Gert van Dijk, an ethicist at the Royal Dutch Medical Association in Utrecht, the Netherlands, thinks that the AAP has underestimated the potential harm of circumcision.
Gert van Dijk....Yes, that could be the name of my next indie band exploring the tenets of post-modernist sexuality.
Why not use the extra money to fund some actual research in electrical engineering? I don't think there's a better way to "honor the memory" of a great scientist/engineer.
There is a reason why these things happen. For you in the West, things are very uniform as far as cultures, traditions, behaviour and expectations go. For a country like India, there is not even uniformity within one state. It is very difficult to judge the dynamics of such a varied culture with the yardstick of the West, and sometimes even unfair. I am not justifying the violence, I'm trying to point out reasons for the hair-thin patience when it comes to communal issues. Hindus and Muslims in India have always been at loggerheads.
The series of events that led to the rumors being a big deal was this: clash between Bodos (a native Assamese, largely Hindu community) and resident Muslims over a piece of land. This was either misreported, or mistaken as a clash between native Hindus of Northeast and illegal immigrants from Bangladesh. This spiked a communal issue, even though it wasn't one to begin with, between other Muslims across the nation against Hindus specifically from Northeast, resulting in the death of two. The mass rumors started going out on SMS services, social media and email about revenge against Northeasterners, which led to a massive Exodus of NE people back to their home-states. This not only hurts the economy, but overall socio-political makeup of India. It is necessary at such times to curb the trigger events, even though it may seem tyrannical to ban them. Hindu-Muslim relations in India are a silk-string my friend, not to be taken lightly. Whether you approve of it or not, communal violence doesn't need rationale justification to spark.
Oh and by the way, to make things more dramatic: Bulk of the online scare campaign comes from Pakistan, so claims the Government.
Comparing the Extremism the Fundamentalist Islamists get away with around the world to whatever drama the Fundamentalist Christians try to perpetrate is -- really -- just ridiculous
So, let's not learn anything from the past then? And by the past I mean of course the Crusades and the Dark Ages. Fundamentalist anything is detrimental to the growth of a peaceful, progressive society.
As timothy mentioned, the Texas ozone hole has been working out and seems to be in better shape now. I typically bike for 20 minutes around noon everyday, and it tends to be ~95-100 F. If power goes out, I will survive for at max a day on. After that, I'm moving in my university lab.
Couple of points to keep in mind to avoid heat/sun-strokes:
- Wear a cap, no matter how douchebag-y it makes you look. Heating up of the head leads to headaches, drowsiness and other symptoms of a "heat-stroke"
- Avoid frequent high temperature gradients. For example, if you're driving to lunch from work, and the restaurant is only a few minutes away, I suggest do not turn the AC on. It sounds like a Herculean task to sit in that hot tinbox without AC, but it's the frequent hot-cold-hot-cold cycles that actually hurt your body more. If it's unbearable, just put it on low cool and low fan for a few minutes.
- Drink loads of buttermilk (the salty/sour ones, my choice). It is culturally used as a coolant in parts of middle east and most of India since the days of the dinosaurs.
All a part of natural selection, mates. However, what's more interesting is when a factor of preservation enter the cycle of natural selection. Maybe the languages that are actively recognized as "endangered languages" will then survive oblivion, whereas certain seemingly non-endangered languages might just pass out of existence gradually, simply because no one feared it going extinct and didn't decide to preserve it. Of course, it won't happen to languages like English, Mandarin or Hindi. But it may just happen to local dialects and minor variations on major languages such as Coorgi . It is a primary language for a large enough community (~500,000) of people in Southern India. It belongs to the Dravidian family of languages and is similar to the major Dravidian languages of Tulu, Kannada, Tamil and Malyalam. Is it conceivable that gradually such traditional languages become less common due to communication issues and start phasing out as the newer generations speak more of the major/popular languages (still local though, such as Tamil), as no one really sees them being endangered?
Hell, I'm not sure I myself know fully what I just implied there.
Netflix has been really fickle about streaming its titles lately. Some of the titles that were around for streaming have disappeared, some new ones have appeared. Some just made a cameo appearance towards the start of the summer. Now, it would be awesome if there were at least 60-70% of the movies that I want to see, available to stream. I'd have no problems with the split plan.
But as micsaund says, offbeat movies are usually on DVDs. Not just that, when you make a plan with friends to get together and watch a movie, getting a DVD makes the plan more official (people somehow seem to respect the plan more if you have a DVD, as compared to streaming it!). Also, Blu-ray is always good for the HD experience.
All in all, I think this move may cost Netflix some new users. I doubt if their old user-base is going to decrease, because loyalty costs less (both tangible/intangible costs) than finding a new service provider.
Well, isn't it high time we invented it?
Funding agencies need to start funding high risk projects like these. Enough of directed research and optimization. Time to do some real science.
Didn't the Samsung CTO read the iTunes contract before signing it on his iPad? It clearly says there that you agree to be sued for plagiarizing our devices if you are a device manufacturing company.
I would bring your attention to graphene nanoribbons and bilayer graphene FETs where scientists have been able to induce a bandgap. nanoribbon, bilayer, bilayer and nanoribbons (the last two are by people from my school, and I know some more papers by them in the pipleline about opening up a gap in graphene).
It might be a while before CNTs or graphene penetrate commercial market. But there is a big reason for that: the inertia of the semiconductor manufacturing industry. A lot of equipment will need to be upgraded and even changed in the foundries. There has to be a huge return on investments for such a major overhaul, e.g., 100's of GHz of operating frequencies (IBM FET), better manufacturability, cheaper raw material (which it is for carbon) and not to mention compatibility with CMOS design and architectures. There's a long way to be trodden, and I wouldn't lose heart at this point just because we've not been able to deliver on CNTs.
It's simply survival of the fittest. At the turn of the century, nanotubes and buckyballs were "cool" academically. Now it's graphene. Though these have been around since 60 years (see the 1947 paper The Band Theory of Graphite ).
I agree that fads are fads, but this is how science will progress from hereon. It used to be a practice of a handful of people in the early days, even towards the first half of the 20th century. Academic research now is a valid career option for a large number of people. Just like any other career, it has certain "return on investments". The ROI's in this case are papers, patents and awards. This IS the yardstick with which your success is measured in the scientific field. It goes to logic people are going to try and stay at the top of their game by going after "modern" and "cutting-edge" topics.
I wouldn't completely agree with your argument of only a few applications remaining. I am not an expert on buckyballs, so I'll refrain from commenting on that, but for Carbon Nanotubes (CNT) there are an insane number of applications already in place. They range from CNT based logic, radio, Atomic force microscopy etc (too many to fit here)
Scientific (or otherwise in the BBC case) media will always glamorize any scientific discovery and exaggerate its potential, as it does for everything else. This is not necessarily an issue with the scientific community who does the research work. If anything, media stories like these end up slapping unreal expectations on scientists and engineers. This ultimately results in a "disappointment" on the public's side when all the proclaimed applications are not realized and electronics industry still runs on Silicon.
so being social is:
- Being holed up in your room in front of a big bright blue screen
- "Liking" things that you would scoff at if presented to IRL
- Wasting your time watering plants that probably won't result in anything tangible whatsoever
- If you manage to get out of the house, stare at the small bright blue screen all the way until you reach another big bright blue screen
- Tasing someone who pokes you in reality
- AND NOW, going to the vending machine, dying of thirst and bleeding out of your parched throat, only to find out that you just paid for a cola for Joe in Anchorage, AK with your last dollar bill.
Stuff never broke, you knew that your neighbor wasn't getting a better deal, and you didn't have to worry about sevrice or dropped calls; ma bells team of engineers and workers kept stuff running smoothly
And soon (and by soon I mean in a hundred years), you forgot what "smooth" service was. Because you had nothing to compare it to. Relatively, it was absolutely the best.
Slashdot Mirror
Gert van Dijk, an ethicist at the Royal Dutch Medical Association in Utrecht, the Netherlands, thinks that the AAP has underestimated the potential harm of circumcision.
Gert van Dijk....Yes, that could be the name of my next indie band exploring the tenets of post-modernist sexuality.
Why not use the extra money to fund some actual research in electrical engineering? I don't think there's a better way to "honor the memory" of a great scientist/engineer.
There is a reason why these things happen. For you in the West, things are very uniform as far as cultures, traditions, behaviour and expectations go. For a country like India, there is not even uniformity within one state. It is very difficult to judge the dynamics of such a varied culture with the yardstick of the West, and sometimes even unfair. I am not justifying the violence, I'm trying to point out reasons for the hair-thin patience when it comes to communal issues. Hindus and Muslims in India have always been at loggerheads.
The series of events that led to the rumors being a big deal was this: clash between Bodos (a native Assamese, largely Hindu community) and resident Muslims over a piece of land. This was either misreported, or mistaken as a clash between native Hindus of Northeast and illegal immigrants from Bangladesh. This spiked a communal issue, even though it wasn't one to begin with, between other Muslims across the nation against Hindus specifically from Northeast, resulting in the death of two. The mass rumors started going out on SMS services, social media and email about revenge against Northeasterners, which led to a massive Exodus of NE people back to their home-states. This not only hurts the economy, but overall socio-political makeup of India. It is necessary at such times to curb the trigger events, even though it may seem tyrannical to ban them. Hindu-Muslim relations in India are a silk-string my friend, not to be taken lightly. Whether you approve of it or not, communal violence doesn't need rationale justification to spark.
Oh and by the way, to make things more dramatic: Bulk of the online scare campaign comes from Pakistan, so claims the Government.
Comparing the Extremism the Fundamentalist Islamists get away with around the world to whatever drama the Fundamentalist Christians try to perpetrate is -- really -- just ridiculous
So, let's not learn anything from the past then? And by the past I mean of course the Crusades and the Dark Ages. Fundamentalist anything is detrimental to the growth of a peaceful, progressive society.
As timothy mentioned, the Texas ozone hole has been working out and seems to be in better shape now. I typically bike for 20 minutes around noon everyday, and it tends to be ~95-100 F. If power goes out, I will survive for at max a day on. After that, I'm moving in my university lab.
Couple of points to keep in mind to avoid heat/sun-strokes:
- Wear a cap, no matter how douchebag-y it makes you look. Heating up of the head leads to headaches, drowsiness and other symptoms of a "heat-stroke"
- Avoid frequent high temperature gradients. For example, if you're driving to lunch from work, and the restaurant is only a few minutes away, I suggest do not turn the AC on. It sounds like a Herculean task to sit in that hot tinbox without AC, but it's the frequent hot-cold-hot-cold cycles that actually hurt your body more. If it's unbearable, just put it on low cool and low fan for a few minutes.
- Drink loads of buttermilk (the salty/sour ones, my choice). It is culturally used as a coolant in parts of middle east and most of India since the days of the dinosaurs.
Natural Pohlice
All a part of natural selection, mates. However, what's more interesting is when a factor of preservation enter the cycle of natural selection. Maybe the languages that are actively recognized as "endangered languages" will then survive oblivion, whereas certain seemingly non-endangered languages might just pass out of existence gradually, simply because no one feared it going extinct and didn't decide to preserve it. Of course, it won't happen to languages like English, Mandarin or Hindi. But it may just happen to local dialects and minor variations on major languages such as Coorgi . It is a primary language for a large enough community (~500,000) of people in Southern India. It belongs to the Dravidian family of languages and is similar to the major Dravidian languages of Tulu, Kannada, Tamil and Malyalam. Is it conceivable that gradually such traditional languages become less common due to communication issues and start phasing out as the newer generations speak more of the major/popular languages (still local though, such as Tamil), as no one really sees them being endangered?
Hell, I'm not sure I myself know fully what I just implied there.
I don't know about y'all, but I like my cats dead when I open the box.
Be glad it's a patent that expires in 20 years, and not a copyright that lives on longer.
So if I crack other people's passwords on Linkedin, can I put that up as a skill in my resume on Linkedin?
I see the point, though where do you propose to draw the line in deciding what's best for a person to do in the interests of humanity?
Hitler believed that everyone should be "Aryan". Not every opinion, belief or idea warrants attention or response.
I do all of that every time I go on the intertubes. I must be depressed?
Well, that means I would do more of all that...but then I'll be more depressed if I do that, so I'll do more of it..
Here's my question: Why?
No need to shoot it. I have a Mac: I'll upload a virus to take care of it.
I'll help you by making a GUI in VB to track it down quickly.
Reality is what you make of it. More specifically, what the social and news media make of it.
God did it.
Netflix has been really fickle about streaming its titles lately. Some of the titles that were around for streaming have disappeared, some new ones have appeared. Some just made a cameo appearance towards the start of the summer. Now, it would be awesome if there were at least 60-70% of the movies that I want to see, available to stream. I'd have no problems with the split plan.
But as micsaund says, offbeat movies are usually on DVDs. Not just that, when you make a plan with friends to get together and watch a movie, getting a DVD makes the plan more official (people somehow seem to respect the plan more if you have a DVD, as compared to streaming it!). Also, Blu-ray is always good for the HD experience.
All in all, I think this move may cost Netflix some new users. I doubt if their old user-base is going to decrease, because loyalty costs less (both tangible/intangible costs) than finding a new service provider.
Well, isn't it high time we invented it?
Funding agencies need to start funding high risk projects like these. Enough of directed research and optimization. Time to do some real science.
Didn't the Samsung CTO read the iTunes contract before signing it on his iPad? It clearly says there that you agree to be sued for plagiarizing our devices if you are a device manufacturing company.
I would bring your attention to graphene nanoribbons and bilayer graphene FETs where scientists have been able to induce a bandgap. nanoribbon, bilayer, bilayer and nanoribbons (the last two are by people from my school, and I know some more papers by them in the pipleline about opening up a gap in graphene).
It might be a while before CNTs or graphene penetrate commercial market. But there is a big reason for that: the inertia of the semiconductor manufacturing industry. A lot of equipment will need to be upgraded and even changed in the foundries. There has to be a huge return on investments for such a major overhaul, e.g., 100's of GHz of operating frequencies (IBM FET), better manufacturability, cheaper raw material (which it is for carbon) and not to mention compatibility with CMOS design and architectures. There's a long way to be trodden, and I wouldn't lose heart at this point just because we've not been able to deliver on CNTs.
It's simply survival of the fittest. At the turn of the century, nanotubes and buckyballs were "cool" academically. Now it's graphene. Though these have been around since 60 years (see the 1947 paper The Band Theory of Graphite ).
I agree that fads are fads, but this is how science will progress from hereon. It used to be a practice of a handful of people in the early days, even towards the first half of the 20th century. Academic research now is a valid career option for a large number of people. Just like any other career, it has certain "return on investments". The ROI's in this case are papers, patents and awards. This IS the yardstick with which your success is measured in the scientific field. It goes to logic people are going to try and stay at the top of their game by going after "modern" and "cutting-edge" topics.
I wouldn't completely agree with your argument of only a few applications remaining. I am not an expert on buckyballs, so I'll refrain from commenting on that, but for Carbon Nanotubes (CNT) there are an insane number of applications already in place. They range from CNT based logic, radio, Atomic force microscopy etc (too many to fit here)
Scientific (or otherwise in the BBC case) media will always glamorize any scientific discovery and exaggerate its potential, as it does for everything else. This is not necessarily an issue with the scientific community who does the research work. If anything, media stories like these end up slapping unreal expectations on scientists and engineers. This ultimately results in a "disappointment" on the public's side when all the proclaimed applications are not realized and electronics industry still runs on Silicon.
so being social is:
- Being holed up in your room in front of a big bright blue screen
- "Liking" things that you would scoff at if presented to IRL
- Wasting your time watering plants that probably won't result in anything tangible whatsoever
- If you manage to get out of the house, stare at the small bright blue screen all the way until you reach another big bright blue screen
- Tasing someone who pokes you in reality
- AND NOW, going to the vending machine, dying of thirst and bleeding out of your parched throat, only to find out that you just paid for a cola for Joe in Anchorage, AK with your last dollar bill.
Clap clap clap.
Stuff never broke, you knew that your neighbor wasn't getting a better deal, and you didn't have to worry about sevrice or dropped calls; ma bells team of engineers and workers kept stuff running smoothly
And soon (and by soon I mean in a hundred years), you forgot what "smooth" service was. Because you had nothing to compare it to. Relatively, it was absolutely the best.
I suppose the point was that you don't always need Gabazillion dollars to put stuff that belongs down here, up there.