Regarding your disdain for "show your work" requirements on tests. You're clearly missing the reason that tests REALLY exist - as a tool for the teacher to see how well students are progressing. If a student gets the right answer, that's fine but the answer may have been achieved in the wrong way, and that way may not work for all situations. If the student gets the wrong answer, showing their work allows the teacher to see what they didn't understand so that additional teaching can be aimed at the source of misunderstanding. Granted that the people who "lead" this country see tests only as ways to flog teachers (and teacher unions), but real tests for real teachers need to have this "show your work" component in order to be a useful tool and not just the "busywork" that you obviously hate.
This current hoorah is why the research communities are reluctant to release raw data to any and all comers. As one who works a lot with raw data (not climate related, but similar in nature), you really need to take care in how you process the data and interpret the results. There is no such thing as perfect data, it all has warts of one kind or another. A lot of data-related science is focused on how to get supportable results from imperfect data. Any fool with a statistics package can take a couple gigabytes of raw data and make plots. A craft fool can do this and cherry-pick both the data used and the processing used to get the answer they want. It takes someone who knows what they're doing and who DOES NOT HAVE AN AX TO GRIND to get it right. If that climate data release last week were mine, I'd not be happy about sending it off to the loonies.
Both my father and his father died at the end of a long fight with Alzheimer's, and it's likely that I and my brother have the genetic markers that have been tied to the disease (or whatever it is). We have had long discussions about taking the various "find out if you have Alzheimer's genes" for a long time, and the two bottom lines are: (1) there is nothing medical science can do for you if you do have the genetic markers other than use you for a lab rat, and (2) this sets you up for potentially-serious problems with the medical insurance mafia. Current drugs and treatments are poor, at best, and nearly all aim at stalling the inevitable rather than curing or even stopping the disease. Until there is enough gain to overcome the potential loss in being identified as a "poor risk" for insurance neither my brother nor I will get any Alzhiemer's tests. We will plan our lives to include the possiblity that this may be in our future, and watch for real developments and not false hopes.
Well, the problem with this view, as with much of The Dismal Science, is that there's an underlying assumption that the economic dynamic "today" is comparable to the dynamic at some previous time in our history, and so past nostrums are valid today. I, and a lot of Dismal Scientists, find this to be a shaky assumption (IANADS). More to the point is to look at how the "cut taxes on the rich" has been working out in near-recent history. In a word, it hasn't worked well at all. There's also the "when you have a hammer, everything looks like a nail" problem. Tax cuts are popular, so that's the solution to every ill. Increasing taxes so the Government can increase spending IN THE SHORT TERM is the easiest way to un-derail the economy. The untax-the-rich trickle-down theory (AKA Voodoo Economics) works in the long term, if it works at all.
The impact isn't necessarily NASA (which has a bad case of "Old Elvis" at this point), but the impact of the whole space race. This program fired up a generation, perhaps two, of scientists and engineers, some of whom worked for NASA but I'd wager that the majority ended up in some other science/engineering endeavour. However, over the past decade the best-and-brightest have become quants on Wall Street because that's where the money/bright lights are, and we all know how well THAT has worked out.
Yes, it can be argued that NASA has squandered a lot of money over the years, and that it's a horrible poltical and PR animal these days (somewhat self-inflicted), but it was part of a program that led to a lot of what Americans take for granted today. These days it's just a huge jobs program (read "welfare for whitecoats"), and unless it manages to reinvent and reinvigorate itself it will go the way of the Old Elvis. Sadly, I don't think a recovery is possible due to bloat and lack of political will (read "cojones").
The voters in Tucson, AZ, passed a measure in the late 1990s to forbid the water utility to use water from the Salt River Water Project. For an area that depended solely on well water, and that was seeing major ground subsidence because the well water was being overdrawn, this was foolish in the extreme. The reason this passed was because the voters were pissed about how this water had been added to the water supply a few years earlier. The utility had not adjusted the pH of the water correctly, making it more acidic than the well water which had been used. This cleaned out the 40-50 years of corrosion and build-up inside everyone's pipes, with the result that hundreds (if not thousands) of home owners had to replace lots of piping and the water that came out of the tap was an ugly brown. This (the pH issue) was something easily fixed, but people were still pissed. Now, the goal of the folks who put this initiative on the ballot was quite different - they wanted to ride this anger to cut off access to more water in order to stop growth in the Tucson area. While this was a noble cause, throttling access to some resource or another NEVER works as a way to stop growth. Growth still happens and everyone suffers because of the lack of whatever resource was artificially controlled. Anyway, a few years later when everyone had cooled down another initiative was passed that revoked the first, and Tucson is now using Salt River water. I expect that this "run away" activity on the part of Italian voters and the German government may alter in time.
This is sad but true. I've been in the space weather business for 40 years, and was involved with the aftermath of the large geomagnetic storm that took out the power generator in Quebec mentioned in another post. There was quite a flurry of meetings with various energy agencies about what was to be done. Bottom line was that the space weather groups were asking that the power industry pay a lot of money for predictions and warnings that were not of the highest reliability (another sad-but-true fact). After the risk-management boys got done crunching the numbers, the power industry decided that it was cheaper to ignore the problem and live with the fact that they might lose a generator every 11 years or so. The insurance folks will pick up the monetary tab, and the Great Unwashed Public (also known as "the customers") will shiver in their dark unheated homes until things get fixed and like it. As long as these events can be legally treated as unpredictable "acts of God" there is no impetus for the power companies to do anything about them, free market be damned.
I didn't say I've stopped reading, and there are some current good writers, Gibson being one of the best. My point was that there's more crap being published and SOLD as SF than in the past. Not to say there wasn't a goodly crop-o-crap in every era, but I do not see near the numbers of top-notch SF writers being sold in bookstores as in the past. One could even argue that Gibson, with his latest three books, has branched away from SF, probably on purpose to avoid being linked to the vampire/werewolf genres. Anyway, just 'cause I'm OLD doesn't mean I dislike current stuff because it's new. Point me at a new SF writer that's doing what someone like Ellison did when he jerked SF in whole new directions back in the 1960s. The only direction I see it headed at present is down
I am a long-time SF reader, having cut my teeth on the greats of the 1950s and 1960s. I no longer bother to browse in the SF section of bookstores any more because 99% of the books being sold as SF are pretty much juvenile vampire or Camelot-as-SF books. The only new writers I try out are from the steampunk genre, which has its share of problems as well. If the serious/good SF writers want respect, they need to work with the publishers to clean up the definition of what's SF in the marketplace. As I don't see the publishers, who only care for sales numbers, doing this until a couple of years after Hell freezes over, I'm not optimistic about this problem getting any better.
If this book could cook and iron shirts, I'd marry it!
Does anyone else think this glowing review sounds like one Drupal developer/bookwriter scratching the back of another in hopes of a similarly-glowing review of their own book? Or perhaps I'm cynical in my old age.
When I was an undergrad (when dinosaur ranching was still on the aggie curriculum) there was a fledgling computer science program in Liberal Arts and a strong program in Engineering. I still think there is a distinction between Computer Science and Software Engineering, similar to a distinction between Physics and Electrical Engineering. Both cover a lot of similar ground, but in a different manner and with very different focus. They also produce very different products (graduates). In a real Computer Science undergraduate curriculum, OOP should be covered as one paradigm for implementing theoretical thingies like command and data structures. One of MANY such ways. In a Software Engineering curriculum, OOP would be one of the tools learned in order to craft software.
So, I don't get all a-flutter with this particular FA. In fact, it makes a lot of sense in the context of science (theory) vs engineering (practice). Yes, a CS graduate may not be able to code up something in the latest language-du-jour, but I'd hire one of them if I was wanting to build a new OS or a new command/control language. If I want someone who can get down and dirty to build a serious software widget or system, I'd hire an engineer.
Except for the nebulous "programming" just about everything mentioned in TFA is a trade, as opposed to something that a CS degree prepares you for (OT - just what DOES a BS CS degree prepare you for - more school?). I agree with an earlier poster that this is most likely a disengenuous complaint by upper management types who want universities to be glorified trade schools to provide them with low-cost fodder on someone else's nickel (OK, bags of nickels). Anyone who is not asleep these days knows that the Big Boys don't like universities, state universities anyway unless they are cranking out cheap labor.
And just what is meant by "programming" in this particular context? I suspect that the great majority of these positions are not what most of us would consider programming, but is more likely web design or SQL query design. Most IT shops don't use programmers, software shops do, but an IT shop is a bunch of mechanics (not meaning to be derrogetory here - have you seen the pay scale for a good mechanic these days/) and not a bunch of coders. It's a different kind of job.
When I read the title of the summary I was crushed when TFA didn't mention my Mother tongue, FORTRAN. I've seen some serious ranting in FORTRAN comments, but then I saw that it was "commits" and not "comments" and it became clear - no self-respecting FORTRAN programmer would have anything to do with something named "git" - I think that's covered in the classic "Real Programmers Don't Eat Quiche."
"The good news is that Trusteer's Rapport secure web access software- which is now in use by millions of online banking customers - can prevent OddJob from executing."
Now, I don't know Trusteer's rep, but when I see a story like this that originates from what appears to be a source that's in the business of selling security software, I want a second opinion from another source. A quick "google" for OddJob finds stories that all seem to tie back to Trusteer's blog entry. This story also doesn't say much about platform sensitivity. Is this an issue on any OS platform that uses Firefox, for example?
While I am not fond of, or supportive of, Government certification processes, I am sure than anyone working for a non-IT company as a sysadmin knows how seriously (NOT) most of the PHBs take the issue of making sure the company networks are secure. And not just from external Terrorists. I work for a scientific research firm that is run by a bunch of PhDs (the worst kind of PHBs) who have all the answers. Getting them to understand, and act on / pay for, the things necessary to secure our company network from script kiddies, or any bozo on the net who has a hanker to hack, is a task that even Hercules would think twice about taking on. Yes, the Government will do this all wrong and it will end up costing a mint, but that is not to say that there aren't unresolved problems under this particular rock.
The solar research community has known about coronal holes, and the potential impact of plasma which can flow through these "holes" on earth, for decades. This appears to be another "sky is falling" piece by people who are desperately awaiting the return of solar activity. The current solar cycle is a very late starter, and given that the "seasons" for space weather geeks (myself included) is 11-12 years long, one starts getting antsy when the long, dry solar minimum stretches a couple of years longer than expected. In short, "move along, nothing to see here."
First, I suspect that any response which does not indicate that the paper was read will be rejected out of hand. Second, I also suspect that they were not planning that this survey would be found by the Great Unwashed Masses. However, that said, I think it will be hard to get much useful out of this sort of polling once the voting moves outside the community that both cares about the answer and knows enough to vote intelligently (you know, like voters in the USofA). If this were just being answered by astronomers and researchers in related fields, the results could be a useful measure of what those who have a clue think about this. Otherwise, it's just wasted time and effort on everyone's part.
Granted that Cyberwar (sound of clashing cymbols) is overhyped, but a key assumption in this article is that governments and key private organizations (power grid operators, network operators, etc) are doing everything they can to protect their systems. I find this assumption to be laughably naive. The point to be made here is that cyberwar is often used as a bludgeon to obtain resources, or persue hackers in court (Wikileaks, anyone?), and is a bit over-hyped. There are, however, clear dangers in this area which can be avoided if prudent steps are taken (not putting power-grid controlling on the Internet, for example). Given the US's penchant for letting private industry do what it wants, and given that private industry only cares about this-quarter bottom-line earnings, I still see even the "small fry" identified in this article as being capable of some nasty mischief.
First, if they aren't "engaged" in learning Linux, why the hell did they sign up for the class in the first place? (Or is this a deparmental idea to force-feed Linux to a bunch of Windows-trained students?)
Second, why is a sophomore teaching a freshman class? I have issues with grad students doing what the profs are paid to do, so I have serious issues with a sophmore taking this on. If the university/department feels this is an important course, it should be taught by a prof, particularly to freshmen. (Or does the department feel that a prof's time is wasted on lowly freshmen?)
OK, so maybe more that two questions.
This article is just so much fluff and nonsense wrapped around a little factual info. I've been in the business of space weather since the early 1970s, and this kind of sky-is-falling stuff flares up towards the front end of each solar cycle and then dies off as the sky remains stubbornly in place. Yes, we're headed into a time of increased activity, but so slowly that we may be in for a real "dud" solar cycle. Unless things start picking up soon, we may be lucky to see aurora as far south as Oregon. That said, everything could change completely in a few months. The point is that the kind of prediction made in TFA is impossible to make at this point in the cycle, and to make a big deal out of a completely unfounded prediction is both bad science and very unprofessional. This is not the fault of the poor fellow mentioned in TFA (Joe Kunches, whom I know), but of the flack who wrote this thing.
Slashdot Mirror
Regarding your disdain for "show your work" requirements on tests. You're clearly missing the reason that tests REALLY exist - as a tool for the teacher to see how well students are progressing. If a student gets the right answer, that's fine but the answer may have been achieved in the wrong way, and that way may not work for all situations. If the student gets the wrong answer, showing their work allows the teacher to see what they didn't understand so that additional teaching can be aimed at the source of misunderstanding. Granted that the people who "lead" this country see tests only as ways to flog teachers (and teacher unions), but real tests for real teachers need to have this "show your work" component in order to be a useful tool and not just the "busywork" that you obviously hate.
This current hoorah is why the research communities are reluctant to release raw data to any and all comers. As one who works a lot with raw data (not climate related, but similar in nature), you really need to take care in how you process the data and interpret the results. There is no such thing as perfect data, it all has warts of one kind or another. A lot of data-related science is focused on how to get supportable results from imperfect data. Any fool with a statistics package can take a couple gigabytes of raw data and make plots. A craft fool can do this and cherry-pick both the data used and the processing used to get the answer they want. It takes someone who knows what they're doing and who DOES NOT HAVE AN AX TO GRIND to get it right. If that climate data release last week were mine, I'd not be happy about sending it off to the loonies.
Both my father and his father died at the end of a long fight with Alzheimer's, and it's likely that I and my brother have the genetic markers that have been tied to the disease (or whatever it is). We have had long discussions about taking the various "find out if you have Alzheimer's genes" for a long time, and the two bottom lines are: (1) there is nothing medical science can do for you if you do have the genetic markers other than use you for a lab rat, and (2) this sets you up for potentially-serious problems with the medical insurance mafia. Current drugs and treatments are poor, at best, and nearly all aim at stalling the inevitable rather than curing or even stopping the disease. Until there is enough gain to overcome the potential loss in being identified as a "poor risk" for insurance neither my brother nor I will get any Alzhiemer's tests. We will plan our lives to include the possiblity that this may be in our future, and watch for real developments and not false hopes.
Well, the problem with this view, as with much of The Dismal Science, is that there's an underlying assumption that the economic dynamic "today" is comparable to the dynamic at some previous time in our history, and so past nostrums are valid today. I, and a lot of Dismal Scientists, find this to be a shaky assumption (IANADS). More to the point is to look at how the "cut taxes on the rich" has been working out in near-recent history. In a word, it hasn't worked well at all. There's also the "when you have a hammer, everything looks like a nail" problem. Tax cuts are popular, so that's the solution to every ill. Increasing taxes so the Government can increase spending IN THE SHORT TERM is the easiest way to un-derail the economy. The untax-the-rich trickle-down theory (AKA Voodoo Economics) works in the long term, if it works at all.
The impact isn't necessarily NASA (which has a bad case of "Old Elvis" at this point), but the impact of the whole space race. This program fired up a generation, perhaps two, of scientists and engineers, some of whom worked for NASA but I'd wager that the majority ended up in some other science/engineering endeavour. However, over the past decade the best-and-brightest have become quants on Wall Street because that's where the money/bright lights are, and we all know how well THAT has worked out.
Yes, it can be argued that NASA has squandered a lot of money over the years, and that it's a horrible poltical and PR animal these days (somewhat self-inflicted), but it was part of a program that led to a lot of what Americans take for granted today. These days it's just a huge jobs program (read "welfare for whitecoats"), and unless it manages to reinvent and reinvigorate itself it will go the way of the Old Elvis. Sadly, I don't think a recovery is possible due to bloat and lack of political will (read "cojones").
The voters in Tucson, AZ, passed a measure in the late 1990s to forbid the water utility to use water from the Salt River Water Project. For an area that depended solely on well water, and that was seeing major ground subsidence because the well water was being overdrawn, this was foolish in the extreme. The reason this passed was because the voters were pissed about how this water had been added to the water supply a few years earlier. The utility had not adjusted the pH of the water correctly, making it more acidic than the well water which had been used. This cleaned out the 40-50 years of corrosion and build-up inside everyone's pipes, with the result that hundreds (if not thousands) of home owners had to replace lots of piping and the water that came out of the tap was an ugly brown. This (the pH issue) was something easily fixed, but people were still pissed. Now, the goal of the folks who put this initiative on the ballot was quite different - they wanted to ride this anger to cut off access to more water in order to stop growth in the Tucson area. While this was a noble cause, throttling access to some resource or another NEVER works as a way to stop growth. Growth still happens and everyone suffers because of the lack of whatever resource was artificially controlled. Anyway, a few years later when everyone had cooled down another initiative was passed that revoked the first, and Tucson is now using Salt River water. I expect that this "run away" activity on the part of Italian voters and the German government may alter in time.
This is sad but true. I've been in the space weather business for 40 years, and was involved with the aftermath of the large geomagnetic storm that took out the power generator in Quebec mentioned in another post. There was quite a flurry of meetings with various energy agencies about what was to be done. Bottom line was that the space weather groups were asking that the power industry pay a lot of money for predictions and warnings that were not of the highest reliability (another sad-but-true fact). After the risk-management boys got done crunching the numbers, the power industry decided that it was cheaper to ignore the problem and live with the fact that they might lose a generator every 11 years or so. The insurance folks will pick up the monetary tab, and the Great Unwashed Public (also known as "the customers") will shiver in their dark unheated homes until things get fixed and like it. As long as these events can be legally treated as unpredictable "acts of God" there is no impetus for the power companies to do anything about them, free market be damned.
I didn't say I've stopped reading, and there are some current good writers, Gibson being one of the best. My point was that there's more crap being published and SOLD as SF than in the past. Not to say there wasn't a goodly crop-o-crap in every era, but I do not see near the numbers of top-notch SF writers being sold in bookstores as in the past. One could even argue that Gibson, with his latest three books, has branched away from SF, probably on purpose to avoid being linked to the vampire/werewolf genres. Anyway, just 'cause I'm OLD doesn't mean I dislike current stuff because it's new. Point me at a new SF writer that's doing what someone like Ellison did when he jerked SF in whole new directions back in the 1960s. The only direction I see it headed at present is down
I am a long-time SF reader, having cut my teeth on the greats of the 1950s and 1960s. I no longer bother to browse in the SF section of bookstores any more because 99% of the books being sold as SF are pretty much juvenile vampire or Camelot-as-SF books. The only new writers I try out are from the steampunk genre, which has its share of problems as well. If the serious/good SF writers want respect, they need to work with the publishers to clean up the definition of what's SF in the marketplace. As I don't see the publishers, who only care for sales numbers, doing this until a couple of years after Hell freezes over, I'm not optimistic about this problem getting any better.
If this book could cook and iron shirts, I'd marry it!
Does anyone else think this glowing review sounds like one Drupal developer/bookwriter scratching the back of another in hopes of a similarly-glowing review of their own book? Or perhaps I'm cynical in my old age.
When I was an undergrad (when dinosaur ranching was still on the aggie curriculum) there was a fledgling computer science program in Liberal Arts and a strong program in Engineering. I still think there is a distinction between Computer Science and Software Engineering, similar to a distinction between Physics and Electrical Engineering. Both cover a lot of similar ground, but in a different manner and with very different focus. They also produce very different products (graduates). In a real Computer Science undergraduate curriculum, OOP should be covered as one paradigm for implementing theoretical thingies like command and data structures. One of MANY such ways. In a Software Engineering curriculum, OOP would be one of the tools learned in order to craft software.
So, I don't get all a-flutter with this particular FA. In fact, it makes a lot of sense in the context of science (theory) vs engineering (practice). Yes, a CS graduate may not be able to code up something in the latest language-du-jour, but I'd hire one of them if I was wanting to build a new OS or a new command/control language. If I want someone who can get down and dirty to build a serious software widget or system, I'd hire an engineer.
Except for the nebulous "programming" just about everything mentioned in TFA is a trade, as opposed to something that a CS degree prepares you for (OT - just what DOES a BS CS degree prepare you for - more school?). I agree with an earlier poster that this is most likely a disengenuous complaint by upper management types who want universities to be glorified trade schools to provide them with low-cost fodder on someone else's nickel (OK, bags of nickels). Anyone who is not asleep these days knows that the Big Boys don't like universities, state universities anyway unless they are cranking out cheap labor.
And just what is meant by "programming" in this particular context? I suspect that the great majority of these positions are not what most of us would consider programming, but is more likely web design or SQL query design. Most IT shops don't use programmers, software shops do, but an IT shop is a bunch of mechanics (not meaning to be derrogetory here - have you seen the pay scale for a good mechanic these days/) and not a bunch of coders. It's a different kind of job.
When I read the title of the summary I was crushed when TFA didn't mention my Mother tongue, FORTRAN. I've seen some serious ranting in FORTRAN comments, but then I saw that it was "commits" and not "comments" and it became clear - no self-respecting FORTRAN programmer would have anything to do with something named "git" - I think that's covered in the classic "Real Programmers Don't Eat Quiche."
From the source site (the blog at http://www.trusteer.com/
"The good news is that Trusteer's Rapport secure web access software- which is now in use by millions of online banking customers - can prevent OddJob from executing."
Now, I don't know Trusteer's rep, but when I see a story like this that originates from what appears to be a source that's in the business of selling security software, I want a second opinion from another source. A quick "google" for OddJob finds stories that all seem to tie back to Trusteer's blog entry. This story also doesn't say much about platform sensitivity. Is this an issue on any OS platform that uses Firefox, for example?
While I am not fond of, or supportive of, Government certification processes, I am sure than anyone working for a non-IT company as a sysadmin knows how seriously (NOT) most of the PHBs take the issue of making sure the company networks are secure. And not just from external Terrorists. I work for a scientific research firm that is run by a bunch of PhDs (the worst kind of PHBs) who have all the answers. Getting them to understand, and act on / pay for, the things necessary to secure our company network from script kiddies, or any bozo on the net who has a hanker to hack, is a task that even Hercules would think twice about taking on. Yes, the Government will do this all wrong and it will end up costing a mint, but that is not to say that there aren't unresolved problems under this particular rock.
The solar research community has known about coronal holes, and the potential impact of plasma which can flow through these "holes" on earth, for decades. This appears to be another "sky is falling" piece by people who are desperately awaiting the return of solar activity. The current solar cycle is a very late starter, and given that the "seasons" for space weather geeks (myself included) is 11-12 years long, one starts getting antsy when the long, dry solar minimum stretches a couple of years longer than expected. In short, "move along, nothing to see here."
First, I suspect that any response which does not indicate that the paper was read will be rejected out of hand. Second, I also suspect that they were not planning that this survey would be found by the Great Unwashed Masses. However, that said, I think it will be hard to get much useful out of this sort of polling once the voting moves outside the community that both cares about the answer and knows enough to vote intelligently (you know, like voters in the USofA). If this were just being answered by astronomers and researchers in related fields, the results could be a useful measure of what those who have a clue think about this. Otherwise, it's just wasted time and effort on everyone's part.
Granted that Cyberwar (sound of clashing cymbols) is overhyped, but a key assumption in this article is that governments and key private organizations (power grid operators, network operators, etc) are doing everything they can to protect their systems. I find this assumption to be laughably naive. The point to be made here is that cyberwar is often used as a bludgeon to obtain resources, or persue hackers in court (Wikileaks, anyone?), and is a bit over-hyped. There are, however, clear dangers in this area which can be avoided if prudent steps are taken (not putting power-grid controlling on the Internet, for example). Given the US's penchant for letting private industry do what it wants, and given that private industry only cares about this-quarter bottom-line earnings, I still see even the "small fry" identified in this article as being capable of some nasty mischief.
First, if they aren't "engaged" in learning Linux, why the hell did they sign up for the class in the first place? (Or is this a deparmental idea to force-feed Linux to a bunch of Windows-trained students?) Second, why is a sophomore teaching a freshman class? I have issues with grad students doing what the profs are paid to do, so I have serious issues with a sophmore taking this on. If the university/department feels this is an important course, it should be taught by a prof, particularly to freshmen. (Or does the department feel that a prof's time is wasted on lowly freshmen?) OK, so maybe more that two questions.
This article is just so much fluff and nonsense wrapped around a little factual info. I've been in the business of space weather since the early 1970s, and this kind of sky-is-falling stuff flares up towards the front end of each solar cycle and then dies off as the sky remains stubbornly in place. Yes, we're headed into a time of increased activity, but so slowly that we may be in for a real "dud" solar cycle. Unless things start picking up soon, we may be lucky to see aurora as far south as Oregon. That said, everything could change completely in a few months. The point is that the kind of prediction made in TFA is impossible to make at this point in the cycle, and to make a big deal out of a completely unfounded prediction is both bad science and very unprofessional. This is not the fault of the poor fellow mentioned in TFA (Joe Kunches, whom I know), but of the flack who wrote this thing.