The rat organ toxicity from GMOs study posted here on Slashdot last week was funded by Greenpeace. Total junk science too - meta study using shady statistical methods published in a non-refereed journal.
Hmm since it was put in place some 200+ years ago the overall results have been pretty good - stable government, mostly free elections, unprecedented national prosperity, freedom and security. Still have that republic that Ben Franklin mentioned.
So where in the universe are you going to find 0 radiation? On the surface of the Earth there is plenty from cosmic rays and solar radiation. Underground doesn't help because there are plenty of subterranean sources. Go up and it gets worse, especially outside the Earth's magnetic field.
The correct answer is that your risk is not materially increased if your exposure to artificial sources is a small fraction of natural sources.
Generally transcontinental plane flight will expose you to far more radiation than you will likely encounter from any artificial sources.
A fundamental question here is whether or not commercial interests will also influence political decision making to the point where war becomes untenable because of the disruption it will cause to commerce.
That wasn't my experience at all. The mechanics of recording measurements very much interfered with the process of thinking about what was actually going on during the course of the experiment. Not only that but being able to apply multiple sensors to an experiment makes it possible to look at multiple factors simultaneously, something much harder if you are recording data manually.
I've never found that a computer is a good reference tool in the sciences except under circumstances where you have access to literature databases - something unlikely in high schools. Libraries are still king in this area.
I was in a car that had the bolt holding the air filter come loose and fell into the carb, causing the throttle to jam wide open.
Not a fun experience. Fortunately the road ahead was clear and the design of the car allowed me to turn off the engine with the key.
I will say it seems to me that Toyota quality has been going downhill the past few years. My past two auto purchases were Toyotas that were extremely good. I am wondering if my next car will be a Toyota.
The only place I see a computer being really useful in a high school chemistry curriculum is in a lab setting. A few thermocouples and a digital voltmeter used to capture data over the course of an experiment could be used to pretty good effect.
Otherwise chemistry at this level is all about learning basic concepts of thermodynamics, gas laws and the rules that govern the combination of atoms into molecules.
I wonder if there are some legal ramifications to this - say if Geeknet were to own software patents on some innovation, these articles that basically attack the idea of the validity of software patents could be used under the principle of estoppal to argue that since Slashdot (part of Geeknet) doesn't believe any software patents are valid then Geeknet loses the ability to argue its patents are valid.
Don't bother reading the summary - it's a bunch of twaddle.
Here is what the patent covers:
1. A system for providing financial information about a target entity in response to a user request, comprising: one or more computers configured to provide a user interface including: a main chart for showing a graph of financial data over a first time period; a second chart displayed concurrently with the main chart, and for showing a graph of financial data over a second time period that includes the first time period; and a user-adjustable viewing window displayed on the second chart, wherein the first time period of the main chart is defined by placement of the user-adjustable viewing window on the second chart.
IE 6 was first sold 8 years ago, not 10. And since when is an obsolete legacy system something that you can go out and buy off the shelf for installation in new systems? According to Wikipedia IE 6 is the most used IE version, likely mostly due to the unpopularity of Vista and the long and tortured development cycle for that product.
As far as Pheonix and Firebird, sure they have flaws, however use share is less than 1%, completely unlike the 20+% of IE 6.
Of course MS is encouraging people to upgrade. However plenty of people don't have that option because of functional requirements and corporate IT policies.
Stop trying to change the subject. This issue is about a bug in IE 6 which DOES NOT run in a sandbox. See #4 in the grandparent post. In addition it is normally run on systems where the user is forced to run in administrative mode due to other stupid MS practices.
Finally the icing on the cake is that many people are forced to use IE 6 because they must use applications that are written to MS's prior non-standard ideas of how HTML should be interpreted.
It is a lose-lose-lose-lose scenario that MS forced upon its users through shoddy engineering practices at every step of a long and winding path.
Not only that - the bug exists in IE 7, and there is speculation that despite the sandbox it is exploitable because Vista does not turn on DEP by default.
The problem is that M$ gets the timeline wrong so often. It should be:
1. Find bug 2. Patch bug
Not:
1. Find bug 2. Ignore bug for n months 3. News released about exploit
compromising customers installations
causing international incident. 4. Release self serving announcement
that other systems are not affected 5. More exploits appear
affecting larger numbers of customers 6. Patch bug
Until this irresponsible behavior stops there should ba a lot more stories. These guys need to have the light shown on their absurd practices as brightly as possible.
Slashdot Mirror
The rat organ toxicity from GMOs study posted here on Slashdot last week was funded by Greenpeace. Total junk science too - meta study using shady statistical methods published in a non-refereed journal.
These "studies" cut both ways. Greenpeace for example funded the preposterous Rat Organ study that was posted here last week.
The best and most time tested answer is independent review. Which pretty much works in the long run.
Yes, I agree with you. Unfortunately it is the sort of crap that gets published on Slashdot.
Rat organs affected by GMO - check.
Vermont Nuquelar plant going to kill us all - check.
Cell phone radiation causes cancer - yup.
I am waiting now for a vaccine causes autism article to balance out the Lancet story from last week...
Electrical energy adsorption from a low energy photon is not small. It is zero. A million such photons and it is still zero.
Quantum mechanics baby.
Any waiter that wants a tip.
Sure you don't mean melamine-formaldehyde?
Hmm since it was put in place some 200+ years ago the overall results have been pretty good - stable government, mostly free elections, unprecedented national prosperity, freedom and security. Still have that republic that Ben Franklin mentioned.
Are you some kind of loon?
So where in the universe are you going to find 0 radiation? On the surface of the Earth there is plenty from cosmic rays and solar radiation. Underground doesn't help because there are plenty of subterranean sources. Go up and it gets worse, especially outside the Earth's magnetic field.
The correct answer is that your risk is not materially increased if your exposure to artificial sources is a small fraction of natural sources.
Generally transcontinental plane flight will expose you to far more radiation than you will likely encounter from any artificial sources.
We get far more exposure from radon outgassing from the granite countertops in our kitchens.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/24/garden/24granite.html
Let's pay attention to something we can actually get exposed to.
Uh I thought the US Constitution had the concept that laws could not be retroactive.
Just sayin'
IE gives attackers access to files stored on a PC
This is news?
I think the advances in CGI plus the example of the LOTR trilogy makes such assertions kind of dangerous.
A fundamental question here is whether or not commercial interests will also influence political decision making to the point where war becomes untenable because of the disruption it will cause to commerce.
That wasn't my experience at all. The mechanics of recording measurements very much interfered with the process of thinking about what was actually going on during the course of the experiment. Not only that but being able to apply multiple sensors to an experiment makes it possible to look at multiple factors simultaneously, something much harder if you are recording data manually.
I've never found that a computer is a good reference tool in the sciences except under circumstances where you have access to literature databases - something unlikely in high schools. Libraries are still king in this area.
I was in a car that had the bolt holding the air filter come loose and fell into the carb, causing the throttle to jam wide open.
Not a fun experience. Fortunately the road ahead was clear and the design of the car allowed me to turn off the engine with the key.
I will say it seems to me that Toyota quality has been going downhill the past few years. My past two auto purchases were Toyotas that were extremely good. I am wondering if my next car will be a Toyota.
If you read the article, it sounds like it might be more than just an accelerator.
The only place I see a computer being really useful in a high school chemistry curriculum is in a lab setting. A few thermocouples and a digital voltmeter used to capture data over the course of an experiment could be used to pretty good effect.
Otherwise chemistry at this level is all about learning basic concepts of thermodynamics, gas laws and the rules that govern the combination of atoms into molecules.
I wonder if there are some legal ramifications to this - say if Geeknet were to own software patents on some innovation, these articles that basically attack the idea of the validity of software patents could be used under the principle of estoppal to argue that since Slashdot (part of Geeknet) doesn't believe any software patents are valid then Geeknet loses the ability to argue its patents are valid.
Hmmmm....
Gnumeric has Erlang functions.
It was terrible for it's time. It was released in 1992 and had no IP stack. Its competitors were things like Apple's System 7.
Don't bother reading the summary - it's a bunch of twaddle.
Here is what the patent covers:
1. A system for providing financial information about a target entity in response to a user request, comprising: one or more computers configured to provide a user interface including: a main chart for showing a graph of financial data over a first time period; a second chart displayed concurrently with the main chart, and for showing a graph of financial data over a second time period that includes the first time period; and a user-adjustable viewing window displayed on the second chart, wherein the first time period of the main chart is defined by placement of the user-adjustable viewing window on the second chart.
Crikey. I had to use that cr*p. There is no way any company that put out a product like Windows 3.1 could ever be bashed enough.
IE 6 was first sold 8 years ago, not 10. And since when is an obsolete legacy system something that you can go out and buy off the shelf for installation in new systems? According to Wikipedia IE 6 is the most used IE version, likely mostly due to the unpopularity of Vista and the long and tortured development cycle for that product.
As far as Pheonix and Firebird, sure they have flaws, however use share is less than 1%, completely unlike the 20+% of IE 6.
Of course MS is encouraging people to upgrade. However plenty of people don't have that option because of functional requirements and corporate IT policies.
Stop trying to change the subject. This issue is about a bug in IE 6 which DOES NOT run in a sandbox. See #4 in the grandparent post. In addition it is normally run on systems where the user is forced to run in administrative mode due to other stupid MS practices.
Finally the icing on the cake is that many people are forced to use IE 6 because they must use applications that are written to MS's prior non-standard ideas of how HTML should be interpreted.
It is a lose-lose-lose-lose scenario that MS forced upon its users through shoddy engineering practices at every step of a long and winding path.
Not only that - the bug exists in IE 7, and there is speculation that despite the sandbox it is exploitable because Vista does not turn on DEP by default.
The problem is that M$ gets the timeline wrong so often. It should be:
1. Find bug
2. Patch bug
Not:
1. Find bug
2. Ignore bug for n months
3. News released about exploit
compromising customers installations
causing international incident.
4. Release self serving announcement
that other systems are not affected
5. More exploits appear
affecting larger numbers of customers
6. Patch bug
Until this irresponsible behavior stops there should ba a lot more stories. These guys need to have the light shown on their absurd practices as brightly as possible.