I know that this article is about the passing of Crick, but it's nice to hear Rosalind Franklin recognized for her significant role in the discovery of the structure of DNA. Certinaly, Watson and Crick did a lot of work... but they get a lot of credit too, including a nobel prize. Franklin didn't even get credit at the time of discovery because her photographs had been shown to Watson without her knowledge and they (Watson, Crick, and Wilkins) rushed their article to publication.
Later on, more people learned of her contributions, but, sadly, she passed away in 1958 and was therefore ineligible for the 1962 Nobel prize that Watson, Crick, and Wilkonson shared. Without her name on the landmark publication or a Nobel prize, she has been largely forgotten.
To read more about her story, you should check out the book The Dark Lady of DNA.
Seeing as how Segways are Banned from San Francisco's sidewalks and bike paths (and, presumably, aren't allowed on the open road), I guess they won't be playing any 'street' polo. I wonder how these things perform on grass.
I also wonder if this will or won't reinforce the stereotype of polo as a sport for the rich elite. Segways are a lot cheaper than a horse, but even some poorer folks have horses, while a $5,000 electronic gizmo seems a lot more like an expensive toy. Hmm.
Ridge said a new program with a different name might be developed to replace CAPPS II. It could be replaced by a new "registered traveler" program if enough people volunteer to provide personal information, the report said.
It's just like the grocery store card, well, you know, milk would be 30 cents cheaper... and it's not that big a deal... right? Once enough people volunteer, there is enough of a customer/user/whatever base that the corporation/organization/whatever can put a lot of pressure on the people who didn't opt in.
I think the idea of a slippery slope is way over used (especially here on Slashdot), but I also think that this is one of those things were the slippery slope would slowly slide up and bit you in the ass.
Those are good points. I am tired of Terrorism being used as a password to make us agree to stupid propositions the make life a little bit easier for the government *cough* patriot act *cough*.
Besides, what could terrorists do with the knowledge that cell overage was out? I could see how knowing that cell phones did work in an area could help in, for instance, planning an RF detonation of a bomb. Perhaps we should pre-emptively shut down all the cell networks? That's a bit of a trite over simplification, but I just can't see how not reporting cell outages does anything except ebb the market pressures that would force cell companies to improve service.
Seriously, though, when I was a sophomore in college, I took a road trip from Oregon to San Francisco with some friends. We were driving down the 101 coastal highway (for those of you unfamiliar with the 101, you can see the ocean almost the whole time. It's beautiful), when I had a Eureka moment. I was looking at the ocean and it suddenly dawned on me, Holy shit! We could put turbines out there on the coast to collect power from the tide. They'd be an almost totally clean and renewable source of energy. I'm going to win the Nobel prize when I tell people about this! I told the other people in the car about my prize-winning plan and my friend Bex told me, "Yeah, they have those already. They kind of suck." I was pretty crestfallen.
In a previous post, I mentioned how I thought it was a bad idea for most content to be further compressed, especially politics. I wonder what this trend does to the field of journalism? More and more it seems that the job of a news person is to play back a choice clip of some event rather than to analyze it and provide context.
I could definately do without the witty banter on the news (yet another reason to get your news online from Google, the NY Times, the BBC, whomever), but I am greatly troubled by the idea that political speeches could get even shorter. Short political speeces are the worst aspect of politics in my opinion. Why deliver a twenty minute oratory that fully explores and explains your views on an issue, when you can just repeat some trite soundbyte that will fit into the alloted 20 seconds on the news? Seriously, have you ever listened to an entire political speech? I would say that fewer than 10% of people ever have. Those who have would tell you that most speeches are just jam-packed with soundbytes (they hate our freedom, etc.) rather than actual 'content.' It's because of the way we like to have information condensed and pre-chewed for us. Of course, if you're interested in something, you can always do the extra research to find out more about it, but who has the time?
I think that the politics problem extends, to a point, to sports as well. For example, I find watching baseball mercilessly boring, but I enjoy watching the highlights. But do I get all the nuances of the game or really learn anything about the players? No. I'm guessing that for most people this isn't a problem and that's why we're headed to the scenario outlined in the article. I just think it's too bad.
This is one of the reasons I'm going into the field of finance instead of teaching.
When I started grad school (I'm a second year student in math), they told me, "When you're done you will almost certainly have to teach. Really good students will be able to land a post-doc right when they get out. You.... won't."
Then, after slaving away at a three-year post-doc (or, more ilkely, multiple one-year post-docs), I could maybe get a teaching job. That's a big maybe, too. People fight tooth and nail for teaching jobs.
Even if I could get a job, the pay is relatively low. Don't get me wrong, even bad teachers at mediocre colleges make enough money to get by, but the pay that you're getting for having a Ph. D in Math is lower than you would think is fair for the amount of effort you put into the degree.
So, I've decided to get a job in finance. There's cooler jobs than you think. For example, my bachelor's degree was in math and computer science. Well, there're these jobs called 'quantitative developers' that combine your (very high level) understanding of math with C++ or JAVA development skills. You get to do math and code, and all for pay that is (on average) much higher than what people got at the height of the tech boom in the late '90s. It's not just the money, either. You wouldn't believe how much great theoretical math there is finance. Most academics will tell you that they're in it for the science, and that's why they can put up with lower pay. I say, why bother if you can do the science in the private sector? It's not quite as nice an environment as academia, but it sure pays well enough to help blur the distinction.
With the scarcity of academic positions, people from lots of different fields, such as math, physics, and engineering are heading to the finance sector. Hopefully, I'll be at the front of the pack.
I know we're drifting perilously off-topic here, but if you're at all interested in how the English came about, and... well... anything really about English, you should read mother tongue: english and how it got that way by Bill Bryson. It's scholarly in parts, but, overall, it's very funny and a great read.
How do you suppose blogging figures into this? Certainly, there are (at least) two types of blogs.
The first kind is a link-o-rama, kind of like a watered down Slashdot. The author may or may not provide some personal context for the links, but not much discussion.
The second kind is more thought out. It has some links, but that's not really the meat of the content. The articles are usually not quite a conversation and not quite a speech; they fall somewhere in the middle. This is the type of writing I like to do in my blog (usually, sometimes we all get a little silly). I've come to think about it as the opposite of instant messaging. While I can't stand IMing because of the extra short attention span (quick! Write two sentences! Send! No time for proper spelling or grammar!), blogging gives me an excuse to exercise my composition skills on a regular basis and to really think about what I'm saying as opposed to how fast I'm saying it.
It's a two-way street too: I tend to read longer, more involved blogs and other content. Like news? Gonna get it at CNN? No way, go to the New York Times. Then you get some writing, rather than just a machine-gun spray of facts.
Yes, I read for pleasure less than I used to, but that's only in the sense that I've restricted less of my attention to to actual dead-tree books. The internet (and TV) are only going to make people illiterate if people want them to. If we want our culture not to slide into slack-jawed yokeltude (that's right, I just made up a word), then we shouldn't read CNN (yes, it's very informative and often appropriate, but stay with me here) and don't watch (most) reality television. Read something or write something. It doesn't matter if it's online or in print form.
What a neat project. I've been thinking about the same problem for a while because my Great-uncle is going deaf. He takes out his hearing aids when he talks on a conventional phone (remember back in the day when you used to be able to get those big bowl-looking things that fit over the ear-piece to help make up for the abscence of the hearing aid?), but using a mobile phone is impossible becaues of the RFI.
He is pretty old, so we would feel a lot more comfortable if he could have a phone with him at all times. I can't wait to try to build one of your devices for him.
That's a good point, considering the article addresses the number of files downloaded. I wonder what things would look like if the numbers reflected the size of the files downloaded.
Also, if they did scan specifically for movies, software, etc, I wonder how porn messes things up. I mean, seriously, how many movie movies have you downloaded compared to how many porno clips/movies?
It's too bad there isn't a better discussion of the methodolgy in the article.
Slashdot Mirror
I know that this article is about the passing of Crick, but it's nice to hear Rosalind Franklin recognized for her significant role in the discovery of the structure of DNA. Certinaly, Watson and Crick did a lot of work ... but they get a lot of credit too, including a nobel prize. Franklin didn't even get credit at the time of discovery because her photographs had been shown to Watson without her knowledge and they (Watson, Crick, and Wilkins) rushed their article to publication.
Later on, more people learned of her contributions, but, sadly, she passed away in 1958 and was therefore ineligible for the 1962 Nobel prize that Watson, Crick, and Wilkonson shared. Without her name on the landmark publication or a Nobel prize, she has been largely forgotten.
To read more about her story, you should check out the book The Dark Lady of DNA.
Seeing as how Segways are Banned from San Francisco's sidewalks and bike paths (and, presumably, aren't allowed on the open road), I guess they won't be playing any 'street' polo. I wonder how these things perform on grass.
I also wonder if this will or won't reinforce the stereotype of polo as a sport for the rich elite. Segways are a lot cheaper than a horse, but even some poorer folks have horses, while a $5,000 electronic gizmo seems a lot more like an expensive toy. Hmm.
Seriously. Even if there were an even greater evil power behind poor Sal's crimes, does that totally absolve him of responsibility?
... twice ... But Vince made me do it! Can I have a cookie?.
Yeah, I ran over an old lady and her cat
Sheesh.
Yep, that's how they getcha. From the article:
... and it's not that big a deal ... right? Once enough people volunteer, there is enough of a customer/user/whatever base that the corporation/organization/whatever can put a lot of pressure on the people who didn't opt in.
Ridge said a new program with a different name might be developed to replace CAPPS II. It could be replaced by a new "registered traveler" program if enough people volunteer to provide personal information, the report said.
It's just like the grocery store card, well, you know, milk would be 30 cents cheaper
I think the idea of a slippery slope is way over used (especially here on Slashdot), but I also think that this is one of those things were the slippery slope would slowly slide up and bit you in the ass.
Those are good points. I am tired of Terrorism being used as a password to make us agree to stupid propositions the make life a little bit easier for the government *cough* patriot act *cough*.
Besides, what could terrorists do with the knowledge that cell overage was out? I could see how knowing that cell phones did work in an area could help in, for instance, planning an RF detonation of a bomb. Perhaps we should pre-emptively shut down all the cell networks? That's a bit of a trite over simplification, but I just can't see how not reporting cell outages does anything except ebb the market pressures that would force cell companies to improve service.
Perhaps the could just burn the river for energy.
Seriously, though, when I was a sophomore in college, I took a road trip from Oregon to San Francisco with some friends. We were driving down the 101 coastal highway (for those of you unfamiliar with the 101, you can see the ocean almost the whole time. It's beautiful), when I had a Eureka moment. I was looking at the ocean and it suddenly dawned on me, Holy shit! We could put turbines out there on the coast to collect power from the tide. They'd be an almost totally clean and renewable source of energy. I'm going to win the Nobel prize when I tell people about this! I told the other people in the car about my prize-winning plan and my friend Bex told me, "Yeah, they have those already. They kind of suck." I was pretty crestfallen.
In a previous post, I mentioned how I thought it was a bad idea for most content to be further compressed, especially politics. I wonder what this trend does to the field of journalism? More and more it seems that the job of a news person is to play back a choice clip of some event rather than to analyze it and provide context.
I could definately do without the witty banter on the news (yet another reason to get your news online from Google, the NY Times, the BBC, whomever), but I am greatly troubled by the idea that political speeches could get even shorter. Short political speeces are the worst aspect of politics in my opinion. Why deliver a twenty minute oratory that fully explores and explains your views on an issue, when you can just repeat some trite soundbyte that will fit into the alloted 20 seconds on the news? Seriously, have you ever listened to an entire political speech? I would say that fewer than 10% of people ever have. Those who have would tell you that most speeches are just jam-packed with soundbytes (they hate our freedom, etc.) rather than actual 'content.' It's because of the way we like to have information condensed and pre-chewed for us. Of course, if you're interested in something, you can always do the extra research to find out more about it, but who has the time?
I think that the politics problem extends, to a point, to sports as well. For example, I find watching baseball mercilessly boring, but I enjoy watching the highlights. But do I get all the nuances of the game or really learn anything about the players? No. I'm guessing that for most people this isn't a problem and that's why we're headed to the scenario outlined in the article. I just think it's too bad.
This is one of the reasons I'm going into the field of finance instead of teaching.
.... won't."
When I started grad school (I'm a second year student in math), they told me, "When you're done you will almost certainly have to teach. Really good students will be able to land a post-doc right when they get out. You
Then, after slaving away at a three-year post-doc (or, more ilkely, multiple one-year post-docs), I could maybe get a teaching job. That's a big maybe, too. People fight tooth and nail for teaching jobs.
Even if I could get a job, the pay is relatively low. Don't get me wrong, even bad teachers at mediocre colleges make enough money to get by, but the pay that you're getting for having a Ph. D in Math is lower than you would think is fair for the amount of effort you put into the degree.
So, I've decided to get a job in finance. There's cooler jobs than you think. For example, my bachelor's degree was in math and computer science. Well, there're these jobs called 'quantitative developers' that combine your (very high level) understanding of math with C++ or JAVA development skills. You get to do math and code, and all for pay that is (on average) much higher than what people got at the height of the tech boom in the late '90s. It's not just the money, either. You wouldn't believe how much great theoretical math there is finance. Most academics will tell you that they're in it for the science, and that's why they can put up with lower pay. I say, why bother if you can do the science in the private sector? It's not quite as nice an environment as academia, but it sure pays well enough to help blur the distinction.
With the scarcity of academic positions, people from lots of different fields, such as math, physics, and engineering are heading to the finance sector. Hopefully, I'll be at the front of the pack.
I know we're drifting perilously off-topic here, but if you're at all interested in how the English came about, and ... well ... anything really about English, you should read mother tongue: english and how it got that way by Bill Bryson. It's scholarly in parts, but, overall, it's very funny and a great read.
How do you suppose blogging figures into this? Certainly, there are (at least) two types of blogs.
The first kind is a link-o-rama, kind of like a watered down Slashdot. The author may or may not provide some personal context for the links, but not much discussion.
The second kind is more thought out. It has some links, but that's not really the meat of the content. The articles are usually not quite a conversation and not quite a speech; they fall somewhere in the middle. This is the type of writing I like to do in my blog (usually, sometimes we all get a little silly). I've come to think about it as the opposite of instant messaging. While I can't stand IMing because of the extra short attention span (quick! Write two sentences! Send! No time for proper spelling or grammar!), blogging gives me an excuse to exercise my composition skills on a regular basis and to really think about what I'm saying as opposed to how fast I'm saying it.
It's a two-way street too: I tend to read longer, more involved blogs and other content. Like news? Gonna get it at CNN? No way, go to the New York Times. Then you get some writing, rather than just a machine-gun spray of facts.
Yes, I read for pleasure less than I used to, but that's only in the sense that I've restricted less of my attention to to actual dead-tree books. The internet (and TV) are only going to make people illiterate if people want them to. If we want our culture not to slide into slack-jawed yokeltude (that's right, I just made up a word), then we shouldn't read CNN (yes, it's very informative and often appropriate, but stay with me here) and don't watch (most) reality television. Read something or write something. It doesn't matter if it's online or in print form.
What a neat project. I've been thinking about the same problem for a while because my Great-uncle is going deaf. He takes out his hearing aids when he talks on a conventional phone (remember back in the day when you used to be able to get those big bowl-looking things that fit over the ear-piece to help make up for the abscence of the hearing aid?), but using a mobile phone is impossible becaues of the RFI.
He is pretty old, so we would feel a lot more comfortable if he could have a phone with him at all times. I can't wait to try to build one of your devices for him.
That's a good point, considering the article addresses the number of files downloaded. I wonder what things would look like if the numbers reflected the size of the files downloaded.
Also, if they did scan specifically for movies, software, etc, I wonder how porn messes things up. I mean, seriously, how many movie movies have you downloaded compared to how many porno clips/movies?
It's too bad there isn't a better discussion of the methodolgy in the article.