Agreed. Along with, of course, all the other tools, including computers.
Speaking as a parent of a first-grader, one of the big challenges is that kids make developmental steps in different areas, and they rarely do so in a synchronized way. So one month, a kid might be making a lot of headway in math-related areas, the next, in language, and the next, in social skills.
And of course, you don't want them to get too far ahead in any one area, since a kid who's terribly advanced in math, but behind in social skills, will have a rough time in school.
So... yes, my kid has a cheapish computer (Mac mini). And she knows how to do things like email grandma, play games, surf the web, feed it optical discs, etc. She also has (and reads, like there's no tomorrow) a lot of books. And supplies for writing and being artistic and making noise and doing the sort of messy "chemistry" kids like, and so on. And between my wife's social-science studies and my own work in natural sciences, her questions get answered.
Which leads her to say things like, "but daddy, I already know what a supernova is!"
Anyway, it's all a matter of balance. Give them the latest technology, yes - but only if you're willing to put just as much into the other aspects of life and learning.
As have the Keck Outriggers, which would have upgraded the interferometry capabilities of that facility (already the top in the world for optical/infrared astronomy). Their proponents were expecting to be able to image planets around other stars. (As opposed to just detecting them via the slight gravitational wobble they cause in the stars, or getting really, REALLY lucky and having one in an orbit edge-on to us transit the star.:) Keck already hunts planets, and the outriggers would have been a step up in that field, on the way to TPF.
The outriggers drew more controversy (from Kimo Q Public) than TPF, though, so they appear to be getting generally viewed as "canceled" rather than merely "in(de)finitely delayed."
Ooooh! I can think about a lot of people on the 'net who I'd personally like to offer that feature. And conveniently, their zombie bots, er, I mean, computers, are already running Windows. They'll just need to upgrade.
As an example, some of the most highly educated, publicly visible, and famous scientists are... astronauts. If their pay scale still goes from GS-11 to GS-14 like it did in the '90s, that means they base pay "starts" (usually after multiple degrees and considerable work in some other field) around $52K, and "top out" under $100K.
NASA had a page up years ago that basically said, "If you want to make money, don't be an astronaut, go into the private sector."
It occurs to me that I missed addressing this. And that you are correct. The problem comes when people enter science fields BECAUSE of the money not because they love science.
Enter science fields... because of... the money??!?!
HAhahahahahaa!
That was a good one.
If you're smart enough to work professionally in the sciences, the odds are very good that you could make 2-4 times as much money in some other field. I know I have.
But... I was there "for the money." And I agree with you that's not a good place to be. I'm definitely not in science "for the money."
If a thousand projects want time on a large-scale particle collider, and there's only room for ten, we have to choose which ten.
Totally. Every facility where I work (except for a tiny 40-year-old one that's used for practice by undergrads) has anywhere from 3 to 15 different projects wanting each available second of time. People have to propose a year ahead. If they get time, then something breaks or conditions aren't good enough for their research, they're SOL and have to propose again in another 6 months.
On the flip side, there are the grizzled old professors who, when conditions aren't absolutely perfect say things like "F--- this, I've taken enough bad data in my career and don't need any more!" and go home. Which is delightful to see, on one hand... but if they do this halfway into 12 hours of allocated time, there are probably people who'd cream their jeans at the mere idea of getting those 6 leftover hours.
And my point (which you seem to have missed) is that fields are about themselves, but you've got to have the "PR" too, unless you can do good science while starving.
I work for a university... which gets some of its funding from NASA... which gets some of its funding from federal taxes... some of which come from Google.
Just like the officers in question work for Montgomery county, which gets some of its funding from the state of Maryland, although the funding for their particular jobs probably just passed through the state government on the way down from the federal department of homeland security.
They're county officers, unless they get paychecks that don't say "Montgomery County" on 'em.:)
(Now, I know, as you probably do, that the retirement plan for those county officers, and even the municipal employees around them, is probably a state-level retirement plan. That's mostly an economies-of-scale thing, I guess.)
So putting this, ultimately, on Maryland, is probably correct. Maryland's letting its counties run around with these sort of law enforcement.
Hey, stop trying to dodge the blame here! That homeland security money comes from the feds, who get it from your taxes! Ultimately, it's your fault for letting them spend it foolishly.;)
Well, unless you're not an American taxpayer, I suppose...
Oh, I wholeheartedly concur that the situation is not "right." There are plenty of things in this world that aren't. And sure, I'd like to see it improved upon, and will avail myself of any opportunity to improve upon it.
Unfortunately, that includes sucking up^W^Wbeing nice to the right people.;) The head of a totally-donation-funded entity I help in my spare time just told me yesterday that I'd gotten them an extra EUR 100,000 by spending a couple hours at a reception thrown by a government ministry and putting up some flattering photos from it on a web page. Is this silly? Sure. Am I gonna complain? Hell no.;)
In general, I just take the view that the scientific stuff I get to do is really cool and fun and interesting... you know, the "childlike awe and curiosity" that pervades people who're really into scientific discovery? I'm just grateful that I get to do it at all, and even more so that I get a little money in the process.:)
Public lectures and other forms of outreach are a very interesting point, Atraxen!
My primary workplace is the top research complex on the planet, in its field. Bar none. (And I say that quite seriously.) I've worked there for the better part of two years now. Before I started working there, I was a volunteer at the visitor center - and I've never stopped being a volunteer. I'm most certainly not just there for a paycheck.;)
I've already made it clear that I Am Not A Scientist[TM], but since I work hand-in-hand with the scientists, and support the technical aspects of what they're doing, I'm able to explain virtually all of what goes on to visitors, including a fair amount of the underlying science.
About four hours from right now, I'm going to go over to a baselot here in town, meet up with a couple undergrads (in the field) from the university, drive up to the visitor center, meet up with another volunteer, and take a bunch of tourists (typically from all over the world) on a tour of two of the buildings I work in. I had to do a little bit of work today anyway, so I scheduled it to interface with the tour.
Science doesn't have to be appreciated by the public to be meaningful and important. I'm fortunate to work in a macroscopic natural science, so there's a significant hobbyist sector. People think it fun to collect rocks, look through a telescope, have a little home weather station, and all that. If I were a molecular biologist, I'm not really sure how many folks I'd have asking for tours.;)
(I also do outreach as an employee but on a volunteer basis - big public events, educational things, VIP tours, you name it.)
All I can say is that I presume all "real" scientists are born with trust funds, then.:)
I work for the graduate division of a university, and thus know a lot of people who would I'm sure would be considered "real" scientists, even by someone as picky as you. I have never known a single one who disliked the idea of recognition by his or her peers, let alone the public. I have never heard of any of them turning down any grants. And so on.
Of course people should be doing science because they want to do it. Of course people should be doing the science that interests them.
Out of curiosity, how would you characterize David Levy? He's arguably the most famous "scientist" whose aquaintance I've made; I think more people would recognize his name than that of Joseph Taylor, R. Brent Tully, or Chadwick Trujillo, even though I'd consider those three to have had more acclaim, impact on the field and recent media mentions, respectively. As far as I know, he's always done what he does out of a personal passion for it - but he's had no training in the field, and is a bit of a pop-culture phenom. He even has the science columnist gig that Sagan used to have, last time I checked.
And musicians shouldn't have to know how to do anything but music. And chefs shouldn't have to know how to do anything but cook. And geeks shouldn't have to know how to do anything but program. And athletes shouldn't have to know how to do anything but sports. And managers shouldn't have to know how to do anything.;)
Sorry, but "I'm a specialist, so I don't have to know how to market myself" doesn't hold up for a femtosecond. Why do you think so many job postings in the sciences list grant writing ability as desirable? People who can convince others to give them money for something will generally do a lot better than those who can't.
And unfortunately, science isn't like fast food. You don't get out of high school and get a low-paying job working at the drive-thru window of the local laboratory. Unless you've got the chops to work at Bell Labs or somewhere similar, you can't just research whatever you find interesting without having to wonder about where the money's coming from.
It's largely a tradeoff - you can get a nice steady paycheck for researching what the corporate suits want you to research, or you can have a more interesting job that you know up front is only guaranteed for a short period of time, after which it might be renewed "contingent upon continued funding."
We just had a thread on here about NASA budget cuts. One of the areas that's getting cut is astrobiology research. Some of the people I work with have been doing a lot of work in that field, and I've been doing a lot of work with them. (Remember last year's "deep impact" mission? Key members of the astrobiology team for that, basically.) In my case, there are other non-astrobiology researchers that'll pick up any slack in my schedule, but I don't wanna see the astrobiology sorts out panhandling on the corners either. (They're nice folks, and kinda cute for scientists.;)
It would be really nifty if all the scientists had steady paychecks, and Bush had to hold a bake sale when he wanted to create a new cabinet-level department of the federal government, but oh well.:(
As much as scientists would like to do research that really matters, and accomplishes something important, they (I will not say "we," because although virtually everyone I work with is a scientist, I lack any formal post-high-school training in the sciences) are smart enough to realize that headlines count too.
This isn't to say that scientists go through their entire careers just generating flash and noise - very few do. But a discovery that plays well to the masses, despite being relative "fluff" in terms of scientific value or breaking very little new ground, can raise awareness of one's work, which can make it a lot easier to get funding for the research that does matter.
These enterprising youth are just picking up on this at an early age, and leveraging it in their favour. Buzzword-compliance probably won't get them beyond a certain point career-wise, but it's interesting to see it having some effect at the beginning.
Is it that you want to use Keck specifically, or is it that you want to spend a night on Mauna Kea? Keck's observers are pretty consistently down in Waimea, after all, but a lot of the other facilities up there allow (or require, mwahaha!) their observers to be "on the premises." And typically, the research funding you'll need if your proposal is accepted at one of them is less than the buck-a-second Keck time costs.
If the actual use of the big shiny toys isn't your priority, and you're more in it because you want to see your shadow by the light of the milky way, or whatever, you could just drive up to 13000 in the middle of the night at new moon and get your fix. (No one would be awake lower down to stop you, and at 13000 you wouldn't be bothering anyone, either; all the summit facilities are around 13500 or higher.)
If you wanted to actually see lots of stars, most folks on the mountain would recommend just spending the night (which you most certainly are allowed to do, if you don't mind sleeping outdoors or in your car - bring a sleeping bag) in the parking lot of the visitor station at 9000 feet. They're quick to point out that vision is significantly affected by availability of oxygen, so you'll actually see more at 9000 than at 13500+ anyway, presuming clear skies both places.
Both Koreas were able to get themselves UN membership. Once a country has UN membership, it's really, really hard to persuade people that oh, it's always really been a part of your other country.:)
(It's also supposed to be really, really hard to go take over it, since UN members kind of agree not to do that to one another, in theory, but, well, Afghanistan didn't really have much of a stable government, so it was missing UN representation. In the last year, I've been very pleased to see Afghan delegates at UN meetings. I'm not sure what Iraq's representation was pre-2003, since I've only been watching since 2004, but I see Iraqi dels too.)
Taiwan, of course, doesn't have UN membership, and China will probably make sure it doesn't get it - probably not even non-voting "observer" status, if they can help it. I forget whether the Palestinian Authority has "observer" status yet.
And for what it's worth, from the get-go UN members have, on paper, committed themselves to acting in the best interests of the inhabitants of non-self-governing territories they control, and helping those inhabitants achieve self-governance. This has taken us from something like 82 nations in 1950 to almost 200 today.
This is, of course, on paper. In reality, countries have often fought tooth-and-claw to prevent territories or regions from going off and doing their own things, either by cultural/religious/linguistic/etc subjugation of their indigenous peoples, by refusing to give them a proper "status quo, further integration or independence, please tick one box" plebiscite, or by simply taking them off the list and telling the UN "um, we solved the problem, thanks, no need to keep watching any more."
I think they've worded it really poorly, and meant to say that he is accused of using the internet to set up meetings with the boy at least three times.
Actually, these are county level. If you're from outside the US, that's a further subdivision within a state.
After 9/11, pretty much every state got some homeland security/anti-terror stuff going (my freshly-retired aunt worked for the state I grew up in, and I think wound up with ties to their anti-terror folks, since she dealt with things terrorists like, such as laundered money), and funding for "homeland security" has been doled out down to the lowest levels of government (where it's been spent on some truly weird stuff).
Now you've got me trying to remember the name of the chat "network" around 1990 that consisted of a whole bunch of systems with 3+ modems... one for someone to call into, one to connect to the next system over, and one to connect to the next system over in the other direction.
Around that point in time I mapped every NXX in the state I lived in, and what NXXes could be reached from it without incurring local toll charges. There were a couple neighboring states, and for each of those, there was one NXX near the border that could call across to an NXX in the next state (which of course was in a different NPA as well). I found that rather interesting.
The LEGO Mindstorms beloved to so many Slashdotters are used by 9-14 year olds (basically grades 4-8) in the FIRST LEGO League International, which has participants in almost 2 dozen countries.
And since last year, within the US they've been piloting a "Junior FIRST LEGO League" for ages 6-9. I just found out about it, and my daughter's in that age range... bet she'll be happy to hear.:)
Slashdot Mirror
Agreed. Along with, of course, all the other tools, including computers.
Speaking as a parent of a first-grader, one of the big challenges is that kids make developmental steps in different areas, and they rarely do so in a synchronized way. So one month, a kid might be making a lot of headway in math-related areas, the next, in language, and the next, in social skills.
And of course, you don't want them to get too far ahead in any one area, since a kid who's terribly advanced in math, but behind in social skills, will have a rough time in school.
So... yes, my kid has a cheapish computer (Mac mini). And she knows how to do things like email grandma, play games, surf the web, feed it optical discs, etc. She also has (and reads, like there's no tomorrow) a lot of books. And supplies for writing and being artistic and making noise and doing the sort of messy "chemistry" kids like, and so on. And between my wife's social-science studies and my own work in natural sciences, her questions get answered.
Which leads her to say things like, "but daddy, I already know what a supernova is!"
Anyway, it's all a matter of balance. Give them the latest technology, yes - but only if you're willing to put just as much into the other aspects of life and learning.
I'd better turn in my geek license, since I first parsed it as something having to do with Jerry's kids.
As have the Keck Outriggers, which would have upgraded the interferometry capabilities of that facility (already the top in the world for optical/infrared astronomy). Their proponents were expecting to be able to image planets around other stars. (As opposed to just detecting them via the slight gravitational wobble they cause in the stars, or getting really, REALLY lucky and having one in an orbit edge-on to us transit the star. :) Keck already hunts planets, and the outriggers would have been a step up in that field, on the way to TPF.
The outriggers drew more controversy (from Kimo Q Public) than TPF, though, so they appear to be getting generally viewed as "canceled" rather than merely "in(de)finitely delayed."
He might put you on His no-fly list for your insolence. :)
Since it only hardens on impact, could it also be used in hand weaponry?
"Honest, officer, we just came across him and he was beaten to a pulp. You can search us, go ahead, we ain't got nothin' but our gym towels..."
Ooooh! I can think about a lot of people on the 'net who I'd personally like to offer that feature. And conveniently, their zombie bots, er, I mean, computers, are already running Windows. They'll just need to upgrade.
As an example, some of the most highly educated, publicly visible, and famous scientists are... astronauts. If their pay scale still goes from GS-11 to GS-14 like it did in the '90s, that means they base pay "starts" (usually after multiple degrees and considerable work in some other field) around $52K, and "top out" under $100K.
NASA had a page up years ago that basically said, "If you want to make money, don't be an astronaut, go into the private sector."
It occurs to me that I missed addressing this. And that you are correct. The problem comes when people enter science fields BECAUSE of the money not because they love science.
Enter science fields... because of... the money??!?!
HAhahahahahaa!
That was a good one.
If you're smart enough to work professionally in the sciences, the odds are very good that you could make 2-4 times as much money in some other field. I know I have.
But... I was there "for the money." And I agree with you that's not a good place to be. I'm definitely not in science "for the money."
If a thousand projects want time on a large-scale particle collider, and there's only room for ten, we have to choose which ten.
Totally. Every facility where I work (except for a tiny 40-year-old one that's used for practice by undergrads) has anywhere from 3 to 15 different projects wanting each available second of time. People have to propose a year ahead. If they get time, then something breaks or conditions aren't good enough for their research, they're SOL and have to propose again in another 6 months.
On the flip side, there are the grizzled old professors who, when conditions aren't absolutely perfect say things like "F--- this, I've taken enough bad data in my career and don't need any more!" and go home. Which is delightful to see, on one hand... but if they do this halfway into 12 hours of allocated time, there are probably people who'd cream their jeans at the mere idea of getting those 6 leftover hours.
And my point (which you seem to have missed) is that fields are about themselves, but you've got to have the "PR" too, unless you can do good science while starving.
Thanks.
Kickass! I work for Google now!
:)
;)
Well... maybe I don't.
I work for a university... which gets some of its funding from NASA... which gets some of its funding from federal taxes... some of which come from Google.
Just like the officers in question work for Montgomery county, which gets some of its funding from the state of Maryland, although the funding for their particular jobs probably just passed through the state government on the way down from the federal department of homeland security.
They're county officers, unless they get paychecks that don't say "Montgomery County" on 'em.
(Now, I know, as you probably do, that the retirement plan for those county officers, and even the municipal employees around them, is probably a state-level retirement plan. That's mostly an economies-of-scale thing, I guess.)
So putting this, ultimately, on Maryland, is probably correct. Maryland's letting its counties run around with these sort of law enforcement.
Hey, stop trying to dodge the blame here! That homeland security money comes from the feds, who get it from your taxes! Ultimately, it's your fault for letting them spend it foolishly.
Well, unless you're not an American taxpayer, I suppose...
Oh, I wholeheartedly concur that the situation is not "right." There are plenty of things in this world that aren't. And sure, I'd like to see it improved upon, and will avail myself of any opportunity to improve upon it.
;) The head of a totally-donation-funded entity I help in my spare time just told me yesterday that I'd gotten them an extra EUR 100,000 by spending a couple hours at a reception thrown by a government ministry and putting up some flattering photos from it on a web page. Is this silly? Sure. Am I gonna complain? Hell no. ;)
:)
Unfortunately, that includes sucking up^W^Wbeing nice to the right people.
In general, I just take the view that the scientific stuff I get to do is really cool and fun and interesting... you know, the "childlike awe and curiosity" that pervades people who're really into scientific discovery? I'm just grateful that I get to do it at all, and even more so that I get a little money in the process.
Public lectures and other forms of outreach are a very interesting point, Atraxen!
;)
;)
My primary workplace is the top research complex on the planet, in its field. Bar none. (And I say that quite seriously.) I've worked there for the better part of two years now. Before I started working there, I was a volunteer at the visitor center - and I've never stopped being a volunteer. I'm most certainly not just there for a paycheck.
I've already made it clear that I Am Not A Scientist[TM], but since I work hand-in-hand with the scientists, and support the technical aspects of what they're doing, I'm able to explain virtually all of what goes on to visitors, including a fair amount of the underlying science.
About four hours from right now, I'm going to go over to a baselot here in town, meet up with a couple undergrads (in the field) from the university, drive up to the visitor center, meet up with another volunteer, and take a bunch of tourists (typically from all over the world) on a tour of two of the buildings I work in. I had to do a little bit of work today anyway, so I scheduled it to interface with the tour.
Science doesn't have to be appreciated by the public to be meaningful and important. I'm fortunate to work in a macroscopic natural science, so there's a significant hobbyist sector. People think it fun to collect rocks, look through a telescope, have a little home weather station, and all that. If I were a molecular biologist, I'm not really sure how many folks I'd have asking for tours.
(I also do outreach as an employee but on a volunteer basis - big public events, educational things, VIP tours, you name it.)
All I can say is that I presume all "real" scientists are born with trust funds, then. :)
I work for the graduate division of a university, and thus know a lot of people who would I'm sure would be considered "real" scientists, even by someone as picky as you. I have never known a single one who disliked the idea of recognition by his or her peers, let alone the public. I have never heard of any of them turning down any grants. And so on.
Of course people should be doing science because they want to do it. Of course people should be doing the science that interests them.
Out of curiosity, how would you characterize David Levy? He's arguably the most famous "scientist" whose aquaintance I've made; I think more people would recognize his name than that of Joseph Taylor, R. Brent Tully, or Chadwick Trujillo, even though I'd consider those three to have had more acclaim, impact on the field and recent media mentions, respectively. As far as I know, he's always done what he does out of a personal passion for it - but he's had no training in the field, and is a bit of a pop-culture phenom. He even has the science columnist gig that Sagan used to have, last time I checked.
And musicians shouldn't have to know how to do anything but music. ;)
;)
:(
And chefs shouldn't have to know how to do anything but cook.
And geeks shouldn't have to know how to do anything but program.
And athletes shouldn't have to know how to do anything but sports.
And managers shouldn't have to know how to do anything.
Sorry, but "I'm a specialist, so I don't have to know how to market myself" doesn't hold up for a femtosecond. Why do you think so many job postings in the sciences list grant writing ability as desirable? People who can convince others to give them money for something will generally do a lot better than those who can't.
And unfortunately, science isn't like fast food. You don't get out of high school and get a low-paying job working at the drive-thru window of the local laboratory. Unless you've got the chops to work at Bell Labs or somewhere similar, you can't just research whatever you find interesting without having to wonder about where the money's coming from.
It's largely a tradeoff - you can get a nice steady paycheck for researching what the corporate suits want you to research, or you can have a more interesting job that you know up front is only guaranteed for a short period of time, after which it might be renewed "contingent upon continued funding."
We just had a thread on here about NASA budget cuts. One of the areas that's getting cut is astrobiology research. Some of the people I work with have been doing a lot of work in that field, and I've been doing a lot of work with them. (Remember last year's "deep impact" mission? Key members of the astrobiology team for that, basically.) In my case, there are other non-astrobiology researchers that'll pick up any slack in my schedule, but I don't wanna see the astrobiology sorts out panhandling on the corners either. (They're nice folks, and kinda cute for scientists.
It would be really nifty if all the scientists had steady paychecks, and Bush had to hold a bake sale when he wanted to create a new cabinet-level department of the federal government, but oh well.
As much as scientists would like to do research that really matters, and accomplishes something important, they (I will not say "we," because although virtually everyone I work with is a scientist, I lack any formal post-high-school training in the sciences) are smart enough to realize that headlines count too.
This isn't to say that scientists go through their entire careers just generating flash and noise - very few do. But a discovery that plays well to the masses, despite being relative "fluff" in terms of scientific value or breaking very little new ground, can raise awareness of one's work, which can make it a lot easier to get funding for the research that does matter.
These enterprising youth are just picking up on this at an early age, and leveraging it in their favour. Buzzword-compliance probably won't get them beyond a certain point career-wise, but it's interesting to see it having some effect at the beginning.
Weeeeelllll....
Is it that you want to use Keck specifically, or is it that you want to spend a night on Mauna Kea? Keck's observers are pretty consistently down in Waimea, after all, but a lot of the other facilities up there allow (or require, mwahaha!) their observers to be "on the premises." And typically, the research funding you'll need if your proposal is accepted at one of them is less than the buck-a-second Keck time costs.
If the actual use of the big shiny toys isn't your priority, and you're more in it because you want to see your shadow by the light of the milky way, or whatever, you could just drive up to 13000 in the middle of the night at new moon and get your fix. (No one would be awake lower down to stop you, and at 13000 you wouldn't be bothering anyone, either; all the summit facilities are around 13500 or higher.)
If you wanted to actually see lots of stars, most folks on the mountain would recommend just spending the night (which you most certainly are allowed to do, if you don't mind sleeping outdoors or in your car - bring a sleeping bag) in the parking lot of the visitor station at 9000 feet. They're quick to point out that vision is significantly affected by availability of oxygen, so you'll actually see more at 9000 than at 13500+ anyway, presuming clear skies both places.
Ooh, good idea. (They're letting people like that on here now, are they? ;)
Thermally depolymerize them into oil, so we don't have to retrofit our internal combustion engines.
Both Koreas were able to get themselves UN membership. Once a country has UN membership, it's really, really hard to persuade people that oh, it's always really been a part of your other country. :)
(It's also supposed to be really, really hard to go take over it, since UN members kind of agree not to do that to one another, in theory, but, well, Afghanistan didn't really have much of a stable government, so it was missing UN representation. In the last year, I've been very pleased to see Afghan delegates at UN meetings. I'm not sure what Iraq's representation was pre-2003, since I've only been watching since 2004, but I see Iraqi dels too.)
Taiwan, of course, doesn't have UN membership, and China will probably make sure it doesn't get it - probably not even non-voting "observer" status, if they can help it. I forget whether the Palestinian Authority has "observer" status yet.
And for what it's worth, from the get-go UN members have, on paper, committed themselves to acting in the best interests of the inhabitants of non-self-governing territories they control, and helping those inhabitants achieve self-governance. This has taken us from something like 82 nations in 1950 to almost 200 today.
This is, of course, on paper. In reality, countries have often fought tooth-and-claw to prevent territories or regions from going off and doing their own things, either by cultural/religious/linguistic/etc subjugation of their indigenous peoples, by refusing to give them a proper "status quo, further integration or independence, please tick one box" plebiscite, or by simply taking them off the list and telling the UN "um, we solved the problem, thanks, no need to keep watching any more."
I think they've worded it really poorly, and meant to say that he is accused of using the internet to set up meetings with the boy at least three times.
Actually, these are county level. If you're from outside the US, that's a further subdivision within a state.
After 9/11, pretty much every state got some homeland security/anti-terror stuff going (my freshly-retired aunt worked for the state I grew up in, and I think wound up with ties to their anti-terror folks, since she dealt with things terrorists like, such as laundered money), and funding for "homeland security" has been doled out down to the lowest levels of government (where it's been spent on some truly weird stuff).
Now you've got me trying to remember the name of the chat "network" around 1990 that consisted of a whole bunch of systems with 3+ modems... one for someone to call into, one to connect to the next system over, and one to connect to the next system over in the other direction.
Around that point in time I mapped every NXX in the state I lived in, and what NXXes could be reached from it without incurring local toll charges. There were a couple neighboring states, and for each of those, there was one NXX near the border that could call across to an NXX in the next state (which of course was in a different NPA as well). I found that rather interesting.
FTA: Inventor Dean Kamen wants to put entrepreneurs to work bringing water and electricity to the world's poor.
But... but... doesn't he realize that when you mix water and electricity, people get electrocuted?
The LEGO Mindstorms beloved to so many Slashdotters are used by 9-14 year olds (basically grades 4-8) in the FIRST LEGO League International, which has participants in almost 2 dozen countries.
:)
And since last year, within the US they've been piloting a "Junior FIRST LEGO League" for ages 6-9. I just found out about it, and my daughter's in that age range... bet she'll be happy to hear.