Slashdot Mirror

Here is an article with plenty of references, though this guy focuses more on computers as a teaching aid.

But net radiative power out of a boundary around the source = "radiative power out" minus "radiative power in", so the equation Jane just described also says:

NO!!!!! .. [Jane Q. Public, 2014-12-16]

After Jane emphatically rejected the standard physics definition of the term "net", it became clear that Jane is hopelessly confused about the term "net". Sadly, this is typical for Jane/Lonny Eachus and other climate contrarians.

After it became clear that Jane is hopelessly confused about the very term "net" which he keeps screaming in ALL CAPS, I explained conservation of energy in a way that didn't require using that troublesome word. At this point, a real skeptic would either try to address this disagreement about a fundamental definition, or agree to disagree about the definition and solve the problem like I did without using the disputed word. But not Jane/Lonny Eachus:

.. No NET incoming radiation from cooler bodies is absorbed, therefore no NET radiation is crossing your boundary FROM those cooler bodies. It comes in and goes right back out. .. no NET cooler radiation is absorbed in the first place.. [Jane Q. Public, 2015-01-01]

Instead, Jane kept repeatedly screaming "NET" in ALL CAPS, completely ignoring the fact that his emphatic rejection of its standard physics definition reduces his rant to gibberish. Jane/Lonny Eachus also ignored me after I asked him simple questions about the definition of the word "net", so there doesn't seem to be any way to correct Jane's fundamental misconception.

I try to be tolerant of those who appear to suffer from Dunning-Kruger Syndrome, but one can only be so patient. :o) [Lonny Eachus, 2015-01-09]

Jane/Lonny tries to be tolerant of those he thinks suffer from Dunning-Kruger syndrome, but only if "tolerant" includes endless cussing and screaming garnished with ball washing fantasies. If Jane/Lonny wonders what a Dunning-Kruger victim looks like, he need only look in a mirror:

.. I'm really not sorry to say this after your past behavior, but showing you're wrong is just plain dirt simple. And not JUST wrong, but so ridiculously wrong that I can (and will, believe me!) use it as entertainment for certain of my friends. .. [Jane Q. Public, 2014-09-02]

.. It feels as though I'm explaining to a high-school student who has never seen a physics problem before. .. [Jane Q. Public, 2014-09-04]

I keep finding myself in a position where I feel I should explain, but I am at a loss as to why I should have to, becau

... Since this person is not making any scientific argument anyway, but simply attempting ad-hominem, and saying "so-and-so is wrong" without ANY evidence (which is all he can do, because he doesn't have any), this was a completely pointless exercise on his part. He was simply making another attempt at dragging my persona through the mud. I can only conclude that was his only purpose, since he didn't make any actual, substantive arguments. [Jane Q. Public, 2014-07-25]

A real skeptic would be checking my calculations but Jane can't even acknowledge them. If the Slayers are right, why is Venus hotter than Mercury?

Mercury's daytime surface temperature is 350C while Venus has a nighttime surface temperature of ~470C.

... despite the fact that Venus is 87% farther away from the Sun than Mercury, implying sunlight 3.5x weaker.

... and despite the fact that Mercury's albedo is ~0.1 and Venus's albedo is ~0.65.

... and despite the fact that a "night" on Venus lasts ~58 Earth days, during which the temperature barely changes from that at "high noon".

... Since all atmospheres must get colder with altitude as kinetic energy is transformed into potential energy in a planet’s gravitational field, the lower atmosphere must be warmer than upper atmosphere, even if there is no radiation involved. This follows from the perfect gas law, PV = nRT. ... [Dr. Latour, 2011-11-06]

Riiiight. That's why the stratosphere doesn't exist. I've explained that long-term equilibrium surface temperature is determined by conservation of energy, not the ideal gas law. (If scientists were wrong, basketball players would have to dribble with gloves because the pressurized ball would have to be very hot.)

Many Slayers blame equilibrium surface temperature on pressure, which I call the basketball player glove fantasy. None of the Slayers at WUWT would answer this question: would Venus have the same surface temperature if its atmosphere were pure nitrogen, which isn’t a greenhouse gas?

I've even seen a Slayer convince himself that all objects have the same albedo, which I call the gray Oreo fantasy.

Will Jane explain the fact that Venus is hotter than Mercury using basketball player gloves, gray Oreos, or truly original groundbreaking science?

I can some up your whole post with one word - perhaps. Then I can show you the "new type" of math that is being forced on children today in many parts of the country.

It's called math investigationsHere is a simple addition problem.

  125
  237
+175
--------
  300
  200
    37
--------
  537

You could check out Tabletop software. It's a visual frontend for Excel that makes working with data and graphs much more intuitive. Currently in beta, it is due out this summer. I would email those folks at Terc for more info/availability.

Yeah, I'm dealing with gamma differences in my art, too. Do me a favor and help me study the range of gamma values out there by completing my online gamma test.

Young children are fantastically good at learning languages by example, but often not good at predicate logic or deductive reasoning, which takes a lot of training. (As an aside, the book Reading Reflex applies this insight to teaching reading - instead of teaching deductive rules parrot fashion, it groups different representations of the same sound and gets the children to work through them until they derive an unconscious model that way).

The best 'programming' exercise with small children is the 'I am a robot' game. You play their robot slave, and do what you are told, but very literally, and in small stages, with 'error messages' returned in a robot voice. Just getting you to walk from the sofa to the bedroom can take ages and they love it. They naturally want to be the simple-minded robot too (just make sure they don't get too attached to it, or they may end up working in telephone support).

I've seen a huge amount of 'educational' software - I used to work in the CD-ROM business, and I buy up remaindered CD's from Marshalls for my 2 boys and watch how they use them. Most of them are dross, with the same few ideas (Pelmanism, missing words etc.) recycled with a different character or brand attached. Some have genuine insight, and I can see them learning to reason using them. Here are a selection:

Logical Journey of the Zoombinis is a wonderful introduction to deductive logic through a compelling game. It was designed with this in mind and my boys have been playing this since they were 3, and are still enjoying it now at 5 and 7 (as do I).

The Pajama Sam series of adventures from Humongous are good at teaching the global/local focus, but one that is great fun and teaches valuable debugging skills is Pajama Sam's SockWorks which features a long series of machines that have socks in them that you have to get into the right coloured baskets. As you can also build your own puzzles, the idea of solvable and unsolvable problems naturally comes up.

Zap! is another great game that teaches by stealth. You have to help 3 wisecracking cartoon charcters to fix their electrical, optical and audio-visual gadgets to get their show on the road. It manages to include a compelte circuit simulator, an optical workbench simulator and sound environment simulator, and still be lots of fun for Kindergarten children.

To teach programming concepts without writing textual code, Cocoa is perfect (if you have a Mac). It is a tool that enables you to create 2d video games by drawing the characters and defining what happens when they encounter each other by example. Andrew has made about 65 games with this, some original, some homages to TV programs or his brother's films.

Finally, if you want a comprehensible textual language, use Runtime Revolution, whose language Transcript is based on the old Apple HyperCard language, and as such has completely human-readable programs. This is what I plan to get Andrew into next.
(republished from my blog, May 12th 2002)

But still, doing research on the Net is next to useless.

Really? Maybe you should look at some WebQuests. The well-developed ones give opposing viewpoints, and let the student decide where his/her own opinions lie. Let's not let the kiddies think anything outside what the mainstream textbooks tell us!

The accuracy and validity of anything on the Web must be questioned...

Absolutely. Questioning (a.k.a. skepticism) is something we should be teaching our students, don't you think?

In a time when schools are removing libraries to make room for computer labs,...

Source? Certainly some oversized libraries have had sections rearranged to make room for a computer lab, but I know of nowhere where any books have been made inaccessible by "making rooms for computer labs", much less of a school "removing a library".

What would you trust more, the Oxford English Dictionary, or Encarta.com?

No more straw men, please! (And besides, you're comparing a dictionary to an encyclopedia.) Which do you trust more, Any of these textbooks (which purport to be conveyors of fact), or This variety of internet resources?

--