Mod parent +1 (did I say that right? sorta new to this lingo =D). But to get back on topic, that is precisely where the responsibility lies. The Amish solved the problem nicely (although a bit extreme but that's just my opinion;)). A slashdotter's signature I saw a few days ago was a quote by Heinlein about censorship. The same applies here; to paraphrase an old (East) Indian folktale - it's rather silly to install carpets in the entire kingdom; just wear a pair of shoes :P.
Conclusion: American politicians and american parents need to learn the philosphy of wearing shoes =D.
We are mostly discoverers, much less inventors. Every now and then we come up (in large numbers)
with stuff that nature has not yet thought of, but for the most part our 'inventions' are already
part of nature. The article itself is an excellent counter-example to your claim. Or are you suggesting that sea-shells were designed to be electronic circuits?:P Engineering genius consists of tailoring Nature to suit our needs. To a clam, a shell is simply a shell, a means of protection, a dead hulk that surrounds it. To the engineer who thought up this application, it was much more than that. It was a ready template to design micro circuitry. It is incomprehensible to me how this translates to "simply appropriating what already exists in nature". There are levels of understanding and levels of control. Sure, we can't engineer devices from scratch (i.e. from the level of subatomic particles:P), but that is hardly an issue is it? One might as well say that a factory produces paint and canvas, so the artist does nothing. While this may be true for some so-called artists *roll*, surely that's fallacious in general?
I think the thing that bothers me the most about Linux is IT advocacy. IT shouldn't be an advocate of any product, because it needs to make determinations between them. I think the article makes a good point here. It is precisely like String theory in physics. When you have a group of people who believe fanatically in a product (or a theory), the flaws (sometimes quite fatal) can be easily overlooked. I have been following the Linux threads here with some amusement for the past few months and it is interesting that the same ol' debating points are brought up over and over, with no final consensus. That, to me is the glaring clue that what we have today is a fuzzy division of the IT community into ranks of "fanbois" (as people have to eloquently *roll* put it in the past). Perhaps, following the advice in the article about non-advocacy is the way to go, especially in light of the disgruntled, why-can't-the-stupid-proles-learn-linux sort of attitudes that are broadcast here daily, not to mention the Windows-has-a-great-GUI-and-that-should-be-enough sort of evidence from the Windows camp or *shudder* "OSX is soooo sleek and hip and smexy" from the you-know-what-camp. Well, here's a revelation - I don't think there's gonna be any petitions presented to Congress anytime soon over this issue:P. Perhaps if developers focused on building an OS instead of being sucked into the seductive OS wars, we wouldn't have the paradoxical situation of the so-called pragmatic folks in the software industry arguing ideologically over something as concrete as functionality. Seriously, some of the previous threads could make religious leaders at one of those ridiculous international summits blush in shame =D.
- don't you just love italics?:P (And yes, I probably should have used the tag, but what the hey; that's what these threads degenerate into anyway =D).
the research is completely bogus..... antimatter is a very unstable substance that cannot survive in our universe, because it combines with matter and both annihilate each other... for example an electron and a positron on combining mutually annihilate & produce photons.... In this regard anti matter can kill normal cells too with equal efficacy. Since there is no selectivity in this, it is as good or bad as radio therapy.. another thing, antimatter can be produced thru nuclear reactions only...so you can worry about things like nuclear laws, terrorists etc. The blanket statements I have read so far are contrary to the facts. Surely you folks have heard of PET scans (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PET_scan), a quite ordinary procedure these days? Well, PET stands for positron emission tomography, a really cool mapping technique which is based on low doses of a radioisotope that's chemically incorporated into a sugar being injected into the body. Based on the sugar properties (these can presumably be tailored to the purpose at hand), it then concentrates in areas of interest (there's your selectivity:P). The neat thing is how the annihilation takes place. When a positron gets near an electron, they don't actually get destroyed right away. For one thing, it's highly improbable that the expectation values of their momenta are precisely directed toward each other.
What we get then is actually a great example of an "exotic atom" - the two mirror particles form an unstable "atom" called positronium which is extremely short-lived and which decays into two photons going at 180 degrees to each other. This is important because that is the only way you can detect such an annihilation taking place. At any rate, my point is that this is hardly a "high-energy" application as so many science hacks have sneeringly pointed out here so far. Radiology is an established field of medicine and one reason it is so is because radioisotopes can be made so damn selective (tracers anyone?:P).
If H-1Bs are supposed to be the solution to the questionable shortage of science and technology people, maybe they could also be a solution to the real problem of a shortage of math and science teachers.
You could go even further and require that H-1B applicants that are not offered a job making over $80K or so (the real best and brightest) must spend 3-5 years teaching first before obtaining a work visa for something other than teaching. So, we're admitting that American teachers are incompetent? That's a little harsh. Also, why is it that people always assume that being smart is sufficient to be a good teacher? Sure it's necessary, but the smartest people usually have difficulty conveying information to a less smart audience, simply because they tend to think too fast. It takes training to slow oneself down and empathize with the students to get some knowledge across. So, your H1B plan is a recipe for disaster because in addition to the above flaws, the language barrier doesn't help:P.
Fact is, if I had to teach after getting my PhD (physics), I would choose a University or even a Community College. High school is simply not an option as American kids seem not to be house-trained until they get to college. What science professional would want to waste his time on disciplining pampered (or even more tragic - disturbed) kids when there's real science to be taught? Train a science teacher to be as authoritative and arbitrary as a gym teacher and perhaps we can get somewhere =D. In short, I blame the kids:P (on average). Science and math are subjects that require focus on the part of teacher and learner alike. This just can't happen in a school system where dealing with personal problems is higher up on the agenda than actually teaching! A friend of mine who went through this system once told me that middle school was simply a buffer where they dealt with puberty. They didn't actually learn anything there:P. Wonderful!
Seems that every day, another piece of news shows up telling me that I got out of console gaming at exactly the right time.
This generation just gets more underwhelming by the minute. +1. And the right time for me was at the end of the NES era =D. PC (or Mac/Linux, depending on your religion *roll*) is definitely the way to go. There's just something... wasteful about being forced to use so much computing power (I refer now to consoles) MERELY to play games. While I do NOT subscribe to the "Swiss army knife model" of the cellphone *roll*, I do prefer to use my PDA (an old Palm Z31) as an organizer, for ebooks and for music. Buying an overpriced iPod that can do JUST music seems like unnecessarily lowering your expectations. Similarly, my high-end laptop serves as a gaming platform/web interface as well as an efficient work environment (obviously, not at the same time =D).
Somehow, the idea of "top-secret" government projects (called X-projects for some strange reason *roll*) that can do the things that people claim they do seems as much of a conspiracy theory as the whole UFO paranoia. I think people are taking that old bromide about there being a kernel of truth inside every legend a little too seriously:P. People are foolish enough, or attention-starved enough or diseased enough, or naive enough to get there on their own. One can summarize this lunacy in a simple (albeit fuzzy) equation: Search for meaning + lack of scientific tools = significance junkie (religious or pseudoscientific). Of course, I personally encourage the UFO nuts to continue with their fairly harmless obsession. Keeps them out of trouble. I mean, really, it's no different from collecting stamps is it?
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Conclusion: American politicians and american parents need to learn the philosphy of wearing shoes =D.
Mod parent hilarious =D
- don't you just love italics? :P (And yes, I probably should have used the tag, but what the hey; that's what these threads degenerate into anyway =D).
What we get then is actually a great example of an "exotic atom" - the two mirror particles form an unstable "atom" called positronium which is extremely short-lived and which decays into two photons going at 180 degrees to each other. This is important because that is the only way you can detect such an annihilation taking place. At any rate, my point is that this is hardly a "high-energy" application as so many science hacks have sneeringly pointed out here so far. Radiology is an established field of medicine and one reason it is so is because radioisotopes can be made so damn selective (tracers anyone? :P).
Fact is, if I had to teach after getting my PhD (physics), I would choose a University or even a Community College. High school is simply not an option as American kids seem not to be house-trained until they get to college. What science professional would want to waste his time on disciplining pampered (or even more tragic - disturbed) kids when there's real science to be taught? Train a science teacher to be as authoritative and arbitrary as a gym teacher and perhaps we can get somewhere =D. In short, I blame the kids :P (on average). Science and math are subjects that require focus on the part of teacher and learner alike. This just can't happen in a school system where dealing with personal problems is higher up on the agenda than actually teaching! A friend of mine who went through this system once told me that middle school was simply a buffer where they dealt with puberty. They didn't actually learn anything there :P. Wonderful!
Somehow, the idea of "top-secret" government projects (called X-projects for some strange reason *roll*) that can do the things that people claim they do seems as much of a conspiracy theory as the whole UFO paranoia. I think people are taking that old bromide about there being a kernel of truth inside every legend a little too seriously :P. People are foolish enough, or attention-starved enough or diseased enough, or naive enough to get there on their own. One can summarize this lunacy in a simple (albeit fuzzy) equation: Search for meaning + lack of scientific tools = significance junkie (religious or pseudoscientific). Of course, I personally encourage the UFO nuts to continue with their fairly harmless obsession. Keeps them out of trouble. I mean, really, it's no different from collecting stamps is it?