2. And the shelf-life of that software "reserve" is...
At least a few decades, isn't it? At least Maxima, Emacs and others work perfectly on my modern PC.
And I could argue that for software created today it could be much longer. Many things seem to have stabilized or at least compartmentalized their growth. Think air traffic control. IIRC the machines they run on now are 20+ years old as is the software. Not only that the scale of the problem has grown significantly from 20 years ago, but will we see that same growth in: computer performance, software tools and air traffic in the next 20 years? Probably not. Again, IIRC reliance on radar for air traffic control may be on the way out, but realizing that sort of modularity, seems like you could design a system where a GPS module could be added with much less pain than re-writing the whole system.
I think part of the problem is something most of us here on/. are blind to, namely that there is a large fraction of the population who do not understand the scientific method and have been brought up on a culture of relative right and wrong.
Who is at fault in a traffic accident? Depends on who has the winning lawyer. Did that CEO break the law or just push the law to its limit but did not step over it? And who made those laws anyway? If those laws were repealed would that CEO suddenly be "right" again?
I was in an astronomy forum where even some of the people there were debating thing like whether 1+1 = 2 is truism vs an artifact of a properly chosen arithmetical scheme (and for this 01 + 01 = 10 would still count as 1+1=2, it's the same arithmetical scheme).
Fact is there are some things where there is an absolute truth for (climate change, drug effectiveness, best way to handle nuclear waste) and there are some things that will always remain judgment calls (whether fetuses are alive, how to handle illegal immigration). Government has to operate in both but the problem is that most people in politics and in the population at large believe MANY MANY more things are in the judgment call category and less in the absolute truth category.
I think it's winnable, but it has to start with experts SHOWING us why/how they've come to their conclusions and NOT telling us to trust them, they're experts. Scientific debate in science iterates to a common agreement. One would think that scientific debate in the media can achieve something close and eventually the general public will catch on that some things CAN be known and are not arbitrary.
The solution is to actually have Health Experts attack the camp. You know, paint ball guns and the like. That would get those kids up and out and active.
Geez... people who complain without bothering to actually DO something about it really bug me.
In a way this supports a belief I've had for a while. Specifically, people can only aspire to become something that they know about. And they only know about things they see in the media (or immediate family). What's discussed in the media? Sports stars, singers/musicians, actors, doctors and lawyers (tv dramas), politicians, wall street traders, and of course video games hence video game programmers.
Kids in the 70s had the space program to inspire them and the uptick in engineering/science degrees seemed to bear that out.
I don't see a rush to get a video game degree as a sign of interest in that per-se but instead see it as the most visible opportunity for people with that mindset. Maybe if Big Bang Theory had a larger tv audience?
Just think - if England would have had a technology similar to this in the 18th century, it would have "discovered" all the rebellious founding fathers, and America never would have had a chance to earn it's freedom.
That's a good point. On the one hand I suspect many (but not all) parents of these kids might welcome some sort of intelligent customized intervention to get their kids back on the right track. On the other hand what level of false positives are we as a society willing to tolerate? It would be interesting to see if IBM's analytics would have classified JD Salinger or Hunter S Thompson or Timothy Leary or Abbie Hoffman as one of these delinquents and then conjecture if they would have been the same people after "correction".
(I wish I had better examples of "fringe" people who have made positive contributions to society, but these will have to do)
From the article... $2.00 for reading a book (in 2nd grade) and completing an online quiz about it seems more like "micro motivation" to me than "cash".
Meaningful grades come only at test (not quiz) time and quarter/semester milestones. Experience points or cash are uniformly valued across the entire school term. Each is as important as the other and you can track your long term goals against these "short term rewards" every time you're given a short term reward. Traditional grades require more thought. Miss a homework assignment? "Oh well.. all the homework together only accounts for 10% of my grade so what's the harm in missing one homework assignment?"
Every year there's a new research story out on how kids lack the brain development to properly judge long term incentives and consequences. IMHO the traditional grading system requires precisely that same understanding of long term incentives to motivate the kids. Is it really a surprise that a grading system that provides short term rewards and is also aligned with the long term goals of education is more effective than the current system?
The majority of American do not believe in the big bang or evolution
Good. I don't either. I merely accept them as models that make useful predictions and which are subject to amendment in light of experimental evidence. Mind you, that might be because I'm a scientist and not a priest.
EXACTLY... Although this is a disturbing story, I gotta wonder if there's a hint of a legitimate concern here by the folks wanting to split out these questions. For example, when Einstein said "God does not play dice with the universe"... would he have answered "no" to a similarly phrased question about quantum mechanics? There is a difference between understanding the current theory and believing that that theory is the final explanation.
From the article, the NSF asked: Human beings, as we know them today, developed from earlier species of animals.
If this were rephrased as The best interpretation of evidence gathered to date is that human beings, as we know them today, developed from earlier species of animals.
I would expect that most creationists would answer false to both but people with legitimate concerns and especially (perhaps) high schoolers who genuinely want to "learn the controversy" might answer False to the first but True to the second.
This is news? Really? Companies have to innovate or die. Any company that rests on its accomplishments is setting itself up for being overtaken by another company.
I read the Slate article. A better culture clash would be between Apple and Google. Apple's innovations all seem to be Steve. Google, though has somehow managed to spread its innovations throughout the company. The Android OS and phones that support it are a reasonable threat to the iPhone, this despite many other companies trying (and some being in the market beforehand (think Palm)). Apple is a different company w/o Jobs, but Google seems to not have that problem. Could there be a correlation between that and the Open/Closed nature of their products?
I think Arthur C Clark touched on this in one of his books.
If you have the ability to "correct" aberrations could there be fallout? If you could "fix" high functioning autistic so that they could be completely normal what kind of effect might that have on scientific fields which attract such people?
Your example is one where there's pros and cons with the "aberration" (and I happen to agree with you in that case) but where's the pro for color blindness?
Would you rather be smart and nerdy or normal and friendly? That's a choice worth discussing. Would you rather be color blind and ??? or normal? Not seeing the upside here.
Exactly... I understand the general point, but this is a lousy example to showcase it. Better, because there's actually a "vocal" group devoted it, are deaf people and cochlear implants. "Fixing" deaf people is seen as a cultural change there... they lose a language (sign) and etc.
Regarding color blindness in particular though... I understand birds have a much richer palette of colors they can see than we do. While I wouldn't sign up to be a beta tester for THAT mod... I'd be interested in that enhancement after it's perfected.
Sometimes its for good national security reasons which in the long run protect the public. Reasons which a lot of wannabe Robin Hoods won't know about and as a consequence can put agents or even the entire country at risk.
Sure , some people in agencies will abuse their power occasionally, thats human nature. But people shouldn't write off all security issues as just the Men In Black trying to pull one over the little people. Life isn't that simple and only the naive would think it is.
You're right, but are arguing the wrong point. You're entire argument works just as well if the article mentioned US subpoenas to wikileaks trying to determine who leaked classified documents. Your argument also works if the article mentioned the US trying to shut down newspapers because they published classified documents. My point is that shutting down the MECHANISM is the wrong approach, you should focus on the PEOPLE doing the crime.
<soapbox> This happens all the time and I wish people would realize it's the wrong approach. Instead of providing alternatives to abortion, anti-abortion activists kill abortion doctors instead. Instead of facilitating the use of existing gun laws, anti-gun activists want even more gun laws. And here... instead of the US government trying to prosecute folks who divulge national secrets, they seek instead to essentially block freedom of the press. </soapbox>
The summary indicates a possible key difference here...
do the "bank robberies" include ATM hacking? The summary indicates the physical bank robberies were against "the bank" while the cyber bank robberies were against (poorly secured) accounts. Is this an apples to oranges comparison? The point being that banks can protect themselves, but what can they do to protect their customers if those customers choose bad passwords?
At the time, I was trying to speak against the tide of futuristic commentary on how The Internet Will Solve Our Problems.
Sounds like a perfectly fine thing to caution people about. Problem is he then goes on to say these THINGS won't happen when in fact they DID happen but they still didn't solve our problems.
So I'll say this: what's with all the black in outer space anyway. Black holes, black energy, black matter, even the nothing part is black. Black black black. It's depressing.
I know you meant this in jest, but it's a surprising legitimate question. (or at least it was.)
That's far too young to be thrown into an environment with college students who are about 18 to 23 years old.... Most of them are just not mature enough to handle that,
Exactly. That's why we're only sending the top students. There will always be outliers who will be able to fit in at a collegeriate level when they're 16. That's the whole point of this program.
Our worry shouldn't be whether or not they can fit in at that level (I know plenty of 16 year olds who have a better head on their shoulders than many college freshmen). Rather, our concern should be whether or not we have an accurate way of determining if a particular student is ready to move on.
Exactly, but the quoted article mentions that these kids would go to community college. This is a BIG DIFFERENCE from "regular" college. No or limited dorms, smaller class sizes, etc. Taken to the next level... if any of these states have school vouchers that can substitute for payments to private school, those vouchers should pay for this too... at least until the kid would normally graduate high school. Assuming we're talking 10th graders here, then these kids should officially graduate high school with the rest of their class and only be allowed (given vouchers) to go to local colleges. This is an excellent suggestion to deal with the inability of the public school system to adequately handle gifted students. But there are undoubtedly plenty of intellectually gifted, but emotional stunted students who would get crushed in a regular college but may excel under this program. Under this modification (eg mandating local community colleges) what remains to be seen is how much of a leg up these kids get when they go to a distant 4-year college.
No mention of what the picture was, but if it was something involving nudity then... wouldn't a better course of action be to sue the school district for being in possession of child pornography?
The same Roland Emmerich that wrote the script for Independence Day?
That's the writing we have to look forward to? And the guy who wrote that is directing?
*curls up into fetal position*
Name a science fiction book that was successfully translated into a movie. I'm having a hard time. They are either like you say above or... too close to the story to completely fail in translating it into a movie (eg Dune). Note, I'm talking SCIENCE FICTION. The Harry Potter movies are entertaining and faithful to the book, but not SF. Is there some problem surrounding SF that prevents a book-to-movie treatment from ever being done successfully?
Ok... perhaps 2001 was a good translation. But if you watch it today it will be too slowly paced for modern audiences.
I think you've stumbled across a real problem here and... suddenly I'm not really that interested in ever seeing any of my fav SF books turned into movies. Sigh.
The nice thing about that site is... if some of its members are close to your school, they can EASILY be talked into doing a show for you. Amateur astronomers love to show off their scopes and in general walk newbies through the night sky.
You didn't say whether you had a 4 inch reflector or a 4 inch refractor. I'm assuming a mirror scope. If you got it cheaply, the higher quality one would be the mirror one, but collomating a dobsonian, while easy, is not immediately obvious to newbies.
Also, ask this question from the point of view of binoculars. Many large objects in the night sky can be viewed with binoculars and those should also be good in a 4" dobsonian. Note, if you have a cheap 4" refractor, then it's a bit of a crap shoot as to whether you'll be able to get good views.
M42 - the great Orion Nebula should still be visible early evening in April. It's amazing Double stars may be good. There's one in the handle of the big dipper. There's also one near Vega which will be rising starting in early evening in April. There are a ton of others, but these 2 (4?) should be pretty easy to find. Also, "Carbon Stars" are fun. Just google and look around for them. Most stars do not show colors, but carbon stars are very obviously red and again they're all over the place.
Unfortunately April is when the Andromeda galaxy is too low in the sky for the early evening. Try again in the summer.
The release of raw data along with the results is a good thing, I agree. But somebody checking to make sure the scientists' algorithms are implemented correctly in an existing program is easier, and more likely to happen, than somebody independently coding their own implementation, particularly in scientific research where the computing power necessary is prohibitive.
I'm not sure what is more likely to happen. It could be as you describe.
But scientists strike me as being more interested in data than in code. So other possibilities are:
* Releasing the code will spur more scientists to use it w/o examining it in detail resulting in the same errors being made in other research projects.
* Scientists will focus on the data and will find other software to analyze it and/or make said software themselves if they don't have access to the source of the original scientists software.
Over the long term we are in agreement, but there is some near-term danger to be aware of.
I disagree to the extent that seeing the software is a red-herring.
If there is code that research institutions use again and again then, to the extent that that code can be released it should be. Many eyes on code that many users use will reduce errors. However, many eyes on code that only a few users use may have the opposite effect.
The alternative and in some cases better solution is for the scientists to release the raw data and their processed data. That way other people running different software on the raw data may end up with different processed results.
Seems some form of this comment comes up every few months... Usually it's in the form of finding the best language to teach kids, "because in my time Apple Basic was right there, ready to use".
I agree that the PARTS aren't in the SAME CONFIGURATION they were 20 years ago, but the PARTS are still all there, maybe even better. Lots of 3D engines are available for download and public tinkering and open source is going a long way to allowing people to tinker meaningfully (as opposed to just for themselves).
What would really move this overall conversation forward is if we could identify the WEAKNESSES of the current system. Lamenting something that's lost is pointless and just plain wrong. For example:
Learning a programming language 20 years ago was trivial. If you owned a PC, BASIC was probably staring you right in the face. Today if you want to learn a language you gotta go hunting.
Finding source code today is much easier than it was 20 years ago, problem is that that source code is also MUCH larger than it was 20 years ago. Related who wants to learn SVN before they first start tinkering for their own enjoyment?
Tinkering with hardware is also harder today than 20 years ago. True, there are hardware kits you can buy, but perhaps the point is that you gotta buy them? You can't just play with the latent ability inside your PC first to see if hardware tinkering is something you like?
To my sense what was in the past isn't so much lost as it is scattered to the winds. What's lost is the ability to "discover yourself" by playing. Today you can play much more meaningfully, but you gotta go hunting for the things to play with and that IMHO is what we're complaining about here. Suggestions to fix it?
First, the Ethics analog of this issue is indeed a hard problem and all of the comments to-date are spot on target with that angle of the discussion. Ethics issues require the person to change their behavior and if the person is uninterested in changing their behavior there's little that can be done. Especially if that person is a C-Level exec.
Second though this is IT... the OP's concern was for data loss... I'd be stunned if the C-Level exec wasn't interested in having an automated backup system installed on his PC. It's no change in his daily behavior. At most takes an hour out of his life w/o his/her PC.
Sure there may be some dicks of a boss out there who can't be bothered to do even that... you should try to find employment elsewhere. But on the flip side if you're requiring your C-Level execs to personally do something that can be automatically accomplished by a good IT system... it's YOU who are at fault, not your C-Level exec.
I'm more fidgety than my co-workers (but less fidgety than some I know who regularly wear out chairs). I used to think this behavior was good for my back... but now it seems it may also be good for my heart?
Slashdot Mirror
2. And the shelf-life of that software "reserve" is...
At least a few decades, isn't it? At least Maxima, Emacs and others work perfectly on my modern PC.
And I could argue that for software created today it could be much longer. Many things seem to have stabilized or at least compartmentalized their growth. Think air traffic control. IIRC the machines they run on now are 20+ years old as is the software. Not only that the scale of the problem has grown significantly from 20 years ago, but will we see that same growth in: computer performance, software tools and air traffic in the next 20 years? Probably not. Again, IIRC reliance on radar for air traffic control may be on the way out, but realizing that sort of modularity, seems like you could design a system where a GPS module could be added with much less pain than re-writing the whole system.
I think part of the problem is something most of us here on /. are blind to, namely that there is a large fraction of the population who do not understand the scientific method and have been brought up on a culture of relative right and wrong.
Who is at fault in a traffic accident? Depends on who has the winning lawyer.
Did that CEO break the law or just push the law to its limit but did not step over it?
And who made those laws anyway? If those laws were repealed would that CEO suddenly be "right" again?
I was in an astronomy forum where even some of the people there were debating thing like whether 1+1 = 2 is truism vs an artifact of a properly chosen arithmetical scheme (and for this 01 + 01 = 10 would still count as 1+1=2, it's the same arithmetical scheme).
Fact is there are some things where there is an absolute truth for (climate change, drug effectiveness, best way to handle nuclear waste) and there are some things that will always remain judgment calls (whether fetuses are alive, how to handle illegal immigration). Government has to operate in both but the problem is that most people in politics and in the population at large believe MANY MANY more things are in the judgment call category and less in the absolute truth category.
I think it's winnable, but it has to start with experts SHOWING us why/how they've come to their conclusions and NOT telling us to trust them, they're experts. Scientific debate in science iterates to a common agreement. One would think that scientific debate in the media can achieve something close and eventually the general public will catch on that some things CAN be known and are not arbitrary.
The solution is to actually have Health Experts attack the camp. You know, paint ball guns and the like. That would get those kids up and out and active.
Geez... people who complain without bothering to actually DO something about it really bug me.
In a way this supports a belief I've had for a while. Specifically, people can only aspire to become something that they know about. And they only know about things they see in the media (or immediate family). What's discussed in the media? Sports stars, singers/musicians, actors, doctors and lawyers (tv dramas), politicians, wall street traders, and of course video games hence video game programmers.
Kids in the 70s had the space program to inspire them and the uptick in engineering/science degrees seemed to bear that out.
I don't see a rush to get a video game degree as a sign of interest in that per-se but instead see it as the most visible opportunity for people with that mindset. Maybe if Big Bang Theory had a larger tv audience?
Just think - if England would have had a technology similar to this in the 18th century, it would have "discovered" all the rebellious founding fathers, and America never would have had a chance to earn it's freedom.
That's a good point. On the one hand I suspect many (but not all) parents of these kids might welcome some sort of intelligent customized intervention to get their kids back on the right track. On the other hand what level of false positives are we as a society willing to tolerate? It would be interesting to see if IBM's analytics would have classified JD Salinger or Hunter S Thompson or Timothy Leary or Abbie Hoffman as one of these delinquents and then conjecture if they would have been the same people after "correction".
(I wish I had better examples of "fringe" people who have made positive contributions to society, but these will have to do)
From the article... $2.00 for reading a book (in 2nd grade) and completing an online quiz about it seems more like "micro motivation" to me than "cash".
There's that guy who's not grading anymore, but instead is awarding experience points to his students.
Meaningful grades come only at test (not quiz) time and quarter/semester milestones. Experience points or cash are uniformly valued across the entire school term. Each is as important as the other and you can track your long term goals against these "short term rewards" every time you're given a short term reward. Traditional grades require more thought. Miss a homework assignment? "Oh well.. all the homework together only accounts for 10% of my grade so what's the harm in missing one homework assignment?"
Every year there's a new research story out on how kids lack the brain development to properly judge long term incentives and consequences. IMHO the traditional grading system requires precisely that same understanding of long term incentives to motivate the kids. Is it really a surprise that a grading system that provides short term rewards and is also aligned with the long term goals of education is more effective than the current system?
The majority of American do not believe in the big bang or evolution
Good. I don't either. I merely accept them as models that make useful predictions and which are subject to amendment in light of experimental evidence. Mind you, that might be because I'm a scientist and not a priest.
EXACTLY... Although this is a disturbing story, I gotta wonder if there's a hint of a legitimate concern here by the folks wanting to split out these questions. For example, when Einstein said "God does not play dice with the universe"... would he have answered "no" to a similarly phrased question about quantum mechanics? There is a difference between understanding the current theory and believing that that theory is the final explanation.
From the article, the NSF asked:
Human beings, as we know them today, developed from earlier species of animals.
If this were rephrased as
The best interpretation of evidence gathered to date is that human beings, as we know them today, developed from earlier species of animals.
I would expect that most creationists would answer false to both but people with legitimate concerns and especially (perhaps) high schoolers who genuinely want to "learn the controversy" might answer False to the first but True to the second.
This is news? Really? Companies have to innovate or die. Any company that rests on its accomplishments is setting itself up for being overtaken by another company.
I read the Slate article. A better culture clash would be between Apple and Google. Apple's innovations all seem to be Steve. Google, though has somehow managed to spread its innovations throughout the company. The Android OS and phones that support it are a reasonable threat to the iPhone, this despite many other companies trying (and some being in the market beforehand (think Palm)). Apple is a different company w/o Jobs, but Google seems to not have that problem. Could there be a correlation between that and the Open/Closed nature of their products?
I think Arthur C Clark touched on this in one of his books.
If you have the ability to "correct" aberrations could there be fallout?
If you could "fix" high functioning autistic so that they could be completely normal what kind of effect might that have on scientific fields which attract such people?
Your example is one where there's pros and cons with the "aberration" (and I happen to agree with you in that case) but where's the pro for color blindness?
Would you rather be smart and nerdy or normal and friendly? That's a choice worth discussing.
Would you rather be color blind and ??? or normal? Not seeing the upside here.
"Would you like to be cured?"
Problem solved.
Exactly... I understand the general point, but this is a lousy example to showcase it. Better, because there's actually a "vocal" group devoted it, are deaf people and cochlear implants. "Fixing" deaf people is seen as a cultural change there... they lose a language (sign) and etc.
Regarding color blindness in particular though... I understand birds have a much richer palette of colors they can see than we do. While I wouldn't sign up to be a beta tester for THAT mod... I'd be interested in that enhancement after it's perfected.
Sometimes its for good national security reasons which in the long run protect the public. Reasons which a lot of wannabe Robin Hoods won't know about and as a consequence can put agents or even the entire country at risk.
Sure , some people in agencies will abuse their power occasionally, thats human nature. But people shouldn't write off all security issues as just the Men In Black trying to pull one over the little people. Life isn't that simple and only the naive would think it is.
You're right, but are arguing the wrong point. You're entire argument works just as well if the article mentioned US subpoenas to wikileaks trying to determine who leaked classified documents. Your argument also works if the article mentioned the US trying to shut down newspapers because they published classified documents. My point is that shutting down the MECHANISM is the wrong approach, you should focus on the PEOPLE doing the crime.
<soapbox>
This happens all the time and I wish people would realize it's the wrong approach. Instead of providing alternatives to abortion, anti-abortion activists kill abortion doctors instead. Instead of facilitating the use of existing gun laws, anti-gun activists want even more gun laws. And here... instead of the US government trying to prosecute folks who divulge national secrets, they seek instead to essentially block freedom of the press.
</soapbox>
The summary indicates a possible key difference here... do the "bank robberies" include ATM hacking? The summary indicates the physical bank robberies were against "the bank" while the cyber bank robberies were against (poorly secured) accounts. Is this an apples to oranges comparison? The point being that banks can protect themselves, but what can they do to protect their customers if those customers choose bad passwords?
At the time, I was trying to speak against the tide of futuristic commentary on how The Internet Will Solve Our Problems.
Sounds like a perfectly fine thing to caution people about. Problem is he then goes on to say these THINGS won't happen when in fact they DID happen but they still didn't solve our problems.
So I'll say this: what's with all the black in outer space anyway. Black holes, black energy, black matter, even the nothing part is black. Black black black. It's depressing.
I know you meant this in jest, but it's a surprising legitimate question. (or at least it was.)
I want one for my car.
That's far too young to be thrown into an environment with college students who are about 18 to 23 years old. ... Most of them are just not mature enough to handle that,
Exactly. That's why we're only sending the top students. There will always be outliers who will be able to fit in at a collegeriate level when they're 16. That's the whole point of this program.
Our worry shouldn't be whether or not they can fit in at that level (I know plenty of 16 year olds who have a better head on their shoulders than many college freshmen). Rather, our concern should be whether or not we have an accurate way of determining if a particular student is ready to move on.
Exactly, but the quoted article mentions that these kids would go to community college. This is a BIG DIFFERENCE from "regular" college. No or limited dorms, smaller class sizes, etc. Taken to the next level... if any of these states have school vouchers that can substitute for payments to private school, those vouchers should pay for this too... at least until the kid would normally graduate high school. Assuming we're talking 10th graders here, then these kids should officially graduate high school with the rest of their class and only be allowed (given vouchers) to go to local colleges. This is an excellent suggestion to deal with the inability of the public school system to adequately handle gifted students. But there are undoubtedly plenty of intellectually gifted, but emotional stunted students who would get crushed in a regular college but may excel under this program. Under this modification (eg mandating local community colleges) what remains to be seen is how much of a leg up these kids get when they go to a distant 4-year college.
No mention of what the picture was, but if it was something involving nudity then... wouldn't a better course of action be to sue the school district for being in possession of child pornography?
And let's not forget you can't outsource burglary... that's a job that has to stay local!
The same Roland Emmerich that wrote the script for Independence Day?
That's the writing we have to look forward to? And the guy who wrote that is directing?
*curls up into fetal position*
Name a science fiction book that was successfully translated into a movie. I'm having a hard time. They are either like you say above or... too close to the story to completely fail in translating it into a movie (eg Dune). Note, I'm talking SCIENCE FICTION. The Harry Potter movies are entertaining and faithful to the book, but not SF. Is there some problem surrounding SF that prevents a book-to-movie treatment from ever being done successfully?
Ok... perhaps 2001 was a good translation. But if you watch it today it will be too slowly paced for modern audiences.
I think you've stumbled across a real problem here and... suddenly I'm not really that interested in ever seeing any of my fav SF books turned into movies. Sigh.
Try the forums on cloudynights.com http://www.cloudynights.com/ubbthreads/ubbthreads.php?Cat=
The nice thing about that site is ... if some of its members are close to your school, they can EASILY be talked into doing a show for you. Amateur astronomers love to show off their scopes and in general walk newbies through the night sky.
You didn't say whether you had a 4 inch reflector or a 4 inch refractor. I'm assuming a mirror scope. If you got it cheaply, the higher quality one would be the mirror one, but collomating a dobsonian, while easy, is not immediately obvious to newbies.
Also, ask this question from the point of view of binoculars. Many large objects in the night sky can be viewed with binoculars and those should also be good in a 4" dobsonian. Note, if you have a cheap 4" refractor, then it's a bit of a crap shoot as to whether you'll be able to get good views.
M42 - the great Orion Nebula should still be visible early evening in April. It's amazing
Double stars may be good. There's one in the handle of the big dipper. There's also one near Vega which will be rising starting in early evening in April. There are a ton of others, but these 2 (4?) should be pretty easy to find.
Also, "Carbon Stars" are fun. Just google and look around for them. Most stars do not show colors, but carbon stars are very obviously red and again they're all over the place.
Unfortunately April is when the Andromeda galaxy is too low in the sky for the early evening. Try again in the summer.
The release of raw data along with the results is a good thing, I agree. But somebody checking to make sure the scientists' algorithms are implemented correctly in an existing program is easier, and more likely to happen, than somebody independently coding their own implementation, particularly in scientific research where the computing power necessary is prohibitive.
I'm not sure what is more likely to happen. It could be as you describe.
But scientists strike me as being more interested in data than in code. So other possibilities are:
* Releasing the code will spur more scientists to use it w/o examining it in detail resulting in the same errors being made in other research projects.
* Scientists will focus on the data and will find other software to analyze it and/or make said software themselves if they don't have access to the source of the original scientists software.
Over the long term we are in agreement, but there is some near-term danger to be aware of.
I disagree to the extent that seeing the software is a red-herring.
If there is code that research institutions use again and again then, to the extent that that code can be released it should be. Many eyes on code that many users use will reduce errors. However, many eyes on code that only a few users use may have the opposite effect.
The alternative and in some cases better solution is for the scientists to release the raw data and their processed data. That way other people running different software on the raw data may end up with different processed results.
Seems some form of this comment comes up every few months... Usually it's in the form of finding the best language to teach kids, "because in my time Apple Basic was right there, ready to use".
I agree that the PARTS aren't in the SAME CONFIGURATION they were 20 years ago, but the PARTS are still all there, maybe even better. Lots of 3D engines are available for download and public tinkering and open source is going a long way to allowing people to tinker meaningfully (as opposed to just for themselves).
What would really move this overall conversation forward is if we could identify the WEAKNESSES of the current system. Lamenting something that's lost is pointless and just plain wrong. For example:
To my sense what was in the past isn't so much lost as it is scattered to the winds. What's lost is the ability to "discover yourself" by playing. Today you can play much more meaningfully, but you gotta go hunting for the things to play with and that IMHO is what we're complaining about here. Suggestions to fix it?
I don't understand this discussion at all...
First, the Ethics analog of this issue is indeed a hard problem and all of the comments to-date are spot on target with that angle of the discussion. Ethics issues require the person to change their behavior and if the person is uninterested in changing their behavior there's little that can be done. Especially if that person is a C-Level exec.
Second though this is IT... the OP's concern was for data loss... I'd be stunned if the C-Level exec wasn't interested in having an automated backup system installed on his PC. It's no change in his daily behavior. At most takes an hour out of his life w/o his/her PC.
Sure there may be some dicks of a boss out there who can't be bothered to do even that... you should try to find employment elsewhere. But on the flip side if you're requiring your C-Level execs to personally do something that can be automatically accomplished by a good IT system... it's YOU who are at fault, not your C-Level exec.
I'm more fidgety than my co-workers (but less fidgety than some I know who regularly wear out chairs). I used to think this behavior was good for my back... but now it seems it may also be good for my heart?