I'm presuming you're not referring to the Democrats' stand on R&D per se (of which I'm blissfully ignorant of, btw), but instead are asking whether politics affects science, and if so, how much.
The short answer:- not as much as you think, as a matter of fact.
While I have no first-hand idea of how things work in the US, let me give you an Indian example of science-policy continuity (guessing from your nick that you are Indian, of course):- India's nuclear effort.
Broadly speaking, I understand the events before the blasts went along these lines:- as soon as it was apparent that the BJP would assume power in the aftermath of the 1996 elections, the then PM, PV Narasimha Rao, apparently sent a note to Vajpayee simply saying "Talk to Dr Kalam. He will tell you about it", or something to that effect. He was, of course, referring to India's botched attempt at conducting a nuclear test in 1995, about which the American spooks, apparently, found out (through their spy satellites) and promptly leaked to the Washington Post to put pressure on the Government, and stop it from proceeding. Which it did in the next three days actually; the Ministry of External Affairs (if I remember correctly) promptly issued a denial and the matter was "explained" as a wild-eyed conspiracy theory.
The then BJP cabinet met and apparently did talk to Dr APJ Abdul Kalam (who was then the then Scientific Advisor to the Cabinet) and found out that the nuke fraternity needed a 15 day notice to conduct a comprehensive nuclear test, preferably a thermonuclear thing (or whatever the test for the Hydrogen Bomb is).
As fate would have it, the government collapsed in 13 days, and the new United Front government had too many coalition partners and too little consensus to show leadership on such issues (remember, nuke blasts need vision in foreign policy terms as well)
The rest of the tale should be pretty obvious to Indian observers by now of course; the United Front government fell, the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) led by the BJP vaulted back to power, and presto, one of the first directives by the new government was to actually conduct the tests. Not that they thought over it thoroughly of course; most dis-interested observers agree that the foreign policy response was astoundingly poor (while the actual technical, and moreso, operational, details were brilliant:- the Indian Army actually studied sand dune patterns around the blast site, and "simulated" artificial dunes to hoodwink American spy satellites into complacency)
Three points to note in this narrative:-
a) The actual nuclear policy was actually a core Congress initiative; remember, the initial enthusiasm and support came from Ms Indira Gandhi, one of the last "real" leaders of the (now opposition) Congress party. Despite his government's support of economic liberalisation and free market reforms, Mr PV Narasimha Rao was, all said and done, belonged to the Indira Gandhi School of Thought. It is, therefore, very interesting to note how he collaborated with Mr Vajpayee, his core enemy in a sense (and certainly, the core ideologies of their respective parties are poles apart), to give continuity to the nuclear effort.
b) Despite the obvious patriotic spin, India's nuclear policy was actually almost a failure in systemic terms, mainly because there was no continuity between 1974 (or whenever Pokharan I took place) and 1998 (when Pokharan II took place). Political support waxed and waned throughout the period, often in contradicting terms.
c) We're a nuclear power now despite all that (which is not to wave flags in support of nuclearisation, but merely to assert the fact that we have da bomb).
That is to say, while politics did, or does, play a part in science, scientists have, over the years, gotten around it even in over-politicised nations such as India, occassionally by convincing some politically-significant individuals from all parts of the political spectrum. I don't know if it's applicable to the US as well,
Trust me, you have an infinite oppurtunity to experience the world as a student if a) you look out for oppurtunities, b) you're willing to work and c) not lament on crazy things such as working (on paper submissions for example) on weekends, ie, set your own performance metrics and achieve them.
Don't be disheartened by all this talk of economic downturns; not that difficult to travel around the world EVEN NOW without burning holes in your pocket.
(Saying this as someone who got paid to represent my university in an East Asian country)
More than that really. You want to google up for "scale-free networks" and, perhaps, "Axelrod's Model of Social Influence"; the term 'social network' is actually in scientific papers these days.
a) Existing Law:
sg's CMA (Computer Misuse Act) was already draconian before this Amendment, when compared to its American counterpart (sorry, forgot the name of the law; I'm sure an American lawyer/lawyer-wannabe can cite the right reference here). For a similar type of offence, the maximum penalty prescribed under American law was 1 year, while under the CMA, it was 10 years (and some S$10,000 or so in fines).
Moreover, it was a classic example of what you Americans apparently call as a "catch-all" law; it was written in so general terms that just about any and every computer crime could be prosecuted under that. For instance, one Singaporean legal expert I was speaking to a few weeks back suggested that the Government could easily have prosecuted spammers under the old law (the article doesn't mention it, but I understand that the new one has now specifically banned spamming)
The general opinion, then, among academia and policy makers in sg is that the CMA has been a resounding success; they keep pointing out to the fact that incidents of computer crime are remarkably low in sg compared to neighbouring countries (In particular, most people compare it with the high cybercrime rate in Phillipines, which only has a law on e-commerce, not cybercrime in general)
This, however, misses the fact that Singaporean policy-makers have long had issues in promoting creativity and innovation among the local populace; one of the reasons that's usually pointed out is sg's highly regulated environment. Which, of course, is to not say that cybercrime should be legalised, but instead to suggest that, perhaps, a repressive legal regime stifles creativity; I, for one, really think a 10 year jail term for cracking is a bit too much, and does not promote the sort of freedom that creativity apparently needs.
(I'm refraining from commenting on the current Amendment 'coz I haven't gone through it)
b)Geo-politics:
I guess some of you Americans must be feeling scared and all that, and no doubt, there will be reactions from EU-ians (to use K5-lingo) and.au-ians lampooning your current administration, but let's face facts, people:- respect for citizens' privacy and liberties is at an all time low in just about any country these days.
Yup, that's right; you'll be just kidding yourself if you believe that just because your country has law X, you're free from being snooped upon.
The current theme, apparently, is informal agreements between governmental agencies; so if, say, the CIA can't legally snoop on a suspicious American citizen, it will send an informal request to, say, MI-5 (or whatever the Brit Secret Service is) and ask them to snoop on the said citizen. The Brits will do so vice-versa, and so far, the requests have been honoured by whatever countries are in the loop. And trust me, you'll be amazed if you see the list of countries with such informal agreements; there are some hitherto un-obvious names out there.
All this, of course, is what I've been gathering in seminars on cybercrime for the last few weeks, and obviously, I can cite these up with actual examples if anyone is interested.
Which, of course, doesn't mean that Big Brother is out to get you or anything, and frankly, I really detest the way in which Slippery Slope arguments are tossed here on/.; my real point is that borders are less sacred these days than they used to be, even among law enforcement agencies.
Or in other words, it's plain stupid to think that these draconian laws don't affect you; they do, and for all you know, sg's law enforcement is informally helping your own country's law enforcement as a result of this.
(Okay, that was extra-ordinarily incoherent, but need some serious sleep asap. Which is also the reason why I could be wrong in a few details, and why I haven't given any links; willing to be corrected/challenged on this)
I seem to be posting this on/. each time there's a story on.sg; guess you guys never tire of telling this over and over again, so allow me to karma-whore a bit and explain why this perception is wrong.
You see, chewing gum per se is not illegal, but the sale of chewing gum is. That's an important distinction; it means you can, for instance, legally import how much ever chewing gum you want into the island, only that you can't sell it. Been like that eversince chewing gum was legislated, mostly as a way of preventing adolescents from sticking left-over gum between the sliding doors of Singapore's ultra-efficient metro system, the MRT (and hence jamming them, causing systemwide disruptions).
Btw, even that fig-leaf is now mostly gone. The recent Singapore US Free Trade Agreement stipulates legal sales of chewing gum that can be used for "medicinal" purposes through registered/licenced apothecaries. So don't be surprised if you see chewing gum (although perhaps not bubble gum, if you get what I mean) being sold in a pharmacy on Orchard Road or something.
(The locals that I know call this the "Wrigley Amendment" for some reason. Wonder why, hmmm.)
It's called the village idiot phenomenon. When you read circletimessquare on/., it's like listening to your, otherwise friendly, village idiot in Big City. Somehow, the scenery doesn't match.
What I meant to say was, if you were to, say, pronounce the name of polytechnic in Singapore, Ng Ann Poly, you'll say something close to "ggg Ann" with a slight nasal inflection in the beginning. Hong Kongers would probably say it as "mmm Ann".
Really wish I were able to record this in a WAV file or something.:-)
Precisely. Not much of a use of you're already into Googling with Opera/Mozilla; a muuuuch better googling experience than the deskbar, methinks.
That said, the DeskBar is a pretty nifty tool if you want to use the Google calculator, or the define: tool or any of those funky, non-traditional search stuff.
Good point. I don't recall reading about Symbian on the opensource.org webpage; quite possible that their licence doesn't match the standards of the Open Source Definition.
Need to rush now, but can anyone look up the the Symbian License? Should be interesting to see if it really is Open (tm) or not.
I was down in Europe this summer attending an industry conference. The impression most people down there seem to be having was that Nokia went the OSS route only to avoid accusations of being monopolistic like MS (while being Free Principles (tm)-agnostic, that is).
This will be a good time to test that hypothesis out.
You seem to be, quite well I must say, arguing for freedom from tyrants who are other people (or people-like beings), while the guy seems to be arguing against the tyranny of the machines (more precisely, the tyranny of the act of controlling machines). Which is not to say you are wrong in your summary, of course; just that we're talking sliiiiightly different things.
Which is exactly what I find this surprising here, since I always thought The Matrix was all about this. The author, it seems, is to be unable to understand the concept of abstraction; to become a truly powerful (not necessarily great) programmer, you don't need to figure out how your program works in details, just as, to make a satisfying omelette, you really don't have to know the chemistry behind an egg. Fact of life, people, abstraction strikes at the root of all civilisation, although you're right, to maintain or extend civilisation as we know, we need other tools such as logic.
His other general point, however, is well-taken; programming is, to be sure, fast becoming critical for career in any scientific discipline, but for reasons other than those he mentioned. Among other things, agent-based modelling (pun wholly intended) is the Shiny New Paradigm (tm) these days in social sciences, and obviously, you need programming for swarm intelligence and all that.
But no, you don't -- shouldn't -- need to be able to program your CMOS for that.
Somehow, clarifying the relation between doodh (== milk) and patti (== tea leaves) ("mein" == inside) gives you a nice, complete feeling!:-)
Now, Quetta tea... never tried it before, but I'm guessing it's a cross between doodh mein patti and Irani chai (given the geographic location; DmP is Punjabi, AFAIK); which is fantastic since I'm a fan of both!
Heard about this Redmond, WA based software company called 'Microsoft'? Heard it's been doing well lately, which is why I'm mentioning it here.
You see, among its many different offerings, it sells (yes, you read that right, sells) this thing called Services for UNIX for US$99. For US$20 more, you can order the source code for the program as well.
They decided to improve upon an existing GPL-ed product (with wide acclaim incidentally), and yet are making money out of selling it. A novel concept, don't ya think?
May be I'm the wrong demographic here, but I actually found yours funnier than these dog jokes. I mean, didn't quite get it why there should be jokes on dogs...
Slashdot Mirror
The short answer:- not as much as you think, as a matter of fact.
While I have no first-hand idea of how things work in the US, let me give you an Indian example of science-policy continuity (guessing from your nick that you are Indian, of course):- India's nuclear effort.
Broadly speaking, I understand the events before the blasts went along these lines:- as soon as it was apparent that the BJP would assume power in the aftermath of the 1996 elections, the then PM, PV Narasimha Rao, apparently sent a note to Vajpayee simply saying "Talk to Dr Kalam. He will tell you about it", or something to that effect. He was, of course, referring to India's botched attempt at conducting a nuclear test in 1995, about which the American spooks, apparently, found out (through their spy satellites) and promptly leaked to the Washington Post to put pressure on the Government, and stop it from proceeding. Which it did in the next three days actually; the Ministry of External Affairs (if I remember correctly) promptly issued a denial and the matter was "explained" as a wild-eyed conspiracy theory.
The then BJP cabinet met and apparently did talk to Dr APJ Abdul Kalam (who was then the then Scientific Advisor to the Cabinet) and found out that the nuke fraternity needed a 15 day notice to conduct a comprehensive nuclear test, preferably a thermonuclear thing (or whatever the test for the Hydrogen Bomb is).
As fate would have it, the government collapsed in 13 days, and the new United Front government had too many coalition partners and too little consensus to show leadership on such issues (remember, nuke blasts need vision in foreign policy terms as well)
The rest of the tale should be pretty obvious to Indian observers by now of course; the United Front government fell, the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) led by the BJP vaulted back to power, and presto, one of the first directives by the new government was to actually conduct the tests. Not that they thought over it thoroughly of course; most dis-interested observers agree that the foreign policy response was astoundingly poor (while the actual technical, and moreso, operational, details were brilliant:- the Indian Army actually studied sand dune patterns around the blast site, and "simulated" artificial dunes to hoodwink American spy satellites into complacency)
Three points to note in this narrative:-
a) The actual nuclear policy was actually a core Congress initiative; remember, the initial enthusiasm and support came from Ms Indira Gandhi, one of the last "real" leaders of the (now opposition) Congress party. Despite his government's support of economic liberalisation and free market reforms, Mr PV Narasimha Rao was, all said and done, belonged to the Indira Gandhi School of Thought. It is, therefore, very interesting to note how he collaborated with Mr Vajpayee, his core enemy in a sense (and certainly, the core ideologies of their respective parties are poles apart), to give continuity to the nuclear effort.
b) Despite the obvious patriotic spin, India's nuclear policy was actually almost a failure in systemic terms, mainly because there was no continuity between 1974 (or whenever Pokharan I took place) and 1998 (when Pokharan II took place). Political support waxed and waned throughout the period, often in contradicting terms.
c) We're a nuclear power now despite all that (which is not to wave flags in support of nuclearisation, but merely to assert the fact that we have da bomb).
That is to say, while politics did, or does, play a part in science, scientists have, over the years, gotten around it even in over-politicised nations such as India, occassionally by convincing some politically-significant individuals from all parts of the political spectrum. I don't know if it's applicable to the US as well,
Trust me, you have an infinite oppurtunity to experience the world as a student if a) you look out for oppurtunities, b) you're willing to work and c) not lament on crazy things such as working (on paper submissions for example) on weekends, ie, set your own performance metrics and achieve them.
Don't be disheartened by all this talk of economic downturns; not that difficult to travel around the world EVEN NOW without burning holes in your pocket.
(Saying this as someone who got paid to represent my university in an East Asian country)
More than that really. You want to google up for "scale-free networks" and, perhaps, "Axelrod's Model of Social Influence"; the term 'social network' is actually in scientific papers these days.
a) Existing Law:
sg's CMA (Computer Misuse Act) was already draconian before this Amendment, when compared to its American counterpart (sorry, forgot the name of the law; I'm sure an American lawyer/lawyer-wannabe can cite the right reference here). For a similar type of offence, the maximum penalty prescribed under American law was 1 year, while under the CMA, it was 10 years (and some S$10,000 or so in fines).
Moreover, it was a classic example of what you Americans apparently call as a "catch-all" law; it was written in so general terms that just about any and every computer crime could be prosecuted under that. For instance, one Singaporean legal expert I was speaking to a few weeks back suggested that the Government could easily have prosecuted spammers under the old law (the article doesn't mention it, but I understand that the new one has now specifically banned spamming)
The general opinion, then, among academia and policy makers in sg is that the CMA has been a resounding success; they keep pointing out to the fact that incidents of computer crime are remarkably low in sg compared to neighbouring countries (In particular, most people compare it with the high cybercrime rate in Phillipines, which only has a law on e-commerce, not cybercrime in general)
This, however, misses the fact that Singaporean policy-makers have long had issues in promoting creativity and innovation among the local populace; one of the reasons that's usually pointed out is sg's highly regulated environment. Which, of course, is to not say that cybercrime should be legalised, but instead to suggest that, perhaps, a repressive legal regime stifles creativity; I, for one, really think a 10 year jail term for cracking is a bit too much, and does not promote the sort of freedom that creativity apparently needs.
(I'm refraining from commenting on the current Amendment 'coz I haven't gone through it)
b)Geo-politics: .au-ians lampooning your current administration, but let's face facts, people:- respect for citizens' privacy and liberties is at an all time low in just about any country these days.
I guess some of you Americans must be feeling scared and all that, and no doubt, there will be reactions from EU-ians (to use K5-lingo) and
Yup, that's right; you'll be just kidding yourself if you believe that just because your country has law X, you're free from being snooped upon.
The current theme, apparently, is informal agreements between governmental agencies; so if, say, the CIA can't legally snoop on a suspicious American citizen, it will send an informal request to, say, MI-5 (or whatever the Brit Secret Service is) and ask them to snoop on the said citizen. The Brits will do so vice-versa, and so far, the requests have been honoured by whatever countries are in the loop. And trust me, you'll be amazed if you see the list of countries with such informal agreements; there are some hitherto un-obvious names out there.
All this, of course, is what I've been gathering in seminars on cybercrime for the last few weeks, and obviously, I can cite these up with actual examples if anyone is interested.
Which, of course, doesn't mean that Big Brother is out to get you or anything, and frankly, I really detest the way in which Slippery Slope arguments are tossed here on /.; my real point is that borders are less sacred these days than they used to be, even among law enforcement agencies.
Or in other words, it's plain stupid to think that these draconian laws don't affect you; they do, and for all you know, sg's law enforcement is informally helping your own country's law enforcement as a result of this.
(Okay, that was extra-ordinarily incoherent, but need some serious sleep asap. Which is also the reason why I could be wrong in a few details, and why I haven't given any links; willing to be corrected/challenged on this)
You see, chewing gum per se is not illegal, but the sale of chewing gum is. That's an important distinction; it means you can, for instance, legally import how much ever chewing gum you want into the island, only that you can't sell it. Been like that eversince chewing gum was legislated, mostly as a way of preventing adolescents from sticking left-over gum between the sliding doors of Singapore's ultra-efficient metro system, the MRT (and hence jamming them, causing systemwide disruptions).
Btw, even that fig-leaf is now mostly gone. The recent Singapore US Free Trade Agreement stipulates legal sales of chewing gum that can be used for "medicinal" purposes through registered/licenced apothecaries. So don't be surprised if you see chewing gum (although perhaps not bubble gum, if you get what I mean) being sold in a pharmacy on Orchard Road or something.
(The locals that I know call this the "Wrigley Amendment" for some reason. Wonder why, hmmm.)
It's called the village idiot phenomenon. When you read circletimessquare on /., it's like listening to your, otherwise friendly, village idiot in Big City. Somehow, the scenery doesn't match.
He could be Chinese Australian as well. One third of Australia doesn't speak English as a mother tongue, remember.
What I meant to say was, if you were to, say, pronounce the name of polytechnic in Singapore, Ng Ann Poly, you'll say something close to "ggg Ann" with a slight nasal inflection in the beginning. Hong Kongers would probably say it as "mmm Ann".
Really wish I were able to record this in a WAV file or something. :-)
Mandarin/Cantonese/Hokkien speakers may, of course, correct me on this.
That said, the DeskBar is a pretty nifty tool if you want to use the Google calculator, or the define: tool or any of those funky, non-traditional search stuff.
Need to rush now, but can anyone look up the the Symbian License? Should be interesting to see if it really is Open (tm) or not.
This will be a good time to test that hypothesis out.
Heard those suckers will repeat it again on a bigger scale for .au and .nz later in the month.
You seem to be, quite well I must say, arguing for freedom from tyrants who are other people (or people-like beings), while the guy seems to be arguing against the tyranny of the machines (more precisely, the tyranny of the act of controlling machines). Which is not to say you are wrong in your summary, of course; just that we're talking sliiiiightly different things.
Which is exactly what I find this surprising here, since I always thought The Matrix was all about this. The author, it seems, is to be unable to understand the concept of abstraction; to become a truly powerful (not necessarily great) programmer, you don't need to figure out how your program works in details, just as, to make a satisfying omelette, you really don't have to know the chemistry behind an egg. Fact of life, people, abstraction strikes at the root of all civilisation, although you're right, to maintain or extend civilisation as we know, we need other tools such as logic.
His other general point, however, is well-taken; programming is, to be sure, fast becoming critical for career in any scientific discipline, but for reasons other than those he mentioned. Among other things, agent-based modelling (pun wholly intended) is the Shiny New Paradigm (tm) these days in social sciences, and obviously, you need programming for swarm intelligence and all that.
But no, you don't -- shouldn't -- need to be able to program your CMOS for that.
/. wit $parkle$!
[Rumoured, so take it with a pinch of salt. ;-) ]
Tried Alltheweb lately?
Was there any doubt of that? :-D
Yes, but it still is rather amusing to read all the indignant posts out here, which I suspect was the submitter's main intent :-D
My thoughts exactly! I wonder how he would react to, say, Adequacy if he were alive today....
Somehow, clarifying the relation between doodh (== milk) and patti (== tea leaves) ("mein" == inside) gives you a nice, complete feeling! :-)
Now, Quetta tea... never tried it before, but I'm guessing it's a cross between doodh mein patti and Irani chai (given the geographic location; DmP is Punjabi, AFAIK); which is fantastic since I'm a fan of both!
Greetings from a fanatic tea lover,
:-(
+3, Encourage.
Heard about this Redmond, WA based software company called 'Microsoft'? Heard it's been doing well lately, which is why I'm mentioning it here.
You see, among its many different offerings, it sells (yes, you read that right, sells) this thing called Services for UNIX for US$99. For US$20 more, you can order the source code for the program as well.
They decided to improve upon an existing GPL-ed product (with wide acclaim incidentally), and yet are making money out of selling it. A novel concept, don't ya think?
May be I'm the wrong demographic here, but I actually found yours funnier than these dog jokes. I mean, didn't quite get it why there should be jokes on dogs...