they tend to be aimed at Physics graduate students. There are a few undergrad textbooks, but they are not as rigorous and not as worthwhile to read. The classic General Relativity textbook is Misner, Wheeler, Thorne, but MWT is better as a reference text than as a first course. Better textbooks would be Wald, General Relativity, and Carroll, Spacetime and Geometry . Of the two, I would recommend the latter.

You should keep in mind that the texts will be hard and the learning curve will be steep. The best way to understand the material is to do most of the problems in the undergraduate books or all the problems in the graduate texts, and ideally, have someone read over your problem sets. It will, however, be rewarding.

Madness indeed. I got quite deep into physics and calculus at university and hit a brick wall with multivariable calculus. I believe that you'll need the multivariable calculus skills in order to get any reasonable grip on general relativity. You'll also need a strong physics background: force, mass, acceleration, rotary motion, etc. Having read Einstein's book on special relativity, I'd definitely say start there. It's pretty clear and amazingly intuitive. The Feynman lectures on physics are probably the best physics textbook ever. I wonder too if you might find a class on it online -- maybe Harvard or MIT:
http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/physics/8-962-general-relativity-spring-2006/

start with this pdf and then slog through the wikipedia articles on GR http://web.mit.edu/edbert/GR/gr1.pdf

I happen to have been following the work of Dina Katabi et al. for quite some time now and I have to admit that it is a very poor summary even for Slashdot. I can assure you that you can understand much more by skipping the summary, skipping the Original Source link and just reading the paper in question. It is a truly revolutionary idea that will soon change the way we perceive the risks in wireless communication.

As best I can tell from the scant information in the article, this is merely a hardware implementation of standard neural network architectures. Many of these were described, as software implementations in the mid-1980s by Rumelhart, McClelland et. al. in their two volume work*Parallel Distributed Processing*. Many of the putatively revolutionary features of this implementation, like on-board memory and modifiable connections are described. Since that time, neural network technology has advanced quite a bit, as can be seen by inspecting journals such as *Connection Science*, or *Neural Computation*. So, despite all the hyperbole here, as best I an tell, this is not really news.

It's nice that they're doing this, but it's a bit late to be doing a planar walking/running machine. (It's supported so that it can't fall sideways, so it's a 2D balancing system instead of a 3D one, and is considered "planar", although it's going in a circle.) Compare Spring Flamingo, 1996-2000 at MIT.

This group doesn't seem to be addressing slip control or hills (which I've worked on), or twist control (first addressed by Jessica Hodgkins at Georgia Tech and by Honda). As soon as you go beyond flat, high-friction floors (these guys use rubber mats), slip control starts to dominate the problem. Take a look at Big Dog videos.

Twist control involves not inducing torso rotation, or at least cancelling it on the next half-stride, and is an additional problem bipeds face more than quadrupeds. Honda had a lot of trouble with that in the early days of Asimo. Planar bipeds can't twist, so this group gets to ignore that problem.

It's easier to work in this area than it was in the 1990s. Simulators are much better. CPUs are much faster. The theory is better. Control algorithms are better. Motors are better. Funding is better. There's no need to work on an oversimplified version of the problem any more.

I believe the correct comparison is to one of the old MIT leg lab's robots. 3D Biped wasn't restricted to a 1D track and could run and do somersaults--in 1992. And it didn't need no stinkin' knees either!

I believe the correct comparison is to one of the old MIT leg lab's robots. 3D Biped wasn't restricted to a 1D track and could run and do somersaults--in 1992. And it didn't need no stinkin' knees either!

I find it interesting is to listen to those still living (though Aaron Cohen died last year) who were major players in the Apollo program. Although Schmitt is among one of the speakers, I consider major players are those that stayed on the ground, it takes non-astronauts to make major decisions and get resources from Congress and the President. Though I myself have not watched this yet. I did watch some others about Shuttle by Dale Myers, Aaron Cohen, and Chris Kraft. Much of the history I knew but how these guys explained it connected all the dots together to what and why (NASA, Apollo, Shuttle) it happened.

Apollo: Reflections and Lessons
Moderator: Jeffrey Hoffman
Theodore Sorensen, Richard Battin, Aaron Cohen, Joseph Gavin, Harrison H. Schmitt, Christopher C. Kraft Jr.
June 11, 2009, Running Time: 2:35:37
http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/727

No dumbass, MIT actually has a little known program to make *teachers*, not professors.
http://civic.mit.edu/users/klopfer http://step.mit.edu/ http://student.mit.edu/catalog/m11a.html (11.124-11.130)

No dumbass, MIT actually has a little known program to make *teachers*, not professors.
http://civic.mit.edu/users/klopfer http://step.mit.edu/ http://student.mit.edu/catalog/m11a.html (11.124-11.130)

No dumbass, MIT actually has a little known program to make *teachers*, not professors.
http://civic.mit.edu/users/klopfer http://step.mit.edu/ http://student.mit.edu/catalog/m11a.html (11.124-11.130)

In reality he is director of the MIT STEP program, which is a program which teaching MIT students how to teach high school. (No, I'm not kidding.)

The STEP program was actually responsible for developing the graphical programming system (OpenBlocks) used by App Inventor. OpenBlocks was originally invented for use in the StarLogo TNG environment, but was deliberately designed to be general and suitable for other block based visual programming languages.

In reality he is director of the MIT STEP program, which is a program which teaching MIT students how to teach high school. (No, I'm not kidding.)

The STEP program was actually responsible for developing the graphical programming system (OpenBlocks) used by App Inventor. OpenBlocks was originally invented for use in the StarLogo TNG environment, but was deliberately designed to be general and suitable for other block based visual programming languages.

In reality he is director of the MIT STEP program, which is a program which teaching MIT students how to teach high school. (No, I'm not kidding.)

The STEP program was actually responsible for developing the graphical programming system (OpenBlocks) used by App Inventor. OpenBlocks was originally invented for use in the StarLogo TNG environment, but was deliberately designed to be general and suitable for other block based visual programming languages.

I'm in a similar age category. And some things are harder for me to pick up these days. But other things aren't.

I'm not really trying to learn new languages at this point, over the last 15 years I've surveyed at least 150, and trying out small projects with at least 10 of the best ones.

Right now I'm going "back to school". Studying AI http://www.ai-class.com/, and Algorithms http://mitpress.mit.edu/algorithms/. I briefly toyed with the idea of studying Knuth, but it didn't seem practical for what I want to accomplish.

Why not work on some FOSS projects? Even fixing bugs can help keep the old gears turning. Better yet, start your own fun project.

Your post reminds me of the DoomSayers wailing about the imminent demise of humanity when the tech for test-tube babies was being developed way back when.

I'm not saying don't be concerned about disasters, but geez, there are other things to worry about in this sad world of ours.

Does this http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2011/antiviral-0810.html also fill you with dread?

In other words, you're too lazy to even look at the article? :) The abstract explains in fairly plain English the tests they've done.
From the paper:

We have created DRACOs and shown that they are nontoxic in 11 mammalian cell types and effective against 15 different viruses.....We have also demonstrated that DRACOs can rescue mice challenged with H1N1 influenza.

So they've tested on a number of different tissue types, and tested in mice and found no problem. Whether it will cause problems in humans or not is still unknown, but it looks promising.

In the MIT press release they have some nice pictures that demonstrate little damage (at least, visibly) to healthy cells.