Long time NPR host Diane Rehm has suffered from the same condition. It kept her off the air for some months back in the '90s, but not permanently. The solution then, apparently, was an injection of something akin to botox.
Sorry I saw this so late. Over 30 years ago I taught Astronomy to college freshmen. Thought I did a decent enough job, but if I had to do it over again...
First of all, please make sure that the students actually know the basics. My gut says most won't know that which way is North or South, or that the Sun rises in the east and sets in the west.
Have them watch the Moon enough to know that it moves nightly to the east, relative to the stars, and have them watch the stars enough to know that they move to the west nightly, relative to the Sun. These in and of themselves are not a trivial observations.
Have them locate planets. Mars is well placed in the evening sky. Have them learn to read a star chart to see the bright object that isn't shown. That implies they can indeed identify more that "the big dipper".
The Pleiades are high in the sky now. It starts a great lesson in star clusters and stellar nurseries.
The pretty stuff - M42 in Orion (for the early evening now) and M13 in Herc. later in the year are classics, and a good place to start.
Later in the spring, Venus is a great naked eye object, and little improved by a telescope. But at least you can show them it's a crescent. Mercury is something to look for mid-April in the evening sky. It's not improved at all with a telescope!
Saturn is the best object in a small telescope. It doesn't get high in the sky during the early evening until later in the spring, but it won't be too bad in the east. Jupiter and it's moons are in the morning sky. But late next fall it'll be your best object.
You will have a devil of a time with deep-sky objects. Because the pictures that even amateurs can get with CCD cameras are so good, the naked eye can't compete. They will either not see them or be disappointed.
Your example of the Chuck-fan's Subway campaign is a good one. Subway used the term "fan engagement", which is a bottom-line issue for advertisers NOT captured by Neilsons. In other words, the $s appeared even when they didn't show up in ratings.
Say goodbye to your second amendment rights. They're as good as gone. Say goodbye to your first amendment rights. The "fairness doctrine" will take care of freedom of the press. And if you don't happen to listen to radio, then the taxing of our charitable contributions (at least those given to Churches) will demolish what's left of freedom of religion. Forget you right to a secret ballot. Card check is on the fast track. Your children will be given no choice but to attend government ("public") schools. No vouchers. Like socialized medicine? Good for you. It's coming. I suggest you take a look at Great Britain to see how well it works. But hey - rejoice. Youp son will be able to marry the same sex partner of your choice, and your daughter will be able to abort your grandchild at will.
Brings back memories, Basic. I was there in Morrisville for Boys State in 1971. Had a great time, too. Someone above noted that the school has prided themselves on being near the cutting edge, technologically speaking. They're right. One of the memories that I have was of the technology they chose to "broadcast" the school radio station around the campus. You wouldn't hear it at all unless you wrapped an electric chord (say, from a lamp) around your radio. Very unusual. Effective, but unusual.
The New Horizons Site keeps track of the spacecraft position and distance. According to the last mission update, the light travel time is now over 1h 30m.
Maird,
It's not quite right to think that the universe "grew from a point source." There was nothing (no physical matter or information) that went from point A to point B faster than light. Think of it like the surface of a pond freezing out. It can do so everywhere at once, with out something moving from one side of the pond to the other. Remember that Einstein's famous limit on the speed at which something can travel applies only to stuff that has mass (=energy) or carries information. The line you draw with your mind from the tip of your finger to the edge of the universe can go from one side of the universe to the other as quickly as you can swing your arm, but the end point of that line is not violating relativity.
Stuff is moving through space, and space itself is expanding independent of that movement. Those are two separate things.
Actually, 2 days seems just about right to me. Seems like every 6 months or so my wifes Win2k box is trashed enough (in particular, with spyware) that the OS needs to be re-installed from scratch. With the number of critical updates and security updates and reboots that you have to go through, it takes several hours of continuous key-clicking to get the basics set up. (Well, ok, that's not fair. The updates to the anti-virus, the firewall and the associated re-boots take up the rest of the time). By then I'm generally ready for bed. The NEXT day we start to install the drives for the DVD player, the printer, the camera, and all the software she's collected over the years. Mostly it's done the next day, but of course, it's done when it's done.
When I've re-installed Mandriva (necessary 'cause I've done something stupid to trash the system) it's generally half an hour to get the basic on my box, and two or three to re-install the nicities (you know, like mplayer, java, the latest firefox, etc). I may fiddle with it for two or three days changing fonts and stuff like that, but it's still much quicker than what I've experienced with the various editions of windows.
"Well, some might say that the Bible tells what God did, and science explains how he did it."
Can't agree with you more! I've got two degrees in astronomy, I'm a 'relapsed' Catholic, and I wish I had a buck for every time I've been asked "How can you believe when you know science says there is no god?"
Yeah, yeah yeah. I know where the questions are supposed to lead, quetions from both sides of this issue. But why is it that they never really contradict each other?
Newton told us that a ball dropped in a (fictional and impossible, BTW) frictionless environment falls in a constant gravitational field in such a way that it follows an inverse square law. Great. We can measure where it will be after we throw it. Works for the moon and for cannon balls too. Then Einstein came along and said "but that doesn't explain why light bends around a star. Think of it as space warping." I just don't see how either is a 'final' answer about anything, since they attempt to answer a very limited question about where something with mass or without mass will be at any given time. Nothing about God there at all. That question isn't addressed.
But look at the beauty of a distant spiral galaxy. Who ordered that? Who ordered the galaxy, and the beauty, for that matter? Scientists shouldn't even presume that they are capable of understanding that question if they are going to approach it quantitatively, the way they do physics.
(Before someone sputters "but the Bible says 6000 years! 6000 years!" my answer to that is, whose calendar are you using? God's or Man's?)
The fight between science and religion seems to me to be an ego driven argument between very fallable and limited human beings.
And one more thing - for those who just labeled me a radical on one side of this issue, you may want to note that I carefully chose my phrasing to antagonize both. For the sake of arguement, try assuming I'm agreeing with *you* and see if it doesn't fit.
Dave, great post.
Re:Question...
on
Melting Europa
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
In all seriousness, the human animal has been wondering about his place in the universe ever since the human animal became the human animal, and the answer to "is there life other-where" is an important component, yes?
It may be a lot of money, and there may be more important ways to spend it (for some definitions of 'important', anyway), but to not seek the answer is to deny an important part of our humanness. Not everyone buys this, or ever has. But not everyone has to, just like not everyone has to buy great art. J.
BTW, HST is not purely American. At least one of the instruments on board is German made/operated, and the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore is run by a consortium that consists of NASA, The Assoc. of University Researchers in America (AURA) and the European Space Agengy (ESA). Quite of little bit of its current funding comes from non-US sources.
Oh my, Jon Katz. Isn't this unnecessarialy alarmist?
I gather that people aren't quiet so afraid of the "government" these days - as Pogo said, "We have seen the enemy and they is us." Which is as it should be in a democracy.
But why be more afraid of Business (with a capital B)? We have even more votes in "capitalistic" economies. After all, every dollar you spend is your vote writ large. If you don't like the company, don't buy the product. Do the wealthy have more votes? Well, how many operating systems is Steve Forbes going to buy for his PC anyway? More than J. Average Geek?
It's a simplification, to be sure. But success != bad either in people or in business, and it's still true that inefficient, wrongheaded and corrupt business practices tend to destroy the very very businesses that practice them.
But it might not work that way. Consider: It's likely that the wealthy already do vote in large numbers/percentage, and their numbers can't be increased significantly. There's many studies that conclude the likelihood of voting is more or less proportional to wealth, after all. If that's the case then any measure that increases the number of voters, even a little, is likely to be more democratic in the sense that you mean.
My question is, do we want to further enfranchise those who don't care enough to go to the polls now?
These are some good thoughts. But it's important to remember that censorship in the constitution is a legal term that refers only to the actions of the federal government ("Congress shall make no law..."). Association and even communities can, will, and probably should police themselves as they see fit.
The question What does censorware supposedly censor? is a great one. Those who use it should know. Those who are responsible and charged with its use should be able to control that, with appropriate community safeguards.
What McCain and others have tapped into is the desire of reasonable people to protect their children from a potentially harmful environment (which isn't a bad thing). We can use that desire just as effectively as the politicians. Open Source Allows More Control, not less, over the environment. We can push that, emphasize that, and in the long run know that we've won twice. The desire of concerned parents is addressed and the legitimate needs (for uncensored information) of adults are protected.
We know this because we've guarenteed it ourselves. That's the way OSS is supposed to work, isn't it?
Dr. Lederman Thank you for this opportunity. A century ago it was noted that, "...except for just a few little problems with the hydrogen spectrum, all of physics had been solved." In your opinion, what are the outstanding problems that are likely to be solved in the forseeable future?
I'm discouraged not so much by the candidates but by the cynicism displayed here. This is a sample of "intelligent, aware, voters?" I thought that there'd be at least an attempt to be involved by people in this group. This is, after all, the first time a massive number of high-tech and internet using voters has ever existed - twice the numbers that existed in 96. The numbers are finally large enough to make a difference, and people are encouraging others here to not vote. Give me a break.
Ya get what ya want by doing the homework and thinking about it and making an intellegent choice.
The unification of magnitism with electricty in the 19th century explained magnitism. It didn't make radio possible. The discovery that signals could be transmitted through the air came before Maxwell's equations. It's the difference between science and engineering.
And Mills is a long way from making a discovery worth $25x10**6
This sounds great. But please tell me that these drivers, created by some of the very same companies that give us drivers for WinTel machines, are truly GPL'ed.
there's a slightly bigger issue underlaying this. Judge Pauley's decision doesn't address a company's covenant preventing employees from leaving to form their own start-up, which is potentially much more lucritive and dangerous. This is a much bigger problem that has existed in the manufacturing industries for 100 years.
Slashdot Mirror
Long time NPR host Diane Rehm has suffered from the same condition. It kept her off the air for some months back in the '90s, but not permanently. The solution then, apparently, was an injection of something akin to botox.
Sorry I saw this so late.
Over 30 years ago I taught Astronomy to college freshmen. Thought I did a decent enough job, but if I had to do it over again...
First of all, please make sure that the students actually know the basics. My gut says most won't know that which way is North or South, or that the Sun rises in the east and sets in the west.
Have them watch the Moon enough to know that it moves nightly to the east, relative to the stars, and have them watch the stars enough to know that they move to the west nightly, relative to the Sun. These in and of themselves are not a trivial observations.
Have them locate planets. Mars is well placed in the evening sky. Have them learn to read a star chart to see the bright object that isn't shown. That implies they can indeed identify more that "the big dipper".
The Pleiades are high in the sky now. It starts a great lesson in star clusters and stellar nurseries.
The pretty stuff - M42 in Orion (for the early evening now) and M13 in Herc. later in the year are classics, and a good place to start.
Later in the spring, Venus is a great naked eye object, and little improved by a telescope. But at least you can show them it's a crescent. Mercury is something to look for mid-April in the evening sky. It's not improved at all with a telescope!
Saturn is the best object in a small telescope. It doesn't get high in the sky during the early evening until later in the spring, but it won't be too bad in the east. Jupiter and it's moons are in the morning sky. But late next fall it'll be your best object.
You will have a devil of a time with deep-sky objects. Because the pictures that even amateurs can get with CCD cameras are so good, the naked eye can't compete. They will either not see them or be disappointed.
Your example of the Chuck-fan's Subway campaign is a good one. Subway used the term "fan engagement", which is a bottom-line issue for advertisers NOT captured by Neilsons. In other words, the $s appeared even when they didn't show up in ratings.
They want to take it *from you*, Dragon.
Say goodbye to your second amendment rights. They're as good as gone.
Say goodbye to your first amendment rights. The "fairness doctrine" will take care of freedom of the press. And if you don't happen to listen to radio, then the taxing of our charitable contributions (at least those given to Churches) will demolish what's left of freedom of religion.
Forget you right to a secret ballot. Card check is on the fast track.
Your children will be given no choice but to attend government ("public") schools. No vouchers.
Like socialized medicine? Good for you. It's coming. I suggest you take a look at Great Britain to see how well it works.
But hey - rejoice. Youp son will be able to marry the same sex partner of your choice, and your daughter will be able to abort your grandchild at will.
I hope I'm not the only one who recognized the reference to Larry Niven.
Brings back memories, Basic. I was there in Morrisville for Boys State in 1971. Had a great time, too.
Someone above noted that the school has prided themselves on being near the cutting edge, technologically speaking. They're right.
One of the memories that I have was of the technology they chose to "broadcast" the school radio station around the campus. You wouldn't hear it at all unless you wrapped an electric chord (say, from a lamp) around your radio. Very unusual. Effective, but unusual.
The New Horizons Site keeps track of the spacecraft position and distance. According to the last mission update, the light travel time is now over 1h 30m.
Maird,
It's not quite right to think that the universe "grew from a point source." There was nothing (no physical matter or information) that went from point A to point B faster than light. Think of it like the surface of a pond freezing out. It can do so everywhere at once, with out something moving from one side of the pond to the other. Remember that Einstein's famous limit on the speed at which something can travel applies only to stuff that has mass (=energy) or carries information. The line you draw with your mind from the tip of your finger to the edge of the universe can go from one side of the universe to the other as quickly as you can swing your arm, but the end point of that line is not violating relativity. Stuff is moving through space, and space itself is expanding independent of that movement. Those are two separate things.
Oh, bah! I was programming before 0's were invented. YOU try programming using only 1s!
J
Actually, 2 days seems just about right to me. Seems like every 6 months or so my wifes Win2k box is trashed enough (in particular, with spyware) that the OS needs to be re-installed from scratch. With the number of critical updates and security updates and reboots that you have to go through, it takes several hours of continuous key-clicking to get the basics set up. (Well, ok, that's not fair. The updates to the anti-virus, the firewall and the associated re-boots take up the rest of the time). By then I'm generally ready for bed. The NEXT day we start to install the drives for the DVD player, the printer, the camera, and all the software she's collected over the years. Mostly it's done the next day, but of course, it's done when it's done.
When I've re-installed Mandriva (necessary 'cause I've done something stupid to trash the system) it's generally half an hour to get the basic on my box, and two or three to re-install the nicities (you know, like mplayer, java, the latest firefox, etc). I may fiddle with it for two or three days changing fonts and stuff like that, but it's still much quicker than what I've experienced with the various editions of windows.
Actually, xx01dk, it seems that very few are ready to accept the opposite; the idea that we might indeed be alone in this universe.
That would make us a bit too special, I guess.
"Well, some might say that the Bible tells what God did, and science explains how he did it."
Can't agree with you more! I've got two degrees in astronomy, I'm a 'relapsed' Catholic, and I wish I had a buck for every time I've been asked "How can you believe when you know science says there is no god?"
Yeah, yeah yeah. I know where the questions are supposed to lead, quetions from both sides of this issue. But why is it that they never really contradict each other?
Newton told us that a ball dropped in a (fictional and impossible, BTW) frictionless environment falls in a constant gravitational field in such a way that it follows an inverse square law. Great. We can measure where it will be after we throw it. Works for the moon and for cannon balls too. Then Einstein came along and said "but that doesn't explain why light bends around a star. Think of it as space warping." I just don't see how either is a 'final' answer about anything, since they attempt to answer a very limited question about where something with mass or without mass will be at any given time. Nothing about God there at all. That question isn't addressed.
But look at the beauty of a distant spiral galaxy. Who ordered that? Who ordered the galaxy, and the beauty, for that matter? Scientists shouldn't even presume that they are capable of understanding that question if they are going to approach it quantitatively, the way they do physics.
(Before someone sputters "but the Bible says 6000 years! 6000 years!" my answer to that is, whose calendar are you using? God's or Man's?)
The fight between science and religion seems to me to be an ego driven argument between very fallable and limited human beings.
And one more thing - for those who just labeled me a radical on one side of this issue, you may want to note that I carefully chose my phrasing to antagonize both. For the sake of arguement, try assuming I'm agreeing with *you* and see if it doesn't fit.
Dave, great post.
In all seriousness, the human animal has been wondering about his place in the universe ever since the human animal became the human animal, and the answer to "is there life other-where" is an important component, yes?
It may be a lot of money, and there may be more important ways to spend it (for some definitions of 'important', anyway), but to not seek the answer is to deny an important part of our humanness.
Not everyone buys this, or ever has. But not everyone has to, just like not everyone has to buy great art.
J.
Paper receipts open the system up to vote-selling. Not good, and not allowed!
The voter might be able to see the paper (under glass), but that's about it.
J
Actually, the picture shown was in the Washington Post and the NY Times morning editions on 1/24.
You can also check STScI's Website for the latest news.
BTW, HST is not purely American. At least one of the instruments on board is German made/operated, and the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore is run by a consortium that consists of NASA, The Assoc. of University Researchers in America (AURA) and the European Space Agengy (ESA). Quite of little bit of its current funding comes from non-US sources.
J.
Oh my, Jon Katz. Isn't this unnecessarialy alarmist?
I gather that people aren't quiet so afraid of the "government" these days - as Pogo said, "We have seen the enemy and they is us." Which is as it should be in a democracy.
But why be more afraid of Business (with a capital B)? We have even more votes in "capitalistic" economies. After all, every dollar you spend is your vote writ large. If you don't like the company, don't buy the product. Do the wealthy have more votes? Well, how many operating systems is Steve Forbes going to buy for his PC anyway? More than J. Average Geek?
It's a simplification, to be sure. But success != bad either in people or in business, and it's still true that inefficient, wrongheaded and corrupt business practices tend to destroy the very very businesses that practice them.
J.
But it might not work that way. Consider: It's likely that the wealthy already do vote in large numbers/percentage, and their numbers can't be increased significantly. There's many studies that conclude the likelihood of voting is more or less proportional to wealth, after all. If that's the case then any measure that increases the number of voters, even a little, is likely to be more democratic in the sense that you mean.
My question is, do we want to further enfranchise those who don't care enough to go to the polls now?
J.
These are some good thoughts. But it's important to remember that censorship in the constitution is a legal term that refers only to the actions of the federal government ("Congress shall make no law..."). Association and even communities can, will, and probably should police themselves as they see fit.
The question What does censorware supposedly censor? is a great one. Those who use it should know. Those who are responsible and charged with its use should be able to control that, with appropriate community safeguards.
This sounds to me like it should be open source!
J.
What McCain and others have tapped into is the desire of reasonable people to protect their children from a potentially harmful environment (which isn't a bad thing). We can use that desire just as effectively as the politicians. Open Source Allows More Control, not less, over the environment. We can push that, emphasize that, and in the long run know that we've won twice. The desire of concerned parents is addressed and the legitimate needs (for uncensored information) of adults are protected.
We know this because we've guarenteed it ourselves. That's the way OSS is supposed to work, isn't it?
Dr. Lederman
Thank you for this opportunity.
A century ago it was noted that, "...except for just a few little problems with the hydrogen spectrum, all of physics had been solved."
In your opinion, what are the outstanding problems that are likely to be solved in the forseeable future?
Joe
I'm discouraged not so much by the candidates but by the cynicism displayed here. This is a sample of "intelligent, aware, voters?" I thought that there'd be at least an attempt to be involved by people in this group. This is, after all, the first time a massive number of high-tech and internet using voters has ever existed - twice the numbers that existed in 96. The numbers are finally large enough to make a difference, and people are encouraging others here to not vote. Give me a break.
Ya get what ya want by doing the homework and thinking about it and making an intellegent choice.
Or you get the leaders you deserve.
J.
of the way g'ments tend to (badly) misunderstand technology.
My gut tells me that such a system, if created, would be a monument to the law of unintended consequences.
J
So he can explain "why is there gravity?"
The unification of magnitism with electricty in the 19th century explained magnitism. It didn't make radio possible. The discovery that signals could be transmitted through the air came before Maxwell's equations. It's the difference between science and engineering.
And Mills is a long way from making a discovery worth $25x10**6
J
This sounds great. But please tell me that these drivers, created by some of the very same companies that give us drivers for WinTel machines, are truly GPL'ed.
Or convince us they are bug free. Either will do.
Joe
there's a slightly bigger issue underlaying this. Judge Pauley's decision doesn't address a company's covenant preventing employees from leaving to form their own start-up, which is potentially much more lucritive and dangerous. This is a much bigger problem that has existed in the manufacturing industries for 100 years.
J