Hmmmm.....intelligence concerns...... The party that sells out citizens info to foreign powers at every turn, or worse loses everyones data on a portable hard disk, or just looks the other way while personal information is bled and leaked from government databases by public employees (ex, bored, or otherwise).
The post is interesting but I think he misses to point of modern public education. Daycare for kids while adults work. I know that statement may seem insulting to the field of primary and secondary education but it becomes clear when, kids are unable to attend school, that parents are normally more concerned with the lack of available warehousing than the lack of education.
If there were no question in parents minds about the importance of learning, the public education budget(s) for primary and secondary education would have doubled until the system was actually functional (much like military spending). As is most public schools limp along and scrape money together from all and sundry.
I once heard someone quote a study regarding adding more money to the school system not showing any improvement. My observation was that if you say you're doubling the rice you give to the starving it sounds magnanimous, but if you're only giving each starving person a resulting 2 grains of rice they are still going to starve.
If education were about teaching or learning, 25 percent of GDP would be spent on that.
The gobal diet has improved and , believe it or not, environmental standards have improved. Less exposure to heavy metals and diets rich in protein and fat.
I thought providing balanced information was fair comment. My point is that many of the things that are regarded as acceptable by standards bodies have turned out to burn us later on.
I remain unconvinced that the FDA and USDA provide adequate safeguards in many cases. They, like everyone else, cannot hedge against the unknown effects of products that actually meet the current set of criteria. There is also considerable industrial influence regarding the development and acceptance of various standards.
In the case of the FDA, they only act when there has been substantial complaint against an existing product. There have been a laundry list of ineffective and dangerous medications sold to the public over the past decade which prove the system has not learned from, or improved since, thalidomide.
USDA, similar story. The feeds that caused the spread of mad cow disease were approved feeds. Trifton 85 is an approved grassland feed since 1992.
Even organic standards were rushed, more to meet market demands than to provide any serious way of differentiating products.
The word 'organic' is meaningless in the context of food production unless there are clearly defined production standards that are independent of industrial fiddling and loopholes. Even after all that, standards are only as good as the knowledge they are based on and we can't possibly know all the future implications of new products.
USDA approved?...what does that mean? Organic?...what does that mean?
There's a difference between the original motivations of organic food production and the USDA definition of 'organic' . The USDA is driven by market and industry lobbies.
The problem is use of the term 'Organic' which has been easily co-opted by the agrobusiness industry.
A better name for the original expectations of organic patrons would probably be 'Agro-Chemical-Free-Certified'. But now we also have GMO to contend with which can build the pesticide into the genes of the plant. ie: Texas cattle killed by dry GMO grass , and migrating monarch butterflies killed by GMO corn.
Most of the worlds food scarcity issues are political not supply based. People starve because other people want them to starve and the onlookers who have no stake in the situation allow it to happen.
The point of organic food is reducing the use of pesticides, herbicides and salt based fertilizers in agriculture.
Who pays for any particular study is just as interesting as what the study asks or finds.
I am wondering how much corporations like Monsanto, Dow and Cargill pay into studies like this to make sure the wrong questions are asked.
First, there is no question that a plant grown using organic methods will be any different in biochemistry. Which would tend to indicate that the level of ripeness will always trump any small developmental change. This means that an unripened tomato shipped from an 'organic' greenhouse will be just as worthless as food as an unripe fruit from a non-organic operation.
However, it has been shown that components of herbicides and pesticides used gobally are involved in the reproductive decline and illness of many species, including human beings.
Reducing the environmental loading of pesticides and herbicides must be starting to erode the profits of the agrochemical industry.
If they sponsor a studies that ask the wrong questions. Just as in big tobacco.
ie: Don't ask, "Will mothers smoking harm babies during pregnancy?" Instead ask, "Will mothers smoking relax mothers during pregnancy?"
The question we all want answered is, "Have the gobal poisoners at Monsanto and Cargill stopped beating thier wives yet?"
-Tutoring -Remote Sensing/Geomatics -Land Surveying -Hyperspectral Data Processing -Statistical Data Mining -Audio/Sonar Signal Processing -Genomics -A.I. development using statistical measures -Chemical Numerical Combinatorics
And, No, I won't explain any of these. I refuse unconditionally.
An addiction is a compulsive behaviour that is reiforced by a positive physical reward.
The NEED fo music while doing other things is equivalent to the NEED to smoke cigarettes, or drinking beer while working.
I each case the brain's function is divided between the dependency fulfillment activity and the actual work at hand.
Other addictions include, Facebook, Crackberry, Email, IM, coffee, socializing.
Most people don't recognize thier addictive behaviours because our society has made 'official' dependencies that are officially stamped as *addictions*. This does not make the others any less so.
To get to the point, headphones do not contribute to effective work habits. Having said this it's probably not anymore efficient to have a high;y addicted music user freaking out due to lack of endorphines.
From what you are saying regarding the costs of discrete components vs. a finished board, perhaps someone in government should be noticing that the organisation of these regulations is stifling manufacturing in the U.K..
Having to explain to people how to use effective technologies to efficiently do work only to have them insist that we do things circa 1960's-70's computing techniques. Entrenched people develop strong application-centric user patterns and then drag all the new users down with them by forcing everyone to use broken systems because it's some kind of sick tradition or technological religion.
C.O.T.T.S., is a term I wish would die! die! die!. If you ask to do something database-custom don't force me to program it in VB inside MS Excel. And, stop asking me why I'm doing it this way or that way. If you knew what you were doing you wouldn't be asking me to do it for you in the first place. If I have to make it custom EFFICIENTLY it's not going to be C.O.T.T.S.. If your budget for the whole project is only $500 bucks then you get C.O.T.T.S. and nothing custom.
People who start off by asking for you to program the multi-user front-end equivalent of the database for the US Library of Congress catalogue and then get mad when you explain to them that they only have Access 97 and need a server for that. Then they realise they don't know what a server is and that's threatening so they want it to work in Access 97 instead. But it needs to be massively multi-user Hmmm....where's my hammer.....
People who think spreadsheets are a database. They have a database server but all the enterprise data are in numerous files scattered throughout the office on various drives. The server only has 'pubs' db on it or is used for 40 other databases that only contain one big table each. Those tables are not proper relational normal form.....ever. Table names include 'all_client_data_2001', 'all_client_data_2002', 'all_client_data_2002_autumn', 'all_client_data_2003_february' .
People who think Word processor is a database....
People who think the words 'process automation' mean spending money on labor to manually process files with a GUI application. "Yep, that's 1 down. Only another 800 to go. What did that take, 30 minutes? Let's see 30 minutes multiplied by 800.......Aw !F79k! "
Being forced to use the wrong tool because that's what everyone else does. "You must not use a wrench for those bolts. Use this screw driver instead. That's how we've always done it.", every six months they will come and ask why their things are slow.
Being told that a 'protocol' has been decided upon for doing a particular task and seeing that is is being done incorrectly but within the bounds of the skill set of the managers. (circa 1960s-1970s flat files )
'I.T. professionals' who can't use a command line....but are in charge of the whole operation. Same I.T. Pros who only know how to use one operating system and can't do interconnect.
It seems a bit odd to try a blackout the day before a vote. It would be more to the point , and achieve more if everyone went off line for 2 or 3 days at least a week in advance of the vote. Then go back on line, and once again blackout the day before as a reminder.
If you're going to protest, at least make sure the message sticks.
I hope the power never goes off. The hole will fill up with CO2 and smother the deepest inhabitants. Also, I hope there are no Lanthanide salt deposits near by. Radon gas is heavier that air.
The Road Ahead....This is MS 'WangZig'
on
Windows 8 Roundup
·
· Score: 1
In Bill Gates' book "The Road Ahead" he describes the fall of Wang computers; the company 'Zigged instead of Zagged' (...IRC...??)
Anyway, for those who wish to get actual *WORK* done with the new OS, the whole thing is a complete disaster. The UI designers at MS have managed to make the most non-productive interface in history.
Everything about the interface reeks of linear thinking.
It's in the cloud alright.
To put it all as succinctly as possible; My phone is a phone, I don't need a desktop interface that acts like a phone/PDA.
Slashdot Mirror
'Big Al' didn't get IP from the 'ergs from mass' thing.
Gee, I thought 'anonymous' only hacked networks.
Who knew you also work on particle physics....
Isn't this like saying we now know everything major, so only minor things are left to discover.
Seems a bit dubious since there are massive voids in our scientific knowledge in many fields.
And, didn't we just find a Higgs Boson(s) recently?
Hmmmm.....intelligence concerns......
The party that sells out citizens info to foreign powers at every turn,
or worse loses everyones data on a portable hard disk, or just looks the other way
while personal information is bled and leaked from government databases by
public employees (ex, bored, or otherwise).
I think I'll just move to China. It's safer.
The post is interesting but I think he misses to point of modern public education.
Daycare for kids while adults work.
I know that statement may seem insulting to the field of primary and secondary education
but it becomes clear when, kids are unable to attend school, that parents are normally more concerned
with the lack of available warehousing than the lack of education.
If there were no question in parents minds about the importance of learning, the
public education budget(s) for primary and secondary education would have doubled until the system
was actually functional (much like military spending).
As is most public schools limp along and scrape money together from all and sundry.
I once heard someone quote a study regarding adding more money to the school system
not showing any improvement. My observation was that if you say you're doubling the rice
you give to the starving it sounds magnanimous, but if you're only giving each starving person
a resulting 2 grains of rice they are still going to starve.
If education were about teaching or learning, 25 percent of GDP would be spent on that.
The gobal diet has improved and , believe it or not, environmental standards have improved.
Less exposure to heavy metals and diets rich in protein and fat.
There was a book that shows historical examples of the effect of industrial
involvement in science and government policy. It's nothing new.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merchants_of_Doubt
The question is, "which side is FUD?", or are both sides misguided?
Yep, that's what those links have.
I thought providing balanced information was fair comment.
My point is that many of the things that are regarded as acceptable by
standards bodies have turned out to burn us later on.
I remain unconvinced that the FDA and USDA provide adequate safeguards
in many cases. They, like everyone else, cannot hedge against the unknown
effects of products that actually meet the current set of criteria. There is also considerable
industrial influence regarding the development and acceptance of various standards.
In the case of the FDA, they only act when there has been substantial
complaint against an existing product. There have been a laundry list
of ineffective and dangerous medications sold to the public over the past decade
which prove the system has not learned from, or improved since, thalidomide.
USDA, similar story. The feeds that caused the spread of mad cow disease were
approved feeds. Trifton 85 is an approved grassland feed since 1992.
Even organic standards were rushed, more to meet market demands than to
provide any serious way of differentiating products.
The word 'organic' is meaningless in the context of food production unless
there are clearly defined production standards that are independent
of industrial fiddling and loopholes. Even after all that, standards
are only as good as the knowledge they are based on and we can't
possibly know all the future implications of new products.
USDA approved?...what does that mean?
Organic?...what does that mean?
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-201_162-57459357/grass-linked-to-texas-cattle-deaths/
http://www.news.cornell.edu/releases/May99/Butterflies.bpf.html
When in doubt I guess I'd side with not eating the stuff, just to be sure.
This was also passed by the FDA.
So was this .
There's a difference between the original motivations of organic food production
and the USDA definition of 'organic' . The USDA is driven by market and industry
lobbies.
The problem is use of the term 'Organic' which has been easily co-opted by
the agrobusiness industry.
A better name for the original expectations of organic patrons would probably be
'Agro-Chemical-Free-Certified'. But now we also have GMO to contend with
which can build the pesticide into the genes of the plant.
ie: Texas cattle killed by dry GMO grass , and migrating monarch butterflies
killed by GMO corn.
Thalidomide was a great chemical miracle too.
Science can also be subtley biased to provide a desired answer:
http://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3104195&cid=41279911
Most of the worlds food scarcity issues are political not supply based.
People starve because other people want them to starve
and the onlookers who have no stake in the situation allow it to happen.
The point of organic food is reducing the use of pesticides, herbicides and salt based fertilizers
in agriculture.
Who pays for any particular study is just as interesting as what the study asks or finds.
I am wondering how much corporations like Monsanto, Dow and Cargill pay into studies like this
to make sure the wrong questions are asked.
First, there is no question that a plant grown using organic methods will be any different
in biochemistry. Which would tend to indicate that the level of ripeness will always trump
any small developmental change. This means that an unripened tomato shipped from an
'organic' greenhouse will be just as worthless as food as an unripe fruit from a non-organic
operation.
However, it has been shown that components of herbicides and pesticides used gobally
are involved in the reproductive decline and illness of many species, including human beings.
Reducing the environmental loading of pesticides and herbicides must be starting
to erode the profits of the agrochemical industry.
If they sponsor a studies that ask the wrong questions. Just as in big tobacco.
ie: Don't ask, "Will mothers smoking harm babies during pregnancy?"
Instead ask, "Will mothers smoking relax mothers during pregnancy?"
The question we all want answered is, "Have the gobal poisoners at Monsanto and Cargill stopped beating thier wives yet?"
-Tutoring
-Remote Sensing/Geomatics
-Land Surveying
-Hyperspectral Data Processing
-Statistical Data Mining
-Audio/Sonar Signal Processing
-Genomics
-A.I. development using statistical measures
-Chemical Numerical Combinatorics
And, No, I won't explain any of these. I refuse unconditionally.
An addiction is a compulsive behaviour that is reiforced by a positive physical reward.
The NEED fo music while doing other things is equivalent to the NEED to smoke cigarettes,
or drinking beer while working.
I each case the brain's function is divided between the dependency fulfillment activity
and the actual work at hand.
Other addictions include, Facebook, Crackberry, Email, IM, coffee, socializing.
Most people don't recognize thier addictive behaviours because our society has made
'official' dependencies that are officially stamped as *addictions*. This does not make
the others any less so.
To get to the point, headphones do not contribute to effective work habits. Having said this
it's probably not anymore efficient to have a high;y addicted music user freaking out due to
lack of endorphines.
If you put up walls to stop the wind it will just blow around your house...
Well, I guess PC web browsers wil lack the kind of focus that
major market share provides....another page of history turns.
Film at eleven!
From what you are saying regarding the costs of discrete components vs. a finished board, perhaps someone in government should be noticing that the organisation of these regulations is stifling manufacturing in the U.K..
Having to explain to people how to use effective technologies to efficiently do work only to have them insist that we do things circa 1960's-70's computing techniques. Entrenched people develop strong application-centric user patterns and then drag all the new users down with them by forcing everyone to use broken systems because it's some kind of sick tradition or technological religion.
C.O.T.T.S., is a term I wish would die! die! die!. If you ask to do something database-custom don't force me to program it in VB inside MS Excel. And, stop asking me why I'm doing it this way or that way. If you knew what you were doing you wouldn't be asking me to do it for you in the first place. If I have to make it custom EFFICIENTLY it's not going to be C.O.T.T.S.. If your budget for the whole project is only $500 bucks then you get C.O.T.T.S. and nothing custom.
People who start off by asking for you to program the multi-user front-end equivalent of the database for the US Library of Congress catalogue and then get mad when you explain to them that they only have Access 97 and need a server for that. Then they realise they don't know what a server is and that's threatening so they want it to work in Access 97 instead. But it needs to be massively multi-user Hmmm....where's my hammer.....
People who think spreadsheets are a database. They have a database server but all the enterprise data are in numerous files scattered throughout the office on various drives. The server only has 'pubs' db on it or is used for 40 other databases that only contain one big table each. Those tables are not proper relational normal form.....ever. Table names include 'all_client_data_2001', 'all_client_data_2002', 'all_client_data_2002_autumn', 'all_client_data_2003_february' .
People who think Word processor is a database....
People who think the words 'process automation' mean spending money on labor to manually process files with a GUI application. "Yep, that's 1 down. Only another 800 to go. What did that take, 30 minutes? Let's see 30 minutes multiplied by 800.......Aw !F79k! "
Being forced to use the wrong tool because that's what everyone else does. "You must not use a wrench for those bolts. Use this screw driver instead. That's how we've always done it.", every six months they will come and ask why their things are slow.
Being told that a 'protocol' has been decided upon for doing a particular task and seeing that is is being done incorrectly
but within the bounds of the skill set of the managers. (circa 1960s-1970s flat files )
'I.T. professionals' who can't use a command line....but are in charge of the whole operation.
Same I.T. Pros who only know how to use one operating system and can't do interconnect.
The list goes on and on.
The chances of anything coming from Mars are a million to one. ....But still they come....
It seems a bit odd to try a blackout the day before a vote.
It would be more to the point , and achieve more if everyone
went off line for 2 or 3 days at least a week in advance of the vote.
Then go back on line, and once again blackout the day before
as a reminder.
If you're going to protest, at least make sure the message sticks.
Backed up the web page and images.
I hope the power never goes off. The hole will fill up with CO2 and smother the deepest inhabitants.
Also, I hope there are no Lanthanide salt deposits near by. Radon gas is heavier that air.
In Bill Gates' book "The Road Ahead" he describes the fall of Wang
computers; the company 'Zigged instead of Zagged' (...IRC...??)
Anyway, for those who wish to get actual *WORK* done with the new
OS, the whole thing is a complete disaster. The UI designers at MS
have managed to make the most non-productive interface in history.
Everything about the interface reeks of linear thinking.
It's in the cloud alright.
To put it all as succinctly as possible; My phone is a phone,
I don't need a desktop interface that acts like a phone/PDA.
This is Microsofts 'WangZig'.
One of the most needed technologies for regions beyond +-60 degrees latitude is long term
stable and controllable heat reservoir storage.
Knowing what kind and how much insulation to use to store a specific number of
calories for an indefinite period of time is a major experiment.
Also, what types of materials are best for storage of heat.
If you can store heat. You can use it later.