This should be great news for the computer simulation guys with their ozone hole models. At least fun for a year or so. "What do you mean two holes ! None of our turbulence models predict that"... Several thousand academic journal papers later, many scientific conference presentations and enough new research money to fill up both ozone layer holes we find... "it was an amoeba"
.... before all the descent artist will go independent and publish strictly for the web. Many appear to going this path right now according to the articles that Janis Ian has been writing. I know the argument is that you gotta eat but the artists that appear to becoming caught up in the RIAA mafia can for all practical purposes be placed in the category of artistic prostitutes and the unwilling ones getting dragged along are just being prostituted. The whole industry is starting to stink to high heaven...
It could be mixed heterogenously to form a mechanical mixture with another metal. This would lower the effective thermal expansion of the mixture; however, these type of systems tend to degrade the mechanical properties. If the material were alloyed the crystal structure of the tunstate phase would be altered and the anomolous volumetric expansion would probably be lost.
Short on properties and confusing in application. Since the stuff is called Ziconium Tunstate then by definition it is an oxide and thereform must be processed by ceramic processing techniques. For example pressing, extruding, slip casting and finally sintering. I doubt that wires are something that is viable for this stuff. Microelectronic packaging is very likely since ceramics play a big role there. However much would depend on the dielectric properties of the material. Since it is a tungstate compound it most likely has a crystalline structure which has a fairly high defect density giving rise to some electronic conductivity.
I'm not quite clear on the reference to fiber optics. Where would the stuff go. It certainly would not make a good optical propagation medium since it is not isotropic and would have to be processed as a polycrystalline materail. There was a cryptic reference to gratings with no details so I guess there is the application but it escaped me.
If you are committed to going to college but you want to take a year off from schooling before starting then that is what is best for you. Don't worry about forgetting any thing you learned in high school: you won't forget what you need and you won't need much of what you learned. I teach at the college level and this is my best advice to you. College is pretty much like starting all over again and learning it the right way.
It is better to take the year off before you start than after you start also. Once you start that begins a new thread. My only caution to you is that if you do take a year off, use it to have some fun. Travel, make friends and use your freedom. Don't start working during this time if you can help it. Many times it is harder to quit a job to go back to school once you get lured into making some money.
Ceramic materials with negative axial CTEs have been played around with for a while. The effect that is observed with most of these so-called negative or zero CTE materials is a phenomenon known as microcracking where the material actually has a positive volumetric coefficient of expansion but the long axis contracts while the minor crystalline axis expands. The expansion of the minor axis however occurs into a void space resulting in no effective expansion.
Zirconium Tungstate on the other hand has an intrinsic anomalous negative volumetric CTE which occurs over the temperature range from just above 0 K to 1050 K.
This stuff is probably pretty boring to the average slashdot geek as evidenced by the absolute mighty tempest of comments generated here but if you are interested check out http://www.isis.rl.ac.uk/ISIS97/feature1.pdf
It's all about keeping engineering education balanced. I don't see course work in the traditional calculus sequence and calculus-based physics going away but what I do see is a shift in emphasis of major courses at the university level. There is far less time alloted to traditional laboratory work and more 1 and 2 credit courses offered in such a wide variety of specialty fields. Electrical Engineering curricula are currently undergoing a lot of growing pains trying to keep up with the diversity and rapid evolution of specialties which fall under that discipline.
As far a computer-aided engineering and mathematics is concerned the emphasis should always be placed first on pencil and paper. You may not every solve enterprise or grand challenge level problems this way but you sure won't have a chance if you haven't thourghly understood the fundementals of solving the smaller problems first.
Notice that no physicists that still have a pulse made that list. It is easier to recognize genius hundreds of years later. It is much harder to distinguish it now. I believe the reason for this is that there are fewer novel was to approach a scientific problem today.
I recall in grad school in the mid-80s sitting in the library pouring over scientific journal volumes from the 50s 60s and even 70s. The science seemed more elegant and relevant back then. Today scientific focus is so narrow but scientific production in terms of publication is greater than ever before.
There are a lot of papers being published on irrelevant minutia that are filling the library shelves. Current scientific research may be technically correct but that just doesn't make it good science.
The error in this kind of thinking is that certification says nothing about whether a person knows how to think. A degree doesn't guarantee this either but it comes closer if the person has obtained a degree from a reputable institution in a engineering or science field. A college education is not about specific systems that you may learn about. It is more about learning fundamental concepts which you can apply to problems which require you to use synthetic knowledge.
How does a vendor checking your machine remotely, finding unlicensed content and deleting said content fit into current laws governing search and seizure practices ?
Just curious ?
I think that the University is really being honest about wanting to evaluate the language more to see if it really will meet their curriculum needs. All comparisons being made right now can pretty much be put into the category of religious wars between C#, Java, C++ and whatever else. Regardless of whether it is better or not, Java has been around for a while and has been written about, analyzed and put through the paces over and over again. C# hasn't to the same extent. There isn't the same body of experiential knowledge out there to definitivly comment on the advantages and disadvantages yet. C# may very well be a better choice for what they want to do, but taking time to look a little closer and gather more data is certainly a prudent decision.
These already exist for the commercial market. They may not be third generation secure telephone units like the feds use (STU III) but they do use a government standard. Take a look at the link: http://www.securitymanagement.com/library/001273.h tml and scroll down a few items
The thing you have to remember is that even though a new gadget just hits the shelves, the technology inside is already pretty much obsolete. By the time all the manufacturing and marketing chores are complete new and better technology is being refined in the lab.
This is really somewhat understating the point. Several generations of product improvements are in the works typically before the latest gadget hits the market. This is reason for the pattern of precipitous prices drops a few months after a new toy is introduced (in addition to making money off of all the suckers that just have to have something as soon as it gets into the stores).
I used Archie routinely back in the early 90's. It was actually quite useful and the pedigree of what you found on the net was usually a little better. A rush of nostalgia: sometimes command line and plain old ASCII enabled UIs had a real appeal. There was a little more mystery involved and nothing to distract the mind other that exactly what you were going after.
Understanding Physics by Issac Asimov:It may be too much for the lay person if you already have some background in physics but the writing is incredibly lucid.
I joined NASA in 1987. There was a push to hire young engineers and scientist in the mid to late 80s. In 1989 a hiring freeze was invoked that remained for some number of years. I was there for 12 years and the only young people that were hired were hired through what was called "creative staffing" through support service contractor companies. The age distribution at my duty station was very bi-modal (a lot in the 25-35 range and a lot in the 55-65 range). I still have friends that are waiting for civil service slots to open however each NASA center only hires a handful of civil servents each year.
It's the nature of doing business in the Federal government when that kind of technology is not where the focus is. It's a pretty bleak picture.
It's really not myopic planning. It is planning within too many budgetary constraints. After the Apollo program America's focus on space exploration was greatly diminished. There were no more grand goals and manned space exploration was confined to earth orbit. NASA had a huge reduction in force(RIF) in the mid 70's. My former boss described it as a very dismal and depressing time from which the agency has never really recovered.
NASA falls under the classification of "independent agency" within the Federal government. The budget is hooked up with other agencies such as the Vetran's Administration if that tell you anything about how things are considered.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm not quite clear on the reference to fiber optics. Where would the stuff go. It certainly would not make a good optical propagation medium since it is not isotropic and would have to be processed as a polycrystalline materail. There was a cryptic reference to gratings with no details so I guess there is the application but it escaped me.
It is better to take the year off before you start than after you start also. Once you start that begins a new thread. My only caution to you is that if you do take a year off, use it to have some fun. Travel, make friends and use your freedom. Don't start working during this time if you can help it. Many times it is harder to quit a job to go back to school once you get lured into making some money.
Zirconium Tungstate on the other hand has an intrinsic anomalous negative volumetric CTE which occurs over the temperature range from just above 0 K to 1050 K.
This stuff is probably pretty boring to the average slashdot geek as evidenced by the absolute mighty tempest of comments generated here but if you are interested check out http://www.isis.rl.ac.uk/ISIS97/feature1.pdf
As far a computer-aided engineering and mathematics is concerned the emphasis should always be placed first on pencil and paper. You may not every solve enterprise or grand challenge level problems this way but you sure won't have a chance if you haven't thourghly understood the fundementals of solving the smaller problems first.
I recall in grad school in the mid-80s sitting in the library pouring over scientific journal volumes from the 50s 60s and even 70s. The science seemed more elegant and relevant back then. Today scientific focus is so narrow but scientific production in terms of publication is greater than ever before.
There are a lot of papers being published on irrelevant minutia that are filling the library shelves. Current scientific research may be technically correct but that just doesn't make it good science.
Here's the reference to the Genius Award:
http://www.stephenwolfram.com/about-sw/interviews/ 81-nyt/
Have a closer look Toby. The definition I selected is right there in dictionary.com also
illegal:
-contrary to or in violation of human law, hence immoral
immoral:
-violating principles of right and wrong
Source: American Heritage Dictionary
Even in the legal sense copyright infringement is treated as a form of theft when the party is subject of criminal prosecution:
http://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap5.html#506
http://www.techlawjournal.com/cong106/copyright/De fault.htm
This is really somewhat understating the point. Several generations of product improvements are in the works typically before the latest gadget hits the market. This is reason for the pattern of precipitous prices drops a few months after a new toy is introduced (in addition to making money off of all the suckers that just have to have something as soon as it gets into the stores).
Understanding Physics by Issac Asimov:It may be too much for the lay person if you already have some background in physics but the writing is incredibly lucid.
It's the nature of doing business in the Federal government when that kind of technology is not where the focus is. It's a pretty bleak picture.
NASA falls under the classification of "independent agency" within the Federal government. The budget is hooked up with other agencies such as the Vetran's Administration if that tell you anything about how things are considered.