I saw it live at school - in the courtyard of Lake Worth High School, about 150 miles south of the Cape. We had seen enough launches to know something went wrong. About 15 minutes later the principal announced what happened.
One of the sad things about the new (yes I know, and needed) safety requirements is the daytime launch requirement. I have seen many night launches, both from inside of the Space Center and from my home 150 miles south, and they are beautiful. Shuttle launches light up the horizon like sunrise. I will miss the sight until NASA comes up with a new heavy lift vehicle.
Let's not forget how many failed launches ended up in the Atlantic between the Cape and Africa in the 50's and 60's. Look at a map. Only Florida is south enough for the inertial assist to orbit from the Earth, and has several thousand miles of Ocean east of it.
The Republicans get hit the hardest because they are in power. They control the White House and the Congress. They are making the decisions and so they are the biggest targets. Much of what TDS has done with the Dems shows the reality of them running around, getting little done.
I have little doubt that if Kerry wins, he will become the main target of TDS.
Actually, this is a really old and well tested procedure. Old spy sats used to launch, take a bunch of pictures of the Soviets (with film that needed to be retrieved), and then parachute down and be snatched by army helicoptors. Now, civilian stunt pilots are as good as or better (and probably more available) than military.
I'm sure that they must have had some chute failures too, and they were only up for a few hours or days, not years.
Good points, all true. I've had a chance to hear Kay speak at a few Educational Tech conferences and participated in some threads with him on the Squeak newsgroups. What he is really trying to say (and what wasn't well conveyed in the article) is not that everything we do with computers today is "wrong" but that many of the ways that we use them to educate ourselves are. The educational technology field is controled by a few corporations who have found that they can make a lot of money by putting traditional textbooks and worksheets on computers. The same boring stuff we hated in school is now computerized, so students get to do more of it, and teachers don't have to grade them - the computer does.
I've heard Kay speak of the lost oppurtunities for using simulations, worldwide communications, etc... to better educate children. I wonder if the author of this article generalized his statements about education to the whole world a bit more than he intended.
I was lucky enough to see a debate on this topic this past Saturday between Neil DeGrasse Tyson and Bill Nye (yes, the Science Guy) at the National Science Teachers Assn. conference. Dr. Tyson is on the GWB commission, so he was pushing manned exploration, and Nye was pushing for expanded robotic exploration.
They both made excellent points for their own side, I really came out on Nye's side... we had a "compelling reason" for going to the moon - to beat the "Godless Commies." As much as we like to think of our species as explorers, we don't generally take the physical or financial risk unless there is equal profit from it. Until we have something that will give us gain equal to the risk, there will never be the political will (driven by the will of voters) that we need to support it.
What are compelling reasons? Someone already brought up He3 - but if fusion becomes a reality and an economy forms that runs on the stuff, NASA won't need to go to the Moon to get it, the energy companies will on their own. For Mars - the discovery of current or past life would likely be a good enough reason. Nye points out that our best chance of making that initial discovery is with robots. Send people to do the more complex work that will come later.
While I disagreed with Dr. Tyson and the commission's plan, I walked away with new respect for the man (who I haven't really liked due to the whole Pluto thing). He made his case well and is fighting passionately for it. He admitted that the commission has had to so some "smoothing over" of things in GWB's speach that were "physically impossible," specifically the part about the benefits of landing on the Moon on the way to Mars. I like the idea of moving money from the shuttle towards a "space plane" or the like, but I don't like how pure science will suffer in the meantime.
Chill out... this is not commercial software. The guys at JPL are nice enough to let us play with the tool they are using (and likely still working on). If you don't like it, write your own.
Here is the thing.... Apple product announcements are the only hardware upgrade announcements that have any relivance to the Apple community. The PC community has mulitple companies releasing new products just about daily. We get something new only every few months - so it is a bigger deal.
I have a 16 station iBook lab (purchased last summer) in my classroom and have been having battery problems that started before 10.2.4 - I replaced 2 batteries through Applecare already, and have 3 more that need it now too. These last three started haveing problems before I upgraded. I wonder if the real problem is hardware, and the timing of these failures is just being associated with the OS updates.
think $.99 is a good deal for a track, a GREAT deal. But when it comes down to logging on to some secure server, giving a credit card # up, etc, it's just going to be quicker to hit KaZaA or whatever P2P alternative there is and download.
Apple will probably use the "OneClick" system (licensed from Amazon I think) that they use in the Apple Store and for things like their picture developing service from iPhoto to make ordering songs easy. I gave them my credit card once a few months ago and have been able to order photos using the info ever sense.
Of course, if you are paranoid about giving out personal info then you won't want to mess with it. I'm sure it will end up very easy to order songs once you are set up.
While many online programs are excactly as you describe them, they don't have to be. I just finished a program that was richer and more interactive than anything I experienced in my undergrad schooling or in my first Masters degree. It used online communities for classwork and homework, which allowed for the kinds of dynamic discussions that often appear here in Slashdot. We were all expected to contribute to the discussion, and because we could take our time typing out a thought-out responce, the discussions were vastly different from the usual "teacher calls on the students who raise their hand" discussions that happen in physical schools.
Take a good look at programs and make sure that they are more than online Powerpoint presentations and videos - how will you grow through interacting with your professors and classmates online?
... our electronic voting machines seemed to work just fine. It was actually cool to see my older neighbors figure out and make friends with the new technology. I overheard one older gent tell his wife how much easier the big screen was to read and the big (touchscreen) buttons were to push.
I spoke to one of the pollworkers, and he told me that one positive change was that the county gave each location a CD with ALL voter information, updated from the registration cutoff date. If someone came to the wrong place, they could be looked up immediatly without having to call the central office. In the 2000 presidential election, this was one of the big problems - the phone lines were jammed and many voters never found out where to go. Amazing how a simple database and a CD burner can fix things.
I'm glad that some of you were not surprised by this, but as someone who didn't look for press releases, surf the official website, or follow various fan discussion boards, I was surprised and a bit frustrated by this whole thing. If an extended version exists (which based on the interviews on disk 2 with Peter Jackson it already does, as well as the new documentaries, etc...) then release it. Release the 2 and 4 disk versions simultaniously (at different prices, of course) and allow me to choose from them up front. The way they are doing it is a trap for those of us who want to enjoy the saga, but aren't keeping up with the news. I didn't know a different version was being released in November or I would have waited... should I have to do research before buying a DVD?
Here in Florida, the little lobster that we pull out of our shallow reefs are commonly called "Bugs." Diving for them is called "Bug Hunting." I think Alton was probably just hanging out in the keys.
I'm a fan too... his show is great, and I can't wait to check out the book.
How far out would we have to notice an asteroid in order to figure out how to shoot it down? Astronomers have talked about repurposing an old warhead to destroy or alter the path of a planetoid for years, but do plans really exist?
I shutter to think of the red tape involved in launching a missle, let alone the science and engineering behind getting it to hit the object. An ICBM designed to nuke something on Earth wouldn't have the power to escape Earth's orbit, so a Delta or something similar would have to be used. NASA doesn't have spare Deltas, built and fueled on the launch pad ready to go!
So don't worry about it... as has already been said in this discussion... our species has survived small impacts like the one in Tunuska and worse.
Unfortunatly, all that too many of us do is "teach." How many classes did you sleep through because all your teacher did was "teach?" And you want teachers to "Explain the Reading Material" - why? Teachers need to give their students the tools to allow them to figure out the reading material on their own, or in groups with other students. That is what happens in the real world, right? Who explains the material you need to learn as part of your job to you?
Kids, as adults, learn by thinking, creating, researching, revising, and sharing. These are all things that computers help us to do. I would love to give each of my students a full laptop, with wireless network connections, a fast pipe to the net, and ample storage. I just doubt that $1200+ for student laptops, plus the network infrastructure, wireless access, etc... is going to happen.
Instead, kids could use this limited device (at a 1/3 of the cost) to create work, collect data, share with others (irda works great for text), hand stuff in to me, and print out final copies for their portfolios and to take home. Looks like it comes with a word processor, spreadsheet, and other basic tools. A powerful web browser and fast connection would be great, but this is a start.
There is no way the 15" would tip over, and I doubt that the extra LCD and plastic needed to go to 17" or 19" would make much of a difference.
I'm working on one now, and there is no instability at all. That little base is actually fairly wide and low, and it has a power supply, hard drive, super drive, etc... inside to weigh it down. It weighs about 22lbs, and I move the screen about without any worries of it tipping.
Slashdot Mirror
I saw it live at school - in the courtyard of Lake Worth High School, about 150 miles south of the Cape. We had seen enough launches to know something went wrong. About 15 minutes later the principal announced what happened.
One of the sad things about the new (yes I know, and needed) safety requirements is the daytime launch requirement. I have seen many night launches, both from inside of the Space Center and from my home 150 miles south, and they are beautiful. Shuttle launches light up the horizon like sunrise. I will miss the sight until NASA comes up with a new heavy lift vehicle.
Let's not forget how many failed launches ended up in the Atlantic between the Cape and Africa in the 50's and 60's. Look at a map. Only Florida is south enough for the inertial assist to orbit from the Earth, and has several thousand miles of Ocean east of it.
My geeky friends and I were into Diplomacy http://boardgames.about.com/od/gamehistories/p/dip lomacy.htmfor awhile in high school. Great fun, but don't play too much. The required backstabbing can wear on friendships. We also used to play a great deal of the dice game Cosmic Wimpout http://www.cosmicwimpout.com/.
Switch to Firefox, it works fine on my mac at the local Panara.
One of the news stories on the Save the Enterprise site says that it is all an untrue rumor.
http://www.saveenterprise.com/sfxrumor.htm
The Republicans get hit the hardest because they are in power. They control the White House and the Congress. They are making the decisions and so they are the biggest targets. Much of what TDS has done with the Dems shows the reality of them running around, getting little done.
I have little doubt that if Kerry wins, he will become the main target of TDS.
Actually, this is a really old and well tested procedure. Old spy sats used to launch, take a bunch of pictures of the Soviets (with film that needed to be retrieved), and then parachute down and be snatched by army helicoptors. Now, civilian stunt pilots are as good as or better (and probably more available) than military.
I'm sure that they must have had some chute failures too, and they were only up for a few hours or days, not years.
Of course, there are always the 2 usb ports that exist on every Apple keyboard...
Good points, all true. I've had a chance to hear Kay speak at a few Educational Tech conferences and participated in some threads with him on the Squeak newsgroups. What he is really trying to say (and what wasn't well conveyed in the article) is not that everything we do with computers today is "wrong" but that many of the ways that we use them to educate ourselves are. The educational technology field is controled by a few corporations who have found that they can make a lot of money by putting traditional textbooks and worksheets on computers. The same boring stuff we hated in school is now computerized, so students get to do more of it, and teachers don't have to grade them - the computer does.
I've heard Kay speak of the lost oppurtunities for using simulations, worldwide communications, etc... to better educate children. I wonder if the author of this article generalized his statements about education to the whole world a bit more than he intended.
I was lucky enough to see a debate on this topic this past Saturday between Neil DeGrasse Tyson and Bill Nye (yes, the Science Guy) at the National Science Teachers Assn. conference. Dr. Tyson is on the GWB commission, so he was pushing manned exploration, and Nye was pushing for expanded robotic exploration.
They both made excellent points for their own side, I really came out on Nye's side... we had a "compelling reason" for going to the moon - to beat the "Godless Commies." As much as we like to think of our species as explorers, we don't generally take the physical or financial risk unless there is equal profit from it. Until we have something that will give us gain equal to the risk, there will never be the political will (driven by the will of voters) that we need to support it.
What are compelling reasons? Someone already brought up He3 - but if fusion becomes a reality and an economy forms that runs on the stuff, NASA won't need to go to the Moon to get it, the energy companies will on their own. For Mars - the discovery of current or past life would likely be a good enough reason. Nye points out that our best chance of making that initial discovery is with robots. Send people to do the more complex work that will come later.
While I disagreed with Dr. Tyson and the commission's plan, I walked away with new respect for the man (who I haven't really liked due to the whole Pluto thing). He made his case well and is fighting passionately for it. He admitted that the commission has had to so some "smoothing over" of things in GWB's speach that were "physically impossible," specifically the part about the benefits of landing on the Moon on the way to Mars. I like the idea of moving money from the shuttle towards a "space plane" or the like, but I don't like how pure science will suffer in the meantime.
Chill out... this is not commercial software. The guys at JPL are nice enough to let us play with the tool they are using (and likely still working on). If you don't like it, write your own.
Here is the thing.... Apple product announcements are the only hardware upgrade announcements that have any relivance to the Apple community. The PC community has mulitple companies releasing new products just about daily. We get something new only every few months - so it is a bigger deal.
Umm, I thought that /. was an online community of geeks, not a news organization. This is not CNN. Chill.
I have a 16 station iBook lab (purchased last summer) in my classroom and have been having battery problems that started before 10.2.4 - I replaced 2 batteries through Applecare already, and have 3 more that need it now too. These last three started haveing problems before I upgraded. I wonder if the real problem is hardware, and the timing of these failures is just being associated with the OS updates.
I think that it was also proven here
I got a Masters in Educational Technology from Pepperdine. You can check it out here.
While many online programs are excactly as you describe them, they don't have to be. I just finished a program that was richer and more interactive than anything I experienced in my undergrad schooling or in my first Masters degree. It used online communities for classwork and homework, which allowed for the kinds of dynamic discussions that often appear here in Slashdot. We were all expected to contribute to the discussion, and because we could take our time typing out a thought-out responce, the discussions were vastly different from the usual "teacher calls on the students who raise their hand" discussions that happen in physical schools.
Take a good look at programs and make sure that they are more than online Powerpoint presentations and videos - how will you grow through interacting with your professors and classmates online?
... our electronic voting machines seemed to work just fine. It was actually cool to see my older neighbors figure out and make friends with the new technology. I overheard one older gent tell his wife how much easier the big screen was to read and the big (touchscreen) buttons were to push.
I spoke to one of the pollworkers, and he told me that one positive change was that the county gave each location a CD with ALL voter information, updated from the registration cutoff date. If someone came to the wrong place, they could be looked up immediatly without having to call the central office. In the 2000 presidential election, this was one of the big problems - the phone lines were jammed and many voters never found out where to go. Amazing how a simple database and a CD burner can fix things.
I'm glad that some of you were not surprised by this, but as someone who didn't look for press releases, surf the official website, or follow various fan discussion boards, I was surprised and a bit frustrated by this whole thing. If an extended version exists (which based on the interviews on disk 2 with Peter Jackson it already does, as well as the new documentaries, etc...) then release it. Release the 2 and 4 disk versions simultaniously (at different prices, of course) and allow me to choose from them up front. The way they are doing it is a trap for those of us who want to enjoy the saga, but aren't keeping up with the news. I didn't know a different version was being released in November or I would have waited... should I have to do research before buying a DVD?
Here in Florida, the little lobster that we pull out of our shallow reefs are commonly called "Bugs." Diving for them is called "Bug Hunting." I think Alton was probably just hanging out in the keys.
I'm a fan too... his show is great, and I can't wait to check out the book.
How far out would we have to notice an asteroid in order to figure out how to shoot it down? Astronomers have talked about repurposing an old warhead to destroy or alter the path of a planetoid for years, but do plans really exist?
I shutter to think of the red tape involved in launching a missle, let alone the science and engineering behind getting it to hit the object. An ICBM designed to nuke something on Earth wouldn't have the power to escape Earth's orbit, so a Delta or something similar would have to be used. NASA doesn't have spare Deltas, built and fueled on the launch pad ready to go!
So don't worry about it... as has already been said in this discussion... our species has survived small impacts like the one in Tunuska and worse.
Unfortunatly, all that too many of us do is "teach." How many classes did you sleep through because all your teacher did was "teach?" And you want teachers to "Explain the Reading Material" - why? Teachers need to give their students the tools to allow them to figure out the reading material on their own, or in groups with other students. That is what happens in the real world, right? Who explains the material you need to learn as part of your job to you?
Kids, as adults, learn by thinking, creating, researching, revising, and sharing. These are all things that computers help us to do. I would love to give each of my students a full laptop, with wireless network connections, a fast pipe to the net, and ample storage. I just doubt that $1200+ for student laptops, plus the network infrastructure, wireless access, etc... is going to happen.
Instead, kids could use this limited device (at a 1/3 of the cost) to create work, collect data, share with others (irda works great for text), hand stuff in to me, and print out final copies for their portfolios and to take home. Looks like it comes with a word processor, spreadsheet, and other basic tools. A powerful web browser and fast connection would be great, but this is a start.
There is no way the 15" would tip over, and I doubt that the extra LCD and plastic needed to go to 17" or 19" would make much of a difference.
I'm working on one now, and there is no instability at all. That little base is actually fairly wide and low, and it has a power supply, hard drive, super drive, etc... inside to weigh it down. It weighs about 22lbs, and I move the screen about without any worries of it tipping.