Whether you wear department shirts won't affect the professionalism.
The right answer depends on:
1) the culture of the company at large, and of the IT group in particular. Heck, if you "have fun" with it, it could be a big plus 2) whether there is some other lurking problem you have not mentioned the shirts attempt to address
You hit it right on the nose.
To the OP:
There's the issue of exactly what the uniforms look like. It sounds like shirt-and-tie isn't already required at this office, so if you want to empower yourselves, give yourselves a HIGHER dress code than is required by the rest of the company. If management says you have to wear crappy knit golf shirts, then say, "we'd much rather all wear these better button-down shirts, thank you." If management's shirts are actually nice, then say, "thanks, we're also going to wear ties." Your department is apparently an important part of the company, and a part that has a lot of exposure; dress like you understand that.
Personally, I like ties. I have a large collection of high-quality and unusual ties I've bought over the years at different thrift stores. No, they aren't all ultra thin, and I don't buy crappy ties. I wear one every Friday, partly in reaction to the casual Friday schtick that I dislike, and partly to remind myself that I have a professional position (but one that does not require a tie). A properly sized shirt with a properly tied tie is not uncomfortable at all. Discomfort often comes from the neck size of the shirt being too small.
Remember, dress for the job you want, not the one you have. And also that it is difficult to be overdressed, especially in professional circles.
The ECC (Error Check and Correct) is used for error correction.
ECC stands for Error Correcting Code, as per the original derivation from number theory. Only recently has the more breathy, marketing-friendly version come into use.
The language you select is nearly irrelevant (although I would strongly shy away from the standard imperative languages, and take serious issue that C/C++ is a good target). You do not want to teach a child a particular language, you want to teach them how to think about programming. If you think knowing C/C++ or Python, or Ruby, or Perl, or Javascript, or nearly anything else in wide use right now will be relevant in 20 years, you have not studied your history.
Get a good book on PROGRAMMING, not on a particular language. There are tons. I would personally recommend Structure and Intrepretation of Computer Programs by Abelson and Sussman (http://mitpress.mit.edu/sicp/full-text/book/book.html available at Amazon... the first edition is fine if you don't want to pony up for the second edition). It teaches PROGRAMMING, not a particular language.
As my undergraduate advisor said, "go and pick up K&R and learn C over the weekend" -- THAT is what you want to be able to do. Teaching a particular language does not generate that kind of skill. Teaching the fundamentals does.
I like NASA TV the way it is. If you have ADD and need constant sound effects and graphics or everything dumbed down and edited into some fake reality, filled with game shows and so on, then channels like Discovery are for you. I like NASA because of its raw unedited nature and it is more of a direct access thing to NASA data rather than another discovery network. Do I want NASA TV to be another heavily commercialised pop culture discovery channel for people who have short attention spans and few brain cells? No.
Moreover, anything that is funded with the public's taxes should be raw, unvarnished truth. No salesmanship. No splashy effects. Just high-quality information, and, potentially, art.
As an educated, voting taxpayer, I *love* that C-SPAN has the uncensored coverage of our congress (at least it used to last time I watched); I *adore* that PBS produces commercial-free high-quality educational and entertainment shows like NOVA (what we were promised TLC would expertly take over and provide), Nature, Sesame Street, and Frontline. It is *imperative* that NASA TV be boring, because most of a mission is like that.
They are not 100x more efficient. They use 100x less silicon. Which, if my math is correct, means that the manufacture of one unit of these things generates 99x as much silicon as the manufacture of a similarly performing "standard" unit costs.
Um, yes, which is why those were separate sentences. I didn't imply they were 100x as efficient -- at least in terms of insolation conversion. They are, however, supposedly 100x efficient in terms of material used.
But, you seem to be ignoring the issue I tried to raise: if the costs of materials is irrelevant, then 100x lower material costs isn't interesting. No one has claimed that the retail costs for generating X amount of energy will be 100x less, and since, as I posited, the materials costs are not anywhere near a determining factor for retail costs, an advancement of 100x isn't interesting.
Now, really, tell me something new. Convince me that this isn't anything more than a blowhard PR agent earning his keep. I would love to be proved wrong.
One hundred times less material? More efficient? Glitter?
Sounds suspiciously like sound bites designed by a PR office for pickup by the press. I thought that Slashdot editors saw through that sort of malarky.
I'm going to go out on a limb: does anyone know if the limiting factor in determining the costs of a solar cell is the amount of material used? I had thought it was the intensive processing required to create a solar cell, rather than the cost of the silicon, which, thanks to the gargantuan and heroic efforts of integrated circuit manufacturers, is vanishingly small for incredibly high quality (what other industry delivers seven 9s purity?). If the amount of material isn't relevant, then reducing it by a factor of 100 isn't that interesting, is it?
Screw V-6's. Inline 6's have more power and better reliability. Inline engines always do.
This is marked insightful? A gross over generalization is marked insightful and not a troll?
There are so many factors that go in to an engine design that the piston configuration alone cannot possibly tell you how much power and reliability a particular engine has. VW air-cooled flat fours (like the Type I engine found in the original Bugs) are extremely reliable. The Porsche equivalent flat 6 engines from the 911 of the same era are also famously reliable and powerful. The narrow angle water-cooled V6 engines that VW produced for the GTI are incredibly powerful for their displacement. The water-cooled inline 6 engines like used in the Dart/Duster/Valiant/etc were famously reliable (for US manufactured engines) but woefully underpowered.
While in general an inline design is simpler, it most certainly does not mean a V or flat design cannot be made well. The V design is advantageous because it can lead to a more compact engine. Also, the vibrations from a V design are generally smoother than for an inline design (a notable exception being the very smooth Porsche 944 engines with their balance rods).
I think what they were saying is that pistons in a V configuration (e.g. V6, V8, V12 etc) are not in a line, hence they are not inline engines. An engine can either be a V or an inline, not both, much like a line can't be straight and curved at the same time.
Or flat, a.k.a. boxer, like some Porsche, older VW, and some Subaru engines.
Or circular, as in very old piston airplane engines (and perhaps some helicopter engines?).
NIH should put OSU on a blacklist and not fund anything involving them until OSU provides a valid (as judged by NIH) explanation for why they wasted the time (and money) of NIH.
OSU is of course free to not do so and rely on non-NIH funding. Or there might be a perfectly valid reason that they don't want to disclose publicly that they can provide to NIH.
It's actually a little worse than this. I have currently, and have had NIH funding in the past as well. They take things seriously. When you are awarded a grant, either you, the individual resaercher, or the university where you work, sign a contract stipulating that the work will be done as described. (Exactly who signs these contracts varies from grant to grant.) Sometimes there are serious penalty clauses. Naturally, each institution negotiates its own contracts, and I am not privvy to the ones that OSU has with the NIH, but if my home institution is a good indicator, OSU is screwed here. Pickens better have promised a heap of money in compensation.
Also, the heads of universities are, generally, not idiots. At least the ones I've met have been actual leaders, rather than just figureheads, and understand the potential fallout from a major decision like this: faculty revolt, potential lawsuits from post-docs and graduate students whose projects have been cancelled, blacklisting by the NIH (and possibly the Department of Defence who also fund anthrax research), loss of stature for the department, potential lawsuit from the NIH for breach of contract, etc. There must have been a very compelling reason (like a pledge of lots and lots of money; a standard NIH contract represents about $1.5 million, and if there were say 10 faculty members who now have NIH grants that have been placed at risk, the donation needs to be in the tens-to-hundreds of millions of dollars range). Their entire bioterrorism program has been put at risk.
I'm going to express an unfounded speculation: on the face of it, with all of the potential downsides, seems like it's a mistake, and a better solution could have been found (like curing the animals of anthrax once the study was over and then retiring them to an animal conservation range).
The result is cool, and important in the details, but is not that interesting in terms of breaking new ground. As a biologist, having measured countless number of behavioral parameters that all follow power laws, it is not surprising that yet another biological behavior, waging a particlar kind of war in this case, follows a power law. That part is ho-hum.
Similarly it would only surprise me if things like, oh, the size of undergraduate populations at different universities, the number of cars in each country, the number of stray dogs in each city, the average brain mass for each species, or the number of bullets used in any given firefight, do NOT follow a power law. It's just biology. That's the way things work.
And, to keep things in perspective, I'm just a biologist. It could be that all natural phenomena follow that sort of pattern, like the mass of celestial objects, the surface areas of land masses, the percent cloud cover at each point on Earth, etc. The basic idea of power laws -- lots of small versions of a thing, only a few big ones, and a smooth distribution between -- seems inherently universal to my small brain.
I am very sceptical with regards to a "not named" author claims...;-)
Before everyone starts putting down the author for being anonymous, please observe that this is The Economist. For those of you not familiar with that particular publication, one of its distinguishing traits is that it does not publish bylines. Ever. Editorials in The Economist are backed by the reputation of the editorial staff of The Economist, not of any individual writer.
An unfortunately, neither the story submitter, nor kdawson is educated enough --- ah, I mean --- sufficiently familiar with The Economist to realize they publish no bylines. I am not familiar with the submitter, but it does not surprise me one whit about kdawson.
The Economist has some of the best journalism and writing around. I say that both as a long-time reader, but also having seen the flip side when some of my scientific research got coverage in the international press. The representative from The Economist was at the top of the heap of reporters I spoke with in terms of asking good, insightful, and pertinent questions and conveying my responses accurately.
The majority of out-of-field science that I know (I'm a professional neuroscientist), I learned reading books while in grade school.
I still remember many of the images and wonderment from those books. I must have spent hours and hours studying them. I *loved* those books.
These days, the equivalent are published by DK. They are horrible by comparison (everything is dumbed down to bite-sized paragraphs rather than presented in long-form that helps build concentration), but perhaps better than nothing.
I have also head universal praise about David Macaulay's books (some of which are the aforementioned DK volumes) like "Underground", "Castle", "City", "Cathedral", and so forth, that go into the mechanisms of buildings and infrastructure.
Problem is, people really believe that they can become experts on extremely complicated topics and weigh the evidence for themselves.
This is a serious problem. On the one hand, a democratic society holds that each member can and should act independently, weighing the factors that they find personally important, to come to vital decisions. On the other hand, most people are ignorant on nearly every subject, and lack the means, ability, incentive, or time to become expert on each subject as it comes along. Making medical decisions is one of the most important examples of this. When presented with a treatment for a condition, who among us can really make an informed decision? Are we ever even given the proper tools to make decisions (such as percentages of success, side-effect, and failure for the treatment, practioner, or hospital? Hardly. Instead we have FUD like, "OMFG they're putting POISON in vaccines." I work in neuroscience research at a big hospital, and *I* don't know why thimerisol is used as a standard preservative in multi-dose vials of H1N1 vaccine. I don't even know how much mercury would end up being in a standard dose of a vaccine, or if that is enough to cause neurological issues long-term. If I'm in the same general field, and I don't have the proper tools to evaluate the risks, how possibly can the general public?
Right. They can't. Not possible; not even remotely possible. It would take a motivated, highly educated person with a lot of money to pay for scientific articles (they aren't by-and-large free except when you have a university affiliation), and lost of time to comb through stacks and stacks of papers in order to make an informed decision about one treatment. This is a barrier to knowledge that is not realistic. Expecting the lay person to make good, informed decisions is a joke. Expecting that the lay person can understand the myriad of complexities about climate change when the very idea of a static climate is demonstrably bogus is nothing more than political propaganda.
So, people have been brainwashed into thinking they can become experts on any subject in a few short minutes (witness all of the "well, why dont' they just do..." comments on Slashdot where readers who are familiar with a subject for the time it takes to read a condensed summary presume to be able to second guess experts who have devoted their lives to a particular field). They clearly cannot do this, and nothing is going to get any better in that regard as science and technology continue to make astonishing advances. We, the scientists, must therefore be absolutely certain and vigilant about promulgating only truth, and fighting propaganda at every turn.
I am not a climate scientist. I am not a geologist. I have friends who are, and from my second-hand understanding of anthropogenic climate change, no one really understands what is going on. Sure, there's some evidence for anthropogenic climate changes (like the ozone hole over Antarctica), but *I* lack the skills and knowledge to understand the issues. So when I hear Al Gore saying things like, "we dump billions of tons of CO2 into our thin atmosphere like it was a sewer," it makes me angry that anyone is listening to that drivel at all. He might be right, anthropogenic CO2 may be a really, really big problem, but delivering that message with distortions and distractions that make the Soviet propaganda machine appear tame in comparison, ultimately is doing far more harm than good.
Blind trust in authority is bad. But so is what we have now where fear, uncertainty and doubt determines what the public thinks.
"While I consider myself a skeptic, the "it's a rocket" explanation sounds really dubious to m"" Because you are a skeptic is why you question it.
The linked photos are of a long exposure time. Actual videos of the event make it pretty clear it's a rocket spinning out of control and spews something out while it spins. Probably propellant. It's altitude is high enough to be in the Sun light.
Also, images 3 and 5 from the second linked site in the summary show a cloud near the horizon that seems highly reminiscent of what a rocket would leave as it leaves the launch pad and heads skyward, illuminated by the setting sun. The cloud does not obviously link up with the other phenomena, but it isn't much of a stretch to connect a line between the two.
My daughter has been in the pediatric ICU twice this year. A conference that forces me to be unreachable is a conference I don't attend. Period.
I can't imagine a conference that would be nearly important enough to attend if your child were in a PICU. Why would you even think that would be a good idea?
If I showed up and they surprised me with "no Internet access" I'd surprised them back with returning to the airport and going home.
Why would you expect that a conference would provide you with internet access as a matter of course? Why would you expect that this information would not be available on their web site? And why would you expect that the organizers would care if you left or not? If the conference is valuable and important, then the loss is yours whether or not you behave like a petulant child.
Checking my email during those times was a far more productive use of my time than listening to the speaker would have been. Heck, reading Slashdot was a more productive use of my time.
And you couldn't be bothered to step out of the room to do that and provide a modicum of respect to the speakers and your fellow audience members? You would rather type away and distract them? Do you also speak on your cell phone while in the audience as a presentation is being made?
Why should[n't] those people do what they want instead of what you want?
People can naturally do what they wish to, unless it is detrimental to the conference. The organizers aren't throwing an open party, there's a clear purpose and mission (at least at good conferences), and behavior that clashes with that mission can and should be strongly discouraged.
Turning your question around, why should the organizers be expected to cater to every whim of the attendees? If an attendee wishes to stand up and start reciting the Gettysburg Address while a speaker is trying to give a presentation, should that be tolerated?
Attendees at our conferences know the arrangement going in. We expect and encourage people to be fully engaged. And I think we do a good job since 95% of attendees are still there at the last presentation.
We have not, and will not provide wireless internet access in the main lecture hall. It is not compatible with our goal of running the best conference we possibly can.
The summary makes it sound like there's some immense wall that must be climed or broken in order to pass 1 TeV. There is no barrier at 1 TeV, but rather an arbitrary threshold put there by humans because the numeric representation of that energy level has a lot of zeros in the scale we happen to use. LHC did not pass a barrier, but a threshold.
This is science, and important science, so it's critical to get it right. Especially so for the non-scientific public.
A year later they outsourced their software development to India and I was told they "could not find a new role for me", which was very suspicious because there were numerous BA positions listed as vacant at the time I departed.
Reminds me of my friend JP from graduate school (he was some years ahead of me) who had the following exchange as he was being let go during a massive reorganization at a Silicon Valley company:
HR: We're terribly sorry, but you don't fit into the future plans for Widgets, Inc. JP: Oh. (pause) JP: And what are the plans for Widgets, Inc.? HR: We're not sure.
Fortunately JP had a sufficiently resilient ego that he bounced back and quickly found another job.
Why? If people want to reduce a $100 conference to a crowded, inconvenient room for surfing facebook, why not let them hurt themselves?
Who said anything about a $100 conference, or it being crowded? A good conference is not cheap (for a number of reasons that would take too long to explain here), but between $400 and $800 for round figures. It should be comfortably full, but never feel crowded.
And the WHOLE POINT of being at a conference -- that is, interacting with other people -- is undermined if you, the audience member, is not paying attention to what is being said. If you can't be bothered to listen after paying your entrance fee, then why are you wasting your time, money and the conference resources? If the conference organizers can help discourage behaviors (like habitual email checking or web surfing) that are detrimental to a positive experience, then everyone benefits. Each individual's behavior and attitude affects the entire intellectual environment at a conference.
For the conference I organize, we take this idea very seriously. As a result, I've lost track of how many people have told me afterwards that one of the conferences we organize was the best meeting they had ever been to.
That would be a deal-breaker for a lot of people. More than a few of us *need* to be reachable in emergencies (and not just work, either)[1]. If the conference I just attended last month had not had wireless in the hall, I wouldn't have gone. It was especially good that they did, since I found that wireless coverage (at least on my carrier) was very poor inside the hall. More than half of the time, my cell phone couldn't get a signal. It only worked reliably in the lobby.
In our conference, we ask people if not providing internet access in the main room is "a problem, or a blessing". 85% respond that it is a blessing. Internet access is provided elsewhere on-site.
If you *must* be accessible, then you won't ever be fully engaged in a conference. Better to arrange for someone else to cover your responsibilities back home so you can turn your full attention to being at the conference. You can read email and surf the web when you go to your hotel, otherwise what's the point of going in the first place?
That's it, basically. For IT people, finding information is *easy*. Why would I go to your conference, when everything you have to say is available for free from some website (and I *guarantee* it is).
Agreed. Why should we have conferences at all when such things like Google and Skype exist?
The organizers need to be able to answer that question without hesitation, and in detail, or will face certain failure. Answers exist (I run a conference, so have thought long and hard about this), but they aren't necessarily the ones that immediately come to mind. Mostly, it isn't about learning and teaching, but is about making good professional contacts, the sort of contacts that would be considered colleagues. It's also about encouraging and supporting the kinds of interactions and discussions that are not possible *except* in a conference environment. The organizers need to understand what they can offer that is above and beyond Google/Skype/telephones/email/etc.
You covered maybe 10% of it there. You know it can easily take a year or more to organize a successful conference right? Slashdot is a lousy place to ask about the event industry IMHO.
An excellent resource on how to plan conferences from some of the logistical standpoints can be found on the Gordon Research Conference web site. Their advice is framed specifically for their smaller, scientific conferences, but includes excellent instructions on what to do when.
Damn... I forgot one important thing: turn off wireless internet access (and block cell phone reception, if that's possible) in the room where the presentations are taking place. Make it just a little hard for people to use the net. After all, you want people who are there to pay attention to the speakers, not to email back at home. Plug-in net access can be provided in a small, separate room; people who must have net access can either go find an internet cafe nearby, or wait until they get back to their hotel rooms.
The best way to organize a conference is to attend lots of them and pay attention to what works and what does not. Take the positive aspects and concentrate them. Make sure you don't nickel and dime your attendees. Have on-site food that is good, and serve alcohol with it. Have a single-track. Pick speakers very, very well. Pick a great location. Visit the location well beforehand (months) and talk to the people who run the facility. Get to know your vendors. Give attendees decent take-home items (pens, pads, etc.) that won't be thrown away immediately. Provide maps. Make sure the program is trivially easy to use. Make sure the conference site is trivially easy to find. Have a good web site that's easy to navigate. Make it easy for potentially interested attendees to contact you. Advertise. Promise the best experience ever, and follow through. Make sure your finances are well-planned so that if something goes wrong, you, and your attendees, aren't screwed. Ask for feedback, and take it to heart. Hire an A/V person and tell them that under no circumstances are they allowed to dim the lights (or promise a big bonus if that never happens), and that they should feel free to interrupt speakers to adjust microphones until such time as the speakers are clearly audible.
I run a biennial scientific conference. The first two times we had it, it sold out (we had to turn people away); there is every indication that the next session in 2010 will be the same.
What makes it a successful conference?
1. Fantastic location (we chose a Greek island).
2. It's a little hard to get there, and a little expensive -- so people are committed to being at the conference.
3. We serve lunch on-site -- so people have good opportunities to be engaged.
4. There are plenty of breaks -- so people have good opportunities to interact with the speakers.
5. We have lots of time for discussion after each talk, and good moderators. Also, the length of time for each talk is just long enough to present one idea in detail and depth.
6. All of the speakers are invited and meet three strict criteria: (a) they are widely recognized as experts in their field; (b) they give excellent presentations; (c) they are people you want to hang out with for a few days. You would be surprised at how many potential speakers fail at one or more of those criteria, especially the last two.
7. We have separate periods for social interactions (a welcoming reception, and a final banquet).
8. The morning of the third day of our four day conference has no formal presentations, to help avoid attendee fatigue.
9. We serve alcohol during the poster presentations in the evening.
Could it be that these befriendings are from people who don't care about privacy, or, put a better way, want to use Facebook to send spam messages, and so will befriend EVERYONE?
Slashdot Mirror
Whether you wear department shirts won't affect the professionalism.
The right answer depends on:
1) the culture of the company at large, and of the IT group in particular. Heck, if you "have fun" with it, it could be a big plus
2) whether there is some other lurking problem you have not mentioned the shirts attempt to address
You hit it right on the nose.
To the OP:
There's the issue of exactly what the uniforms look like. It sounds like shirt-and-tie isn't already required at this office, so if you want to empower yourselves, give yourselves a HIGHER dress code than is required by the rest of the company. If management says you have to wear crappy knit golf shirts, then say, "we'd much rather all wear these better button-down shirts, thank you." If management's shirts are actually nice, then say, "thanks, we're also going to wear ties." Your department is apparently an important part of the company, and a part that has a lot of exposure; dress like you understand that.
Personally, I like ties. I have a large collection of high-quality and unusual ties I've bought over the years at different thrift stores. No, they aren't all ultra thin, and I don't buy crappy ties. I wear one every Friday, partly in reaction to the casual Friday schtick that I dislike, and partly to remind myself that I have a professional position (but one that does not require a tie). A properly sized shirt with a properly tied tie is not uncomfortable at all. Discomfort often comes from the neck size of the shirt being too small.
Remember, dress for the job you want, not the one you have. And also that it is difficult to be overdressed, especially in professional circles.
The ECC (Error Check and Correct) is used for error correction.
ECC stands for Error Correcting Code, as per the original derivation from number theory. Only recently has the more breathy, marketing-friendly version come into use.
The language you select is nearly irrelevant (although I would strongly shy away from the standard imperative languages, and take serious issue that C/C++ is a good target). You do not want to teach a child a particular language, you want to teach them how to think about programming. If you think knowing C/C++ or Python, or Ruby, or Perl, or Javascript, or nearly anything else in wide use right now will be relevant in 20 years, you have not studied your history.
Get a good book on PROGRAMMING, not on a particular language. There are tons. I would personally recommend Structure and Intrepretation of Computer Programs by Abelson and Sussman (http://mitpress.mit.edu/sicp/full-text/book/book.html available at Amazon ... the first edition is fine if you don't want to pony up for the second edition). It teaches PROGRAMMING, not a particular language.
As my undergraduate advisor said, "go and pick up K&R and learn C over the weekend" -- THAT is what you want to be able to do. Teaching a particular language does not generate that kind of skill. Teaching the fundamentals does.
I like NASA TV the way it is. If you have ADD and need constant sound effects and graphics or everything dumbed down and edited into some fake reality, filled with game shows and so on, then channels like Discovery are for you. I like NASA because of its raw unedited nature and it is more of a direct access thing to NASA data rather than another discovery network. Do I want NASA TV to be another heavily commercialised pop culture discovery channel for people who have short attention spans and few brain cells? No.
Moreover, anything that is funded with the public's taxes should be raw, unvarnished truth. No salesmanship. No splashy effects. Just high-quality information, and, potentially, art.
As an educated, voting taxpayer, I *love* that C-SPAN has the uncensored coverage of our congress (at least it used to last time I watched); I *adore* that PBS produces commercial-free high-quality educational and entertainment shows like NOVA (what we were promised TLC would expertly take over and provide), Nature, Sesame Street, and Frontline. It is *imperative* that NASA TV be boring, because most of a mission is like that.
They are not 100x more efficient. They use 100x less silicon. Which, if my math is correct, means that the manufacture of one unit of these things generates 99x as much silicon as the manufacture of a similarly performing "standard" unit costs.
Um, yes, which is why those were separate sentences. I didn't imply they were 100x as efficient -- at least in terms of insolation conversion. They are, however, supposedly 100x efficient in terms of material used.
But, you seem to be ignoring the issue I tried to raise: if the costs of materials is irrelevant, then 100x lower material costs isn't interesting. No one has claimed that the retail costs for generating X amount of energy will be 100x less, and since, as I posited, the materials costs are not anywhere near a determining factor for retail costs, an advancement of 100x isn't interesting.
Now, really, tell me something new. Convince me that this isn't anything more than a blowhard PR agent earning his keep. I would love to be proved wrong.
One hundred times less material? More efficient? Glitter?
Sounds suspiciously like sound bites designed by a PR office for pickup by the press. I thought that Slashdot editors saw through that sort of malarky.
I'm going to go out on a limb: does anyone know if the limiting factor in determining the costs of a solar cell is the amount of material used? I had thought it was the intensive processing required to create a solar cell, rather than the cost of the silicon, which, thanks to the gargantuan and heroic efforts of integrated circuit manufacturers, is vanishingly small for incredibly high quality (what other industry delivers seven 9s purity?). If the amount of material isn't relevant, then reducing it by a factor of 100 isn't that interesting, is it?
Screw V-6's. Inline 6's have more power and better reliability. Inline engines always do.
This is marked insightful? A gross over generalization is marked insightful and not a troll?
There are so many factors that go in to an engine design that the piston configuration alone cannot possibly tell you how much power and reliability a particular engine has. VW air-cooled flat fours (like the Type I engine found in the original Bugs) are extremely reliable. The Porsche equivalent flat 6 engines from the 911 of the same era are also famously reliable and powerful. The narrow angle water-cooled V6 engines that VW produced for the GTI are incredibly powerful for their displacement. The water-cooled inline 6 engines like used in the Dart/Duster/Valiant/etc were famously reliable (for US manufactured engines) but woefully underpowered.
While in general an inline design is simpler, it most certainly does not mean a V or flat design cannot be made well. The V design is advantageous because it can lead to a more compact engine. Also, the vibrations from a V design are generally smoother than for an inline design (a notable exception being the very smooth Porsche 944 engines with their balance rods).
I think what they were saying is that pistons in a V configuration (e.g. V6, V8, V12 etc) are not in a line, hence they are not inline engines. An engine can either be a V or an inline, not both, much like a line can't be straight and curved at the same time.
Or flat, a.k.a. boxer, like some Porsche, older VW, and some Subaru engines.
Or circular, as in very old piston airplane engines (and perhaps some helicopter engines?).
NIH should put OSU on a blacklist and not fund anything involving them until OSU provides a valid (as judged by NIH) explanation for why they wasted the time (and money) of NIH.
OSU is of course free to not do so and rely on non-NIH funding. Or there might be a perfectly valid reason that they don't want to disclose publicly that they can provide to NIH.
It's actually a little worse than this. I have currently, and have had NIH funding in the past as well. They take things seriously. When you are awarded a grant, either you, the individual resaercher, or the university where you work, sign a contract stipulating that the work will be done as described. (Exactly who signs these contracts varies from grant to grant.) Sometimes there are serious penalty clauses. Naturally, each institution negotiates its own contracts, and I am not privvy to the ones that OSU has with the NIH, but if my home institution is a good indicator, OSU is screwed here. Pickens better have promised a heap of money in compensation.
Also, the heads of universities are, generally, not idiots. At least the ones I've met have been actual leaders, rather than just figureheads, and understand the potential fallout from a major decision like this: faculty revolt, potential lawsuits from post-docs and graduate students whose projects have been cancelled, blacklisting by the NIH (and possibly the Department of Defence who also fund anthrax research), loss of stature for the department, potential lawsuit from the NIH for breach of contract, etc. There must have been a very compelling reason (like a pledge of lots and lots of money; a standard NIH contract represents about $1.5 million, and if there were say 10 faculty members who now have NIH grants that have been placed at risk, the donation needs to be in the tens-to-hundreds of millions of dollars range). Their entire bioterrorism program has been put at risk.
I'm going to express an unfounded speculation: on the face of it, with all of the potential downsides, seems like it's a mistake, and a better solution could have been found (like curing the animals of anthrax once the study was over and then retiring them to an animal conservation range).
The result is cool, and important in the details, but is not that interesting in terms of breaking new ground. As a biologist, having measured countless number of behavioral parameters that all follow power laws, it is not surprising that yet another biological behavior, waging a particlar kind of war in this case, follows a power law. That part is ho-hum.
Similarly it would only surprise me if things like, oh, the size of undergraduate populations at different universities, the number of cars in each country, the number of stray dogs in each city, the average brain mass for each species, or the number of bullets used in any given firefight, do NOT follow a power law. It's just biology. That's the way things work.
And, to keep things in perspective, I'm just a biologist. It could be that all natural phenomena follow that sort of pattern, like the mass of celestial objects, the surface areas of land masses, the percent cloud cover at each point on Earth, etc. The basic idea of power laws -- lots of small versions of a thing, only a few big ones, and a smooth distribution between -- seems inherently universal to my small brain.
I am very sceptical with regards to a "not named" author claims... ;-)
Before everyone starts putting down the author for being anonymous, please observe that this is The Economist. For those of you not familiar with that particular publication, one of its distinguishing traits is that it does not publish bylines. Ever. Editorials in The Economist are backed by the reputation of the editorial staff of The Economist, not of any individual writer.
An unfortunately, neither the story submitter, nor kdawson is educated enough --- ah, I mean --- sufficiently familiar with The Economist to realize they publish no bylines. I am not familiar with the submitter, but it does not surprise me one whit about kdawson.
The Economist has some of the best journalism and writing around. I say that both as a long-time reader, but also having seen the flip side when some of my scientific research got coverage in the international press. The representative from The Economist was at the top of the heap of reporters I spoke with in terms of asking good, insightful, and pertinent questions and conveying my responses accurately.
The majority of out-of-field science that I know (I'm a professional neuroscientist), I learned reading books while in grade school.
I still remember many of the images and wonderment from those books. I must have spent hours and hours studying them. I *loved* those books.
These days, the equivalent are published by DK. They are horrible by comparison (everything is dumbed down to bite-sized paragraphs rather than presented in long-form that helps build concentration), but perhaps better than nothing.
I have also head universal praise about David Macaulay's books (some of which are the aforementioned DK volumes) like "Underground", "Castle", "City", "Cathedral", and so forth, that go into the mechanisms of buildings and infrastructure.
Problem is, people really believe that they can become experts on extremely complicated topics and weigh the evidence for themselves.
This is a serious problem. On the one hand, a democratic society holds that each member can and should act independently, weighing the factors that they find personally important, to come to vital decisions. On the other hand, most people are ignorant on nearly every subject, and lack the means, ability, incentive, or time to become expert on each subject as it comes along. Making medical decisions is one of the most important examples of this. When presented with a treatment for a condition, who among us can really make an informed decision? Are we ever even given the proper tools to make decisions (such as percentages of success, side-effect, and failure for the treatment, practioner, or hospital? Hardly. Instead we have FUD like, "OMFG they're putting POISON in vaccines." I work in neuroscience research at a big hospital, and *I* don't know why thimerisol is used as a standard preservative in multi-dose vials of H1N1 vaccine. I don't even know how much mercury would end up being in a standard dose of a vaccine, or if that is enough to cause neurological issues long-term. If I'm in the same general field, and I don't have the proper tools to evaluate the risks, how possibly can the general public?
Right. They can't. Not possible; not even remotely possible. It would take a motivated, highly educated person with a lot of money to pay for scientific articles (they aren't by-and-large free except when you have a university affiliation), and lost of time to comb through stacks and stacks of papers in order to make an informed decision about one treatment. This is a barrier to knowledge that is not realistic. Expecting the lay person to make good, informed decisions is a joke. Expecting that the lay person can understand the myriad of complexities about climate change when the very idea of a static climate is demonstrably bogus is nothing more than political propaganda.
So, people have been brainwashed into thinking they can become experts on any subject in a few short minutes (witness all of the "well, why dont' they just do ..." comments on Slashdot where readers who are familiar with a subject for the time it takes to read a condensed summary presume to be able to second guess experts who have devoted their lives to a particular field). They clearly cannot do this, and nothing is going to get any better in that regard as science and technology continue to make astonishing advances. We, the scientists, must therefore be absolutely certain and vigilant about promulgating only truth, and fighting propaganda at every turn.
I am not a climate scientist. I am not a geologist. I have friends who are, and from my second-hand understanding of anthropogenic climate change, no one really understands what is going on. Sure, there's some evidence for anthropogenic climate changes (like the ozone hole over Antarctica), but *I* lack the skills and knowledge to understand the issues. So when I hear Al Gore saying things like, "we dump billions of tons of CO2 into our thin atmosphere like it was a sewer," it makes me angry that anyone is listening to that drivel at all. He might be right, anthropogenic CO2 may be a really, really big problem, but delivering that message with distortions and distractions that make the Soviet propaganda machine appear tame in comparison, ultimately is doing far more harm than good.
Blind trust in authority is bad. But so is what we have now where fear, uncertainty and doubt determines what the public thinks.
"While I consider myself a skeptic, the "it's a rocket" explanation sounds really dubious to m""
Because you are a skeptic is why you question it.
The linked photos are of a long exposure time. Actual videos of the event make it pretty clear it's a rocket spinning out of control and spews something out while it spins. Probably propellant. It's altitude is high enough to be in the Sun light.
Also, images 3 and 5 from the second linked site in the summary show a cloud near the horizon that seems highly reminiscent of what a rocket would leave as it leaves the launch pad and heads skyward, illuminated by the setting sun. The cloud does not obviously link up with the other phenomena, but it isn't much of a stretch to connect a line between the two.
My daughter has been in the pediatric ICU twice this year. A conference that forces me to be unreachable is a conference I don't attend. Period.
I can't imagine a conference that would be nearly important enough to attend if your child were in a PICU. Why would you even think that would be a good idea?
If I showed up and they surprised me with "no Internet access" I'd surprised them back with returning to the airport and going home.
Why would you expect that a conference would provide you with internet access as a matter of course? Why would you expect that this information would not be available on their web site? And why would you expect that the organizers would care if you left or not? If the conference is valuable and important, then the loss is yours whether or not you behave like a petulant child.
Checking my email during those times was a far more productive use of my time than listening to the speaker would have been. Heck, reading Slashdot was a more productive use of my time.
And you couldn't be bothered to step out of the room to do that and provide a modicum of respect to the speakers and your fellow audience members? You would rather type away and distract them? Do you also speak on your cell phone while in the audience as a presentation is being made?
Why should[n't] those people do what they want instead of what you want?
People can naturally do what they wish to, unless it is detrimental to the conference. The organizers aren't throwing an open party, there's a clear purpose and mission (at least at good conferences), and behavior that clashes with that mission can and should be strongly discouraged.
Turning your question around, why should the organizers be expected to cater to every whim of the attendees? If an attendee wishes to stand up and start reciting the Gettysburg Address while a speaker is trying to give a presentation, should that be tolerated?
Attendees at our conferences know the arrangement going in. We expect and encourage people to be fully engaged. And I think we do a good job since 95% of attendees are still there at the last presentation.
We have not, and will not provide wireless internet access in the main lecture hall. It is not compatible with our goal of running the best conference we possibly can.
The summary makes it sound like there's some immense wall that must be climed or broken in order to pass 1 TeV. There is no barrier at 1 TeV, but rather an arbitrary threshold put there by humans because the numeric representation of that energy level has a lot of zeros in the scale we happen to use. LHC did not pass a barrier, but a threshold.
This is science, and important science, so it's critical to get it right. Especially so for the non-scientific public.
A year later they outsourced their software development to India and I was told they "could not find a new role for me", which was very suspicious because there were numerous BA positions listed as vacant at the time I departed.
Reminds me of my friend JP from graduate school (he was some years ahead of me) who had the following exchange as he was being let go during a massive reorganization at a Silicon Valley company:
HR: We're terribly sorry, but you don't fit into the future plans for Widgets, Inc.
JP: Oh.
(pause)
JP: And what are the plans for Widgets, Inc.?
HR: We're not sure.
Fortunately JP had a sufficiently resilient ego that he bounced back and quickly found another job.
Why? If people want to reduce a $100 conference to a crowded, inconvenient room for surfing facebook, why not let them hurt themselves?
Who said anything about a $100 conference, or it being crowded? A good conference is not cheap (for a number of reasons that would take too long to explain here), but between $400 and $800 for round figures. It should be comfortably full, but never feel crowded.
And the WHOLE POINT of being at a conference -- that is, interacting with other people -- is undermined if you, the audience member, is not paying attention to what is being said. If you can't be bothered to listen after paying your entrance fee, then why are you wasting your time, money and the conference resources? If the conference organizers can help discourage behaviors (like habitual email checking or web surfing) that are detrimental to a positive experience, then everyone benefits. Each individual's behavior and attitude affects the entire intellectual environment at a conference.
For the conference I organize, we take this idea very seriously. As a result, I've lost track of how many people have told me afterwards that one of the conferences we organize was the best meeting they had ever been to.
That would be a deal-breaker for a lot of people. More than a few of us *need* to be reachable in emergencies (and not just work, either)[1]. If the conference I just attended last month had not had wireless in the hall, I wouldn't have gone. It was especially good that they did, since I found that wireless coverage (at least on my carrier) was very poor inside the hall. More than half of the time, my cell phone couldn't get a signal. It only worked reliably in the lobby.
In our conference, we ask people if not providing internet access in the main room is "a problem, or a blessing". 85% respond that it is a blessing. Internet access is provided elsewhere on-site.
If you *must* be accessible, then you won't ever be fully engaged in a conference. Better to arrange for someone else to cover your responsibilities back home so you can turn your full attention to being at the conference. You can read email and surf the web when you go to your hotel, otherwise what's the point of going in the first place?
That's it, basically. For IT people, finding information is *easy*. Why would I go to your conference, when everything you have to say is available for free from some website (and I *guarantee* it is).
Agreed. Why should we have conferences at all when such things like Google and Skype exist?
The organizers need to be able to answer that question without hesitation, and in detail, or will face certain failure. Answers exist (I run a conference, so have thought long and hard about this), but they aren't necessarily the ones that immediately come to mind. Mostly, it isn't about learning and teaching, but is about making good professional contacts, the sort of contacts that would be considered colleagues. It's also about encouraging and supporting the kinds of interactions and discussions that are not possible *except* in a conference environment. The organizers need to understand what they can offer that is above and beyond Google/Skype/telephones/email/etc.
You covered maybe 10% of it there. You know it can easily take a year or more to organize a successful conference right? Slashdot is a lousy place to ask about the event industry IMHO.
An excellent resource on how to plan conferences from some of the logistical standpoints can be found on the Gordon Research Conference web site. Their advice is framed specifically for their smaller, scientific conferences, but includes excellent instructions on what to do when.
Damn ... I forgot one important thing: turn off wireless internet access (and block cell phone reception, if that's possible) in the room where the presentations are taking place. Make it just a little hard for people to use the net. After all, you want people who are there to pay attention to the speakers, not to email back at home. Plug-in net access can be provided in a small, separate room; people who must have net access can either go find an internet cafe nearby, or wait until they get back to their hotel rooms.
The best way to organize a conference is to attend lots of them and pay attention to what works and what does not. Take the positive aspects and concentrate them. Make sure you don't nickel and dime your attendees. Have on-site food that is good, and serve alcohol with it. Have a single-track. Pick speakers very, very well. Pick a great location. Visit the location well beforehand (months) and talk to the people who run the facility. Get to know your vendors. Give attendees decent take-home items (pens, pads, etc.) that won't be thrown away immediately. Provide maps. Make sure the program is trivially easy to use. Make sure the conference site is trivially easy to find. Have a good web site that's easy to navigate. Make it easy for potentially interested attendees to contact you. Advertise. Promise the best experience ever, and follow through. Make sure your finances are well-planned so that if something goes wrong, you, and your attendees, aren't screwed. Ask for feedback, and take it to heart. Hire an A/V person and tell them that under no circumstances are they allowed to dim the lights (or promise a big bonus if that never happens), and that they should feel free to interrupt speakers to adjust microphones until such time as the speakers are clearly audible.
I run a biennial scientific conference. The first two times we had it, it sold out (we had to turn people away); there is every indication that the next session in 2010 will be the same.
What makes it a successful conference?
1. Fantastic location (we chose a Greek island).
2. It's a little hard to get there, and a little expensive -- so people are committed to being at the conference.
3. We serve lunch on-site -- so people have good opportunities to be engaged.
4. There are plenty of breaks -- so people have good opportunities to interact with the speakers.
5. We have lots of time for discussion after each talk, and good moderators. Also, the length of time for each talk is just long enough to present one idea in detail and depth.
6. All of the speakers are invited and meet three strict criteria: (a) they are widely recognized as experts in their field; (b) they give excellent presentations; (c) they are people you want to hang out with for a few days. You would be surprised at how many potential speakers fail at one or more of those criteria, especially the last two.
7. We have separate periods for social interactions (a welcoming reception, and a final banquet).
8. The morning of the third day of our four day conference has no formal presentations, to help avoid attendee fatigue.
9. We serve alcohol during the poster presentations in the evening.
Could it be that these befriendings are from people who don't care about privacy, or, put a better way, want to use Facebook to send spam messages, and so will befriend EVERYONE?