How about improving work conditions instead?
on
Saving U.S. Science
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· Score: 4, Interesting
As usual, these sort of articles keep on suggesting increasing the number of graduate students.
How about another suggestion? How about increasing the number of permanent positions instead of low-paying temporary positions? How about job security? How about flexibility e.g. allowing women to have a couple of years off to have a kid and then reenter academia? How about improving work conditions so that working yourself to exhaustion is not considered the norm? Work conditions for scientists are basically crap. Job security is crap. Pay is crap. The only good thing about being a scientist is well the ability to do science, which is nice. But people have got to eat, kids have to be fed and clothed you know, and sometimes we might want to actually spend time with said kids and not constantly worry about begging for money or finding a new position. Basically, with the job conditions for science, you have to really really really really love science otherwise it's just an exercise in masochism. With this why would many kids choose science for a career? In the past, how many kids chose being a monk and devoting themselves to a life of sacrifice, piety, poverty, starvation and interrupted sleep as you get up in the middle of night for prayers for the sake of God? In science today there is almost a monastic attitude in which this sort of thing is *expected* as part of the norm.
Basically with the work conditions and lack of job security for young scientists today, science is not a career, it is a *calling*. Something which you have to love so much you're willing to put up with very bad work conditions and a good chance of never finding a good permanent position.
Adding more graduate students will just make things worse. More competition for jobs -> even worse work conditions and job security.
Not in China. Peasants were free, and owned their own land which they could buy and sell as they pleased. It was also common for farmers to run their own small business in addition to farmer, most commonly selling the cloth that the farmer's wife weaved.
Another thing in China helped redistribute wealth. While in most places the eldest son inherited everything, in China, the property was divided equally amongst all the sons. This meant that "rich" families often became "ordinary" over a few generations unless they can produce one or two men of great ability every generation or so. In fact, this custom was deliberated introduced by the Chinese emperors to reduce the chance of feudalism.
Even if Vista is better than XP, is it $751 better (Australian dollars, Vista Ultimate edition, US$595)? *That's* the real question. OK, to be generous, Vista Home Premium which is $455 (US$360). Then factor in the costs of upgrading your hardware, time lost reconfiguring things etc. etc.
It's not hypocrisy in Chinese culture. It's because there have always been two major forces in Chinese governments. First is very strong moral conservatism. Because this is part of Confucianism the people involved are usually very upstanding and are not corrupt and generally quite idealistic though very very conservative. Then there is massive corruption because of the autonomy usually given to provincial and then local rulers. China's a big place with lots of people and the bureaucracy has always been too small to micromanage everything. Also because of its persecution by the First Emperor who was a Legalist Confucianism doesn't like legalism that much. The idea is to install good moral principles in the bureaucrats rather than have them follow strict laws. So local governors usually have a great deal of power. Also there is a saying in many parts of China "The world is big and Beijing is a long way away."
On the flip side, the moral conservatives are *very* conservative and controlling micromanaging bastards(see pre-Deng Xiao Ping Communist Party for an example). The very things that allow corruption to flourish are *also* the things that allow people freedoms from central control. There's also the very important role that families and local area affiliations and clans (well not so much now) have to play.
So in this situation you have a bunch of people in the central government who are not corrupt, idealistic and morally conservative trying to harshly enforce their brand of moral puritany. On the other hand you have the often much more free-wheeling provincial governors who don't care about what central government says. All of Chinese history has been a struggle to get a balance between the two extremes so that the micromanaging puritans can't control every aspect of people's lives and that corruption due to people not listening to central government doesn't get completely out of control. Both sides know this and there is a certain armed truce with the provinces and local areas listening to some things that the central government says (especially if sufficient force is applied) or at least pretending to and the central government tries to concentrate on the battles it can fight.
Also the prostitution is probably occuring in the Southern provinces, particularly Guangdong and those have always been especially independent of Beijing, so much so that Beijing gets pissed off. Strangely enough the Southern Provinces can also be some of the most fiercely loyal to China, more specifically Han Chinese. I just laugh when people expected that the fact that Guangdong is the most rapidly developing area of China is going to lead to actions to topple the Communists. Now, if the Communists were non-Han Chinese then well maybe yeah.
It's not hypocrisy in Chinese culture. It's because there have always been two major forces in Chinese governments. First is very strong moral conservatism. Because this is part of Confucianism the people involved are usually very upstanding and are not corrupt and generally quite idealistic though very very conservative. Then there is massive corruption because of the autonomy usually given to provincial and then local rulers. China's a big place with lots of people and the bureaucracy has always been too small to micromanage everything. Also because of its persecution by the First Emperor who was a Legalist Confucianism doesn't like legalism that much. The idea is to install good moral principles in the bureaucrats rather than have them follow strict laws. So local governors usually have a great deal of power. Also there is a saying in many parts of China "The world is big and Beijing is a long way away."
On the flip side, the moral conservatives are *very* conservative and controlling micromanaging bastards(see pre-Deng Xiao Ping Communist Party for an example). The very things that allow corruption to flourish are *also* the things that allow people freedoms from central control. There's also the very important role that families and local area affiliations and clans (well not so much now) have to play.
So in this situation you have a bunch of people in the central government who are not corrupt, idealistic and morally conservative trying to harshly enforce their brand of moral puritany. On the other hand you have the often much more free-wheeling provincial governors who don't care about what central government says. All of Chinese history has been a struggle to get a balance between the two extremes so that the micromanaging puritans can't control every aspect of people's lives and that corruption due to people not listening to central government doesn't get completely out of control. Both sides know this and there is a certain armed truce with the provinces and local areas listening to some things that the central government says (especially if sufficient force is applied) or at least pretending to and the central government tries to concentrate on the battles it can fight.
Also the prostitution is probably occuring in the Southern provinces, particularly Guangdong and those have always been especially independent of Beijing, so much so that Beijing gets pissed off. Strangely enough the Southern Provinces can also be some of the most fiercely loyal to China, more specifically Han Chinese. I just laugh when people expected that the fact that Guangdong is the most rapidly developing area of China is going to lead to actions to topple the Communists. Now, if the Communists were non-Han Chinese then well maybe yeah.
*Every* music video ever created or just the English language ones? Amongst fans of Chinese TV shows (mainland and HK) opening videos and themesongs are very popular and are commonly requested on internet forums. Chinese language shows, tend to pay a lot more attention to the opening videos and theme songs than English language shows. They really are music videos as they typically are montages of footage from the entire series (spoilers? Who cares?) set to music specially written for the show. I especially like the "epic" or "heroic" feel of the wuxia openings. The 80s TVB theme songs are especially famous. I can see a significant demand for say the opening videos for these TV series, esp. since the only ones you can get now are usually very poor quality small files. There's already a thriving (illicit) online distribution of them.
I don't think it's so much that you consider someone of different blood "inferior" and not worthy of your help, but rather because in Confucian cultures you do not interfere with other families. It is not proper. If you interfere you will be "mocked by the world". "Family matters" remain strictly in the family.
Take for example this extract from the Chinese classic "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" where Liu Qi is afraid his stepmother will kill him so that her son can inherit:
The young man soon left, and when Liu Bei was saying good-bye, he whispered, "I will get Zhuge Liang to return your call, and you can do so and so. He will advise you."
Liu Qi thanked him and left. Next day when the call was to be returned, Liu Bei pretended to be suffering from colic and made that an excuse to send Zhuge Liang to return the call.
The adviser went, and when he had reached the palace, dismounted, and was led in, Liu Qi conducted him into one of the inner rooms.
When the tea had been brought, Liu Qi said, "I am an object of my stepmother's dislike. Can you advise me what to do?"
"As a mere stranger guest, I can hardly have anything to do with your own 'bone and flesh' matters. If I did, and the story got abroad, much harm might ensue."
With this he rose to take leave.
But Liu Qi was unwilling to say farewell, and he said, "Your glory has turned in my direction. You cannot mean to go away so pointlessly."
Liu Qi led his visitor into a private chamber and had refreshments brought. While they ate and drank, Liu Qi repeated his first request: What was he to do since his stepmother disliked him.
"It is not the sort of thing I can advise in," replied Zhuge Liang, as he rose for the second time to take leave.
Master, if you will not reply, that is well. But why incontinently leave me?"
So the adviser once more seated himself, and Liu Qi said, "There is an ancient writing I should like to show you."
And he led his visitor to a small upper room.
"Where is the writing?" said Zhuge Liang.
Instead of answering Liu Qi wept, saying, "My stepmother cannot bear me. My life is in danger. O Master, will you not say a word to save me?"
Zhuge Liang flushed and rose to go away. But he found the ladder by which they had mounted had been removed.
Again Liu Qi besought some advice, saying, "Master, you fear lest it may get abroad! Is that why you are silent? Here we are between earth and sky, and what you say will come out of your mouth directly into my ear. No other soul can hear. Now can you tell me what to do?"
"Sow not dissension among relatives," said Zhuge Liang. "Is it possible for me to make any plan for you?"
"Then is my life indeed in danger," said the young man. "I will die at your feet."
So saying, Liu Qi pulled out a dagger and threatened to make an end of himself.
Zhuge Liang checked him, saying, "There is a way."
"I pray you tell me."
"You have heard of the old tale of the brothers Shen Sheng and Chong Er, have you not? Shen Sheng stayed at home and died; his brother Chong Er went away and lived in peace. Now that Huang Zu is gone and Jiangxia is weakly defended, why do you not ask to be sent there to guard it? Then you would be out of the way of harm."
An article in the most recent issue of Nature discusses this new antibiotic in more detail - the process by which it was discovered, its nature etc. The article however ends with a discussion that the chances of this antibiotic making it to the market is pretty low. First of all, it has to be tested to make sure it is stable (this apparently is a concern that has already risen in animal tests of the new antibiotic) and non-toxic to humans. However, even if the technical problems are resolved, financial problems - antibiotics are simply not profitable for pharmaceutical companies - may kill it. The reasons for the financial problems apply to antibiotics in general:
- It is likely that this antibiotic if released into common use will "meet the fate of its predecessors" as bacteria rapidly require resistance to it. So the time span when it will under heavy demand will be short. - Regulatory hurdles. "the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) does not have clear guidelines for approving new antibiotics" meaning the process is even more long and tedious than for normal drugs. - Antibiotics are only used for sparingly and only for a week or two.
A quote:
But "the next steps are fraught with danger", warns microbiologist Carl Nathan of Weill Medical College of Cornell University in New York. "The obstacles are truly formidable."
In China from the Ming dynasty onwards the bureaucrats strangled innovation allowing the West to catch up and starting from the mid-19th century overtake it (a famous example is Zheng He's fleet). The result was the collapse of what had for most of human history had been the largest economy in the world (China) and the rise of the West. Looks like America's patent system is going to repeat history.
So what happens to people who bought Software Assurance? The last Office was 2003. So if the next office is not released until 2007 doesn't this mean that the people who have been paying 1/3 cost of an upgrade per year for the last 3 years expecting to get the next upgrade within the next 3 years have now been screwed?
Bringing politicians to account - isn't that what a democracy is supposed to do?
Blame your fellow Americans for the way they voted in the last election. If the "people" don't care about being lied to or don't care about complete idiocy and incompetence they *deserve* to bear all the consequences of the incompetence, mistakes and lies of their leaders.
The American people had a chance to "bring Bush to account" and they gave him a big thumbs up.
You know this idea that people make judgements in the first 50ms before you can really gain a conscious impression of it (though probably something flashes in your subconcious) remind me of one of the entries in the "Dangerous Ideas" article in Edge (slashdot had it as a story a short while ago) in which Nobel Prize winning biochemist Eric R. Kandel argues that much of what we call "free will" is processed unconsciously without awareness:
ERIC R. KANDEL Biochemist and University Professor, Columbia University; Recipient, The Nobel Prize, 2000; Author, Cellular Basis of Behavior
Free will is exercised unconsciously, without awareness
It is clear that consciousness is central to understanding human mental processes, and therefore is the holy grail of modern neuroscience. What is less clear is that much of our mental processes are unconscious and that these unconscious processes are as important as conscious mental processes for understanding the mind. Indeed most cognitive processes never reach consciousness.
As Sigmund Freud emphasized at the beginning of the 20th century most of our perceptual and cognitive processes are unconscious, except those that are in the immediate focus of our attention. Based on these insights Freud emphasized that unconscious mental processes guide much of human behavior.
Freud's idea was a natural extension of the notion of unconscious inference proposed in the 1860s by Hermann Helmholtz, the German physicist turned neural scientist. Helmholtz was the first to measure the conduction of electrical signals in nerves. He had expected it to be as the speed of light, fast as the conduction of electricity in copper cables, and found to his surprise that it was much slower, only about 90m sec. He then examined the reaction time, the time it takes a subject to respond to a consciously a perceived stimulus, and found that it was much, much slower than even the combined conduction times required for sensory and motor activities.
This caused Helmholz to argue that a great deal of brain processing occurred unconsciously prior to conscious perception of an object. Helmholtz went on to argue that much of what goes on in the brain is not represented in consciousness and that the perception of objects depends upon "unconscious inferences" made by the brain, based on thinking and reasoning without awareness. This view was not accepted by many brain scientists who believed that consciousness is necessary for making inferences. However, in the 1970s a number of experiments began to accumulate in favor of the idea that most cognitive processes that occur in the brain never enter consciousness.
Perhaps the most influential of these experiments were those carried out by Benjamin Libet in 1986. Libet used as his starting point a discovery made by the German neurologist Hans Kornhuber. Kornhuber asked volunteers to move their right index finger. He then measured this voluntary movement with a strain gauge while at the same time recording the electrical activity of the brain by means of an electrode on the skull. After hundreds of trials, Kornhuber found that, invariably, each movement was preceded by a little blip in the electrical record from the brain, a spark of free will! He called this potential in the brain the "readiness potential" and found that it occurred one second before the voluntary movement.
Libet followed up on Kornhuber's finding with an experiment in which he asked volunteers to lift a finger whenever they felt the urge to do so. He placed an electrode on a volunteer's skull and confirmed a readiness potential about one second before the person lifted his or her finger. He then compared the time it took for the person to will the movement with the time of the readiness potential.
Amazingly, Libet found that the readiness potential appeared not after, but 200 milliseconds before a person felt the urge to move his or her finger! Thus by merely
Hey, it's the creationists who want to impose religion into these sort of issues. I and and practically everyone else would dearly love to keep *religion* seperate from *science*. Unfortunately there are *some* people who don't - to the extent of attempting to redefine the word "science" itself to include astrology and tarot card reading*cough*Kansas*cough*.
A lot of people complain about people never reading the actual articles before they comment, but it seems worse than that. People don't even bother reading the blurbs.
I wonder where the slashdot effect comes from then?
Who said anything about this being an argument *for* global warming and the connection with CO2 levels? I was replying to a comment whose sole reasons for dismissing that the rises in CO2 have any effect whatsoever with world climate because CO2 only forms a small fraction of the atmosphere and hence there can't be any significant effect whatsoever. I was trying to point out the problems in his/her argument, not prove anything. There *is* a difference between the two things you know.
Stop trying to put words in my mouth. In no way do I imply that it has happened anytime in the last 650 000 years. The earlier "spikes" are a magnitude or two smaller than the spike in recent times and look very much like natural fluctuations in the cycle. We are talking about things like 100 vs 1 here. Also they occur on time scales of thousands of years. The massive delta-function spike in recent times occurs on a time-scale of a couple of hundred years. They are clearly very different beasts.
Your calculations show that 0.01% of the atmosphere is CO2. Hence you argue, it is impossible for a 27% increase in the CO2 levels to affect anything.
0.004% of the human body is iron. So the percentage of CO2 in the atmosphere is 250 times the percentage of iron in the human body.
http://www.britannica.com/ebi/article-202929
Using your reasoning, I guess iron has absolutely no effect on the human body and is just there as filler eh?
20grams is 0.03% of the weight of a 60kg man. Yet, the lethal human dose for arsenic is 20g.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arsenic
50mg is 0.000083% the weight of a 60kg man. Yet, the lethal human dose for hydrogen cyanide is 50mg. If it is inhaled, concentrations of 300 parts per million is all that is needed.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyanide
From one of the research papers (deltaD is what they use to measure temperature BTW):
The coupling of CO2 and {delta}D is strong. The overall correlation between CO2 data and Antarctic temperature during the time period of 390 to 650 kyr B.P. is r2 = 0.71. Taking into account only the period 430 to 650 kyr B.P., where amplitudes of deuterium and CO2 are smaller, the correlation is r2 = 0.57. Corrections for changes in the temperature and {delta}D of the water vapor source, which also affect {delta}D of the ice, have not been made yet. The strong coupling of CO2 to Antarctic temperature confirms earlier observations for the last glacial termination (9) and the past four glacial cycles (7) and supports the hypothesis that the Southern Ocean played an important role in causing CO2 variations.
Looking at their figures, there include data from the Vostok ice core which overs 0-415kyr BP and the correlation between CO2 levels and temperature is r2=0.7.
It doesn't gradually increase. As I said in other posts, the results show a clear cycle in greenhouse gas levels and temperatures. This is the natural cycle. Then close to the present time, there is a massive almost delta-function like spike in the greenhouse gas levels that elevate the gas levels far beyond any other point in the graph. It's so sharp it's practically vertical. And the delta function occurs in all three gases measured (CO2, methane, nitrous oxide). There are no similar events in any of the other results from the last 650 000 years. There are other spikes but they are a magnitude smaller and occur over a longer time scale.
They obviously talk about correlations over a *long-term scale* so stop trying to "disprove" things by saying "But look, this small data point here representing one hundred years of your 650 000 does not exactly correlate". Also temperature slightly lags behind CO2. Minor fluctuations are different and the mini-ice age was a small-term thing. Even assuming we are coming out of an ice age and this is a natural cycle - I've seen their data. There is a nice periodic cycle with CO2 and other greenhouse gases and there is a matching cycle with temperature which has the same periodicity and slightly lags behind. This is the natural cycle they talk about. Then suddenly near present times, the level of greenhouse gases shoots up by a massive level. It's almost a delta function.
- humans only contribute 1% of the CO2. - hence a 27% increase is a 0.27% increase
This is NOT what the studies show. It is 27% higher than ANY CO2 level in the past 650 000 years. This includes BOTH natural processes and man-made processes. It does not distinguish between the two sources. I've seen their graph. There is a nice cycle with greenhouses gases, and temperature with temperature slightly lagging behind C02 levels. This is the natural cycle that people talk a lot of. Who knows what causes it. Then suddenly, in recent times, the cycle is destroyed and there is a sudden upsurge in C02 levels near present times. It is very clearly anonomalous.
Don't forget the 1% is someone's guess about how much mankind contributes.
One thing I didn't mention in my submission, as it is not mentioned in any of the articles and is only in the Science publication, the scientists researching the Antarctic ice also found that the level of greenhouse gases correlates well with temperature - when the level of greenhouse gases are high, temperatures are high, when the level of greenhouse gases are low, temperatures are low. Since the level of greenhouse gases is now the highest in over half a million years, it is inevitable that temperatures will rise. From the Science article,
Two basic messages are apparent in this extended history of the atmosphere. First, even with this longer perspective, the modern atmosphere is still highly anomalous. At no time in the past 650,000 years is there evidence for levels of carbon dioxide or methane significantly higher than values just before the Industrial Revolution. Second, the covariation of carbon dioxide and methane with climate, strikingly evident in the Vostok record, follows essentially the same pattern in the earlier time period. The muted climate cycles (as indicated by the deuterium content of the ice) are accompanied by equally muted cycles of carbon dioxide and methane (see the figure). This relationship reinforces the view that the large-scale cycles in Antarctic temperature have global importance, and that climate and greenhouse gas cycles are intimately related.
In the past, gambling addiction used to be the main bane of Chinese families. Gambling is seen as a relaxing past-time especially for guys and has an aura of danger that many find attractive. Kids get taught how to gamble from a very young age and play with family with pretend money. Working class guys find it a relaxing past time. Old men and women and housewives play mahjong. On the high end you have the romance and danger of the "God of Gamblers", Shanghai and similar environs, and lots of guns and cool guys. Fun for all the family, every sex, every age and every niche of society from high to low.
So I guess you can say that Chinese do tend to be susceptible to behaviour related addictions. In fact, if what I read about how MMORPGs work is true, there is an element of gambling in it.
I wonder if in the future gambling will be replaced by MMORPG as the addiction demon that stalks Chinese families...I doubt we'll ever see loan sharks bashing up MMORPG addicts though. Also, I seriously seriously seriously doubt that'd we'll ever have shows about "The God of MMORPG". You know, after watching these Chinese shows romanticising gambling, I have to admit all the kids developed an obsession with card games and card tricks, so I guess it's probably for the best we'll never get "The Shell Game - MMORPG version"...World of Warcraft, Patrick Tse Yin or Chow Yun-Fat, my god, the horror, the horror...
Slashdot Mirror
As usual, these sort of articles keep on suggesting increasing the number of graduate students.
How about another suggestion? How about increasing the number of permanent positions instead of low-paying temporary positions? How about job security? How about flexibility e.g. allowing women to have a couple of years off to have a kid and then reenter academia? How about improving work conditions so that working yourself to exhaustion is not considered the norm? Work conditions for scientists are basically crap. Job security is crap. Pay is crap. The only good thing about being a scientist is well the ability to do science, which is nice. But people have got to eat, kids have to be fed and clothed you know, and sometimes we might want to actually spend time with said kids and not constantly worry about begging for money or finding a new position. Basically, with the job conditions for science, you have to really really really really love science otherwise it's just an exercise in masochism. With this why would many kids choose science for a career? In the past, how many kids chose being a monk and devoting themselves to a life of sacrifice, piety, poverty, starvation and interrupted sleep as you get up in the middle of night for prayers for the sake of God? In science today there is almost a monastic attitude in which this sort of thing is *expected* as part of the norm.
Basically with the work conditions and lack of job security for young scientists today, science is not a career, it is a *calling*. Something which you have to love so much you're willing to put up with very bad work conditions and a good chance of never finding a good permanent position.
Adding more graduate students will just make things worse. More competition for jobs -> even worse work conditions and job security.
Not in China. Peasants were free, and owned their own land which they could buy and sell as they pleased. It was also common for farmers to run their own small business in addition to farmer, most commonly selling the cloth that the farmer's wife weaved.
Another thing in China helped redistribute wealth. While in most places the eldest son inherited everything, in China, the property was divided equally amongst all the sons. This meant that "rich" families often became "ordinary" over a few generations unless they can produce one or two men of great ability every generation or so. In fact, this custom was deliberated introduced by the Chinese emperors to reduce the chance of feudalism.
Even if Vista is better than XP, is it $751 better (Australian dollars, Vista Ultimate edition, US$595)? *That's* the real question. OK, to be generous, Vista Home Premium which is $455 (US$360). Then factor in the costs of upgrading your hardware, time lost reconfiguring things etc. etc.
Prices here: http://www.apcstart.com/node/4035
Oops, sorry, forgot to format it properly:
It's not hypocrisy in Chinese culture. It's because there have always been two major forces in Chinese governments. First is very strong moral conservatism. Because this is part of Confucianism the people involved are usually very upstanding and are not corrupt and generally quite idealistic though very very conservative. Then there is massive corruption because of the autonomy usually given to provincial and then local rulers. China's a big place with lots of people and the bureaucracy has always been too small to micromanage everything. Also because of its persecution by the First Emperor who was a Legalist Confucianism doesn't like legalism that much. The idea is to install good moral principles in the bureaucrats rather than have them follow strict laws. So local governors usually have a great deal of power. Also there is a saying in many parts of China "The world is big and Beijing is a long way away."
On the flip side, the moral conservatives are *very* conservative and controlling micromanaging bastards(see pre-Deng Xiao Ping Communist Party for an example). The very things that allow corruption to flourish are *also* the things that allow people freedoms from central control. There's also the very important role that families and local area affiliations and clans (well not so much now) have to play.
So in this situation you have a bunch of people in the central government who are not corrupt, idealistic and morally conservative trying to harshly enforce their brand of moral puritany. On the other hand you have the often much more free-wheeling provincial governors who don't care about what central government says. All of Chinese history has been a struggle to get a balance between the two extremes so that the micromanaging puritans can't control every aspect of people's lives and that corruption due to people not listening to central government doesn't get completely out of control. Both sides know this and there is a certain armed truce with the provinces and local areas listening to some things that the central government says (especially if sufficient force is applied) or at least pretending to and the central government tries to concentrate on the battles it can fight.
Also the prostitution is probably occuring in the Southern provinces, particularly Guangdong and those have always been especially independent of Beijing, so much so that Beijing gets pissed off. Strangely enough the Southern Provinces can also be some of the most fiercely loyal to China, more specifically Han Chinese. I just laugh when people expected that the fact that Guangdong is the most rapidly developing area of China is going to lead to actions to topple the Communists. Now, if the Communists were non-Han Chinese then well maybe yeah.
It's not hypocrisy in Chinese culture. It's because there have always been two major forces in Chinese governments. First is very strong moral conservatism. Because this is part of Confucianism the people involved are usually very upstanding and are not corrupt and generally quite idealistic though very very conservative. Then there is massive corruption because of the autonomy usually given to provincial and then local rulers. China's a big place with lots of people and the bureaucracy has always been too small to micromanage everything. Also because of its persecution by the First Emperor who was a Legalist Confucianism doesn't like legalism that much. The idea is to install good moral principles in the bureaucrats rather than have them follow strict laws. So local governors usually have a great deal of power. Also there is a saying in many parts of China "The world is big and Beijing is a long way away." On the flip side, the moral conservatives are *very* conservative and controlling micromanaging bastards(see pre-Deng Xiao Ping Communist Party for an example). The very things that allow corruption to flourish are *also* the things that allow people freedoms from central control. There's also the very important role that families and local area affiliations and clans (well not so much now) have to play. So in this situation you have a bunch of people in the central government who are not corrupt, idealistic and morally conservative trying to harshly enforce their brand of moral puritany. On the other hand you have the often much more free-wheeling provincial governors who don't care about what central government says. All of Chinese history has been a struggle to get a balance between the two extremes so that the micromanaging puritans can't control every aspect of people's lives and that corruption due to people not listening to central government doesn't get completely out of control. Both sides know this and there is a certain armed truce with the provinces and local areas listening to some things that the central government says (especially if sufficient force is applied) or at least pretending to and the central government tries to concentrate on the battles it can fight. Also the prostitution is probably occuring in the Southern provinces, particularly Guangdong and those have always been especially independent of Beijing, so much so that Beijing gets pissed off. Strangely enough the Southern Provinces can also be some of the most fiercely loyal to China, more specifically Han Chinese. I just laugh when people expected that the fact that Guangdong is the most rapidly developing area of China is going to lead to actions to topple the Communists. Now, if the Communists were non-Han Chinese then well maybe yeah.
That is a very good point. So I guess the real question is, have MS jacked up the price of the OEM versions of Vista?
*Every* music video ever created or just the English language ones? Amongst fans of Chinese TV shows (mainland and HK) opening videos and themesongs are very popular and are commonly requested on internet forums. Chinese language shows, tend to pay a lot more attention to the opening videos and theme songs than English language shows. They really are music videos as they typically are montages of footage from the entire series (spoilers? Who cares?) set to music specially written for the show. I especially like the "epic" or "heroic" feel of the wuxia openings. The 80s TVB theme songs are especially famous. I can see a significant demand for say the opening videos for these TV series, esp. since the only ones you can get now are usually very poor quality small files. There's already a thriving (illicit) online distribution of them.
I don't think it's so much that you consider someone of different blood "inferior" and not worthy of your help, but rather because in Confucian cultures you do not interfere with other families. It is not proper. If you interfere you will be "mocked by the world". "Family matters" remain strictly in the family.
Take for example this extract from the Chinese classic "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" where Liu Qi is afraid his stepmother will kill him so that her son can inherit:
The young man soon left, and when Liu Bei was saying good-bye, he whispered, "I will get Zhuge Liang to return your call, and you can do so and so. He will advise you."
Liu Qi thanked him and left. Next day when the call was to be returned, Liu Bei pretended to be suffering from colic and made that an excuse to send Zhuge Liang to return the call.
The adviser went, and when he had reached the palace, dismounted, and was led in, Liu Qi conducted him into one of the inner rooms.
When the tea had been brought, Liu Qi said, "I am an object of my stepmother's dislike. Can you advise me what to do?"
"As a mere stranger guest, I can hardly have anything to do with your own 'bone and flesh' matters. If I did, and the story got abroad, much harm might ensue."
With this he rose to take leave.
But Liu Qi was unwilling to say farewell, and he said, "Your glory has turned in my direction. You cannot mean to go away so pointlessly."
Liu Qi led his visitor into a private chamber and had refreshments brought. While they ate and drank, Liu Qi repeated his first request: What was he to do since his stepmother disliked him.
"It is not the sort of thing I can advise in," replied Zhuge Liang, as he rose for the second time to take leave.
Master, if you will not reply, that is well. But why incontinently leave me?"
So the adviser once more seated himself, and Liu Qi said, "There is an ancient writing I should like to show you."
And he led his visitor to a small upper room.
"Where is the writing?" said Zhuge Liang.
Instead of answering Liu Qi wept, saying, "My stepmother cannot bear me. My life is in danger. O Master, will you not say a word to save me?"
Zhuge Liang flushed and rose to go away. But he found the ladder by which they had mounted had been removed.
Again Liu Qi besought some advice, saying, "Master, you fear lest it may get abroad! Is that why you are silent? Here we are between earth and sky, and what you say will come out of your mouth directly into my ear. No other soul can hear. Now can you tell me what to do?"
"Sow not dissension among relatives," said Zhuge Liang. "Is it possible for me to make any plan for you?"
"Then is my life indeed in danger," said the young man. "I will die at your feet."
So saying, Liu Qi pulled out a dagger and threatened to make an end of himself.
Zhuge Liang checked him, saying, "There is a way."
"I pray you tell me."
"You have heard of the old tale of the brothers Shen Sheng and Chong Er, have you not? Shen Sheng stayed at home and died; his brother Chong Er went away and lived in peace. Now that Huang Zu is gone and Jiangxia is weakly defended, why do you not ask to be sent there to guard it? Then you would be out of the way of harm."
An article in the most recent issue of Nature discusses this new antibiotic in more detail - the process by which it was discovered, its nature etc. The article however ends with a discussion that the chances of this antibiotic making it to the market is pretty low. First of all, it has to be tested to make sure it is stable (this apparently is a concern that has already risen in animal tests of the new antibiotic) and non-toxic to humans. However, even if the technical problems are resolved, financial problems - antibiotics are simply not profitable for pharmaceutical companies - may kill it. The reasons for the financial problems apply to antibiotics in general:
- It is likely that this antibiotic if released into common use will "meet the fate of its predecessors" as bacteria rapidly require resistance to it. So the time span when it will under heavy demand will be short.
- Regulatory hurdles. "the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) does not have clear guidelines for approving new antibiotics" meaning the process is even more long and tedious than for normal drugs.
- Antibiotics are only used for sparingly and only for a week or two.
A quote:
But "the next steps are fraught with danger", warns microbiologist Carl Nathan of Weill Medical College of Cornell University in New York. "The obstacles are truly formidable."
In China from the Ming dynasty onwards the bureaucrats strangled innovation allowing the West to catch up and starting from the mid-19th century overtake it (a famous example is Zheng He's fleet). The result was the collapse of what had for most of human history had been the largest economy in the world (China) and the rise of the West. Looks like America's patent system is going to repeat history.
So what happens to people who bought Software Assurance? The last Office was 2003. So if the next office is not released until 2007 doesn't this mean that the people who have been paying 1/3 cost of an upgrade per year for the last 3 years expecting to get the next upgrade within the next 3 years have now been screwed?
Bringing politicians to account - isn't that what a democracy is supposed to do?
Blame your fellow Americans for the way they voted in the last election. If the "people" don't care about being lied to or don't care about complete idiocy and incompetence they *deserve* to bear all the consequences of the incompetence, mistakes and lies of their leaders.
The American people had a chance to "bring Bush to account" and they gave him a big thumbs up.
You know this idea that people make judgements in the first 50ms before you can really gain a conscious impression of it (though probably something flashes in your subconcious) remind me of one of the entries in the "Dangerous Ideas" article in Edge (slashdot had it as a story a short while ago) in which Nobel Prize winning biochemist Eric R. Kandel argues that much of what we call "free will" is processed unconsciously without awareness:
http://www.edge.org/q2006/q06_5.html
ERIC R. KANDEL
Biochemist and University Professor, Columbia University; Recipient, The Nobel Prize, 2000; Author, Cellular Basis of Behavior
Free will is exercised unconsciously, without awareness
It is clear that consciousness is central to understanding human mental processes, and therefore is the holy grail of modern neuroscience. What is less clear is that much of our mental processes are unconscious and that these unconscious processes are as important as conscious mental processes for understanding the mind. Indeed most cognitive processes never reach consciousness.
As Sigmund Freud emphasized at the beginning of the 20th century most of our perceptual and cognitive processes are unconscious, except those that are in the immediate focus of our attention. Based on these insights Freud emphasized that unconscious mental processes guide much of human behavior.
Freud's idea was a natural extension of the notion of unconscious inference proposed in the 1860s by Hermann Helmholtz, the German physicist turned neural scientist. Helmholtz was the first to measure the conduction of electrical signals in nerves. He had expected it to be as the speed of light, fast as the conduction of electricity in copper cables, and found to his surprise that it was much slower, only about 90m sec. He then examined the reaction time, the time it takes a subject to respond to a consciously a perceived stimulus, and found that it was much, much slower than even the combined conduction times required for sensory and motor activities.
This caused Helmholz to argue that a great deal of brain processing occurred unconsciously prior to conscious perception of an object. Helmholtz went on to argue that much of what goes on in the brain is not represented in consciousness and that the perception of objects depends upon "unconscious inferences" made by the brain, based on thinking and reasoning without awareness. This view was not accepted by many brain scientists who believed that consciousness is necessary for making inferences. However, in the 1970s a number of experiments began to accumulate in favor of the idea that most cognitive processes that occur in the brain never enter consciousness.
Perhaps the most influential of these experiments were those carried out by Benjamin Libet in 1986. Libet used as his starting point a discovery made by the German neurologist Hans Kornhuber. Kornhuber asked volunteers to move their right index finger. He then measured this voluntary movement with a strain gauge while at the same time recording the electrical activity of the brain by means of an electrode on the skull. After hundreds of trials, Kornhuber found that, invariably, each movement was preceded by a little blip in the electrical record from the brain, a spark of free will! He called this potential in the brain the "readiness potential" and found that it occurred one second before the voluntary movement.
Libet followed up on Kornhuber's finding with an experiment in which he asked volunteers to lift a finger whenever they felt the urge to do so. He placed an electrode on a volunteer's skull and confirmed a readiness potential about one second before the person lifted his or her finger. He then compared the time it took for the person to will the movement with the time of the readiness potential.
Amazingly, Libet found that the readiness potential appeared not after, but 200 milliseconds before a person felt the urge to move his or her finger! Thus by merely
Hey, it's the creationists who want to impose religion into these sort of issues. I and and practically everyone else would dearly love to keep *religion* seperate from *science*. Unfortunately there are *some* people who don't - to the extent of attempting to redefine the word "science" itself to include astrology and tarot card reading*cough*Kansas*cough*.
I forgot the best thing though. In Japanese, "Goto" doesn't even sound like the programming "go to" :)
A lot of people complain about people never reading the actual articles before they comment, but it seems worse than that. People don't even bother reading the blurbs.
I wonder where the slashdot effect comes from then?
Who said anything about this being an argument *for* global warming and the connection with CO2 levels? I was replying to a comment whose sole reasons for dismissing that the rises in CO2 have any effect whatsoever with world climate because CO2 only forms a small fraction of the atmosphere and hence there can't be any significant effect whatsoever. I was trying to point out the problems in his/her argument, not prove anything. There *is* a difference between the two things you know.
Stop trying to put words in my mouth. In no way do I imply that it has happened anytime in the last 650 000 years. The earlier "spikes" are a magnitude or two smaller than the spike in recent times and look very much like natural fluctuations in the cycle. We are talking about things like 100 vs 1 here. Also they occur on time scales of thousands of years. The massive delta-function spike in recent times occurs on a time-scale of a couple of hundred years. They are clearly very different beasts.
Your calculations show that 0.01% of the atmosphere is CO2. Hence you argue, it is impossible for a 27% increase in the CO2 levels to affect anything. 0.004% of the human body is iron. So the percentage of CO2 in the atmosphere is 250 times the percentage of iron in the human body. http://www.britannica.com/ebi/article-202929 Using your reasoning, I guess iron has absolutely no effect on the human body and is just there as filler eh? 20grams is 0.03% of the weight of a 60kg man. Yet, the lethal human dose for arsenic is 20g. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arsenic 50mg is 0.000083% the weight of a 60kg man. Yet, the lethal human dose for hydrogen cyanide is 50mg. If it is inhaled, concentrations of 300 parts per million is all that is needed. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyanide
From one of the research papers (deltaD is what they use to measure temperature BTW):
The coupling of CO2 and {delta}D is strong. The overall correlation between CO2 data and Antarctic temperature during the time period of 390 to 650 kyr B.P. is r2 = 0.71. Taking into account only the period 430 to 650 kyr B.P., where amplitudes of deuterium and CO2 are smaller, the correlation is r2 = 0.57. Corrections for changes in the temperature and {delta}D of the water vapor source, which also affect {delta}D of the ice, have not been made yet. The strong coupling of CO2 to Antarctic temperature confirms earlier observations for the last glacial termination (9) and the past four glacial cycles (7) and supports the hypothesis that the Southern Ocean played an important role in causing CO2 variations.
Looking at their figures, there include data from the Vostok ice core which overs 0-415kyr BP and the correlation between CO2 levels and temperature is r2=0.7.
It doesn't gradually increase. As I said in other posts, the results show a clear cycle in greenhouse gas levels and temperatures. This is the natural cycle. Then close to the present time, there is a massive almost delta-function like spike in the greenhouse gas levels that elevate the gas levels far beyond any other point in the graph. It's so sharp it's practically vertical. And the delta function occurs in all three gases measured (CO2, methane, nitrous oxide). There are no similar events in any of the other results from the last 650 000 years. There are other spikes but they are a magnitude smaller and occur over a longer time scale.
They obviously talk about correlations over a *long-term scale* so stop trying to "disprove" things by saying "But look, this small data point here representing one hundred years of your 650 000 does not exactly correlate". Also temperature slightly lags behind CO2. Minor fluctuations are different and the mini-ice age was a small-term thing. Even assuming we are coming out of an ice age and this is a natural cycle - I've seen their data. There is a nice periodic cycle with CO2 and other greenhouse gases and there is a matching cycle with temperature which has the same periodicity and slightly lags behind. This is the natural cycle they talk about. Then suddenly near present times, the level of greenhouse gases shoots up by a massive level. It's almost a delta function.
A common comment I see here is:
- humans only contribute 1% of the CO2.
- hence a 27% increase is a 0.27% increase
This is NOT what the studies show. It is 27% higher than ANY CO2 level in the past 650 000 years. This includes BOTH natural processes and man-made processes. It does not distinguish between the two sources. I've seen their graph. There is a nice cycle with greenhouses gases, and temperature with temperature slightly lagging behind C02 levels. This is the natural cycle that people talk a lot of. Who knows what causes it. Then suddenly, in recent times, the cycle is destroyed and there is a sudden upsurge in C02 levels near present times. It is very clearly anonomalous.
Don't forget the 1% is someone's guess about how much mankind contributes.
One thing I didn't mention in my submission, as it is not mentioned in any of the articles and is only in the Science publication, the scientists researching the Antarctic ice also found that the level of greenhouse gases correlates well with temperature - when the level of greenhouse gases are high, temperatures are high, when the level of greenhouse gases are low, temperatures are low. Since the level of greenhouse gases is now the highest in over half a million years, it is inevitable that temperatures will rise. From the Science article,
Two basic messages are apparent in this extended history of the atmosphere. First, even with this longer perspective, the modern atmosphere is still highly anomalous. At no time in the past 650,000 years is there evidence for levels of carbon dioxide or methane significantly higher than values just before the Industrial Revolution. Second, the covariation of carbon dioxide and methane with climate, strikingly evident in the Vostok record, follows essentially the same pattern in the earlier time period. The muted climate cycles (as indicated by the deuterium content of the ice) are accompanied by equally muted cycles of carbon dioxide and methane (see the figure). This relationship reinforces the view that the large-scale cycles in Antarctic temperature have global importance, and that climate and greenhouse gas cycles are intimately related.
In the past, gambling addiction used to be the main bane of Chinese families. Gambling is seen as a relaxing past-time especially for guys and has an aura of danger that many find attractive. Kids get taught how to gamble from a very young age and play with family with pretend money. Working class guys find it a relaxing past time. Old men and women and housewives play mahjong. On the high end you have the romance and danger of the "God of Gamblers", Shanghai and similar environs, and lots of guns and cool guys. Fun for all the family, every sex, every age and every niche of society from high to low.
So I guess you can say that Chinese do tend to be susceptible to behaviour related addictions. In fact, if what I read about how MMORPGs work is true, there is an element of gambling in it.
I wonder if in the future gambling will be replaced by MMORPG as the addiction demon that stalks Chinese families...I doubt we'll ever see loan sharks bashing up MMORPG addicts though. Also, I seriously seriously seriously doubt that'd we'll ever have shows about "The God of MMORPG". You know, after watching these Chinese shows romanticising gambling, I have to admit all the kids developed an obsession with card games and card tricks, so I guess it's probably for the best we'll never get "The Shell Game - MMORPG version"...World of Warcraft, Patrick Tse Yin or Chow Yun-Fat, my god, the horror, the horror...