"true freedom" was a hard thing for me to write. I'm not sure I even understand what it is. But I do know what most modern people think of as freedom is woefully inadequate.
In terms of freedom from Government/Individual authority I take it to mean the government/individual will not impose on me as long as I do not impose on said government/individual.
With regards to killing, I will kill no other that does not first try and kill me. On the flip side, I will kill anyone who attempts to kill me and the law be damned about circumstances. I am not a Christian.
I know for a fact that I do not wish to live as part of any modern society. But there is no place on earth I can go and live outside society, sooner or later society shows up.
Freedom has nothing to do with trust. Freedom is that which you grant yourself. Nothing can take your freedom unless you capitulate. Of course you can debate that without life freedom is meaningless but life without freedom is not worth living. I mean true freedom not some legally imposed cage that you deem large enough.
The government should continually live in fear of the people. It only exists because the people allow it and fund it. The current state of affairs in the US is one of the saddest in recorded history. A country built on the ideals of freedom and liberty is being destroyed. Not as Orwell predicted by an over bearing state but rather as Huxley predicted because the citizens do not care about anything except being entertained. The collapse of Rome will be nothing compared to the implosion of the United States.
Understand this, the current situation is preciseley because the government does not fear the people. They have shown themselves to be cowards and sheep afraid even to ask questions let alone think of answers. Think back to how Bush et al obtained power. Think about 10% of the population owning 90% of the wealth. Think about what the constitution says of government and how government has undermined the constitution at evey oppurtunity. Trial without peers, lawyers, due process, habeous corpus. etc. etc.
And you, parrot some trite shite you probably heard on PBS. Freedom and trust go hand in hand, I'd call it moronic except morons know better.
Of course everybody knows the best UAVs look like spitfires. I'd sign up for a sortie or two, hope and glory blaring in the headphones, stiff upper lip, handle bar mustache, ridiculously fake old etonian accent etc etc. Although I would draw the line at the very spiffy Douglas Bader replacement legs.
I rather think the order of magnitude will not be a cake walk to achieve and may well cause major design ramifications. You mention plasma shape but I think that will be just one small hurdle.
With regards to ITER doing engineering before research, why did they not pay to run JT-60 on D-T at Q > 1. This would have been a huge breakthrough and solidified support, not to mention generated huge result sets to infer from. But instead they left that undone and pressed ahead with their own tests that are not due to achieve break even until 2016!
The amount of engineering being performed in ITER is far and away more than is needed for a research project. They are trying answer operational questions before they have a working reactor.
One idea they seem to have totally dismissed is a full scale computer model, if they know how the reactor will work then they can build a simulator for far less cash. If they had run The JT-60 on D-T and then built a full scale model of the reactor and proved that was going to achieve what they said then I would be far happier. Instead they are taking an untested reactor, going to run it at Q=20+, with no prior reactor having run at Q>1. The only computer sims I have read about are woefully incomplete.
Let me make it clear I'm a huge fan of the idea of fusion. I am not in any way satisfied that any of the major projects have been anything other than job creation. From the lack of oversight, the bias in the funding process, the lack of morality in evaluating other approaches I could think of no better way to delay fusion research than by the use of large unwieldy projects.
Everybody who is involved with the large projects thinks that ITER will work, but what if it fails or requires more funds than planned? How much better of would we be if other ideas had been followed?
JET achieved break even? I thought the closest it came under operating conditions was Q=0.7 Anything else was result extrapolation?
ITER is going to have Q=10 when they haven't even got Q=1, an order of magnitude improvement. The only thing ITER is going to do is allow the current crop of fusion experts to retire in comfort. The one thing that signals to me that ITER is flawed is that they are working on sub-systems without having proved the main idea. Wasting money on engineering when research is still not finished. Basically, they got so much money they had to find ways to spend it.
Don't forget to mention when he had power at the AEC how he fucked with funding decisions to favor tokamak and thereby left us with the ITER project to the exclusion of all other avenues. Bussard should never have been given any more government money after that little stunt. In fact locking him up for mis-appropriation would have been the correct thing to do.
Also, the most impressive result from the polywells was the last one and was not discovered until they had dis-mantled the machine. I want a repeatable process not some one hit wonder with dubious credentials.
Personally, I still have hope for the cold fusion guys, if only because of all the shit that mainstream scientific religion heaped on them. I would see it as nothing more than karma smoothing out the wrinkles.
Age eligible to vote? Age eligible to drink? Age eligible to join the military? Age eligible to drive? Age eligible to marry? Age for hetro sex? Age for homo sex?
Most western countries have the same problem.
I think you sister rather makes my case for me. By being on her own she was forced to survive. At 17 I was working full time and sort of living between my parents and my girlfriends.
I'm all for a very low age of consent, say 14. Basically at 14 you're an adult and can do as you please, likewise everybody else treats you as an adult, no separate ages for voting, sex, alcohol etc.
It would stop a lot of the teenage problems if at 14 they had to fend for themselves. This extended childhood so prevalent in the US is giving us children aged twenty five who are unable to function on their own.
As for 12 year olds deciding policy, go and read Lord of the Flies.
I've recently been playing with Logo, I'm a veteran of the dev trenches and have gone through SICP.
I picked up all the 80s books I could find that used Logo to teach geometry, algebra, music, language etc. I'm currently working my way through them. There is of course the Compu Sci series from Berkeley http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~bh/v1-toc2.html That I'm planning to go through next.
So for those of you who turned your nose up at logo because it's too simple for you may need to turn that statement around. Think Lisp without the parens.
Ahh yes the legal system. That paragon of ideals and virtues. The legal system is just about the most corrupt and unjust system of justice ever invented.
Where to begin...killing the innocent, incarceration of the innocent, money influences outcome, color of skin influences outcome, religion influences outcome, gender influences outcome... and on and on.
I am of the firm belief that society would be better served if the justice system was closed down and every citizen handed a firearm.
The US has shot it's own citizens in the past, Kent State ring any bells. More recently Wacko and Ruby Ridge. You can also look at force able clearances that resulted in deaths although no shots were fired.
If you want the conspiracy nuts to go off on one ask them what happened on Sept 11. I'm still not sure how three buildings collapsed at close to the speed of gravity, in their own foot print, brought down by fire when no other steel framed tower has been so affected. Well that's not true I know damn well what happened the question is was it justified?
Then start looking at the medical experiments performed without permission. Executions. etc etc.
Then start to take a look at the drugs issues.
In short the US is like any other country, it treats it's citizens as a resource to be exploited.
There is a lot of interesting 3d projects being undertaken at the moment e.g. croquet. Being of a certain mind I'm unable to participate until I have open source 3d drivers. Now I can.
I'm also very interested in data modelling/visulisation this opens up a whole new arena for me to play in.
Now if it was just I this wouldn't be big news. But now Linux as a whole is going to be able to offer 3d displays without binary blobs or licensing issues. This is a huge win.
What stands out is the time your parents took to educate you. Like myself, that is were most of your foundation was laid. Not at school, not by teachers.
The question is that by helping you did they sacrifice a more gifted student? I doubt it, you were probably top 10% of most of your classes. How did you feel about having to mark time while other students grasped the fundamentals?
I'm not sure what constitutes a good teacher, but I do know that the current school environment wastes good and bad alike.
it is a ignorant mind that decides to hamper students because they have an advantage. The children of rich people should always do better than those of poor people, that's why people want money to improve their lot and therefore the lot of their children.
Aristocracy, old money or blue blood is basically the same thing $$$$$$. Class has always been determined by money only within a class do other things count.
Revolutions were very rarely fought for ideals. But rather money and power. Name one revolution that wasn't primarily about money and power?
Teachers are not paid good money! I have a brother in education and to reach my level of pay he would have to run a school district i.e. leave teaching and become a snr. manager. Teachers are paid dreadfully, jnr. devs routinely make more than snr. teachers.
This whole idea of making a child learn is bullshit. Yes teachers can and do motivate children to learn. But should they have to?
Currently there is no choice for the teacher. But my system would allow for any number of teaching styles to be used. The only measurement is the state exams.
If as a parent you want a teacher who will spend time motivating children then you pay for such a teacher. However, another parent who has different ideas can use a different teacher or indeed home school or use tutors.
Thinking about it, although I do grasp a lot from the text books. I need to use the knowledge I've gained to cement it. A lot of my personal computer time is spent running simulations to back up what I've read. In Compu Sci it was easy, I had the simulator cast into hardware:-) I also used various cpu sims including sims for cpus that were not built. So Compu Sci lends itself very well to self learning through experimentation.
The fluid dynamics is pretty much the same, there's plenty of sims around to learn from. I've never been in a wind tunnel and I'm pretty sure I don't need to for my investigation. But the sims really help me grasp ideas i.e. altering the angle of attack of a wing affects pressure how? Adding an end plate etc etc.
Thinking further, most science and engineering subjects have sims available. But the subjects I'm crap at languages, history, geology etc. do not lend themselves to simulation all that well. Music is an odd one as in the past I was rubbish at anything outside of rhythm i.e. I could play drums and xylophone. But with the feedback loop a computer can provide I'm becoming competent, nothing impressive but I can play and sing a little now which is a miracle compared to how I was.
With regards to university, I'm still firmly of the opinion lectures should be a review:-)
First of all I never attended regular college. I started work at 17. At about 21 I decided that I'd like to study for my Bachelors so I enrolled in the Open University. I never attended a single lecture but still graduated with honors after six years. I held a full time job as I studied. I learned everything from the books on my own. The course was traditional Compu. Sci. I do not think I was in any way an exceptional student and I feel any motivated student could do the same.
My advice would be to read the course books before the course starts. Learn how to read, no seriously it's not just a case of knowing the words but rather how to get the most out of a technical book. When you attend a lecture you should have a good idea what is going to be discussed, the lecturer should be giving a review to you not having to explain the smallest detail.
As for fluid mechanics, I'm currently reading some grad level books on the subject as I'm trying to understand why wind tunnels are still used. Where does the current simulations fail? Is it granularity or is there something we do not understand about fluid dynamics! I've had to go back and pick up some undergrad texts to understand the grad level. Now why is that interesting? Because I'm interested in computer driven design of vehicles and the big hole in the loop is accurate simulation. The computer can design something but it can't accurately test it.
I'm not talking about throwing away peoples lives. Education is not the be all and end all of success. In fact I want everybody at every station in life to have the chance for their academic ability to be measured. What I don't want is what we have now and what you propose to deprive gifted students of the chance for quick advancement and recognition.
To the best students should go the best teachers. It's a harsh idea in that 90% of the student body will never be taught by the best 10% of teachers. In fact I go a lot further in another post to this article, basically turning HS education 100% towards passing state set exams. Students can completely opt out etc etc. Radical idea that would open up the HS education system.
A middling student should have the opportunity to advance but not at the expense of an exceptional student. Good teachers for good students.
Slashdot Mirror
"true freedom" was a hard thing for me to write. I'm not sure I even understand what it is. But I do know what most modern people think of as freedom is woefully inadequate.
In terms of freedom from Government/Individual authority I take it to mean the government/individual will not impose on me as long as I do not impose on said government/individual.
With regards to killing, I will kill no other that does not first try and kill me. On the flip side, I will kill anyone who attempts to kill me and the law be damned about circumstances. I am not a Christian.
I know for a fact that I do not wish to live as part of any modern society. But there is no place on earth I can go and live outside society, sooner or later society shows up.
You small minded, ignorant fool.
Freedom has nothing to do with trust. Freedom is that which you grant yourself. Nothing can take your freedom unless you capitulate. Of course you can debate that without life freedom is meaningless but life without freedom is not worth living. I mean true freedom not some legally imposed cage that you deem large enough.
The government should continually live in fear of the people. It only exists because the people allow it and fund it. The current state of affairs in the US is one of the saddest in recorded history. A country built on the ideals of freedom and liberty is being destroyed. Not as Orwell predicted by an over bearing state but rather as Huxley predicted because the citizens do not care about anything except being entertained. The collapse of Rome will be nothing compared to the implosion of the United States.
Understand this, the current situation is preciseley because the government does not fear the people. They have shown themselves to be cowards and sheep afraid even to ask questions let alone think of answers. Think back to how Bush et al obtained power. Think about 10% of the population owning 90% of the wealth. Think about what the constitution says of government and how government has undermined the constitution at evey oppurtunity. Trial without peers, lawyers, due process, habeous corpus. etc. etc.
And you, parrot some trite shite you probably heard on PBS. Freedom and trust go hand in hand, I'd call it moronic except morons know better.
So why not use an auto gyro ala James Bond.
Of course everybody knows the best UAVs look like spitfires. I'd sign up for a sortie or two, hope and glory blaring in the headphones, stiff upper lip, handle bar mustache, ridiculously fake old etonian accent etc etc. Although I would draw the line at the very spiffy Douglas Bader replacement legs.
I rather think the order of magnitude will not be a cake walk to achieve and may well cause major design ramifications. You mention plasma shape but I think that will be just one small hurdle.
With regards to ITER doing engineering before research, why did they not pay to run JT-60 on D-T at Q > 1. This would have been a huge breakthrough and solidified support, not to mention generated huge result sets to infer from. But instead they left that undone and pressed ahead with their own tests that are not due to achieve break even until 2016!
The amount of engineering being performed in ITER is far and away more than is needed for a research project. They are trying answer operational questions before they have a working reactor.
One idea they seem to have totally dismissed is a full scale computer model, if they know how the reactor will work then they can build a simulator for far less cash. If they had run The JT-60 on D-T and then built a full scale model of the reactor and proved that was going to achieve what they said then I would be far happier. Instead they are taking an untested reactor, going to run it at Q=20+, with no prior reactor having run at Q>1. The only computer sims I have read about are woefully incomplete.
Let me make it clear I'm a huge fan of the idea of fusion. I am not in any way satisfied that any of the major projects have been anything other than job creation. From the lack of oversight, the bias in the funding process, the lack of morality in evaluating other approaches I could think of no better way to delay fusion research than by the use of large unwieldy projects.
Everybody who is involved with the large projects thinks that ITER will work, but what if it fails or requires more funds than planned? How much better of would we be if other ideas had been followed?
JET achieved break even? I thought the closest it came under operating conditions was Q=0.7 Anything else was result extrapolation?
ITER is going to have Q=10 when they haven't even got Q=1, an order of magnitude improvement. The only thing ITER is going to do is allow the current crop of fusion experts to retire in comfort. The one thing that signals to me that ITER is flawed is that they are working on sub-systems without having proved the main idea. Wasting money on engineering when research is still not finished. Basically, they got so much money they had to find ways to spend it.
Don't forget to mention when he had power at the AEC how he fucked with funding decisions to favor tokamak and thereby left us with the ITER project to the exclusion of all other avenues. Bussard should never have been given any more government money after that little stunt. In fact locking him up for mis-appropriation would have been the correct thing to do.
Also, the most impressive result from the polywells was the last one and was not discovered until they had dis-mantled the machine. I want a repeatable process not some one hit wonder with dubious credentials.
Personally, I still have hope for the cold fusion guys, if only because of all the shit that mainstream scientific religion heaped on them. I would see it as nothing more than karma smoothing out the wrinkles.
The US doesn't have a single age of majority!
Age eligible to vote?
Age eligible to drink?
Age eligible to join the military?
Age eligible to drive?
Age eligible to marry?
Age for hetro sex?
Age for homo sex?
Most western countries have the same problem.
I think you sister rather makes my case for me. By being on her own she was forced to survive. At 17 I was working full time and sort of living between my parents and my girlfriends.
Who the hell modded this crap insightful
I'm all for a very low age of consent, say 14. Basically at 14 you're an adult and can do as you please, likewise everybody else treats you as an adult, no separate ages for voting, sex, alcohol etc.
It would stop a lot of the teenage problems if at 14 they had to fend for themselves. This extended childhood so prevalent in the US is giving us children aged twenty five who are unable to function on their own.
As for 12 year olds deciding policy, go and read Lord of the Flies.
Turtle Geometry: The Computer as a Medium for Exploring Mathematics (Artificial Intelligence)
Harold Abelson
Andrea diSessa
978-0262510370
Investigations in Algebra: An Approach to Using Logo
Albert A. Cuoco
978-0262530712
Exploring Language with Logo
E. Paul Goldenberg
978-0262570657
Visual Modeling with Logo: A Structured Approach to Seeing
James L. Clayson
978-0262530699
Approaching Precalculus Mathematics Discretely: Explorations in a Computer Environment
Philip G. Lewis
978-0262620635
Computer Science Logo Style 2/e, Vol. 1: Symbolic Computing
Brian Harvey
978-0262581486
Computer Science Logo Style 2/e, Vol. 2: Advanced Techniques
Brian Harvey
978-0262581493
Computer Science Logo Style 2/e, Vol. 3: Beyond Programming
Brian Harvey
978-0262581509
Turtles, Termites, and Traffic Jams: Explorations in Massively Parallel Microworlds (Complex Adaptive Systems)
Mitchel Resnick
978-0262680936
No Brain, I'm pondering per chance, will we take over the world tonight.
Already have it :-)
I've recently been playing with Logo, I'm a veteran of the dev trenches and have gone through SICP.
I picked up all the 80s books I could find that used Logo to teach geometry, algebra, music, language etc. I'm currently working my way through them. There is of course the Compu Sci series from Berkeley http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~bh/v1-toc2.html That I'm planning to go through next.
So for those of you who turned your nose up at logo because it's too simple for you may need to turn that statement around. Think Lisp without the parens.
Bollocks, this wasn't revenge it was business. They guy was probably warned many times before being shot.
Let's make it clear, you have to be stupid not to do what the mafia tells you.
Ahh yes the legal system. That paragon of ideals and virtues. The legal system is just about the most corrupt and unjust system of justice ever invented.
Where to begin...killing the innocent, incarceration of the innocent, money influences outcome, color of skin influences outcome, religion influences outcome, gender influences outcome... and on and on.
I am of the firm belief that society would be better served if the justice system was closed down and every citizen handed a firearm.
Just how ignorant are you?
The US has shot it's own citizens in the past, Kent State ring any bells. More recently Wacko and Ruby Ridge. You can also look at force able clearances that resulted in deaths although no shots were fired.
If you want the conspiracy nuts to go off on one ask them what happened on Sept 11. I'm still not sure how three buildings collapsed at close to the speed of gravity, in their own foot print, brought down by fire when no other steel framed tower has been so affected. Well that's not true I know damn well what happened the question is was it justified?
Then start looking at the medical experiments performed without permission. Executions. etc etc.
Then start to take a look at the drugs issues.
In short the US is like any other country, it treats it's citizens as a resource to be exploited.
I am I'm backing Ron Paul.
Screw the gaming.
There is a lot of interesting 3d projects being undertaken at the moment e.g. croquet. Being of a certain mind I'm unable to participate until I have open source 3d drivers. Now I can.
I'm also very interested in data modelling/visulisation this opens up a whole new arena for me to play in.
Now if it was just I this wouldn't be big news. But now Linux as a whole is going to be able to offer 3d displays without binary blobs or licensing issues. This is a huge win.
No but it is unlawful
What stands out is the time your parents took to educate you. Like myself, that is were most of your foundation was laid. Not at school, not by teachers.
The question is that by helping you did they sacrifice a more gifted student? I doubt it, you were probably top 10% of most of your classes. How did you feel about having to mark time while other students grasped the fundamentals?
I'm not sure what constitutes a good teacher, but I do know that the current school environment wastes good and bad alike.
Basically yes,
it is a ignorant mind that decides to hamper students because they have an advantage. The children of rich people should always do better than those of poor people, that's why people want money to improve their lot and therefore the lot of their children.
Aristocracy, old money or blue blood is basically the same thing $$$$$$. Class has always been determined by money only within a class do other things count.
Revolutions were very rarely fought for ideals. But rather money and power. Name one revolution that wasn't primarily about money and power?
Teachers are not paid good money! I have a brother in education and to reach my level of pay he would have to run a school district i.e. leave teaching and become a snr. manager. Teachers are paid dreadfully, jnr. devs routinely make more than snr. teachers.
This whole idea of making a child learn is bullshit. Yes teachers can and do motivate children to learn. But should they have to?
Currently there is no choice for the teacher. But my system would allow for any number of teaching styles to be used. The only measurement is the state exams.
If as a parent you want a teacher who will spend time motivating children then you pay for such a teacher. However, another parent who has different ideas can use a different teacher or indeed home school or use tutors.
Thinking about it, although I do grasp a lot from the text books. I need to use the knowledge I've gained to cement it. A lot of my personal computer time is spent running simulations to back up what I've read. In Compu Sci it was easy, I had the simulator cast into hardware :-) I also used various cpu sims including sims for cpus that were not built. So Compu Sci lends itself very well to self learning through experimentation.
:-)
The fluid dynamics is pretty much the same, there's plenty of sims around to learn from. I've never been in a wind tunnel and I'm pretty sure I don't need to for my investigation. But the sims really help me grasp ideas i.e. altering the angle of attack of a wing affects pressure how? Adding an end plate etc etc.
Thinking further, most science and engineering subjects have sims available. But the subjects I'm crap at languages, history, geology etc. do not lend themselves to simulation all that well. Music is an odd one as in the past I was rubbish at anything outside of rhythm i.e. I could play drums and xylophone. But with the feedback loop a computer can provide I'm becoming competent, nothing impressive but I can play and sing a little now which is a miracle compared to how I was.
With regards to university, I'm still firmly of the opinion lectures should be a review
First of all I never attended regular college. I started work at 17. At about 21 I decided that I'd like to study for my Bachelors so I enrolled in the Open University. I never attended a single lecture but still graduated with honors after six years. I held a full time job as I studied. I learned everything from the books on my own. The course was traditional Compu. Sci. I do not think I was in any way an exceptional student and I feel any motivated student could do the same.
My advice would be to read the course books before the course starts. Learn how to read, no seriously it's not just a case of knowing the words but rather how to get the most out of a technical book. When you attend a lecture you should have a good idea what is going to be discussed, the lecturer should be giving a review to you not having to explain the smallest detail.
As for fluid mechanics, I'm currently reading some grad level books on the subject as I'm trying to understand why wind tunnels are still used. Where does the current simulations fail? Is it granularity or is there something we do not understand about fluid dynamics! I've had to go back and pick up some undergrad texts to understand the grad level. Now why is that interesting? Because I'm interested in computer driven design of vehicles and the big hole in the loop is accurate simulation. The computer can design something but it can't accurately test it.
I'm not talking about throwing away peoples lives. Education is not the be all and end all of success. In fact I want everybody at every station in life to have the chance for their academic ability to be measured. What I don't want is what we have now and what you propose to deprive gifted students of the chance for quick advancement and recognition.
To the best students should go the best teachers. It's a harsh idea in that 90% of the student body will never be taught by the best 10% of teachers. In fact I go a lot further in another post to this article, basically turning HS education 100% towards passing state set exams. Students can completely opt out etc etc. Radical idea that would open up the HS education system.
A middling student should have the opportunity to advance but not at the expense of an exceptional student. Good teachers for good students.
Student != Bridges
Engineer != Teacher
Not in any way shape or form can I see how a bridge be used as representation of a student or how an engineer represents a teacher.