According to the Senior Review summary, the budget for Arecibo is $12 million per year. Some of this goes to hardware maintenance, but most goes to employing the 155 people who keep the place running.
The problem with depending on small donations, I would imagine, is that long-range planning for such a large facility requires some kind of commitment that the source of funding will be stable year after year. In other words, there must be institutional support for the lion's share of the budget.
Science under the Bush adminstration is troubling indeed. Recently we've heard talk of reallocating the bulk of NASA's budget toward going to Mars. This is both half-hearted and doomed to failure since most people realize that hundreds of billions of dollars will be required.
Suggesting modest budgetary increases for the program, plus sucking essentially all of NASA's space science money into a manned Mars mission is asinine. Killing off space science will result in much, much more harm to astronomical progress than will be offset by going to Mars.
We also see the imminent demise of HST. I know the timing is apparently just coincidental, but some speculate that killing off the Shuttle program now has a lot to do with the potential budget pressures imposed by the Mars travel.
I don't mean to disparage the idea of manned travel to Mars. I think it would be as nifty as the next person, and the advances required will no doubt produce ancillary technological benefits that will benefit everyone. However, the current leaning seems to be toward severely damaging existing and planned space astronomy to get there. Not good.
I would think that the success of this would depend on our knowledge of the density of the Martian atmosphere. Do we know much about this? Since the pressure will decline with increased altitude, I guess even imperfect knowledge of the absolute pressure could still result in a successful mission, as the balloon would just sink or rise to an altitude of equilibrium. If so, then the balloon could end up with a different field of view than designed. Anyone out there with better knowledge of such atmospheric issues?
The Atkins diet is really very convenient for hackers. All you have to do is order your standard pepperoni pizza, and then throw away everything below the pepperoni.
Labview is indeed very nice. Once you get used to the graphical programming, you can work very quickly. Interfacing with hardware usually goes quickly and smoothly - especially if you buy National Instruments hardware; of course Labview is set up to interface with NI hardware with minimal pain. And it runs on several OS's, I think. Certainly it runs in Linux.
However, if part of the motivation is moving to free or cheap software alternatives, Labview is not the
answer. NI charges one metric shitload for their products. But... for people running and working in a research lab, time is extremely valuable - perhaps moreso than money. You'll probably make up for the money cost of Labview with the time saved easily interfacing software/hardware. Time saved = salary saved, after all...
From the report: Prior to 1971, fewer than 1% of the Canadian population reported having no religion. In 2001, that percentage increased to 16% of the population.
I'd be more interested to hear how many people are swimming with the fishes in the Hudson River. I'm sure the NY mafia have fitted many people with concrete galoshes over the years. Maybe the'll find Jimmy Hoffa...
Science has advanced enough that everyone has to specialize. Big time. In astronomy, at least, when you're working on one particular specialty area, the community of people who are working on the same stuff becomes relatively small (at least in some fields), so it makes sense that the same people would be referenced repeatedly. Also, as a researcher, you often are following a thread of research for many years, trying to understand some phenomenon. You are constantly building on your own past work, and so it is necessary and correct to refer to your past work, so that someone who is just now 'tuning in' will know where to go to get the necessary background.
That being said, I'm sure there are people who abuse the citation system just to get their citation count up. I don't know why. I guess for some people, it's just a pissing contest...
Ideally the point both in science and in academics in general is to understand the ideas.
True, and most scientists go into the profession with this in mind. I think that most hold to this ideal as much as they can throughout their careers, but they also have to face the reality that their job security (achieving tenure, for an academic) and funding are based in part on their publication count. That's counter to the ideal situation. We'd all like to think of scientists locked away in their labs, very nobly trying to understand the world and explain it to their fellow citizens. Scientists would like to think that what they do is that romantic, too. But then they forge through grad school, get a post-doc somewhere, and realize that they damn well better publish a bunch of papers, or their career is going nowhere. Then maybe they get lucky and find a tenure-track job somewhere, and suddenly they have a teaching load to worry about, plus ever-increasing committee work within their department and university, plus smaller, but still significant tasks, like refereeing their peers' papers. It's a lot of work. More hours of work in a week than the majority of the working force has to put in. Research gets squeezed thinner and thinner, and your time becomes more precious. Yet you're still expected to remain productive and publish a bunch. So the romantic ideal of the lone scientist exploring the mysteries of the universe with a complete focus only on the nobility of the pursuit of knowledge for the sake of knowledge is a little far-fetched.
This, of course, does not justify in any way the falsification of work (which, I think, is extremely uncommon - it's just that we've recently heard about a particularly egregious case of this), nor does it justify propagating misinformation as a result of improper literature citation. I'm just pointing out that the ideal mentioned by the submitter is just that - an ideal.
Slashdot Mirror
The problem with depending on small donations, I would imagine, is that long-range planning for such a large facility requires some kind of commitment that the source of funding will be stable year after year. In other words, there must be institutional support for the lion's share of the budget.
After reading that blow by blow summary, I worry that many Research in Motion employees will have to say goodbye to their RIM jobs.
Not so ironic. I've been known to make an off-color joke from time to time... hence the nickname.
Uh... where can I get tickets?
Maybe he's the only survivor because they all smoked!
To let the general public get the full Doom experience, they should push the release date back like 5 or 6 times and eventually put it out in 2009.
I like gadgets as much as the next geek, but isn't this a little absurd? Grocery shopping is not that difficult, people.
Several orders of shitload = a "Fuck-ton"
How about the "We're Smarter Than You, so Listen to Our Advice, Dumbass" club.
We also see the imminent demise of HST. I know the timing is apparently just coincidental, but some speculate that killing off the Shuttle program now has a lot to do with the potential budget pressures imposed by the Mars travel.
I don't mean to disparage the idea of manned travel to Mars. I think it would be as nifty as the next person, and the advances required will no doubt produce ancillary technological benefits that will benefit everyone. However, the current leaning seems to be toward severely damaging existing and planned space astronomy to get there. Not good.
As long as it isn't scsi, I guess it would be ok.
I would think that the success of this would depend on our knowledge of the density of the Martian atmosphere. Do we know much about this? Since the pressure will decline with increased altitude, I guess even imperfect knowledge of the absolute pressure could still result in a successful mission, as the balloon would just sink or rise to an altitude of equilibrium. If so, then the balloon could end up with a different field of view than designed. Anyone out there with better knowledge of such atmospheric issues?
A: Because it feels so good when I stop!
Sure. Send us your coordinates and we'll "drop it off". I hope the tree isn't too close to your house, though...
You say that now, but wait until SCO claims prior art on anal probing.
Oh wait... nevermind.
Black Pavement of Death
The Atkins diet is really very convenient for hackers. All you have to do is order your standard pepperoni pizza, and then throw away everything below the pepperoni.
SIRTF will be in an Earth-trailing heliocentric orbit.
However, if part of the motivation is moving to free or cheap software alternatives, Labview is not the answer. NI charges one metric shitload for their products. But... for people running and working in a research lab, time is extremely valuable - perhaps moreso than money. You'll probably make up for the money cost of Labview with the time saved easily interfacing software/hardware. Time saved = salary saved, after all...
I find their lack of faith disturbing.
[ducks]
I'd be more interested to hear how many people are swimming with the fishes in the Hudson River. I'm sure the NY mafia have fitted many people with concrete galoshes over the years. Maybe the'll find Jimmy Hoffa...
That being said, I'm sure there are people who abuse the citation system just to get their citation count up. I don't know why. I guess for some people, it's just a pissing contest...
- Ideally the point both in science and in academics in general is to understand the ideas.
True, and most scientists go into the profession with this in mind. I think that most hold to this ideal as much as they can throughout their careers, but they also have to face the reality that their job security (achieving tenure, for an academic) and funding are based in part on their publication count. That's counter to the ideal situation. We'd all like to think of scientists locked away in their labs, very nobly trying to understand the world and explain it to their fellow citizens. Scientists would like to think that what they do is that romantic, too. But then they forge through grad school, get a post-doc somewhere, and realize that they damn well better publish a bunch of papers, or their career is going nowhere. Then maybe they get lucky and find a tenure-track job somewhere, and suddenly they have a teaching load to worry about, plus ever-increasing committee work within their department and university, plus smaller, but still significant tasks, like refereeing their peers' papers. It's a lot of work. More hours of work in a week than the majority of the working force has to put in. Research gets squeezed thinner and thinner, and your time becomes more precious. Yet you're still expected to remain productive and publish a bunch. So the romantic ideal of the lone scientist exploring the mysteries of the universe with a complete focus only on the nobility of the pursuit of knowledge for the sake of knowledge is a little far-fetched.This, of course, does not justify in any way the falsification of work (which, I think, is extremely uncommon - it's just that we've recently heard about a particularly egregious case of this), nor does it justify propagating misinformation as a result of improper literature citation. I'm just pointing out that the ideal mentioned by the submitter is just that - an ideal.
Thanks, man. That's the hardest laugh I've had reading /. since "Young Korean needs food... badly."