Why would you need to create a special program to teach kids about sexual predators on the internet? Surely any responsible parent/nanny-state already teaches kids to be careful about all strangers on the internet... or on the street... or hanging around school.
Is the state legislator:
- Male/famele?
- Black/white/hispanic/native american/asian/other?
- Married/divorced/single/other?
- Blonde/brunette/...?
- Christian/muslim/hindu/jewish/other?
- gay/straight/other?
- How old are they?
I know in the USA politics is a fanatical driver for a lot of people, but does every action have to be determined by a label you hang on someone? Can't we have a discussion about the actions of the people involved without assuming their political party is more important than anything else?
Note, I am not saying it isn't going to have some effect, but to imply bias because every detail of someone's potential bias/background is not described seems like you are fishing for a reason to dismiss the post(er) all together rather than considering the topic.
I agree that we need to teach higher math for computer science. As someone who teaches at university in this area let me explain why...
Information technology Where I teach there is mostly a general "information technology" focus that includes a mixture of business, programming, networking and a few specialised areas. Recently this has been changed to have no maths requirements at all, the argument has been that if you need maths for a subject you teach it in that subject.
Unfortunately this approach is letting a lot of the students down badly. As a teacher I am unable to use terms of art such as big O notation because the students don't know it. I recently had to devote a significant portion of a lecture on network design to basic probability so my students could understand how to calculate availability of multiple devices.
There are even worse situations, where I have had students who struggle with basic algebra (a=b, b=c... couldn't work out a=c), set theory (what is a union/intersection/product?), graph theory (what's a (spanning) tree?)... the list goes on.
Computer science In the realm of computer science it is foundational to be able to understand things like inductive proofs, logic, optimisation, language definitions and a myriad of other mathematical tools to do a good job. I am not sure how you would expect someone to be able to practice computer science in the real world without a foundation in mathematics.
So ultimately you need some maths to understand information technology and a good foundation if you are doing computer science. This doesn't mean it is impossible to teach someone to pass a degree without it and maybe even practice, but their understanding is likely to be deeply flawed if they have no real understanding of the foundations their area is built on or the vocabulary and techniques used in the field.
AFAIK most nuclear power plants have a closed cooling cycle that may also be radioactive. This exchanges heat with another external cycle that is shielded from radiation and interacts with the environment.
To compare to your car analogy, the closed cycle is the water cooling system and the open cycle is the air that flows through the radiator(s) (and other hot bits) to cool them. Nuclear plants produce far more heat and air is not a great heat conductor, so instead they use water. Usually a nearby river makes a good source of water that can absorb a lot of heat (partly due to the constant supply of fresh cold(er) water).
It would be nice to completely thermally isolate a nuclear power plant and not need cooling (so they can be located in deserts etc.), but there is too much heat produced to do so easily (for now?).
Wait, did you just say: "One missile isn't going to take out a jet with 2, 3, or 4 engines." followed by: "I'd just get an old stinger, head to an international third level airport (St. Louis, Cincinnati, etc), drive to the end of the runway, and blow the wing off a plane as it took off"?
So which is it? Can you shoot down a large jet with one missile or not?... Not that I want to know of course.
It will be a great analogy once you can fit a Cessna 172 in your garage as well as your car and can take off from your back yard. Until then, while the jetpack is obviously much less practical for family holidays, it does offer the potential for personal and convenient transport with far less infrastructure invested in airports.
I would have thought the benefits of jetpacks as personal transport are the goal. We already know how to fly from city to city, but with the congestion problems on the ground, being able to fly from block to block or even building to building could revolutionise urban planning and convenience.
Disclaimers on the safety, cost, etc. this is all some way off for the average person you find driving a car to work... if you even want the average driver in control of a jet.
I agree that in some cases 2000 miles would be ample, I certainly didn't mean to imply that every collision course was going to be a dead centre hit!
My point was that the distance required when such small deflections becomes a major hinderance to the mission. If we are planning to intercept an asteroid many months (years even) from impact we should be planning to do so well outside our solar system. This may mean we would need months or years for the intercepting weapon to reach the asteroid... not to mention the pre mission planning etc.
With all that (very vague argument) done, I would have speculated that the obvious "best" solution is to have a capability that can operate within a number of weeks of impact (or a few months). Not only does this allow response to late detections, but all asteroids travelling extremely quickly. Further more, there is less chance of some mishap occuring during the interception flight wich would also be much shorter. This would also make manner missions easier if humans are required for any part of the mission.
So I happily accept that a nuclear option may work, but if a shorter range and easier/faster to deploy option is available I would see it as preferrable.
I suspect that having 6 months after we are able to intercept/attack may be optimistic. Remember that any interception needs to reach the asteroid at 6 months out from the earth and be able to accurately intercept... with enough precision to alter the course be the maximum (your number of 1 f/s).
Even assuming this was achieved, 2000 miles is significantly less than the diameter of the earth. To safely avoid any significant damage (and possible complications from a near miss) you would need to increase the distance by a couple of orders of magnitude.
I am not an astrophysicist (or any other semi-qualified professional), but it seems that a couple of thousand miles is going to be useless in most cases... Ideally we want it to go a long way away, not just skim by so close it touches the atmosphere.
The weird thing is that I don't feel afraid (and I travel frequently) and I don't know anyone who is really afraid. Where are all of these scared people ? Who are they ? More importantly, do we know that the above statement is really true, or is it just what we are told ?
As an Australian who has travelled to the USA on a couple of occasions the impression I had was that there is a very strong culture of fear. This was typified by:
- Being told I would be carjacked if I want to Orlando Florida.
- Being warned not to talk to black people in Florida.
- Being told to avoid Texas if driving a car with Oklahoma plates.
- Being questioned by the police for walking (most people drove, walking was considered suspiscous activity). Also I was told not to move or make any sudden movements while they radioed for backup and contacted Australian police to verify my driver's licence!
- "News" that repeated over and over how terrorists were coming to get US citizens.
- "News" that warned people they were going to be attacked by killer bees (or wasps).
- "News" reports that always seemed to talk about the latest murderer on the loose and to be careful.
- Being told never to be more than one minute run from a bunker.
- Normal TV ads seemed to be "X can kill you! Buy product Y!" (Where X can be the air in your house, milk, being alive...) ...
Basically, everything appeared to be built around instilling fear in the population and using that fear for government policy, advertising, avoiding talking to people who were "different".
After all, if they think that all they need is the degree certificate in order to get a decent career in IT, then their stupidity leaves the field clear for those of us who slaved over a hot dissertation for months on end.
That's great until a whole lot of them from your university do it and you can't find employment because potential employers have been burned by these students before.
I think a fair portion of the blame for the problem should fall to the institution involved, both for the lack of proper examination and for creating/supporting a culture where it is acceptable.
Examination
I have been through a number of subjects at undergrad and masters level in CS where the marking encourages unfair behaviour. This includes:
- group assignments where you lose marks if anyone doesn't do an equal part (even if they are incompetent, don't speak English, don't turn up, etc.)
- group work where you all have the same mark no matter what
- peer assessment where you can "fail" for doing something half the class can't understand. Then there is also marking systems that make no attempt to detect cheating,even simple things like two students submitting very similar work.
Culture
I have been at universities where the expectation is to pass as long as you do the barest minimum. Where someone who copies and pastes text off the internet into a report is allowed a week to "correctly cite your sources" before their mark is worked out. Subjects where the official marks is 0-100, but the real marks range from 45-85 with 45 being "didn't turn up or do anything" and 85 being "the top of the class without a single minor spelling mistake.
Another cultural problem is in managing the expectations of the students. I have been in groups where the students all want to achieve excellent results... and groups where they just want a piece of paper at the end. Worst of all is the university where they accept large numbers of internation students at exhorbitant rates to gain funding. Naturally if an international student fails a course they appeal and are almost always granted some kind of special consideration and minimal passing mark. It has reached the point where some members of staff don't bother failing students any more because they know that the uni won't back them up anyway.
Skepticism
That said, I am skeptical that any university really can't tell in the case of a dissertation. My experiences with honours/masters level (ask me next year for PhD experiences) has been that you need to know your work in great detail not to be caught out by the interviewing panel and/or markers. And that assumes you aren't (un)lucky enough to have panel members who don't have some political agenda/issue with your work.:P
Ultimately I strongly doubt any compatent professor could have a student work under them for 1 to 4+ years and not notice if they submitted work they didn't do. In such a case if/when it is found out I really think the supervisor should be help partially accountable!
Finally,I realise I have come down quite hard on the uni/supervisor in my post. Obviously none of this can occur if the student doesn't attempt to cheat. But I do feel that the student should be encouraged to do their own work and "aided" by a system that rewards their own work while making cheating a risky and unrewarding option.
If only we had some technology that allowed people downloading the same file to download it piecemeal (and possibly out of order) then assemble and view it locally... We could even save bandwidth and lessen the load on the multicast server by sharing what we had with other people who had downloaded the same show and still had parts of it on disk/cache!
... teachers unions and the fear of lawsuits make firing the awful ones nearly impossible.
This is true for Australia at least. There was one teacher who refused to teach* and the school was unable to get rid of him. It went on for about two years before they gave up and sent him overseas on an exchange program. We had other teachers that weren't so bad, but some really were't up to the task. The worst part is that this was a school for students with above average grades (they're called "selective" schools in NSW).
The system has changed a bit now - apparently if someone is incompetent they have a 6 week monitored period to improve. This means that if they pick up their game for 6 weeks (with forewarning) then they can't be fired even if they slump right back afterwards.
Of course this problem isn't limited to schools, it is so hard to fire someone from some industries that the only way to remove a useless employee is to change the job description and re-advertise it... and hope you get someone better.
* His teaching method was to ignore the class and if anyone asked what we were meant to be doing to point to a pile of text books and say "Teach yourself."... while he read magazines.
Also, several of the designers of Cobol were women, and I'm not sure whether that works for or against the hypothesis. Are you suggesting women can't sport a beard?
There is a big difference between being affected and actually having your identity stolen. I am sure if Mr. Bunce has/had a wife she would consider herself affected even if her identity hadn't been solen.
To claim that terrorism is "really REALLY close to 100%" of terrorism is rediculous. A start might be to note known terrorist organisations, or perhaps terrorist incidents in recent history or track down some suspected/actual terrorist activitie here.
Dinosaurs were around between 230-65 million years ago, not even close to 500 millions years ago. Mammals appeared around the time of dinosaurs (link, link), but still well after 500 million years ago.
Similarly, a specific species (i.e. rabbits) appearing in the precambrian period (4500-540 million years ago) well before our understanding of its evolution (and that of its ancestors) would be a major issue for evolutionary theory.
Note that both of these are cases of species appearing massively outside our understanding of their development. The finding of a human footprint next to a fossilized dinosaur bone could be explained by something as mundane as erosion and new layers (I'm too lazy to go into detail).
Finding a fossilized human net to a fossilized dinosaur in the same layer of rock would be far more difficult to explain... but would still not be completely out of the possibility of explanation through evolution (just require some significant review of what we know and how it works).
I think there needs to be greater differentiation in IT. There are quite a few jobs that can be adaquately performed by someone with vocational training similar to a tradesperson. This would be along the lines of a Cisco or MS certification (though perhaps a little broader) and can be provided by apprenticeships or vocational tertiary education (e.g. TAFE (NSW, Australia)).
University level education should be training the "engineer" level positions. This would cover the aptitude of the vocational training and extend to include more of the theoretical background. An engineer's role would be to design and implement more complex solutions (for example designing a corporate network). This requires a broader knowledge and better understanding of the concepts and related issues.
There is also a role for scientists, but this is already the realm of extended university education...
Little known fact; the ban on screwdrivers was initiated by the airlines who were afraid that economy passangers might remount the seats to have sufficient leg room.
Slashdot Mirror
It may be delicious, but it clearly violates the 5 second rule.
Why would you need to create a special program to teach kids about sexual predators on the internet? Surely any responsible parent/nanny-state already teaches kids to be careful about all strangers on the internet... or on the street... or hanging around school.
Is the state legislator:
- Male/famele?
- Black/white/hispanic/native american/asian/other?
- Married/divorced/single/other?
- Blonde/brunette/...?
- Christian/muslim/hindu/jewish/other?
- gay/straight/other?
- How old are they?
I know in the USA politics is a fanatical driver for a lot of people, but does every action have to be determined by a label you hang on someone? Can't we have a discussion about the actions of the people involved without assuming their political party is more important than anything else?
Note, I am not saying it isn't going to have some effect, but to imply bias because every detail of someone's potential bias/background is not described seems like you are fishing for a reason to dismiss the post(er) all together rather than considering the topic.
I agree that we need to teach higher math for computer science. As someone who teaches at university in this area let me explain why...
... couldn't work out a=c), set theory (what is a union/intersection/product?), graph theory (what's a (spanning) tree?)... the list goes on.
Information technology Where I teach there is mostly a general "information technology" focus that includes a mixture of business, programming, networking and a few specialised areas. Recently this has been changed to have no maths requirements at all, the argument has been that if you need maths for a subject you teach it in that subject.
Unfortunately this approach is letting a lot of the students down badly. As a teacher I am unable to use terms of art such as big O notation because the students don't know it. I recently had to devote a significant portion of a lecture on network design to basic probability so my students could understand how to calculate availability of multiple devices.
There are even worse situations, where I have had students who struggle with basic algebra (a=b, b=c
Computer science In the realm of computer science it is foundational to be able to understand things like inductive proofs, logic, optimisation, language definitions and a myriad of other mathematical tools to do a good job. I am not sure how you would expect someone to be able to practice computer science in the real world without a foundation in mathematics.
So ultimately you need some maths to understand information technology and a good foundation if you are doing computer science. This doesn't mean it is impossible to teach someone to pass a degree without it and maybe even practice, but their understanding is likely to be deeply flawed if they have no real understanding of the foundations their area is built on or the vocabulary and techniques used in the field.
AFAIK most nuclear power plants have a closed cooling cycle that may also be radioactive. This exchanges heat with another external cycle that is shielded from radiation and interacts with the environment.
To compare to your car analogy, the closed cycle is the water cooling system and the open cycle is the air that flows through the radiator(s) (and other hot bits) to cool them. Nuclear plants produce far more heat and air is not a great heat conductor, so instead they use water. Usually a nearby river makes a good source of water that can absorb a lot of heat (partly due to the constant supply of fresh cold(er) water).
It would be nice to completely thermally isolate a nuclear power plant and not need cooling (so they can be located in deserts etc.), but there is too much heat produced to do so easily (for now?).
Wait, did you just say:
... Not that I want to know of course.
"One missile isn't going to take out a jet with 2, 3, or 4 engines."
followed by:
"I'd just get an old stinger, head to an international third level airport (St. Louis, Cincinnati, etc), drive to the end of the runway, and blow the wing off a plane as it took off"?
So which is it? Can you shoot down a large jet with one missile or not?
It will be a great analogy once you can fit a Cessna 172 in your garage as well as your car and can take off from your back yard. Until then, while the jetpack is obviously much less practical for family holidays, it does offer the potential for personal and convenient transport with far less infrastructure invested in airports.
I would have thought the benefits of jetpacks as personal transport are the goal. We already know how to fly from city to city, but with the congestion problems on the ground, being able to fly from block to block or even building to building could revolutionise urban planning and convenience.
Disclaimers on the safety, cost, etc. this is all some way off for the average person you find driving a car to work... if you even want the average driver in control of a jet.
I agree that in some cases 2000 miles would be ample, I certainly didn't mean to imply that every collision course was going to be a dead centre hit!
My point was that the distance required when such small deflections becomes a major hinderance to the mission. If we are planning to intercept an asteroid many months (years even) from impact we should be planning to do so well outside our solar system. This may mean we would need months or years for the intercepting weapon to reach the asteroid... not to mention the pre mission planning etc.
With all that (very vague argument) done, I would have speculated that the obvious "best" solution is to have a capability that can operate within a number of weeks of impact (or a few months). Not only does this allow response to late detections, but all asteroids travelling extremely quickly. Further more, there is less chance of some mishap occuring during the interception flight wich would also be much shorter. This would also make manner missions easier if humans are required for any part of the mission.
So I happily accept that a nuclear option may work, but if a shorter range and easier/faster to deploy option is available I would see it as preferrable.
I suspect that having 6 months after we are able to intercept/attack may be optimistic. Remember that any interception needs to reach the asteroid at 6 months out from the earth and be able to accurately intercept... with enough precision to alter the course be the maximum (your number of 1 f/s).
Even assuming this was achieved, 2000 miles is significantly less than the diameter of the earth. To safely avoid any significant damage (and possible complications from a near miss) you would need to increase the distance by a couple of orders of magnitude.
I am not an astrophysicist (or any other semi-qualified professional), but it seems that a couple of thousand miles is going to be useless in most cases... Ideally we want it to go a long way away, not just skim by so close it touches the atmosphere.
The weird thing is that I don't feel afraid (and I travel frequently) and I don't know anyone who is really afraid. Where are all of these scared people ? Who are they ? More importantly, do we know that the above statement is really true, or is it just what we are told ?
As an Australian who has travelled to the USA on a couple of occasions the impression I had was that there is a very strong culture of fear. This was typified by:
...
- Being told I would be carjacked if I want to Orlando Florida.
- Being warned not to talk to black people in Florida.
- Being told to avoid Texas if driving a car with Oklahoma plates.
- Being questioned by the police for walking (most people drove, walking was considered suspiscous activity). Also I was told not to move or make any sudden movements while they radioed for backup and contacted Australian police to verify my driver's licence!
- "News" that repeated over and over how terrorists were coming to get US citizens.
- "News" that warned people they were going to be attacked by killer bees (or wasps).
- "News" reports that always seemed to talk about the latest murderer on the loose and to be careful.
- Being told never to be more than one minute run from a bunker.
- Normal TV ads seemed to be "X can kill you! Buy product Y!" (Where X can be the air in your house, milk, being alive...)
Basically, everything appeared to be built around instilling fear in the population and using that fear for government policy, advertising, avoiding talking to people who were "different".
"TV Viewers' Average IQ drops to 50 "
There, fixed that for you.
After all, if they think that all they need is the degree certificate in order to get a decent career in IT, then their stupidity leaves the field clear for those of us who slaved over a hot dissertation for months on end.
That's great until a whole lot of them from your university do it and you can't find employment because potential employers have been burned by these students before.
I think a fair portion of the blame for the problem should fall to the institution involved, both for the lack of proper examination and for creating/supporting a culture where it is acceptable.
:P
Examination
I have been through a number of subjects at undergrad and masters level in CS where the marking encourages unfair behaviour. This includes:
- group assignments where you lose marks if anyone doesn't do an equal part (even if they are incompetent, don't speak English, don't turn up, etc.)
- group work where you all have the same mark no matter what
- peer assessment where you can "fail" for doing something half the class can't understand.
Then there is also marking systems that make no attempt to detect cheating,even simple things like two students submitting very similar work.
Culture
I have been at universities where the expectation is to pass as long as you do the barest minimum. Where someone who copies and pastes text off the internet into a report is allowed a week to "correctly cite your sources" before their mark is worked out. Subjects where the official marks is 0-100, but the real marks range from 45-85 with 45 being "didn't turn up or do anything" and 85 being "the top of the class without a single minor spelling mistake.
Another cultural problem is in managing the expectations of the students. I have been in groups where the students all want to achieve excellent results... and groups where they just want a piece of paper at the end. Worst of all is the university where they accept large numbers of internation students at exhorbitant rates to gain funding. Naturally if an international student fails a course they appeal and are almost always granted some kind of special consideration and minimal passing mark. It has reached the point where some members of staff don't bother failing students any more because they know that the uni won't back them up anyway.
Skepticism
That said, I am skeptical that any university really can't tell in the case of a dissertation. My experiences with honours/masters level (ask me next year for PhD experiences) has been that you need to know your work in great detail not to be caught out by the interviewing panel and/or markers. And that assumes you aren't (un)lucky enough to have panel members who don't have some political agenda/issue with your work.
Ultimately I strongly doubt any compatent professor could have a student work under them for 1 to 4+ years and not notice if they submitted work they didn't do. In such a case if/when it is found out I really think the supervisor should be help partially accountable!
Finally,I realise I have come down quite hard on the uni/supervisor in my post. Obviously none of this can occur if the student doesn't attempt to cheat. But I do feel that the student should be encouraged to do their own work and "aided" by a system that rewards their own work while making cheating a risky and unrewarding option.
If only we had some technology that allowed people downloading the same file to download it piecemeal (and possibly out of order) then assemble and view it locally... We could even save bandwidth and lessen the load on the multicast server by sharing what we had with other people who had downloaded the same show and still had parts of it on disk/cache!
... teachers unions and the fear of lawsuits make firing the awful ones nearly impossible.This is true for Australia at least. There was one teacher who refused to teach* and the school was unable to get rid of him. It went on for about two years before they gave up and sent him overseas on an exchange program. We had other teachers that weren't so bad, but some really were't up to the task. The worst part is that this was a school for students with above average grades (they're called "selective" schools in NSW).
The system has changed a bit now - apparently if someone is incompetent they have a 6 week monitored period to improve. This means that if they pick up their game for 6 weeks (with forewarning) then they can't be fired even if they slump right back afterwards.
Of course this problem isn't limited to schools, it is so hard to fire someone from some industries that the only way to remove a useless employee is to change the job description and re-advertise it... and hope you get someone better.
* His teaching method was to ignore the class and if anyone asked what we were meant to be doing to point to a pile of text books and say "Teach yourself."... while he read magazines.
There is a big difference between being affected and actually having your identity stolen. I am sure if Mr. Bunce has/had a wife she would consider herself affected even if her identity hadn't been solen.
Correction: To claim that islam is responsible for "really REALLY close to 100%" of terrorism is rediculous.
... maybe I really do need coffee.
To claim that terrorism is "really REALLY close to 100%" of terrorism is rediculous. A start might be to note known terrorist organisations, or perhaps terrorist incidents in recent history or track down some suspected/actual terrorist activitie here.
Dinosaurs were around between 230-65 million years ago, not even close to 500 millions years ago. Mammals appeared around the time of dinosaurs (link, link), but still well after 500 million years ago.
Similarly, a specific species (i.e. rabbits) appearing in the precambrian period (4500-540 million years ago) well before our understanding of its evolution (and that of its ancestors) would be a major issue for evolutionary theory.
Note that both of these are cases of species appearing massively outside our understanding of their development. The finding of a human footprint next to a fossilized dinosaur bone could be explained by something as mundane as erosion and new layers (I'm too lazy to go into detail).
Finding a fossilized human net to a fossilized dinosaur in the same layer of rock would be far more difficult to explain... but would still not be completely out of the possibility of explanation through evolution (just require some significant review of what we know and how it works).
I think there needs to be greater differentiation in IT. There are quite a few jobs that can be adaquately performed by someone with vocational training similar to a tradesperson. This would be along the lines of a Cisco or MS certification (though perhaps a little broader) and can be provided by apprenticeships or vocational tertiary education (e.g. TAFE (NSW, Australia)).
University level education should be training the "engineer" level positions. This would cover the aptitude of the vocational training and extend to include more of the theoretical background. An engineer's role would be to design and implement more complex solutions (for example designing a corporate network). This requires a broader knowledge and better understanding of the concepts and related issues.
There is also a role for scientists, but this is already the realm of extended university education...
Little known fact; the ban on screwdrivers was initiated by the airlines who were afraid that economy passangers might remount the seats to have sufficient leg room.
Nothing says hope for humanity like a wind assisted ship carrying windmills (presumably for power generation)?