I've heard advice that if you're at home and suspect somebody has broken in then you should turn all the lights out (or not turn them on at all). You know your way around in the dark, the intruder probably doesn't, so you're at an advantage. You can also shut your eyes tightly, turn a light on for a split second, turn it off, and bingo, you've got night vision and they don't.
journal-of-nuclear-physics.com is a blog, not a peer reviewed journal. One glance at it quite clearly shows that it is designed to give the impression of quality peer reviewed studies, while actually being sloppily thrown together propaganda, and hence discredits the very thing it is trying to promote.
While that's horribly sexist and a generally cynical and unpleasant way of looking at the world, I have to admit you have a point. Yes, what you have described is a legitimate career path to becoming a rich and influential woman. I'd imagine that most of us (trolls aside) would prefer to live in a world where all women find a fulfilling and challenging career in, say, science or the arts rather than thinly veiled prostitution, but the fact that the career path you describe even exists is a pretty damning view of western society.
You may well have a point with the "BBC Micro" generation now hitting the age of influence. The project needs to be restarted I think, give all the kids a Raspberry Pi or similar to use. The whole thing reminds me of Ender's Game, where the kids were encouraged to hack each other's computers and build their own security systems to stop the others...stop being terrified of them "breaking the computer" and you might find they work out how to fix it in the long run.
It was telling that the number one comment on a BBC article was from a head teacher demanding to know how we were going to pay for the "top of the range computers and iPads we'll need if we're going to teach programming" (I paraphrase).
The insistence of a (linguistic) language, here in Scotland at least (different education system to England & Wales) is part of a broader thing. When I was at school in the late 80s and early 90s the following were compulsory to age 14ish:
English
Maths
Science - either a general, low level class, or more specialist physics, chemistry and/or biology
A language (inc Latin if offered)
Physical Education
Religious Studies (not oriented at any particular religion)
Art/music
So it's part of ensuring a wide-ranging education. You specialise in 8 subjects at 14/15yrs and then down to 5 at 16/17yrs.
With regard to our old-school computing education, I had a similar experience, a little Logo and the like when I was about 8 years old (the BBC Micro) and then nothing until I did a computing class at 16. I did it because I felt that I should have a formal qualification to back up the tinkering I'd been doing for 8 years. Sadly it was a case of "this is a word processor, this is a spreadsheet, this is a database, here's your certificate". Utter joke, and it's been going on for far too long. This is a big step forward, I'm praying they do it properly this time.
This has happened before. Google were sued over much the same thing, removed *ALL* references to the company in question and were then sued again for not including them.
This is the UK we're talking about - companies don't have any rights over employees free time generally. They're not even allowed to phone you at home without written permission from the employee.
Ah, the fun they had! (Bonus points if you get the reference!)
Computers are handy for learning and teaching yourself, and there's a increasing amount of really good educational stuff available for free online, but it's technology working in tandem, not against. There's even an interesting program on the go where retired folk in the UK are volunteering to help English language students in Africa via Skype. It's changing the way teachers work, but it's not going to replace them.
Vastly under-rated, more insightful than it sounds.
You could set up your own video server and use VLC to deal with the streaming or whatever, but frankly YouTube is the way to go. Zero fees for your bandwidth (hell, they PAY you if you're popular enough!), and there's enough "YouTube Ready!" basic camcorders which come with very basic but easy to use software that you can get very close to "start, stop, upload". Frankly, if somebody isn't able to take a single video file and upload it to YouTube then they shouldn't be lecturing on anything, to anyone.
There's a multi-billion dollar infrastructure there for free. Use it!
Meanwhile, the testable evidence for the Copenhagen Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics and the Everett Interpretation is identical.
Now what?
I agree entirely. The maths underlying quantum theory is well understood and tested, but the interpretation is still up for grabs. Personally I prefer Everett's ideas, but I freely acknowledge that this is entirely a faith based decision (more accurately, a wanting-it-to-be-true decision, because it fits with other-things-I-want-to-be-true) and is not testable as far as anyone knows.
I hadn't heard of Hesychasm before, but from a quick glance at Wikipedia it seems to be similar to some Buddhist practices, knowing god through clearing your mind? I've certainly tried meditation like this before, but found no sign of a god (relaxing and focussing though it was). If I did, how would I know which religion's god it was? Or, for that matter, how would I know it was god and not some malevolent "spirit" testing me in some way?
Atheist: "There's no test for 'God'."
Theist: "Here's a test, try it yourself."
Atheist: "OK. Nope, couldn't find anything that would count as reliable evidence. Got anything else?"
None. Entirely a matter of faith. Where an idea is put forward that is not testable it is, in my mind at least, equivalent to all other ideas that are not testable. So I lump the Christian god in with the Buddhist Nirvana, FSM, every work of fiction written, various multiverse theories and the like. Yes, some of these ideas are fun, entertaining, even useful analogies, but they still belong to the same class of untestable ideas. Just because a lot of people believe in one particular testable idea does not somehow bestow extra veracity upon it. Many people of religion X will try to tell atheists that their god exists, while simultaneously denying that the god of religion Y exists, and don't understand that this viewpoint is nonsensical to an atheist who believes that "god X = god Y", and both don't exist.
Your definition of a god does make it simpler than the more standard "bloke with a beard sitting on a cloud" variant, but this does not make it more likely that a god exists. I'd agree your variant is more likely than the beardy variant, simply due to Occam's razor, but it doesn't get over the fact that there is no testable evidence. Many religions specifically work in the idea that god is not testable by definition.
Citing "millenia old lines of thought" does not particularly excite me, many millenia old lines of thought are shown to be wrong or incomplete, both in science and religion, so the age of an idea casts no real insight into the veracity of the idea. Take your "Abrahamic god which...influences the physical world for the better" - this requires a god who can and has intervened in the universe (presumably via individual quantum level events) and who has an idea of morality and "good". This is surely a more complex proposition than an imaginary FSM or whatever? Who created this god? How did god get a sense of good and bad? What were the good and bad reference points before our universe existed?
If you're going to call on simplicity as an argument then the simplest argument is "universe, no god" rather than "universe, plus god"
"While you do not believe in a creator God, that also does not cause his existence to be a false premise."
I do not believe in pink dragons that fart nerve gas, although this does not cause their existence to be a false premise. The testable evidence for both god and pink dragons that fart nerve gas is identical.
Nice one on the rational acceptance of the difference between your religious belief and whether or not your religious belief is factually correct. If the world is going to have religious people then it needs a higher percentage who think like you.
If you can get away with licensing it, Windows/*nix dual boot machines. Windows because at high school level it's irresponsible not to make the least techie pupil au fait with what they will probably face in the workplace.
Then you have your *nix system for the "real work". Even one years experience will be a good head start for any student wanting to go into science and engineering. If you go with something with a nice GUI then you can introduce the lower level students to the idea that "it's not just Windows..."
I do need the bells and whistles, so I have a netbook. If I was working on a phone I'd eventually want a reasonable keyboard and root access, and the ability to install new stuff, run a development server.....in the long run having a £10 phone and a £200 netbook seems to be the most effective and hassle-free way to have a portable computer and also be able to phone people.
If I copied blueprints for a Fender and then sold it they'd have a fairly strong legal case against me. This guy wants to put blueprints out there that anyone can use, and sell. Anyone can make a guitar, only Fender are allowed to make Fenders (or something legally close enough to count).
The research funding in the UK is dwarfed in comparison to military budgets or even annual DVD purchases. It's quite possible that international funding could be found for a project like this. With 40 institutes putting money in it's quite possible this will go ahead, it's a reasonably low-budget project in many ways.
Surface area defined? The Gemini solar observatory has to be up there, the base stations and two satellites define a pretty big triangle. Come to think of it, the Voyager project, for a while.
Slashdot Mirror
I've heard advice that if you're at home and suspect somebody has broken in then you should turn all the lights out (or not turn them on at all). You know your way around in the dark, the intruder probably doesn't, so you're at an advantage. You can also shut your eyes tightly, turn a light on for a split second, turn it off, and bingo, you've got night vision and they don't.
That's a nice bulb you've got there...it would be a shame if nothing were to happen to it....
journal-of-nuclear-physics.com is a blog, not a peer reviewed journal. One glance at it quite clearly shows that it is designed to give the impression of quality peer reviewed studies, while actually being sloppily thrown together propaganda, and hence discredits the very thing it is trying to promote.
While that's horribly sexist and a generally cynical and unpleasant way of looking at the world, I have to admit you have a point. Yes, what you have described is a legitimate career path to becoming a rich and influential woman. I'd imagine that most of us (trolls aside) would prefer to live in a world where all women find a fulfilling and challenging career in, say, science or the arts rather than thinly veiled prostitution, but the fact that the career path you describe even exists is a pretty damning view of western society.
You may well have a point with the "BBC Micro" generation now hitting the age of influence. The project needs to be restarted I think, give all the kids a Raspberry Pi or similar to use. The whole thing reminds me of Ender's Game, where the kids were encouraged to hack each other's computers and build their own security systems to stop the others...stop being terrified of them "breaking the computer" and you might find they work out how to fix it in the long run.
It was telling that the number one comment on a BBC article was from a head teacher demanding to know how we were going to pay for the "top of the range computers and iPads we'll need if we're going to teach programming" (I paraphrase).
The insistence of a (linguistic) language, here in Scotland at least (different education system to England & Wales) is part of a broader thing. When I was at school in the late 80s and early 90s the following were compulsory to age 14ish:
English
Maths
Science - either a general, low level class, or more specialist physics, chemistry and/or biology
A language (inc Latin if offered)
Physical Education
Religious Studies (not oriented at any particular religion)
Art/music
So it's part of ensuring a wide-ranging education. You specialise in 8 subjects at 14/15yrs and then down to 5 at 16/17yrs.
With regard to our old-school computing education, I had a similar experience, a little Logo and the like when I was about 8 years old (the BBC Micro) and then nothing until I did a computing class at 16. I did it because I felt that I should have a formal qualification to back up the tinkering I'd been doing for 8 years. Sadly it was a case of "this is a word processor, this is a spreadsheet, this is a database, here's your certificate". Utter joke, and it's been going on for far too long. This is a big step forward, I'm praying they do it properly this time.
That sounds very familiar, thank you, I couldn't remember exactly who it was.
This has happened before. Google were sued over much the same thing, removed *ALL* references to the company in question and were then sued again for not including them.
This is the UK we're talking about - companies don't have any rights over employees free time generally. They're not even allowed to phone you at home without written permission from the employee.
In the ongoing battle between me and Google I think it's fairly safe to say they're winning ;)
Facebook, on the other hand, I've got on the run.
Ah, the fun they had! (Bonus points if you get the reference!)
Computers are handy for learning and teaching yourself, and there's a increasing amount of really good educational stuff available for free online, but it's technology working in tandem, not against. There's even an interesting program on the go where retired folk in the UK are volunteering to help English language students in Africa via Skype. It's changing the way teachers work, but it's not going to replace them.
Vastly under-rated, more insightful than it sounds.
You could set up your own video server and use VLC to deal with the streaming or whatever, but frankly YouTube is the way to go. Zero fees for your bandwidth (hell, they PAY you if you're popular enough!), and there's enough "YouTube Ready!" basic camcorders which come with very basic but easy to use software that you can get very close to "start, stop, upload". Frankly, if somebody isn't able to take a single video file and upload it to YouTube then they shouldn't be lecturing on anything, to anyone.
There's a multi-billion dollar infrastructure there for free. Use it!
I agree entirely. The maths underlying quantum theory is well understood and tested, but the interpretation is still up for grabs. Personally I prefer Everett's ideas, but I freely acknowledge that this is entirely a faith based decision (more accurately, a wanting-it-to-be-true decision, because it fits with other-things-I-want-to-be-true) and is not testable as far as anyone knows.
I hadn't heard of Hesychasm before, but from a quick glance at Wikipedia it seems to be similar to some Buddhist practices, knowing god through clearing your mind? I've certainly tried meditation like this before, but found no sign of a god (relaxing and focussing though it was). If I did, how would I know which religion's god it was? Or, for that matter, how would I know it was god and not some malevolent "spirit" testing me in some way?
Atheist: "There's no test for 'God'." Theist: "Here's a test, try it yourself." Atheist: "OK. Nope, couldn't find anything that would count as reliable evidence. Got anything else?"
None. Entirely a matter of faith. Where an idea is put forward that is not testable it is, in my mind at least, equivalent to all other ideas that are not testable. So I lump the Christian god in with the Buddhist Nirvana, FSM, every work of fiction written, various multiverse theories and the like. Yes, some of these ideas are fun, entertaining, even useful analogies, but they still belong to the same class of untestable ideas. Just because a lot of people believe in one particular testable idea does not somehow bestow extra veracity upon it. Many people of religion X will try to tell atheists that their god exists, while simultaneously denying that the god of religion Y exists, and don't understand that this viewpoint is nonsensical to an atheist who believes that "god X = god Y", and both don't exist.
Good isn't it :)
Your definition of a god does make it simpler than the more standard "bloke with a beard sitting on a cloud" variant, but this does not make it more likely that a god exists. I'd agree your variant is more likely than the beardy variant, simply due to Occam's razor, but it doesn't get over the fact that there is no testable evidence. Many religions specifically work in the idea that god is not testable by definition.
Citing "millenia old lines of thought" does not particularly excite me, many millenia old lines of thought are shown to be wrong or incomplete, both in science and religion, so the age of an idea casts no real insight into the veracity of the idea. Take your "Abrahamic god which...influences the physical world for the better" - this requires a god who can and has intervened in the universe (presumably via individual quantum level events) and who has an idea of morality and "good". This is surely a more complex proposition than an imaginary FSM or whatever? Who created this god? How did god get a sense of good and bad? What were the good and bad reference points before our universe existed?
If you're going to call on simplicity as an argument then the simplest argument is "universe, no god" rather than "universe, plus god"
"While you do not believe in a creator God, that also does not cause his existence to be a false premise."
I do not believe in pink dragons that fart nerve gas, although this does not cause their existence to be a false premise. The testable evidence for both god and pink dragons that fart nerve gas is identical.
Nice one on the rational acceptance of the difference between your religious belief and whether or not your religious belief is factually correct. If the world is going to have religious people then it needs a higher percentage who think like you.
The need for force is usually a sign that they've failed at the first part of the job, keeping the peace.
If you can get away with licensing it, Windows/*nix dual boot machines. Windows because at high school level it's irresponsible not to make the least techie pupil au fait with what they will probably face in the workplace.
Then you have your *nix system for the "real work". Even one years experience will be a good head start for any student wanting to go into science and engineering. If you go with something with a nice GUI then you can introduce the lower level students to the idea that "it's not just Windows..."
I do need the bells and whistles, so I have a netbook. If I was working on a phone I'd eventually want a reasonable keyboard and root access, and the ability to install new stuff, run a development server.....in the long run having a £10 phone and a £200 netbook seems to be the most effective and hassle-free way to have a portable computer and also be able to phone people.
The vast majority of police officers in the UK do not carry a firearm. They still seem to be pretty good at stopping bad guys doing bad things.
Somebody mod parent up interesting please :)
If I copied blueprints for a Fender and then sold it they'd have a fairly strong legal case against me. This guy wants to put blueprints out there that anyone can use, and sell. Anyone can make a guitar, only Fender are allowed to make Fenders (or something legally close enough to count).
The research funding in the UK is dwarfed in comparison to military budgets or even annual DVD purchases. It's quite possible that international funding could be found for a project like this. With 40 institutes putting money in it's quite possible this will go ahead, it's a reasonably low-budget project in many ways.
Surface area defined? The Gemini solar observatory has to be up there, the base stations and two satellites define a pretty big triangle. Come to think of it, the Voyager project, for a while.