Nothing directly, but Saddam had a clear history of attempting to obtain/create military nuclear capability, and global nuclear non-proliferation efforts were at the same time clearly beginning to fail, with India and Pakistan going nuclear and North Korea, Iraq, and Iran on the brink. While I'm not exactly for the war, the issue is a bit more complicated than the "there were no terrorists in Iraq" crowd would disingeniously have the public believe, even if Bush disingeniously sold Iraq using the terrorist FUD (though he also sold in on the non-FUD proliferation issue).
Given the money the Iraq invasion cost us, I think it would have been better spent securing the US and our friends and allies instead - improved detection equipment and more personel for borders, ports, airports etc., both ours and foreign ones that service ours, anti-ballistic missile defenses for the West Coast, Hawaii, Guam, Japan, and Taiwan (which North Korea and China can both hit now), global tracking and disruption of terrorist cells, energy policy and research that gets us off Middle Eastern (and Venezuelan) oil as quickly as possible, and whatever else is required that isn't too draconian. I think those would have been much more effective investments for the money, since they address all nuclear threats, not just Iraq, with added bonus that the rest of the world would not harbor so much hatred and suspicion of us, either.
I was a system administrator in the CS department at a large university. We had several students attempt to use the service to get their homework assignments done.
Sounds like they're well on their way to a successful career in management...
If they're doing it on their own time then they have control over it. They should license it to the company.
Unless they're using company equipment, in which case the company can make a strong legal argument that they financially supported the development of the software, and hence the ip belongs to the company.
If you're a developer working for a company and building your own software on the side and you want it to be legally clear that your side work belongs to you and not your employer, you can't use any employer resources whatsoever - time, equipment, etc. Not even a pencil, legally, though something so minute would be difficult to prove in court.
I love science and engineering, and my friends from high school who went into those fields think I would have been good there. I don't know if they're right, but I'm pretty sure that I've had a better career in law. And much as I love law and lawyers, I suspect that a country that makes law a more rewarding career than science and engineering is likely to wind up with more and better lawyers than it has scientists and engineeers.
UPDATE: Reader Sabrina Chase emails:
I can confirm your suspicion -- more US scientists would be available if they could find work. I have a PhD in experimental physics, did some of the early research on C60 (buckyballs) as a grad student and postdoc, and I could not find a *bad* permanent job, let alone a good one. I don't think my colleagues have exorbitant salary demands (unlike lawyers -- sorry, couldn't resist!) but the positions simply weren't there. My graduate education was partially financed by taxpayers, too, and it irks me that they are not getting much return on their investment. I'm working in the software industry now, which has better hours, better pay, and a much reduced risk of getting irradiated or electrocuted, but I wish I had had the opportunity to keep doing the fundamental research I loved.
ANOTHER UPDATE: Scientist-reader Walker White emails that people are missing the real story, which is more about management than ideology:
I noticed that you posted on the article about our "eroding position in science" and a link to the Slashdot discussion. As a practicing scientist, I thought I would bring your attention to the one feature about that discussion that is not getting any attention right now: the grant situation (indeed, Chris Mooney specifically says he did not consider it important in his book, though it is the topic of most concern to us scientists).
There has been quite a bit of press on the cuts in the NSF after an initial increase in 2002.
However, the real issue has been the change in focus of the NSF under this administration. Not anti-science, but anti-foundational science. In its submissions, the NSF is now requiring that the results of the research have some form of application in the short term. The NSF was supposed to be different from organizational grants, like DOD or NIH, in that it could support foundational research -- the type that will not economically pay off for years or even decades.
There is a strong argument that the unique level of support the U.S. gave to foundational research is what made us such a world-wide leader. For example, engineering research at European universities has historically been funded by businesses. They worked on specific, classified projects and the results were not published or otherwise shared with other researchers. The graduate students had no way of proving their worth to the research community and had a hard time getting academic jobs. The openness of our research community attracted many overseas students here, and the best remained to become faculty; the dearth of funding opportunities with the universities in their home countries made their job prospects limited. With the rise of the EU, Europeans now have in place a central body with a lot of capital that can distribute grant money to encourage quality, publicly-available research. Asia is also now developing similar programs.
As a result, academic positions in other countries are becoming competitive with the U.S. And as other countries increase funding, we are continuing to cut back. I understand small government, but I have worked with business enough to know that -- unless they are doing it for philanthropic reasons -- they will not fund science that does not have immediate or short term applications. Only government or noncompetitive monopolies (like the original Bell labs) have ever funded foundational research (Microsoft's recent competition from Google has forced them to retool their R&D division to make it more short term). And considering your job, you should know tha
"America must act now to preserve its strategic and economic security," the panel's chairman, Norman R. Augustine, retired chairman of Lockheed Martin, said in a statement.
I find it quite unfortunate that this necessary call to action must be phrased in terms of "security" in order to get the attention of our politicians.
To create a corps of 10,000 teachers annually, the report called for four-year scholarships, worth up to $20,000 a year, that would help top students obtain bachelor's degrees in science, engineering or math - with parallel certification as K-12 math and science teachers. After graduation, the students would work for at least five years in public schools.
Hmmm, so we train these scientists and engineers, then subject them to spending five years of perhaps the most scientifically & technically productive time of their lives teaching high school. After five years teaching in our underfunded, hooligan-filled high schools, do we honestly expect these people will jump right back into their fields and pick up where they left off after school? This is especially relavant in research-oriented fields that require expensive lab equipment based on rapidly-advancing technology, stuff they certainly won't have access to in the typical American pre-college schools. Instead, why don't require that they teach high-school after retirement? That way, their students would have the benefit of a lifetime of experience in the discipline, and the scholarship recipients can get right out into their fields and start contributing.
International students in the United States who receive doctorates in science, technology, engineering or math should get automatic one-year visa extensions that allow them to seek employment here. If these students get job offers and pass a security screening test, they should automatically get work permits and expedited residence status. If they cannot get a job, their visas should expire.
A good start, but how about we just offer them full citizenship instead. The ones that can't get a job may still be better 90% of what America's schools produce, and who knows what entrepeneurial accomplishments they bring to the table when forced to do so out of necessity. Why the hell are we being so stingy with our citizenship for accomplished people and so generous with it for random border-crossing illegal aliens. Oh, right, there are more votes with the latter group.
I really don't feel that religion has anything to do with this... Realistically, the reason is the almighty dollar. Everything revolves around it, it always has and always will. In the US $$ speaks more than any religious morals.
Agreed. Religion is perhaps the usual suspect in this case, but not the main perpetrator. I grew up in the bible belt, and my mother is a devout Christian but also a passionate AP Bio teacher who believes, like Einstein, that science helps us know the mind of God. She takes science literally, but not the bible, and there are plenty of sane and rational Christians like her who get a bad rap from the fundies.
The real problem for science in America is funding, as you say. The Iraq war, the deficit, Bush's ridiculous unwillingness to veto any pork bills, the tax cuts, etc., have all created a massive budget crunch, and scientific research is taking a hit in a short-sighted attempt to cut costs. There are soo many stories and anecdotes of grants drying up, grants being tied to purely practical-outcome-based and direct-military-related projects. Perhaps this is facilitated by the fact that Bush, with his combination of born-again religion and distrust of 'book-learnin', misunderestimates the value of scientific research, but I wouldn't know. All I know is, it's a dangerous situation for America to be in, since pretty much everything important depends on it - almost all the technological innovation that has driven our economy for the past 50 years has its roots the scientific research we're now falling short in.
Well that depends on whether Intel makes any unique promises to Apple or not. Monetarily, Intel gets relatively little from Apple, but since Apple is so much sexier than Dell and HP, Intel being chosen by Apple gets them face and good PR, which they sorely need right now, what with AMD ahead of them technologically.
If Intel makes any unique promises to Apple, I doubt it will be for any unique technology, like x GHz or y cores by z date. Intel publishes road maps for that, and I doubt they'd deviate from those just for Apple's sake. Rather, Intel may promise n quantity on m date for o dollars, if anything.
Anyway, hardcore Apple fans and cultists may be bothered by the move to Intel, but the rest of Apple's customer base won't care, I think. The finished product is what matters to most of Apple's buyers, not so much the constituent parts, unless those parts delay or otherwise negatively affect the finished product, or perception of it as IBM's slow GHz ramp up did.
...I'll submit to this the day they hold engineers personally responsible for car breakins and SUV rollovers, business execs for falling stock prices and failed companies (though SOX is doing that to some extent now, albeit at great cost to corporate agility, but no more golden parachutes for Carly and her ilk, damnit!), politicians personally responsible for the negative effects of their many decisions, and anyone else in any similar position of risk and responsibility personally responsible for their mistakes.
I swear, America is becoming a Pussy nation. Everyone wants control, security, no risk, and someone to blame and punish when shit happens, at the cost of squelched creativity, strangled innovation, and scientific and technical stagnation. I try to look on the bright side and think that no place is perfect, and I haven't spent much time in other countries so I don't have a great basis for comparison, but articles like these (and about copyright, drm, ip, etc) sometimes make me feel like I'm living in the last days of the Roman Empire.
Don't worry, there will be a couple of dupes soon with modified takes on the same story. One of those will probably cover this story from your suggested perspective.
Oh hell, this is terrible, now I'll never get any work done! At least with music and podcasts I could work and listen at the same time. But with video, no way! Now my after hours productivity, when I get most of my work done anyway, will be shot to hell! Note to Steve: Oh please oh please don't put last season's Battlestar Galactica and Firefly up on iTMS!
I don't mean to bash Raimi. I loved a lot of his stuff, including Spiderman. But did any of you really think Spiderman's level of CG excellence met the level of Spielberg?
Man, some of you guys are picky about your fx. I thought I was picky, and have been about 3d games for a long time, but I didn't notice much difference between Spiderman and AI's CG. Maybe overall CG technology and talent has exceeded my capability to distinguish between good and bad, or maybe I just don't notice the little things anymore, but can somebody please enlighten me as to what makes good CG and what makes great CG these days? Especially the difference between Spiderman/2 and AI CG?
Consumers will see cool new features -- imagine four live pictures on a screen at once -- instant channel changes
Yeah, I hate having to wait several minutes from when I push the channel change button to when the channel actually changes, as with all current TV's. What a godsend this new innovation will be!
Let's refactor that, if only for the sake of posterity...
1. Invent and write story in blog that the company everybody loves is going to destroy the company everybody loves to hate. People believe it because they want to.
2. Buy stock in the company everybody loves to hate at a discount.
3. Wait 3 days for everybody to realize its just lies and stock to return to normal.
4. Profit!!!
One thing you must remember about, when considering MySQL. It's a relational database, all right, but it doesn't really support SQL.
To be precise, it only partially complies with the relational model, and doesn't really support SQL, which doesn't comply with the relational model either.
So I create a Ning developer beta account and sign in, and happen to scroll the page down to the bottom just to see what's there. Lo and behold, in big orange-brown letters in the Featured Apps section, I see "Got MILF?" as a featured site.
I didn't realize Liv Tyler had a kid. Don't worry, other than the name it appears worksafe.
Slashdot Mirror
What did Iraq have to do with those terrorists?
Nothing directly, but Saddam had a clear history of attempting to obtain/create military nuclear capability, and global nuclear non-proliferation efforts were at the same time clearly beginning to fail, with India and Pakistan going nuclear and North Korea, Iraq, and Iran on the brink. While I'm not exactly for the war, the issue is a bit more complicated than the "there were no terrorists in Iraq" crowd would disingeniously have the public believe, even if Bush disingeniously sold Iraq using the terrorist FUD (though he also sold in on the non-FUD proliferation issue).
Given the money the Iraq invasion cost us, I think it would have been better spent securing the US and our friends and allies instead - improved detection equipment and more personel for borders, ports, airports etc., both ours and foreign ones that service ours, anti-ballistic missile defenses for the West Coast, Hawaii, Guam, Japan, and Taiwan (which North Korea and China can both hit now), global tracking and disruption of terrorist cells, energy policy and research that gets us off Middle Eastern (and Venezuelan) oil as quickly as possible, and whatever else is required that isn't too draconian. I think those would have been much more effective investments for the money, since they address all nuclear threats, not just Iraq, with added bonus that the rest of the world would not harbor so much hatred and suspicion of us, either.
I was a system administrator in the CS department at a large university. We had several students attempt to use the service to get their homework assignments done.
Sounds like they're well on their way to a successful career in management...
If they're doing it on their own time then they have control over it. They should license it to the company.
Unless they're using company equipment, in which case the company can make a strong legal argument that they financially supported the development of the software, and hence the ip belongs to the company.
If you're a developer working for a company and building your own software on the side and you want it to be legally clear that your side work belongs to you and not your employer, you can't use any employer resources whatsoever - time, equipment, etc. Not even a pencil, legally, though something so minute would be difficult to prove in court.
I love science and engineering, and my friends from high school who went into those fields think I would have been good there. I don't know if they're right, but I'm pretty sure that I've had a better career in law. And much as I love law and lawyers, I suspect that a country that makes law a more rewarding career than science and engineering is likely to wind up with more and better lawyers than it has scientists and engineeers.
UPDATE: Reader Sabrina Chase emails:
I can confirm your suspicion -- more US scientists would be available if they could find work. I have a PhD in experimental physics, did some of the early research on C60 (buckyballs) as a grad student and postdoc, and I could not find a *bad* permanent job, let alone a good one. I don't think my colleagues have exorbitant salary demands (unlike lawyers -- sorry, couldn't resist!) but the positions simply weren't there. My graduate education was partially financed by taxpayers, too, and it irks me that they are not getting much return on their investment. I'm working in the software industry now, which has better hours, better pay, and a much reduced risk of getting irradiated or electrocuted, but I wish I had had the opportunity to keep doing the fundamental research I loved.
ANOTHER UPDATE: Scientist-reader Walker White emails that people are missing the real story, which is more about management than ideology:
I noticed that you posted on the article about our "eroding position in science" and a link to the Slashdot discussion. As a practicing scientist, I thought I would bring your attention to the one feature about that discussion that is not getting any attention right now: the grant situation (indeed, Chris Mooney specifically says he did not consider it important in his book, though it is the topic of most concern to us scientists).
There has been quite a bit of press on the cuts in the NSF after an initial increase in 2002.
However, the real issue has been the change in focus of the NSF under this administration. Not anti-science, but anti-foundational science. In its submissions, the NSF is now requiring that the results of the research have some form of application in the short term. The NSF was supposed to be different from organizational grants, like DOD or NIH, in that it could support foundational research -- the type that will not economically pay off for years or even decades.
There is a strong argument that the unique level of support the U.S. gave to foundational research is what made us such a world-wide leader. For example, engineering research at European universities has historically been funded by businesses. They worked on specific, classified projects and the results were not published or otherwise shared with other researchers. The graduate students had no way of proving their worth to the research community and had a hard time getting academic jobs. The openness of our research community attracted many overseas students here, and the best remained to become faculty; the dearth of funding opportunities with the universities in their home countries made their job prospects limited. With the rise of the EU, Europeans now have in place a central body with a lot of capital that can distribute grant money to encourage quality, publicly-available research. Asia is also now developing similar programs.
As a result, academic positions in other countries are becoming competitive with the U.S. And as other countries increase funding, we are continuing to cut back. I understand small government, but I have worked with business enough to know that -- unless they are doing it for philanthropic reasons -- they will not fund science that does not have immediate or short term applications. Only government or noncompetitive monopolies (like the original Bell labs) have ever funded foundational research (Microsoft's recent competition from Google has forced them to retool their R&D division to make it more short term). And considering your job, you should know tha
Unfortunately I'm afraid that wouldn't make much difference...
"America must act now to preserve its strategic and economic security," the panel's chairman, Norman R. Augustine, retired chairman of Lockheed Martin, said in a statement.
I find it quite unfortunate that this necessary call to action must be phrased in terms of "security" in order to get the attention of our politicians.
To create a corps of 10,000 teachers annually, the report called for four-year scholarships, worth up to $20,000 a year, that would help top students obtain bachelor's degrees in science, engineering or math - with parallel certification as K-12 math and science teachers. After graduation, the students would work for at least five years in public schools.
Hmmm, so we train these scientists and engineers, then subject them to spending five years of perhaps the most scientifically & technically productive time of their lives teaching high school. After five years teaching in our underfunded, hooligan-filled high schools, do we honestly expect these people will jump right back into their fields and pick up where they left off after school? This is especially relavant in research-oriented fields that require expensive lab equipment based on rapidly-advancing technology, stuff they certainly won't have access to in the typical American pre-college schools. Instead, why don't require that they teach high-school after retirement? That way, their students would have the benefit of a lifetime of experience in the discipline, and the scholarship recipients can get right out into their fields and start contributing.
International students in the United States who receive doctorates in science, technology, engineering or math should get automatic one-year visa extensions that allow them to seek employment here. If these students get job offers and pass a security screening test, they should automatically get work permits and expedited residence status. If they cannot get a job, their visas should expire.
A good start, but how about we just offer them full citizenship instead. The ones that can't get a job may still be better 90% of what America's schools produce, and who knows what entrepeneurial accomplishments they bring to the table when forced to do so out of necessity. Why the hell are we being so stingy with our citizenship for accomplished people and so generous with it for random border-crossing illegal aliens. Oh, right, there are more votes with the latter group.
I really don't feel that religion has anything to do with this... Realistically, the reason is the almighty dollar. Everything revolves around it, it always has and always will. In the US $$ speaks more than any religious morals.
Agreed. Religion is perhaps the usual suspect in this case, but not the main perpetrator. I grew up in the bible belt, and my mother is a devout Christian but also a passionate AP Bio teacher who believes, like Einstein, that science helps us know the mind of God. She takes science literally, but not the bible, and there are plenty of sane and rational Christians like her who get a bad rap from the fundies.
The real problem for science in America is funding, as you say. The Iraq war, the deficit, Bush's ridiculous unwillingness to veto any pork bills, the tax cuts, etc., have all created a massive budget crunch, and scientific research is taking a hit in a short-sighted attempt to cut costs. There are soo many stories and anecdotes of grants drying up, grants being tied to purely practical-outcome-based and direct-military-related projects. Perhaps this is facilitated by the fact that Bush, with his combination of born-again religion and distrust of 'book-learnin', misunderestimates the value of scientific research, but I wouldn't know. All I know is, it's a dangerous situation for America to be in, since pretty much everything important depends on it - almost all the technological innovation that has driven our economy for the past 50 years has its roots the scientific research we're now falling short in.
I posted this article, and included links to the NY Times report which brought this to my attention, but those links were edited out. Here they are:
NY Times article, login required
Original RSS link, no reg required
We'll see if Intel can deliver on its promises.
Well that depends on whether Intel makes any unique promises to Apple or not. Monetarily, Intel gets relatively little from Apple, but since Apple is so much sexier than Dell and HP, Intel being chosen by Apple gets them face and good PR, which they sorely need right now, what with AMD ahead of them technologically.
If Intel makes any unique promises to Apple, I doubt it will be for any unique technology, like x GHz or y cores by z date. Intel publishes road maps for that, and I doubt they'd deviate from those just for Apple's sake. Rather, Intel may promise n quantity on m date for o dollars, if anything.
Anyway, hardcore Apple fans and cultists may be bothered by the move to Intel, but the rest of Apple's customer base won't care, I think. The finished product is what matters to most of Apple's buyers, not so much the constituent parts, unless those parts delay or otherwise negatively affect the finished product, or perception of it as IBM's slow GHz ramp up did.
And then Apple plays this whole "$50 more" game.
It's called Market Segmentation, and Joel Spolsky wrote a great article on it.
...I'll submit to this the day they hold engineers personally responsible for car breakins and SUV rollovers, business execs for falling stock prices and failed companies (though SOX is doing that to some extent now, albeit at great cost to corporate agility, but no more golden parachutes for Carly and her ilk, damnit!), politicians personally responsible for the negative effects of their many decisions, and anyone else in any similar position of risk and responsibility personally responsible for their mistakes.
I swear, America is becoming a Pussy nation. Everyone wants control, security, no risk, and someone to blame and punish when shit happens, at the cost of squelched creativity, strangled innovation, and scientific and technical stagnation. I try to look on the bright side and think that no place is perfect, and I haven't spent much time in other countries so I don't have a great basis for comparison, but articles like these (and about copyright, drm, ip, etc) sometimes make me feel like I'm living in the last days of the Roman Empire.
Yes, I noticed too and wandered if Apple was uncharacteristically drifting away from their roots.
Don't worry, there will be a couple of dupes soon with modified takes on the same story. One of those will probably cover this story from your suggested perspective.
Oh hell, this is terrible, now I'll never get any work done! At least with music and podcasts I could work and listen at the same time. But with video, no way! Now my after hours productivity, when I get most of my work done anyway, will be shot to hell! Note to Steve: Oh please oh please don't put last season's Battlestar Galactica and Firefly up on iTMS!
Wonder why the reverted to the hard/sharp edges of the original iPod? I like the roundcube version better...
I don't mean to bash Raimi. I loved a lot of his stuff, including Spiderman. But did any of you really think Spiderman's level of CG excellence met the level of Spielberg?
Man, some of you guys are picky about your fx. I thought I was picky, and have been about 3d games for a long time, but I didn't notice much difference between Spiderman and AI's CG. Maybe overall CG technology and talent has exceeded my capability to distinguish between good and bad, or maybe I just don't notice the little things anymore, but can somebody please enlighten me as to what makes good CG and what makes great CG these days? Especially the difference between Spiderman/2 and AI CG?
Consumers will see cool new features -- imagine four live pictures on a screen at once -- instant channel changes
Yeah, I hate having to wait several minutes from when I push the channel change button to when the channel actually changes, as with all current TV's. What a godsend this new innovation will be!
In Soviet Amerika, cars drive you!
Here's another good series of articles on going independent:= 12&d=10
http://angrycoder.com/article.aspx?cid=6&y=2003&m
You my friend must leave Slashdot right this minute! We won't have your logic or reasoning getting in our way.
Or reading the article! Away with you!
Let's refactor that, if only for the sake of posterity...
1. Invent and write story in blog that the company everybody loves is going to destroy the company everybody loves to hate. People believe it because they want to.
2. Buy stock in the company everybody loves to hate at a discount.
3. Wait 3 days for everybody to realize its just lies and stock to return to normal.
4. Profit!!!
Wow, no ??? needed. What a breakthrough!
Sometimes freedom is more important than money..
Amusing that you say this in relation to Cuba, a country which has neither freedom nor money.
One thing you must remember about, when considering MySQL. It's a relational database, all right, but it doesn't really support SQL.
To be precise, it only partially complies with the relational model, and doesn't really support SQL, which doesn't comply with the relational model either.
So I create a Ning developer beta account and sign in, and happen to scroll the page down to the bottom just to see what's there. Lo and behold, in big orange-brown letters in the Featured Apps section, I see "Got MILF?" as a featured site.
I didn't realize Liv Tyler had a kid. Don't worry, other than the name it appears worksafe.
Specs are rarely useful breasts up-front.
What a beastly Freudian slip!