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Depends on the situation. Most of the "wildly different numbers" situations quoted by critics of radiometric dating are for metamorphic rocks rather than ones with a simple thermal history, because different minerals and isotopic systems will behave differently when heated subsequent to formation of the minerals (look up the subject of closure temperature). If, for example, a mass of granite takes 20 million years to cool, then guess what -- the methods with higher closure temperatures will give you older dates and the lower closure temperature ones will be younger. These situations aren't *expected* to yield consistent ages for multiple methods, because the methods are telling you the age of the last time the mineral cooled below specific temperatures and the temperature history of the rock is complicated.

For minerals with simple thermal histories, such as volcanic ash beds, multiple methods (e.g., K/Ar, U/Pb and Rb/Sr) commonly yield the same date within analytical uncertainties. Furthermore, in a succession of ash beds arranged in the stratigraphy it is routine for them to show the expected age progression as you go higher in the stratigraphy, and for horizons thought to be the same age based on fossils to yield the same radiometric dates (again, within analytical uncertainty). Look at this paper from the Cretaceous-Tertiary boundary, for example. Pretty darn consistent +- the uncertainties.

It's hard to account for these results if the methods are bogus, especially when the decay rates between some of these methods differ by an order of magnitude, yet they yield the same age for the same fossil-dated event at multiple locations.

So I really don't think my claims are so extravagant when they are based on information coming directly from scientific studies. Granted, I am NOT in the biotech industry and do not possess the requisite education to interpret the findings directly. However, to the best of my recollection, these articles were not published in a biased manner against Monsanto specifically. The presentation of the information was not like that, IMO.

The problem is that none of the studies you referred to demonstrate the conclusions implicit in your posts.

The monarch butterfly study (there were actually many), for example, is one of the talking points of anti-GMO groups, but does not apply to field conditions. The studies most likely behind the claims in your posts basically consisted of researchers finding out how much Bt11 corn pollen had to be on the milkweed leaves before butterflies and other lepidoptera feeding on the leaves were adversely affected. The studies (e.g., here or broad overview of the subject here, and a good abstract that directly addresses the initial misunderstanding of the topic here) generally all find negligible, and potential positive impact of Bt11 on monarchs. More comprehensive studies noted correctly that the alternative to Bt11 varieties is broad-spectrum insecticidal sprays that are guaranteed to impact any butterflies in the field. Also, the number of butterflies that actually use cultivated croplands as a habitat has never been determined conclusively, but is known to be relatively low, as clean cultural practices drastically reduce the density of milkweed in croplands vs uncultivated ground, and the much taller corn plants deter butterflies from landing on milkweed in the field.

Similarly with the BGH-1 and dairy cattle: Studies have shown that BGH-1 consumption can raise the incidence of cancer. Monsanto produces rBGH, which is injected into dairy cattle to increase milk yields. Hence, Monsanto increases cancer!... Except not. While I'd rather not get milk from cows injected with rBGH, it's not because of fear of cancer (rather, it's the higher incidence of mastitis = more possible puss in milk.. eww). The milk from cows injected with rBGH does not contain significantly elevated levels of BGH. The variability of BGH in a cow's milk is such that a given cow not on rBGH, on a given week (it varies even for individual cows) can have higher BGH output in its milk than the next cow over that is being dosed with rBGH. If you want to avoid exposure to BGH, you just have to stop drinking cow's milk. Period. Non-rBGH milk will not help you in any way, shape, or form in this regard.

Finally, I've said it a few places before, but the usual portrayal of Percy Schmeiser's case is another example of a massively disingenuous representation of events for several reasons:

1. The issue of GMOs is completely orthogonal. Schmeiser's field would have been just as forfeit if he had used non-GMO Dekalb (a Monsanto brand) lines instead.
2. Whether or not you agree with the ethicality of the PVPA (plant variety protection act of 1970), Schmeiser was in violation of the law, which *everyone* in the plant breeder industry was extremely well aware of (especially by almost 30 years later!). Ignorance of the law is not a legal defense, and, in this case, was not even a plausible explanation.
3. Anyone reading the case, or even an abstract thereof, will note that 'contamination' was absolutely not the cause of his troubles. He deliberately, systematically, and knowingly selected for Monsanto's varieties.

Monsanto's reaction was unnecessarily brutal, but he was absolutely not innocent. The best analogy I can think of is a display spilling in front of a shoplifter, who gets caught

VoiceCode looks pretty interesting. I haven't tried it yet, but it claims to knows enough about the language in which you are coding, and your existing code, to translate an utterance like "define method sort and arguments list" to def sort(self, list): (Python) and "compile symbols command set equals context sensitive command set without arguments" to command_set = CSCmdSet().

Demo videos here.

VoiceCode looks pretty interesting. I haven't tried it yet, but it claims to knows enough about the language in which you are coding, and your existing code, to translate an utterance like "define method sort and arguments list" to def sort(self, list): (Python) and "compile symbols command set equals context sensitive command set without arguments" to command_set = CSCmdSet().

Demo videos here.

not a major risk factor, sure. but, if you find that your hands hurt when you type, and they don't hurt when you stop, then that's certainly an indicator that typing is, if not the cause, then an aggravating (what's the word i'm thinking of?) factor. i had serious tendonitis, to the point of being in pain all the time. at one point, the tendon was so inflamed that my thumb would get stuck because the inflammation on the tendon would block the tendon's movement inside the sheath of cartilage.

anyway, here's the link to the mailing list for the voicecoder group: http://voicecode.iit.nrc.ca/VoiceCode/uploads/Voic eCoderFAQ.html

here is a page linking to movies of voice coding in action: http://www.voicerecognition.org/developers/jepstei n/JavabyVoice/

disclaimer: instead of voice, i use a keyboard alternative by the now-defunct Fingerworks: http://www.fingerworks.com/ST_product.html

Apparently it is... Voice Strain Disorder warning from their own site:

http://voicecode.iit.nrc.ca/VoiceCode/public/wiki. cgi?What_is_voice_strain

if (currRecNum < maxOffSet)
{
      ^
}

Don't get too discouraged by the large number of commenters who haven't used speech recognition or who don't understand why someone might need to lay off the keyboard for a while. I wrote 100k lines of C++ code hands-free for my astronomy thesis over the course of two years, using with speech recognition software that is now about 10 years out-of-date. There have been significant improvements in both the speech recognition technology and tools for coding by voice since then. For coding, take a look at the VoiceCode project at http://voicecode.iit.nrc.ca/VoiceCode/public/ywiki .cgi For other tools/approaches to coding by voice, see also the VoiceCoder group at yahoo groups: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/VoiceCoder/ I don't know of any open-source or non-commercial dictation software which matches the accuracy and ease-of-use of the Dragon NaturallySpeaking (fair warning - I work for Nuance, which makes Natspeak, though I was a user long before I became an employee). Natspeak is only available for MS Windows, but you can always put a Windows box on your desk and connect to a unix host via an X server (exceed, xwin32). That generally works well for command-line stuff, not so great for GUIs (but you say you prefer command-lines anyway).

...or for serious work, check out EMBOSS, an open source collection of hundreds of molecular biology tools with a range of optional GUIs, including an excellent web interface available at multiple sites.

That's right. Canadians are also planning a Arecibo-scale steerable radio telescope, http://www.drao.nrc.ca/science/ska/, as a prototype element for the Square Kilometer Array, http://www.skatelescope.org/.

See the Nouse "Use your nose as a mouse", also reported here a while back.

National Research Council of Canada:

NRC is composed of over 20 institutes and national programs, spanning a wide variety of disciplines and offering a broad array of services. We are located in every province in Canada and play a major role in stimulating community-based innovation.

NRC institutes and programs are organized into three (3) key areas:

* Physical Sciences and Engineering
* Life Sciences and Information Technology
* Technology and Industry Support

You can check out this Slashdot article about a new input device called a nouse. A nouse make use of "Perceptual Vision Technology", which is "the technology for designing systems, referred to as Perceptual Vision Systems (PVS), that use visual cues of the user, such as the motion of the face, to control a program."

You just need an ordinary USB webcam and some special software (available here) to make it functional.

Matt

You can check out this Slashdot article about a new input device called a nouse. A nouse make use of "Perceptual Vision Technology", which is "the technology for designing systems, referred to as Perceptual Vision Systems (PVS), that use visual cues of the user, such as the motion of the face, to control a program."

You just need an ordinary USB webcam and some special software (available here) to make it functional.

Matt

You can find Dmitry (the inventor's) webpage here. Lots of interesting stuff, including some interesting facial recognition and tracking work.

Nouse

Nose as Mouse
All you need is a webcam and your face. Tracks your nose for mouse movement.

Nouse (Nose as Mouse)
Mouse movement by tracking the nose, mouse click by blinking.

Pathfinder software archive

CLIPS

: A Tool for Building Expert Systems. Maintained by Gary Riley.
fuzzyCLIPS

Some other NASA soft:
COBWEB/3 (ptolemy.arc.nasa.gov) ?
AUTOCLASS AutoClass is an unsupervised Bayesian classification system for independent data.
PRODIGY cs.cmu.edu Integrated Planning and Learning System

Personally, I won't be satisfied until all computer control is done via blinking.

Here ya go. Nouse. Tracks your nose via a webcam for mouse movement, and eyeblinks for mouse clicks.

Most laser scanners for close scanning (cm to several meters) use triangulation. Wide FOV versions can have ~1 mm precision and cover medium volumes. Narrow FOV versions can be precise to ~0.025-0.1 mm but often can only see at very close range (~10 cm to 1 m) over small volumes. One exception is the autosyncronous scanner from NRC of Canada that can measure on the order of 25 microns (~0.025 mm) over large volumes and a wide FOV, by using a narrow FOV camera that automatically follows the laser spot across a wide FOV. This also makes it "random access" which means it doesn't have to do raster scans (but can) but can trace out any shape you want.

Neptec Design Group has developed one of these for use in space. Right now, Neptec's laser scanner is being included as a required 3D scanner for analyzing the shuttle thermal protective system on orbit (tiles, RCC panels) for return-to-flight, as a result of the Columbia Accident Investigation Board report.

A good review of TOF and triangulation scanners (and structured light / fringe), including commercially available ones, is given in this paper, and here is a good list of some scanners and their type.

Most laser scanners for close scanning (cm to several meters) use triangulation. Wide FOV versions can have ~1 mm precision and cover medium volumes. Narrow FOV versions can be precise to ~0.025-0.1 mm but often can only see at very close range (~10 cm to 1 m) over small volumes. One exception is the autosyncronous scanner from NRC of Canada that can measure on the order of 25 microns (~0.025 mm) over large volumes and a wide FOV, by using a narrow FOV camera that automatically follows the laser spot across a wide FOV. This also makes it "random access" which means it doesn't have to do raster scans (but can) but can trace out any shape you want.

Neptec Design Group has developed one of these for use in space. Right now, Neptec's laser scanner is being included as a required 3D scanner for analyzing the shuttle thermal protective system on orbit (tiles, RCC panels) for return-to-flight, as a result of the Columbia Accident Investigation Board report.

A good review of TOF and triangulation scanners (and structured light / fringe), including commercially available ones, is given in this paper, and here is a good list of some scanners and their type.

Sadly, Vancouver, BC does not show up on their connectivity map.

If you're at a university in Canada then you are likely running through CA*net4 anyhow. Think of "Internet2" in the US but fully optical with OC-192 speeds (10 Gb/sec) across most of Canada. (NB: We connect to it through work at Canada's National Research Council

The course I took in school called "software engineering" was mainly about the management, planning and processes involved in designing, implementing, and testing a software solution, and the tools for doing so.

Here's an interesting collection of definitions of "software engineer".

A socialized medical system may pay for your current medical care but it will be at the expense of medical advances.

Rubbish. I work at Canada's National Research Council and I can tell you that we have no shortage of advances in medicine and we have a thriving biomedical industry.

So much FUD, so little time.

Here are some links I found: DARPA research, Canadian project (they're pretty tight -lipped about this), and German work is ongoing too.

It seems to have been used in astonomy for counting meteors & observing auroras.

Since Dasher seems to be targeted at handicapped and/or paralyzed users, it might go well with another alternative input software called "Nouse".

Nouse is a nose tracker that requires only a USB camera, and can move the cursor based on head movements. Obviously both packages need a bit of polishing but it's an interesting possibility (look ma, no hands!).

The above wording is imprecise. 9,192,631,770 Hz is the frequency of the electromagnetic wave that triggers a certain transition in a cesium-133 atom. So, what oscillates is not the complete atom, but the electric and magnetic field. Details can be found here

The first reaction might be... so what, great for Canadians.... It's great, because at least SOME of the world can access the journals freely... as opposed to nobody at all. After all, they are government sponsored publications, so the Canadian people should be able to access them freely (while still being able to recover costs through international subscription sales). Check it out at: http://www.nrc.ca/cisti/journals

From their web pages:

The CADC was established in 1986 as one of three world-wide distribution centres for data from the Hubble Space Telescope. HST archive is possible through a grant from the Canadian Space Agency.

Most of the CADC software development is done in collaboration with the European Southern Observatories located in Garching, near Munchen, Germany and the Space Telescope - European Coordinating Facilities.

The mandate of the CADC includes

• operating and maintaining an archive of all the scientific data collected by the Hubble Space Telescope (HST).
• operating and maintaining an archive of all the scientific data collected by the Canada France Hawaii Telescope (CFHT).
• developing software tools for maximizing the scientific usefulness of astronomical archives. promoting the concept of astronomical data archives in the community.
• providing technical information and user support on using data from the our archives.

I worked for the National Research Council at the time, in Halifax, and we were actually one of the first in Canada to be on CA*net3. My boss there was actually one of the big guys involved with it, so I got to see some of the early network maps, etc. It was quite interesting.

I believe that most of CA*net3 is still dark fiber though. There's a lot connected to it, but it has to potential for much, much more.

But Perl poetry has a long history.

Available in both Canadian official languages of course!

Available in both Canadian official languages of course!

Also, it's a common misconception that black holes are like cosmic vacuum cleaners. Stuff normally just orbits past a black hole without passing through the event horizon. That haze in the photo is stars, not gas, so there's no friction to help stuff slow down instead of orbiting past.

For persepective, try going to this page and typing in a random NGC galaxy number (ngcxxx, where the x's are random digits). If you do a few of these, you'll probably notice a lot of them have funky shapes. Sometimes this can be attribited to something like a recent collision, and sometimes you just have to say it's a funky-shaped galaxy and we don't know why. I skimmed their paper, and they don't even refer to this particular galaxy in it.
The Assayer - free-information book reviews

All these archives are searchable from the web site, and (if you've registered with them) available for download. Images from HST and CADC are restricted to only the primary researcher(s) for a period of time (I think it's a year).

All these archives are searchable from the web site, and (if you've registered with them) available for download. Images from HST and CADC are restricted to only the primary researcher(s) for a period of time (I think it's a year).

All these archives are searchable from the web site, and (if you've registered with them) available for download. Images from HST and CADC are restricted to only the primary researcher(s) for a period of time (I think it's a year).

With that kind of grouping of Linux Power, there's an awful lot of Linux interest in this town - hence, a great deal of interest in running a Symposium (Thanks AH!)... if you want a symposium in your neighborhood, start one up! Can't guarantee that Alan Cox will make it (I got to sit next to him and Telsa during Miguel's keynote speech... I think I absorbed some kernel-kung-fu via osmosis)... but you never know what might come of your attempt. Maybe a few attendees will create the next great OpenSource project...

That's right, an x86 Unix predating linux was developed by a little company near Seattle, aka microsoft. How's that for irony?

Check out the The Square Kilometer Array, a radio telescope using a blimp for the receiver.

You can always have a look at VoiceGrip, a kind of plugin to help programming with voice. I never used it but I heard it's good. Maybe I'm biased, I worked there. Regards, Benoit Potvin