Slashdot Mirror

The article lists several more sources for information:

• Warschauer, Mark. Technology and Social Inclusion: Rethinking the Digital Divide. Boston: MIT Press. 2003.
• Becker, Henry J. Who's Wired and Who's not? The Future of Children Vol 10 No 2; 2000.
• Warschauer, Mark. Reconceptualizing the Digital Divide. First Monday Vol 7 no 7; 2002.
• Athena Alliance
• Center for Scoial Informatics
• Community Informatics Research and Applications Unit
• Community Technology Centers Network
• Digital Divide Network

The article lists several more sources for information:

• Warschauer, Mark. Technology and Social Inclusion: Rethinking the Digital Divide. Boston: MIT Press. 2003.
• Becker, Henry J. Who's Wired and Who's not? The Future of Children Vol 10 No 2; 2000.
• Warschauer, Mark. Reconceptualizing the Digital Divide. First Monday Vol 7 no 7; 2002.
• Athena Alliance
• Center for Scoial Informatics
• Community Informatics Research and Applications Unit
• Community Technology Centers Network
• Digital Divide Network

Similarly, the amateur scientist article from SciAm: here

Maybe it depends on your personal view of the universe...

Read this to see what I'm talking about. It was featured here on slashdot a while ago.

But the Atkins diet is the ones making the claims that you can lose weight by following it. From what I have seen, it may be true. But losing weight != healthy. This diet is popular because people want to lose weight, not because they want to be healthy. Therefore, the burden of proof is on Dr. Atkins to prove it is healthy. Of course there are concerns with it, it does fly in the face of what we generally accept to be a good diet. Saying "there is no evidence to prove it is unhealthy" is just wrong. If you come out with some diet that you are advocating, it is your responsibility to show it won't kill you in 5 years.

A good recent study on diet is this Scientific American article on rebuilding the food pyramid.

Do you suspect that it is because people in Paris get much more exercise than people in, for example, New York? Do you suspect that they lack the modern conveniences that make us Americans so fat? Or do you suspect that it might have something to do with the eating patterns, maybe the fact that in France they haven't had a government cramming bulk manufactured, prepackaged, sugar-starches down their throats and calling it nutrition for the last 20 years.

Can't blame the government on this one. If you don't know fast food is bad for you then you are an idiot. If you choose to get a Super-sized meal, that is your choice. The French love food, probably more than anyone else on the planet. They strive for freshness and quality. We want quick and cheap. That is our society. They appreciate quality, we want quantity. I didn't see any "all you can eat" buffets in Paris. :-)

(for the record I don't actually consider the French "surrender monkeys" :) I was simply quoting a very funny line from the Simpsons.

Ahh, but it isn't quite as funny without the Scottish accent. :-)

I think people can do little things to tip the balance one way or another but often people's balance is way off and they need big changes in order to make any progress.

I agree. The FIRST thing you need to do is educate yourself. There are basics you can learn, and apply them immediately. You'd be surprised that many people don't know that if you intake more calories than you burn, you gain weight. They don't know the basics about metabolism. The basics about fat, protein, and carbs. That sugar is a simple carb. That something simple like replacing the 6 Cokes you drink a day with water can make a huge difference. But people want the quick fix without understanding the basics of nutrition. Back to the original poster of this question, I say that he should be educating himself with the net instead of asking Slashdot for something that is tried and true. Get the principles down, work on the method later. Because if method X doesn't work for him, he has to find another method instead of working off a good base of knowledge.

read something interesting in scientific american a month or so ago. I'll paraphrase:
They tested 108 or so brands of bottled water. 20 some of them were straight tap water. anything that says from a "public source" or "municiple source" is tap water. 18 of them wouldn't pass standards for tap water (they didn't name names) this isn't that surprising considering that bottled waters have to test their water once a week whereas city waters have to test 100 times / mth. The article goes on...

"if it isn't better for you, it must taste better right?" Well, no. in a blind test 45% chose NYC tap water above other brands. poland springs (24%) and evian water (18&) were next.

I've had an apostrophe!!! B) Maybe they have a website: read it for yourself, i'll leave my synopsis.

And lay off the carbohydrates too. This might start a flame war (Atkins diet arguments and such.) You should lay of the bread, chips, orange juice, and other things that have a lot of carbs. This stuff gets absorbed by your body and makes you fat. Actual fat is more or less just passing through and makes it into the toilet with your centrum multivitamin.

Cutting back on the carbohydrates and stepping up on the exercise is really what makes the difference.

Now, would anyone with a better understanding of dietary values care to correct me?

Sorta, kinda. Fat definitely does not "just pass through" in any sense. It's actually easier to digest and goes more directly to your flab. However the Atkins theory is that severely restricting carbohydrate consumption throws the body into a different metabolic state, where weight loss becomes much easier.

I've been following this lately, because some interesting data is now coming out. It turns out that all the physicians and nutrionists who have been mocking Atkins as pseudo-science for the past 30 years or so, did not have any actual scientific results to back up their criticisms--just common knowledge and assumptions. Assumptions which completely ignored what was being learned about endocrinology.

I think there's going to a real shit-storm within the next 5 years, because so much of what we've been told by the establishment (iow USDA and AHA in the US) was based on mere assumption but presented as science. And it's beginning to look like it was wrong--that the food pyramid with its big base in carbs (grains) is a recipe for obesity and Type II diabetes.

All through my 20s and 30s I practiced (mostly) the low-fat high-carb recommendations, and managed to stay pretty active overall. I always thought that Atkins was some kind of fringe quack, based on what I read. But now that the truth is coming out, there is no evidence that Atkins doesn't work, and never was. Where it has been studied recently, the data that is coming out suggests that it might work after all. And by work, I don't mean just rapid weight loss--I mean rapid weight loss, while increasing HDL, without increasing LDL, and none of the other dire health problems predicted by mainstream nutritional theory.

Just so you know this is not an ill-informed rant, here are a few references:

Here's a decent primer on more current nutrional thinking.

This article from the New York Times Magazine was one of the better ones, because it dug deeply enough to uncover the original gap in the science and the way it was glossed over for political expediency. Unfortunately, the article is old enough that it's in the for-pay archives. However, a quick google search for the title turns up a number of web sites with copies. For instance, here, here, here, here, and a pdf here.

There are other articles I've seen within the past 2 years that make what seem to me to be good solid scientific points, but I can't remember the reference. FYI, my interest all started when I read a small AP blurb in a newspaper about a nutrional researcher who got the idea to locate and examine the results of all the studies of the Atkins diet, then discovered that there were no such studies!

• White grains (labeled as bleached, durum, semolina, etc) are actually just long strains of glucose, which the body is very adept at turning straight into glucose (and thus the blood sugar spike)
  
• Whole wheats are not as easily handled by the body, and actually require that the body spend more energy digesting them. Also there are more nutrients/fiber in the outside shell of a grain, which are stripped off in white grains.

• Saturated Fat
  
• Trans-fat
  
• Hydrogenated (appears in ingredient list)

But ask yourself: Why did they die out?

Odds are, the reason that they died out, along with around 70 other species of giant mammals around that time is us. Although some claim it could be weather. The article addresses both possiabilities.

But ask yourself: Why did they die out?

Odds are, the reason that they died out, along with around 70 other species of giant mammals around that time is us. Although some claim it could be weather. The article addresses both possiabilities.

A moon colony is doable, arguably more doable than a space station, you can use local material
Well, it's a little more complex than that. Entirely new technologies would have to be developed for manufacturing processing in zero/low-G. You'd be surprised at how much of our materials processing and refining capabilities are dependent on bouyancy, a gravity driven effect. For example, fire does weird things in low-G because it's affected by bouyancy. NASA used to have a fun page up on the subject but I can't seem to find it, so you'll have to be content with the dumbed down Scientific American.
Spinning things may offer a different approach, but developing the centrifuge technology to completely replace gravity for the scale of processing you'd have to do to mine ore, smelt, refine, extrude, and finally construct a structure out of the finished product is insane.
Build the space station. It's cheaper.

Here's the article:

Scientific American: Highways of Light by Leik N. Myrabo

Scientific American has an article: here about a service available in the UK called "shazam" which is used to identify pieces of music.
You can dial up the Shazam network, point your mobile phone at the source of music and the database will reply to your phone a few minutes later with an SMS containing the artist name, and track title.
It is amazingly resilient to different recordings and quality of the same piece of music.

This article is rather bland and trite in comparison to Scientific American's article that goes into a greater depth about the value of AR in the future (April 2002).

The comments so far have been asking whether or not assembly workers actually need the AR. I would say many don't, however, as manufacturing becomes more and more automated, the actual jobs of the workers/repairmen on the line will probably increase in complexity leading to an excellent use of AR.

EETimes doesn't even mention the possiblity of gaming with AR. Check out the sciam link to see more about gaming with AR.

-Brad

This article is rather bland and trite in comparison to Scientific American's article that goes into a greater depth about the value of AR in the future (April 2002).

The comments so far have been asking whether or not assembly workers actually need the AR. I would say many don't, however, as manufacturing becomes more and more automated, the actual jobs of the workers/repairmen on the line will probably increase in complexity leading to an excellent use of AR.

EETimes doesn't even mention the possiblity of gaming with AR. Check out the sciam link to see more about gaming with AR.

-Brad

Seriously, is there really a need for something like this to happen? At the risk of frowning on something that some guy did "just because he could", does anyone actually use these computers anymore? I deal with alot of users, and the OLDEST machine ive seen in years still being used as an internet capable machine is a 486/66DX. Those are few and far between. Im all for hobbys, (i recently spend a week learning how to program atari games) but is this really front page material? Arent there more pressing issues at hand ?

In Scientific American Special Report - Better Killing through Chemistry, an investigator was easily able to mail-order chemicals necessary for creation of a weapon. One can go to a library and find out how to build a bomb. Information and access to it is out there. To depend too much on classifying is to build false confidence.

Sheesh, never any mod points when I actually want 'em. This Scientific American article deals with some of the same issues.

Here's the latest crusty screed from Michael Shermer making fun of dumb people who pay for bottled water.

With the way nanotechnology is going, things might soon be almost indestructible.

One tactic among many: EVERY time you obtain or receive a Business Reply Mail

Every issue of Scientific American comes with no less than six BRM subscription cards. Most magazines are just as bad. Oftentimes junk mail includes BRM envelopes, to facilitate your reply. What you need to understand is that the companies do not pay postage for Business Reply Mail, unless the cards and envelopes are actually mailed. Yes, they pay an annual fee for the license; but actual postage is only charged for each piece of mail actually processed.

In other words: When you throw these items in the trash, you achieve nothing. If you mail them, however, not only are you forcing the companies to pay postage (plus their costs in processing dead-end replies), but you're actually giving their money to the post office -- theoretically, helping to keep down the cost of our stamps. ;-)

crib

SciAm has run several articles on nanotubes over the years, several are indexed here, along with more general nanotech articles:

http://www.sciam.com/nanotech_directory.cfm

From Scientific American:

"A close second [in the stupid-security contest] was submitted by a guy whose story starts as he is about to board a plane in San Francisco. "The polite inspector informed me that he had to check my shoes for explosives. I dutifully removed them and handed them to him. He picked them up one by one and slammed them down on the floor with full force. Apparently, as they hadn't exploded, they were not dangerous, and he handed them back to me." Perhaps it's best to look on the bright side and simply applaud any public display of the scientific method."

Something like this

The idea is to use something like hydrogen that when exposed to the reactor will couse great amounts of energy to be expeled useing a minimum amount of fuel

Google spake thusly:
Scientific American nanotechnology articles: linky.
Richard Feynmand's famous talk: linky
Ralph C. Merkle's Small World article: linky

Some more google results: linky

Just though I'd share.

Yes, like bread.

Go and read about the Atkins diet, or check out the Scientific American article here for more information.

The system you describe would not violate the second law. Yes, you could use this plasma valve as a gate between two chambers at equal temperature. But you're putting energy in to keep the plasma there....and the collisions of the plasma with the gas particles will heat the gas (increasing entropy).

In theoretical thermal rectifiers in general, the interaction of the gas with, for example, the gate or the thermal interactions of the pawl in Feynman's ratchet cannot be disregarded and is often the key to seeing how a particular reincarnation of the demon fails to violate the second law.

Bennett's work, referenced by another post, kills the poor little demon on even more solid theoretical ground.

Everyone who's asking about the potential battery life/ polution from/ etc the fuel cells might like to read this article in scientific american. It's pretty old but gives a fair idea of what the technology involves. And heres a couple more.

Basically they have the potential for much longer battery life (magnitudes greater than lithium) and produce water and C02 as waste products. and cheap vodka could potentially be used for the fuel :)

I don't think any format will get Ebooks to catch on until we have reader hardware that makes reading those books at least as pleasant as reading a paper book.

Here's hoping that all those e-paper efforts will produce something usable soon.

Going with the different laws of physics idea, also don't forget the TIME itself is subject to the laws of physics in our universe as well. Just because we PERCEIVE a 10 year time period to have passed (in our simulation world), that time period could very well have been 1 second in the world of the simulation machine we are running on. The reverse is also true. One second in the simulation world could have taken 10 billion years to compute, it's just what we perceive. If you look at it that way, any discussion of computer power/speed gets completely thrown out the window. This way, the simulation would be much like the Level 4 multiverse in the parallel universes article posted here a few weeks ago. The physical laws that we are bound to exist and are defined in a completely different environment (or no environment at all, in the case of the Level 4 multiverse where they exist outside of space/time in general). From this, you could assume that anything, no matter how complex, could be computed in what seems like an instant to us, since we are bound to the laws of the "program", aka the matrix could be run on an 8086 :)

Scientific American published such a circuit in their Amateur scientist area a few years ago... link to article .

It is a commonly referenced site.

says that they are either everywhere or they don't even exists.

According to the May issue of Scientific America, there could well be an infinite number of unreachable (by the limit of the speed of light) universes. Anything could, in theory, happen in this infinite ensemble and it has no reason why some giant icecream beings happen to rule the (their own) Universe.

Further to that, among those Universes, there shall exists beings that are capable to break the light speed limit or any known physical laws that prevent them from reaching other multiverse and conquere them in a day (earth day)!

So if there really exist an infinite number of Universes, we shall know by now. In reality, it doesn't seem so, and the paradox remains...

---
"where are they?"

Yes.

Parallel Universes

The multiverse they talk about in that sciam article is the same one Reese is talking about, it's just a lot shorter to read ;)

Neat article about self-repairing computers courtesy of Scientific American.

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?chanID=sa006&arti cleID=000DAA41-3B4E-1EB7-BDC0809EC588EEDF

Neat stuff, interesting ideas.

Computer, Heal Thyself

"Systems inevitably fail. The key to reliable computing is building systems that crash gracefully and recover quickly."

Scientific American actually had an article on a similar topic. Basically, they seem to be accepting crashes as ineveitable, and were focusing on systems to help computers recover from crashes faster and more reliably...

They also propose that all computer systems should have an "undo" feature built in to allow harmful changes (either due to mistakes or malice) to be easily undone...

Perhaps you should read this article in Scientific American "click me!". It speakes to parallel universes, but explains the thinking behind them. While it is not a journal by any stretch of the imagination, it is definitely an interesting read.

A Scientific American (publication website) article talks about a theory of parallel universes (article link) that is gaining in popularity in the cosmology circles. It speaks of a "Multiverse" as well. Though, not in the same vein.

A Scientific American (publication website) article talks about a theory of parallel universes (article link) that is gaining in popularity in the cosmology circles. It speaks of a "Multiverse" as well. Though, not in the same vein.

This" was in Scientific American a little while ago. Who knew? I had thought multiverse theory was restrained to sci-fi and comic books.

Chimps and humans share 99.4% of our DNA. On the other hand, folks are arguing that the concept of human races is bogus, pointing out that all humans share 99.9% of their DNA . I am amazed that the difference between race and species comes down to just .5% of the DNA sequence.

Most of what I've read about nanotechnology has come from Scientific American. From a layman's point of view their nanotech section is probably the best reference there is.

Most of what I've read about nanotechnology has come from Scientific American. From a layman's point of view their nanotech section is probably the best reference there is.

I don't know why I even bother responding to such an obvious Troll, but I'm going to anyway. No doubt, I'll stumble over some specifics (corrections/refinements are welcome), but here goes...

Firstly, you should read more posts; most of them actually make fun of the concept of using The Matrix as any kind of meaningful vehicle for proselytizing.

As to your second point, the bible repeatedly proves itself wrong.

Look, if you want to think that the bible is some kind of repository of moral rectitude, be my guest. But don't make the mistake of believing that it's infallible. The only people I've ever met who think every word in the bible is the literal truth are people who have yet to read any significant portion of it. As to the Noachian flood myths, study some geology. Absent that, read some more informed sources.

Your third point suffers from a number of misconceptions. First of all (and any number of Cosmologists can explain this far better and more accurately than I can), no one says that the Big Bang theory disproves the existence of god; what it does tell us is that the universe has a definite starting point and that the origins of the earth, planet, sun, stars, and other celestial bodies (which, BTW, we are able to observe but whose existence is conspicuously absent from the bible) are derivatives of physical constants set in motion by the big bang, thus eliminating the need for constant divine intervention (as described in Genesis--actually, described twice in Genesis, in accounts that differ significantly).

Additionally, I know of no "two-second rule" in the big bang theory; last I heard, we had refined our knowledge of the big bang process down to a few milliseconds. And there is no mention in any cosmology I have ever read that mentions any atoms rubbing together. In fact, most physical cosmolgies posit a super-dense mass of subatomic particles that is several orders of magnitude more dense than atomic structures. As to the period of time before the big bang, there you enter some interesting territory. Interesting from a philosophical standpoint, not from a physical one, however. There is no way for us to observe what may or may not have occurred "beyond" the "big bang barrier", thus, anything that may or may not have existed "before" that moment is essentially meaningless to us.

And please, please don't ever revert to the 'a theory is not a law' chestnut; it's embarrassing to have to explain something so rudimentary. a hypothesis and a theory are not the same thing. A hypothesis is a guess. In science, a hypothesis is a guess about how something works. A theory is an understanding of how something works, backed up by testing and observation. In science, "theory" and "law" mean essentially the same thing. We prefer the term "theory" because it is more precise than "law." We cannot, for example, know every possible permutation of the Special Theory of Relativity--they're infinite. We can say with a fair degree of certainty, however, that the relativity principle combined with the Maxwell equations demonstrates that E=mc^2. Mass graves in Hiroshima and Nagasaki are testament to this fact.

Fourthly, the existence of religious themes in popular entertainment demonstrates precisely nothing about the extent to which religion was "a great part of the writers' lives growing up." Frankly, I think the Matrix is a horrible example of religious allegory. Neo (and the crew of the Nebuchadnezzar) killed scores of people whose only crime was not knowing that they were victims of an elaborate deception. Now,

Interesting that this comes up, the same night that I find this article in another comment on /.

This means something!

Corrected Link to Article In case you don't catch the space in the orignal one, or are just to lazy to cut and paste :)

In one of the infinite number of universes those monkeys actually did produce the works of Shakespeare, and every other posible combination of characters. Recent SciAm article on parallel universes I bet people were pretty damn surprised in those universes where the monkeys produced the next release of Windows before Microsoft (response: no they weren't, because Microsoft sucks so much!).

A lot of the developments that have made disks so high capacity came from spintronics research. Here is a link to an article on Scientific American about how it works: http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?articleID=0007A73 5-759A-1CDD-B4A8809EC588EEDF

There is one universe in which life exists on mars, and one in which it doesn't, and one in which /. decided not to post this article and one in which I get modded up for this post (but probably not this one)...