There are hundreds of millions of consumer elctronics devices on the market that can play DivX. Many on them, including my Phillips DVD player, will also play Xvid without additional conversion. Besides having DivX conversion software, I have other converters that will handle pretty much everything going and coming, including the 'proprietary' DivX. DivX is signing up corporation after corporation to carry DivX compatibility on board http://investors.divx.com/search.cfm?keyword=certified DivX saw the need for an extended file format and chose MKV. That's been added to their latest version. The response has been less than stellar. It apparently solves a problem that most people don't have. DivX apparently does, and anyone that doesn't care for the 'proprietary' aspect gets most of that functionality and less money shelled out via Xvid.
Just a quick look through the latest 100 movie file on TPB show 1 MKV, 1 MP4, 98 AVI.
So why should I listen to this Handbrake? What protocol have they developed? Oh, none. So what did they develop? The ability to use other peoples' protocols? I see. Well, I imagine doing that comes with some understanding of those other formats. So why haven't I heard about them before now? I seem to have done just fine without having heard about them before. Maybe more to the point, why am I only hearing about them now? Slashdotvertising? In any case, 'obsolete' is a strange thing to call 98% (by my simple straw poll) acceptance, unless one is using it in the sense that the marketoids do: "it means I want you to use what I say based on what I say about something else, betting on the fact that you don't know shit about any of it except that you wouldn't be caught dead using anything but the newest bestest thing. Which we will tell you when it comes available. Like we did last time." If I hear anymore about Handbrake I suspect it'll be this same message, until they just stop.
If NASA doesn't want it, they should sell it, or at least their share in it. Of course they can't because that's be slapping their own face. Kind of a handicap, being able to build something but nit maintain it.
So ho hum. After peeling off the unnecessary, inevitable and stilted rationalization for violence (hey, I enjoy war as much as the next soldier, but not with imaginary friends) I've decoded the message here. The article is intended more for flag waving than for technology announcement. In fact I believe this to be agitprop, simply propoganda to stir up any targets and make them believe this might be possible.
Oh, and possible it is. China had their turn recently. As for the US:
Starting in 1960 the Department of Defense (DoD) started a program called SPIN (SPace INtercept).[1] In 1962, the United States Navy air launched rockets from an F-4D fighter as part of Project Hi-Hoe with the objective of developing an anti-satellite weapon.[3][4]
The United States developed direct ascent anti-satellite weapons. A United States Army Nike Zeus missile armed with a nuclear warhead destroyed an orbiting satellite in May 1963.[5] One missile from this system known as Project MUDFLAP and later as Project 505 was available for launch from 1964 until 1967.[5] A nuclear armed Thor anti-satellite system deployed by the United States Air Force under Program 437 eventually replaced the Project 505 Nike Zeus in 1967. The Program 437 Thor missile system remained in limited deployment until 1975.
Anti-satellite missile. Country: USA. Status: Retired 1986. Department of Defence Designation: ASM-135A. Popular Name: Air-Launched Miniature Vehicle.
The ASAT air-launched anti-satellite missile was developed by Vought in response to a 1977 Air Force requirement for a missile that could be launched from an F-15A fighter yet was capable of intercepting and destroying enemy satellites in low earth orbit. Four of five tests were successful before the program was cancelled in 1988.
To launch the ASAT, the F-15A pilot had to fly a precise launch profile. At the calculated pull-up point, flying at Mach 1.22, he had to pull into a 3.8 G, 65 degree vertical climb. The missile would automatically release itself at 11,600 m altitude, followed by first stage ignition. After the first stage burned out and separated, the second stage propelled the Miniature Homing Vehicle (MHV) into space in a near-vertical trajectory on a collision course with the target. The second stage was equipped with a hydrazine attitude control system and spin table for the MHV. The second stage would orient the MHV toward the oncoming satellite (as determined by pre-launch orbital tracking data), spin the MHV up, and then release it. The MHV homed on the satellite, which was approaching at 8 km/second, and destroyed the target by ramming it.
1985 September 13 - Western Test Range DZ -. First US ASAT intercept Agency: USAF. Apogee: 550 km (345 mi). Successful ASAT intercept test; rammed and destroyed the Solwind P78-1 satellite.
Manufacturer: Vought. Launches: 5. Success Rate: 100.00%. First Launch Date: 1984-01-21. Last Launch Date: 1986-09-30. Launch data is: complete. Apogee: 1,000 km (600 mi). Liftoff Thrust: 0 N ( lbf). Total Mass: 1,200 kg (2,600 lb). Core Diameter: 0.46 m (1.50 ft). Total Length: 5.40 m (17.70 ft). Boost Propulsion: Solid rocket. Boost engine: SR75. Cruise Propulsion: Solid rocket. Cruise engine: FW-4S TEM640. Cruise Thrust: 27.400 kN (6,160 lbf).
* Stage1: 1 x ASAT-1. Gross Mass: 1,000 kg (2,200 lb). Motor: 1 x LPC-415. Length: 4.30 m (14.10 ft). Diameter: 0.46 m (1.50 ft). Propellants: Solid.
* Stage2: 1 x Star 20. Gross Mass: 301 kg (663 lb). Empty Mass: 28 kg (61 lb). Motor: 1 x Star 20. Thrust (vac): 27.135 kN (6,100 lbf). Burn time: 28 sec. Length: 1.50 m (4.90 ft). Diameter: 0.50 m (1.64 ft). Propellants: Solid.
A modified Boeing AGM-69 SRAM missile with a Lockheed P
Had this been real science you'd have been instructed to turn to page 1 of a psychological science methodology text. Now follow along as we point out the problems that occur when clinicians conduct "studies" unsupervised. And you clinicians, use your finger so you don't lose your place.
What's first? The title. "Have" implies proven validity. There is none. "Serious" implies something more than mild. But the text states "surpassed threshhold" which means the measures were as low as the absolute minimum. When you can start an article biopsy with the title, you can expect many more such morsels to enjoy. And on.
The article, like the test, convolves the concepts of personality and clinical manifestations of psychopathology. The latter as tacked on after the original construction.
TFA is using entirely self-report data, the worst source. Current versions of MMPI have scales built in to detect falsification of answers, although those scales are criticized. The original version, used through most of the time frame of this study, had no internal validity testing.
Between the greater acceptability of admitting problems on one hand, and the victim/disease sufferer mentality towards any problems, it is not surprising that recent test takers would admit to having problems. In fact this result should be expected because of these. More people today are more aware of more kinds of problems and the symptoms that go with them. They're more likely to recognize the problem if they have it. They're also more likely to think they have the problem if they think they recognize some of the symptoms in themselves (in training we call it 'symptomitis'). In 1938 most students didn't know squat about mental health and disorder and so wouldn't recognize them as this.
In 1938 and for some time after (the Great Depression being still fresh in their minds), there was great emphasis on self-reliance and of being of help or use to others, with de-emphasis on relying on others. If one is to stand on ones' own feet and especially if one is to support others, then one does not admit to a weakness (as mental problems were considered then). If you had problems, then that was the hand you were dealt and you played it, and you accepted that, rather than asking someone else to come along and make things OK for you. Nowdays it's far more acceptable, and in many situations expected, for one to admit problems and seek help. And all this is exactly how people would answer questions about these things.
The scales looked at in TFA were the clinical scales. The scales themselves are of questionable validity, as are the concepts on which they were supposedly based. For instance, hyster-ia, a throwback all the way to ancient Greece and carried forward all the way into the 20th century, with the original construct being this is a common malady among women, for which the only real solution (until Freud's 'talking cure', which never worked) was a hyster-ectomy. Just to remind you, the data go all the way to 2007. Try to find hysteria in any insurance company's coverage descriptions or any diagnostic manuals.
As cultural definitions change, psychological definitions change. Hopefully for the better, but at least keeping up with culture's changes. The culture of 1938 put several things into the primary diagnostic tool (the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of the APA) which were later removed. Homosexuality for example. In any case, these change, making any attempt at valid correlations wrong to some degree in every case.
The entire clinical scale section is so out of date and invalidated that it's being completely rewritten and replaced. So what does that say for previous data? How far back is it invalid, and/or how old does it have to be in order to be any good? And with the advances made in the last 70 years, how many of the originals that were accepted then have been found to have been incorrect, and thus the related data worthless?
From TFA: "the clinical scales were derived by selecting items that were endorsed
Not among them is an ad for Univac which Grace Hopper told a story about. When the photo for the ad was to be taken, two guys in lab coats were brought in, the women who ran the machine were ushered out, and the photo taken with the two stand-ins. Went looking, but couldn't find it.
What I did find was something even more galling. The original ENIAC programming crew was six women. After its introduction the engineers, managers and even sales people (all men) became well known. The programmers were ignored. 40 years later Kathy Kleiman, a programmer herself who had been learning about the ENIAC team, was told that the women appearing in the photos were 'refrigerator ladies', models hired to stand in front of the machines. Having interviewed the ENIAC programmers still alive, she knew them to be women on the team. She and the remaining ENIAC prorasmmer4s are trying to raise money to produce a documentary on the subject: http://eniacprogrammers.org/
"My 2-year-old daughter surprised me recently with two words: “Daddy’s book.” She was holding my Kindle electronic reader. Here is a child only beginning to talk, revealing that the seeds of the next generation gap have already been planted. She has identified the Kindle as a substitute for words printed on physical pages."
Oh bollocks, she did no such thing. I don't even have to pull up Piaget's 4 stages of child development and point out a 2 year old's inability to abstract these things to substitute a complex concept for an observation. She knows Daddy. She knows book. She sees Daddy read. It's Daddy's book. In fact I'll bet the author even used the phrase previously and is using the incident as an excuse to make a point that doesn't really apply to the incident. This inaccurate at best and probably not best in this case formulation sets the tone for the rest of the article.
Everyone of the observations claimed by Rainee et al. are valid except they apply to every age group. There are people in each of the exceedingly arbitrary classifications that exhibit those behaviors they try to foist on only one of. They overgeneralize as though the technology were ubiquitous, ignoring the fact that many don't have the technology and thus don't have the chance to develop the behaviors, or else that serve as proof that the behaviors come first and/or independently. Again, the observations are valid, the classification isn't.
The whole things is bogus speculation presented as though it were determined to be an accurate description. If it had been presented as what it is rather that being hyperhyped at both theory and writing stages, I still wouldn't find it useful, but at least I wouldn't feel insulted.
Oh, and 'generation gap' contains a specification of age difference in the phrase. Calling a few years a 'mini-generation gap' is like calling a few months a 'mini-year'.
In "Energy Flow In Biology" Harold Morowitz posits that an open system between an energy source and an energy sink, containing such elements as can form a variety of bonds and forms, will absorb energy, and form compounds that will persist in that state for a time in inverse proportion to how much energy is required to maintain the state. Increasingly complex forms can be created from those simpler forms if they persist long enough. Those more complex forms can have variations in their subunits locations and forms relative to the components from which it is built. This is the first chapter. The rest of the book is a bit of physics and a great deal of physical chemistry showing why the proportions of organics found on Earth as inevitable given the conditions of the Earth's environment and the combination of elements from which is is made.
The evolution part applies to the first chapter though. Some compounds self-catalyze, producing more. Some catalysts form that produce other products, but only do so when the first of those products form. Variations such as radicals appearing in different places on a benzene ring produce different forms, and catalysis can cause this to happen step by step, forcing the radical to 'march' around the ring.
Increasing complexity, with variations in forms of those increasingly complex forms, each of which have more or less ability to contribute to furthering these phenomena, that pretty much describes what life does. Maintaining itself at a level of complexity above the environment (read that 'maintaining itself in a state of negentropy) for a time, using the incoming energy, described something much like how life appears in contrast to its environment.
Again, this is all based on physical and organic chemistry, pre-biology. It's only logical to expect the activities of living things to mirror the activities of their non-living constituents. No, those compounds are not alive, but if they couldn't do those things, neither could life.
A marker then for life might be detection of compounds that carry out some functions we see in life, and an environment that allows them to increase in amount and in complexity. Where then do we put the dividing line between life and non? If we can objectively define and predict an emergent property that appears at a certain point in the growing complexity of the chemical soup that is characterized by a behavior which is necessary for life but is absent in the pre-living material, we might be able to describe that sufficiently to say it's one definition of life.
If it hasn't occurred to you before, it should now: a different environment and collection of compounds might also produce organics (or the equivalent based on other elements) will produce different results. If life, that will be different. Taking the definition from one situation is hobbling yourself when it comes to discovering other forms of life. It might also occur to you that there is no time scales associated with any of this. If we then take the broader view and don't limit 'life' to the result, but include it in the components, we can at least start with a statement about a component being 'alive enough to consider that aspect'.
We need as broad a view as possible so we will be able to recognize it when we see it elsewhere. A part of science is dedicated to looking for it. With our present definitions, which should be stated "Earth-like life" rather than simple "life", we are primed to not detect any forms of it which we could imagine but which differ significantly from Earth forms.
This is what happens when the winners write the history, and it says "they were wiped out" but they weren't wiped out.
Hopefully Starbucks will get the jump on Mexico and pay the Nahua. And hopefully Mexico won't decide to finish the job like they've been doing with the Maya in Chiapas.
See, this is one that I find to be trivial, in that focused attention improves perceptual acuity, and maintaining attention on that task trains the visual system to maintain the acuity. The same effect was seen in radar operators in the 50s. Using games is fine since they're commonly available, but a simple program to do the same would be easy enough to create and could be made adaptive to the specific result desired.
But that's in no way a criticism. I find it trivial because my field deals with this kind of thing all the time. Gamers are just learning about it. This is why it'd be good to work together -- to prevent reinventing the Lunar Lander.
And just so nobody think I'm hiding behind fake fellowship to fly my own flag, I'll admit to helping on a project to test potential pilots and train those accepted into training, using long term focused attention to the point of exhaustion, combined with manual dexterity, reaction time and problem solving having to do with geometric form and color. The Hungarian air force still uses it. It's Tetris with eye blink and EEG recording indexed to the game speed and scoring.
I can't say I can understand or even parse much of that, but I can follow one part and have an answer.
I most certainly can think of ways to apply my knowledge, but that does little good if it doesn't solve a problem a developer has. While I could get behind helping someone working on some product like a game or graphics engine by solving some problems to improve perceptual qualities, I have no interest in developing any sort of product for game development any more than most game developers have an interest in pursuing a project in neuroscience.
Those who could probably detect 30 fps discontinuity are those who see the TV screen jiggle and waver when they chew something crunchy while watching (you know who you are, here's a place to own up to it).
I thought that almost everyone saw that effect? To me, it's something very obvious. Old NTSC CRT TVs are flickery because they only refresh at 59.94 fields per second. I bet PAL CRTs are even worse.
I thought the same. Then I mentioned it in one of my lab classes and about a quarter of the students knew what I meant. I tested them, and those saw it, the others didn't. Same result after explaining it to them, trying to prime them to detect it. Good solid results in only some people, very reliable and unable to bias easily. Got to be in the wiring. Maybe a kind of speed of perception with an action similar to frame rate but not operating discretely as frames.
I'm a neuroscientist that covers sensation and perception and its bidirectional interaction with cognition, particularly attention. I've got comments and questions and very few answers after reading this. I'm seeing a lot of things stated as facts that I've never heard of before. Some of them make sense, and some don't. Some of them are correct, some not, and many more than the others combined I have no experience in and can't say. Those seem to be well supported, or at least well known, particularly among those who've obviously done their homework. I can find references to these among the publications (like ACM) that are most applicable to the field in question, but I can find precious little in my customary pubs and books. That's not to say the stuff in the technically oriented pubs is wrong, just that some may not be covered much (ie. 'not of interest') in my field. My field is very cautious about experimental evidence, but I suspect in gaming's perception area there are common knowledge kids of things that came from hear say (we have many of those in rocketry too). It might do well for both fields to compare works.
What catches my eye at first is this "myth". As stated it's overly simplistic. Which humans' eye? Some have different reaction times. Those who could probably detect 30 fps discontinuity are those who see the TV screen jiggle and waver when they chew something crunchy while watching (you know who you are, here's a place to own up to it). What part of the visual field, central or peripheral? They operate differently. Jittering or blurring of objects attended to or not? Betcha it happens more to those not attended to, but that's not noticed for the same reason (hypnosis can bring that out right nicely). And how is it frame rates matter when the visual system evolved as a constant flow analog system? If a phenomenon that shouldn't make a difference does, and that frame rate is strictly due to technical considerations, how do we know that a variable frame rate might not give even better results? Since the visual system does not have full-field frames that refresh, why should artificial presentations? Why not present faster moving objects at a high change rate, slower moving at a slower rate, more or less a timing equivalent to some video compression techniques? Some of this makes good sense from my perspective, some appears goofy but may not be, and some clearly is whack according to well supported experimental evidence from my side, not sure about yours.
Here's an interesting one, apparent motion from blurring, occurring at the retina, ostensibly due to 'reaction time' of light receptor cells (rods and cones). I can see how this might occur. But if it's a time lag that causes blurring, everything should be blurred, because the layers of cells of different types in the retina between the receptors and those firing down the optic nerve operate strictly by slow potentials -- there's not a 'firing' neuron among them. Or, if their processing, though slow, accounts for motion and compensates, preventing adding to the blurring, how can that be used to increase apparent motion?
A last point which I'm fairly certain isn't covered in gaming and graphics presentation because very few know much about it and we don't understand it well: 10% of the optic nerve is feed-forward, top down control or tuning of the retina and its processing. Motion perception can be primed, can suffer from habituation, and has variance in efficacy according to several factors. What cognitive factors have an influence on this, and how can that be used to improve motion perception and/or produce motion perception that's as adequate as what's being used now but requiring less external computational effort because internal computation is being stimulated.
It's probable that both fields have things of interest and use to the other, including things the other isn't aware of. I've said much the same following another article on a different subject. From this one I can see it's probable there's a few peoples' careers worth o
That's a quote from and the theme of "Flying Platforms and Jeeps" http://www.vectorsite.net/avplatfm.html all PD and referenced material on VTOL air/ground craft from 1950s to present. No, these weren't just a 50s and 60s fad. The last military oriented program was running in 2002. There have been greater and lesser successes within the class, but none have been successful compared to other vehicle types. When they compete with say, helos or hovercraft, they're just too inefficient. The amount of power it takes compared to their mass makes them notoriously hard to control.
Included in the web site referenced is the Avrocar, the 'flying saucer' built by AVRO for the US Army. When it wouldn't hover stable, the engineering team told the chief engineer that a flexible skirt would make it more efficient as well as stable. The chief engineer refused (likely was instructed to by management) and so missed out on developing the GEV (ground effect vehicle). ie. hovercraft.
One of the two Avrocars is on display in a military museum in Canada. The other suffered a great deal of rust damage on display outside the US Army Transportation Museum at Ft. Eustis, Virginia. It is now inside, waiting on a funding source that so far has not materialized that will pay for its refurbishment. Another attempt to salvage it, based on having it taken home to Canada, has progressed further in the talking phase thanks to many fans of AVRO and its products as well as authors of books on them, but has made no other progress. Full disclosure: I'm one of those fans, have been in talks with the authors, Canadian military and AVRO fans, and the Ft. Eustis museum. This is in large part to having been to the museum and seen the Avrocar many times (as well as being an AVRO Arrow fan), and having been stationed at Ft. Story, a satellite facility of Ft. Eustis, where we had a whole fleet of operational hovercraft. I'm not soliciting for it now, but hopefully someday soon.
Truly, the idea dies hard, with regards to both the future and the past efforts. Despite their problems, likely unsolvable, they'll keep building them. And we'll keep nostalgizing them.
(as TFA says) BLIO is free. Seems logical since at this point it's a working concept. It's an idea (seems to be a good one) with no implementation as yet, but it's not quite vaporware because it's based on a working technology and product. Still, it's out there for anyone who wants to develop an e-reader for its own sake (a free reader), or to compete with other readers (another commercial product).
The bad news is "Blio will adopt some form of DRM and proprietary formatting". The good news is there probably won't be time for someone to out together a betting pool on how long it will take to crack said DRM, because by the time they're ready to take wagers it'll be done.
Of course this all depends on whether the singularity will happen, making this and other technology that's not, um, singularity compliant? obsolete. I suppose we can always watch RayKay's output, and when he stops releasing new stuff, assume he's packing his bags for the singularity. I doubt the bags will be full of the "I [heart] The Singularity" t-shirts he's selling. Time will tell whether he'll return and instead sell "I Went To The Singularity And All I Got Was This Lousy T-shirt" t-shirts. Along with some other nifty stuff, also hopefully for free.
!= evidence of absence. This is especially true when the researchers narrow their data selection down so as to exclude many who might have the most experience with this as well as those most likely to even answer.
For the sake of illustration (full color, staple through the navel of course) let us consider an equivalent form of the study coming from the 'other side'. Let's start with the hypothesis that there exists on the male's prostate a pressure sensitive region so that manipulation, primarily of direct pressure, results in sexual stimulation up to and including orgasm. The primary means of manipulation is insertion of an object or body part through the anus. Subjective reports regarding this often say this orgasm is superior to other methods of stimulation. In our investigation, let's specifically exclude gay and bisexual males, and those with multiple partners. Oh, and by the way, we researchers are all women.
Now, how many of our restricted subject pool will have experienced this, how many will admit to it, how many will admit to it to a woman? And after we gather the data which has been so selectively elicited, how long do you think we'll keep our jobs after claiming that the lack of self-report of experience in this proves that there is no such reaction to prostate manipulation, and even if there is, those men are imagining it? If, that is, we are even allowed to publish it.
If it's not appropriate for Tyson, a national stature scientist in the public eye, to make statements like this, then who is meant to be speaking up? There is no national science policy Tsar that I'm aware of, and if there is one they are flying so low under the radar that they may as well not exist.
Nobody. Science doesn't need protected. I especially don't need Tyson assuming to speak for me, ordo the vast majority of other scientists, without being asked to. Tyson is speaking for "US science" which does not exist except as a vehicle for political activity, hence it can assume a false body of approval within science.
In the current scientific/regligious climate in the US, where creationist nutjobs
BZZZZT, wrong, but thank you for playing. The nutjobs are those who believe the entertainers from both sides or no side at all that try to cram news media awfulism and argumentation in order to push their buttons and get their attention for its own sake. Both science and religion in the US proceed apace in peace and mutual respect or at the very least carefully avoiding each others' footsteps. The "science vs. religion" "arguments" are sensationalistic crap created by an extremely tiny minority and believed by far too many who can't seem to accept the fact that where someone claims to find argument, everyone doesn't, and seek to make themselves feel included by taking a side in the argument rather than taking up one or the other profession -- or at least examining them by approach those doing them rather than those talking about them -- and finding out.
I don't recall being asked if I'd like to have my science credited to the US, either upon entry into the science workforce or at the outset of each study. I resent being appropriated.
Tyson is an educator/entertainer and a scientist. None of this makes him qualified in any way to speak on the political implications of "scientific leadership", whatever that is supposed to be. Tyson should perhaps stick to the science, perhaps even doing some on the subject raised here. He might be surprised to find that scientific leadership is not what drives economic strength and security. If asked, I'm sure the economic and security leaderships would be glad to explain this fully.
From whence this wind blown rhetoric, Tyson? Scientific leadership has led nothing in this country but science itself for our entire history. And whither blowest? Is there some science pulpit coming open in the political arena? Science Czar perhaps? If so, you've got the talking pretty part down, but could use some work when it comes to realism. Willing suspension of disbelief applies to drama, not politics nor science.
To lead one must be involved. The more science is involved with politics the less it is allowed to lead itself much less any other segments of society. Scientists who attempt to lead more than science suffer from the handicap of relying on truth. Other practicing politicians do not suffer this same problem, and will eat your lunch.
For someone whose training is in an observational science, Tyson seems peculiarly unable or unwilling to observe the relationship of science to politics across history. Too close maybe? As an astronomer you should be familiar with that in order to be able to focus your instrument on a target, you need go be quite some distance away. As for me, that's where I plan to keep my science, because I've had mine looked over by the Department of Appropriation of Research for Political Agendas(DARPA) and those people piss me off and scare me.
And until the general population sees fit to show up at the lab to do their share of the work, fuck this 'we' shit. I do science for Science's sake. If there were an alternative called US Science, I'd refuse to do that sort. Luckily outside of politically motivated rhetoric there isn't.
Wrong mod applied. I'm serious and am carrying on discussion in a serious manner. That's not a troll. I may be critical, but rightly so and specify where and why, so flamebait wouldn't apply either.
The part I like best about your line of reasoning is that it applies to your views on Tyson.
I wouldn't pretend otherwise. When such a highly visible person makes such an overblown generalization on behalf of a profession that's no asking it be done for them, one can only assume an agenda lying outside the field itself. And how else to approach that but from the same direction. It'd be pretty damn difficult to editorialize and speculate on his motivation using objective quantification. It'd be impossible to do so without making myself appear acting in a similar fashion.
But whereas I speak for myself, Tyson assume to speak for all the science in the US, including myself, without permission.
It's (thermal) neutrons. They're used for fuel breeding. You an build a thorium reactor to produce them but it requires extra equipment. A U/Pu reactor requires only shielding to slow them down. The US hasn't approved a thorium reactor for anything more than experimentation despite the ability to build full scale reactors because they want to be able to produce high grade (either fuel or weapons grade) fissionables at every possible location. The US has no interest in 'clean & safe' nuclear.
Check the fusion projects the US has backed vs. those it hasn't and see what differs between those.
Alexi is a superb public story teller as well as a novelist. He goes out of his way to instigate situations so that he can build a story around it later. He related a story at the Press CLub in DC of speaking at the same affair where Bill CLinton claimed to have a Cherokee grandmother. When it was his turn Alexi (a Cour D'alene indian) started with the obvious slam to Clinton "Some of us don't need to have a Cherokee grandmother." He claimed to fear reprisal the entire night, noting CLinton's large size. But when CLinton finally engaged him, instead of beating him said "You know somethin'? You're fuckin' funny." He related other stories along those lines.
My money says he's done the same here, instigating a situation wherein he can develop a fear of an outcome only to have it turn out not to be negative, and definitely be worth the telling.
Got to admit, it's a slick gimmick. What less would you expect from a writer who has a book out that has its own soundtrack in the absence of an intervening movie.
I don't recall being asked if I'd like to have my science credited to the US, either upon entry into the science workforce or at the outset of each study. I resent being appropriated.
Tyson is an educator/entertainer and a scientist. None of this makes him qualified in any way to speak on the political implications of "scientific leadership", whatever that is supposed to be. Tyson should perhaps stick to the science, perhaps even doing some on the subject raised here. He might be surprised to find that scientific leadership is not what drives economic strength and security. If asked, I'm sure the economic and security leaderships would be glad to explain this fully.
From whence this wind blown rhetoric, Tyson? Scientific leadership has led nothing in this country but science itself for our entire history. And whither blowest? Is there some science pulpit coming open in the political arena? Science Czar perhaps? If so, you've got the talking pretty part down, but could use some work when it comes to realism. Willing suspension of disbelief applies to drama, not politics nor science.
To lead one must be involved. The more science is involved with politics the less it is allowed to lead itself much less any other segments of society. Scientists who attempt to lead more than science suffer from the handicap of relying on truth. Other practicing politicians do not suffer this same problem, and will eat your lunch.
For someone whose training is in an observational science, Tyson seems peculiarly unable or unwilling to observe the relationship of science to politics across history. Too close maybe? As an astronomer you should be familiar with that in order to be able to focus your instrument on a target, you need go be quite some distance away. As for me, that's where I plan to keep my science, because I've had mine looked over by the Department of Appropriation of Research for Political Agendas(DARPA) and those people piss me off and scare me.
And until the general population sees fit to show up at the lab to do their share of the work, fuck this 'we' shit. I do science for Science's sake. If there were an alternative called US Science, I'd refuse to do that sort. Luckily outside of politically motivated rhetoric there isn't.
On Y2K day, the website calendar of the US Naval Observatory (our observational time keeping experts; National Bureau of Standards count them, these guys tell us when they start and stop and need readjusting) read JAN 1, 19001.
See if there's still a screen capture of that around, I know several circulated back then. Then if anyone challenges you, simply show it to them and say "We didn't oversell. We got it right. They didn't."
Slashdot Mirror
There are hundreds of millions of consumer elctronics devices on the market that can play DivX. Many on them, including my Phillips DVD player, will also play Xvid without additional conversion. Besides having DivX conversion software, I have other converters that will handle pretty much everything going and coming, including the 'proprietary' DivX. DivX is signing up corporation after corporation to carry DivX compatibility on board http://investors.divx.com/search.cfm?keyword=certified DivX saw the need for an extended file format and chose MKV. That's been added to their latest version. The response has been less than stellar. It apparently solves a problem that most people don't have. DivX apparently does, and anyone that doesn't care for the 'proprietary' aspect gets most of that functionality and less money shelled out via Xvid.
Just a quick look through the latest 100 movie file on TPB show 1 MKV, 1 MP4, 98 AVI.
So why should I listen to this Handbrake? What protocol have they developed? Oh, none. So what did they develop? The ability to use other peoples' protocols? I see. Well, I imagine doing that comes with some understanding of those other formats. So why haven't I heard about them before now? I seem to have done just fine without having heard about them before. Maybe more to the point, why am I only hearing about them now? Slashdotvertising? In any case, 'obsolete' is a strange thing to call 98% (by my simple straw poll) acceptance, unless one is using it in the sense that the marketoids do: "it means I want you to use what I say based on what I say about something else, betting on the fact that you don't know shit about any of it except that you wouldn't be caught dead using anything but the newest bestest thing. Which we will tell you when it comes available. Like we did last time." If I hear anymore about Handbrake I suspect it'll be this same message, until they just stop.
If NASA doesn't want it, they should sell it, or at least their share in it. Of course they can't because that's be slapping their own face. Kind of a handicap, being able to build something but nit maintain it.
So ho hum. After peeling off the unnecessary, inevitable and stilted rationalization for violence (hey, I enjoy war as much as the next soldier, but not with imaginary friends) I've decoded the message here. The article is intended more for flag waving than for technology announcement. In fact I believe this to be agitprop, simply propoganda to stir up any targets and make them believe this might be possible.
Oh, and possible it is. China had their turn recently. As for the US:
[ASAT SPIN]
(from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ASM-135_ASAT )
Starting in 1960 the Department of Defense (DoD) started a program called SPIN (SPace INtercept).[1] In 1962, the United States Navy air launched rockets from an F-4D fighter as part of Project Hi-Hoe with the objective of developing an anti-satellite weapon.[3][4]
The United States developed direct ascent anti-satellite weapons. A United States Army Nike Zeus missile armed with a nuclear warhead destroyed an orbiting satellite in May 1963.[5] One missile from this system known as Project MUDFLAP and later as Project 505 was available for launch from 1964 until 1967.[5] A nuclear armed Thor anti-satellite system deployed by the United States Air Force under Program 437 eventually replaced the Project 505 Nike Zeus in 1967. The Program 437 Thor missile system remained in limited deployment until 1975.
[ASM-135A]
(from http://www.astronautix.com/lvs/asat.htm )
Anti-satellite missile. Country: USA. Status: Retired 1986. Department of Defence Designation: ASM-135A. Popular Name: Air-Launched Miniature Vehicle.
The ASAT air-launched anti-satellite missile was developed by Vought in response to a 1977 Air Force requirement for a missile that could be launched from an F-15A fighter yet was capable of intercepting and destroying enemy satellites in low earth orbit. Four of five tests were successful before the program was cancelled in 1988.
To launch the ASAT, the F-15A pilot had to fly a precise launch profile. At the calculated pull-up point, flying at Mach 1.22, he had to pull into a 3.8 G, 65 degree vertical climb. The missile would automatically release itself at 11,600 m altitude, followed by first stage ignition. After the first stage burned out and separated, the second stage propelled the Miniature Homing Vehicle (MHV) into space in a near-vertical trajectory on a collision course with the target. The second stage was equipped with a hydrazine attitude control system and spin table for the MHV. The second stage would orient the MHV toward the oncoming satellite (as determined by pre-launch orbital tracking data), spin the MHV up, and then release it. The MHV homed on the satellite, which was approaching at 8 km/second, and destroyed the target by ramming it.
1985 September 13 - Western Test Range DZ -. First US ASAT intercept Agency: USAF. Apogee: 550 km (345 mi). Successful ASAT intercept test; rammed and destroyed the Solwind P78-1 satellite.
Manufacturer: Vought. Launches: 5. Success Rate: 100.00%. First Launch Date: 1984-01-21. Last Launch Date: 1986-09-30. Launch data is: complete. Apogee: 1,000 km (600 mi). Liftoff Thrust: 0 N ( lbf). Total Mass: 1,200 kg (2,600 lb). Core Diameter: 0.46 m (1.50 ft). Total Length: 5.40 m (17.70 ft). Boost Propulsion: Solid rocket. Boost engine: SR75. Cruise Propulsion: Solid rocket. Cruise engine: FW-4S TEM640. Cruise Thrust: 27.400 kN (6,160 lbf).
* Stage1: 1 x ASAT-1. Gross Mass: 1,000 kg (2,200 lb). Motor: 1 x LPC-415. Length: 4.30 m (14.10 ft). Diameter: 0.46 m (1.50 ft). Propellants: Solid.
* Stage2: 1 x Star 20. Gross Mass: 301 kg (663 lb). Empty Mass: 28 kg (61 lb). Motor: 1 x Star 20. Thrust (vac): 27.135 kN (6,100 lbf). Burn time: 28 sec. Length: 1.50 m (4.90 ft). Diameter: 0.50 m (1.64 ft). Propellants: Solid.
A modified Boeing AGM-69 SRAM missile with a Lockheed P
Had this been real science you'd have been instructed to turn to page 1 of a psychological science methodology text. Now follow along as we point out the problems that occur when clinicians conduct "studies" unsupervised. And you clinicians, use your finger so you don't lose your place.
What's first? The title. "Have" implies proven validity. There is none. "Serious" implies something more than mild. But the text states "surpassed threshhold" which means the measures were as low as the absolute minimum. When you can start an article biopsy with the title, you can expect many more such morsels to enjoy. And on.
The article, like the test, convolves the concepts of personality and clinical manifestations of psychopathology. The latter as tacked on after the original construction.
TFA is using entirely self-report data, the worst source. Current versions of MMPI have scales built in to detect falsification of answers, although those scales are criticized. The original version, used through most of the time frame of this study, had no internal validity testing.
Between the greater acceptability of admitting problems on one hand, and the victim/disease sufferer mentality towards any problems, it is not surprising that recent test takers would admit to having problems. In fact this result should be expected because of these. More people today are more aware of more kinds of problems and the symptoms that go with them. They're more likely to recognize the problem if they have it. They're also more likely to think they have the problem if they think they recognize some of the symptoms in themselves (in training we call it 'symptomitis'). In 1938 most students didn't know squat about mental health and disorder and so wouldn't recognize them as this.
In 1938 and for some time after (the Great Depression being still fresh in their minds), there was great emphasis on self-reliance and of being of help or use to others, with de-emphasis on relying on others. If one is to stand on ones' own feet and especially if one is to support others, then one does not admit to a weakness (as mental problems were considered then). If you had problems, then that was the hand you were dealt and you played it, and you accepted that, rather than asking someone else to come along and make things OK for you. Nowdays it's far more acceptable, and in many situations expected, for one to admit problems and seek help. And all this is exactly how people would answer questions about these things.
The scales looked at in TFA were the clinical scales. The scales themselves are of questionable validity, as are the concepts on which they were supposedly based. For instance, hyster-ia, a throwback all the way to ancient Greece and carried forward all the way into the 20th century, with the original construct being this is a common malady among women, for which the only real solution (until Freud's 'talking cure', which never worked) was a hyster-ectomy. Just to remind you, the data go all the way to 2007. Try to find hysteria in any insurance company's coverage descriptions or any diagnostic manuals.
As cultural definitions change, psychological definitions change. Hopefully for the better, but at least keeping up with culture's changes. The culture of 1938 put several things into the primary diagnostic tool (the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of the APA) which were later removed. Homosexuality for example. In any case, these change, making any attempt at valid correlations wrong to some degree in every case.
The entire clinical scale section is so out of date and invalidated that it's being completely rewritten and replaced. So what does that say for previous data? How far back is it invalid, and/or how old does it have to be in order to be any good? And with the advances made in the last 70 years, how many of the originals that were accepted then have been found to have been incorrect, and thus the related data worthless?
From TFA: "the clinical scales were derived by selecting items that were endorsed
Not among them is an ad for Univac which Grace Hopper told a story about. When the photo for the ad was to be taken, two guys in lab coats were brought in, the women who ran the machine were ushered out, and the photo taken with the two stand-ins. Went looking, but couldn't find it.
What I did find was something even more galling. The original ENIAC programming crew was six women. After its introduction the engineers, managers and even sales people (all men) became well known. The programmers were ignored. 40 years later Kathy Kleiman, a programmer herself who had been learning about the ENIAC team, was told that the women appearing in the photos were 'refrigerator ladies', models hired to stand in front of the machines. Having interviewed the ENIAC programmers still alive, she knew them to be women on the team. She and the remaining ENIAC prorasmmer4s are trying to raise money to produce a documentary on the subject: http://eniacprogrammers.org/
"My 2-year-old daughter surprised me recently with two words: “Daddy’s book.” She was holding my Kindle electronic reader. Here is a child only beginning to talk, revealing that the seeds of the next generation gap have already been planted. She has identified the Kindle as a substitute for words printed on physical pages."
Oh bollocks, she did no such thing. I don't even have to pull up Piaget's 4 stages of child development and point out a 2 year old's inability to abstract these things to substitute a complex concept for an observation. She knows Daddy. She knows book. She sees Daddy read. It's Daddy's book. In fact I'll bet the author even used the phrase previously and is using the incident as an excuse to make a point that doesn't really apply to the incident. This inaccurate at best and probably not best in this case formulation sets the tone for the rest of the article.
Everyone of the observations claimed by Rainee et al. are valid except they apply to every age group. There are people in each of the exceedingly arbitrary classifications that exhibit those behaviors they try to foist on only one of. They overgeneralize as though the technology were ubiquitous, ignoring the fact that many don't have the technology and thus don't have the chance to develop the behaviors, or else that serve as proof that the behaviors come first and/or independently. Again, the observations are valid, the classification isn't.
The whole things is bogus speculation presented as though it were determined to be an accurate description. If it had been presented as what it is rather that being hyperhyped at both theory and writing stages, I still wouldn't find it useful, but at least I wouldn't feel insulted.
Oh, and 'generation gap' contains a specification of age difference in the phrase. Calling a few years a 'mini-generation gap' is like calling a few months a 'mini-year'.
In "Energy Flow In Biology" Harold Morowitz posits that an open system between an energy source and an energy sink, containing such elements as can form a variety of bonds and forms, will absorb energy, and form compounds that will persist in that state for a time in inverse proportion to how much energy is required to maintain the state. Increasingly complex forms can be created from those simpler forms if they persist long enough. Those more complex forms can have variations in their subunits locations and forms relative to the components from which it is built. This is the first chapter. The rest of the book is a bit of physics and a great deal of physical chemistry showing why the proportions of organics found on Earth as inevitable given the conditions of the Earth's environment and the combination of elements from which is is made.
The evolution part applies to the first chapter though. Some compounds self-catalyze, producing more. Some catalysts form that produce other products, but only do so when the first of those products form. Variations such as radicals appearing in different places on a benzene ring produce different forms, and catalysis can cause this to happen step by step, forcing the radical to 'march' around the ring.
Increasing complexity, with variations in forms of those increasingly complex forms, each of which have more or less ability to contribute to furthering these phenomena, that pretty much describes what life does. Maintaining itself at a level of complexity above the environment (read that 'maintaining itself in a state of negentropy) for a time, using the incoming energy, described something much like how life appears in contrast to its environment.
Again, this is all based on physical and organic chemistry, pre-biology. It's only logical to expect the activities of living things to mirror the activities of their non-living constituents. No, those compounds are not alive, but if they couldn't do those things, neither could life.
A marker then for life might be detection of compounds that carry out some functions we see in life, and an environment that allows them to increase in amount and in complexity. Where then do we put the dividing line between life and non? If we can objectively define and predict an emergent property that appears at a certain point in the growing complexity of the chemical soup that is characterized by a behavior which is necessary for life but is absent in the pre-living material, we might be able to describe that sufficiently to say it's one definition of life.
If it hasn't occurred to you before, it should now: a different environment and collection of compounds might also produce organics (or the equivalent based on other elements) will produce different results. If life, that will be different. Taking the definition from one situation is hobbling yourself when it comes to discovering other forms of life. It might also occur to you that there is no time scales associated with any of this. If we then take the broader view and don't limit 'life' to the result, but include it in the components, we can at least start with a statement about a component being 'alive enough to consider that aspect'.
We need as broad a view as possible so we will be able to recognize it when we see it elsewhere. A part of science is dedicated to looking for it. With our present definitions, which should be stated "Earth-like life" rather than simple "life", we are primed to not detect any forms of it which we could imagine but which differ significantly from Earth forms.
Any system that can self replicate can evolve. Period.
Unperiod.
Replication and evolution are mutually exclusive.
If it's a copy, it's not evolving.
If it's evolving, it changes.
Reperiod. Duh^2.
If the image belongs to anyone, it's not Mexico, but the Nahua http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nahua_peoples .
This is what happens when the winners write the history, and it says "they were wiped out" but they weren't wiped out.
Hopefully Starbucks will get the jump on Mexico and pay the Nahua. And hopefully Mexico won't decide to finish the job like they've been doing with the Maya in Chiapas.
This is the paper.
http://www.bcs.rochester.edu/people/Daphne/Li_NN.pdf
Cool, thanks.
See, this is one that I find to be trivial, in that focused attention improves perceptual acuity, and maintaining attention on that task trains the visual system to maintain the acuity. The same effect was seen in radar operators in the 50s. Using games is fine since they're commonly available, but a simple program to do the same would be easy enough to create and could be made adaptive to the specific result desired.
But that's in no way a criticism. I find it trivial because my field deals with this kind of thing all the time. Gamers are just learning about it. This is why it'd be good to work together -- to prevent reinventing the Lunar Lander.
And just so nobody think I'm hiding behind fake fellowship to fly my own flag, I'll admit to helping on a project to test potential pilots and train those accepted into training, using long term focused attention to the point of exhaustion, combined with manual dexterity, reaction time and problem solving having to do with geometric form and color. The Hungarian air force still uses it. It's Tetris with eye blink and EEG recording indexed to the game speed and scoring.
I can't say I can understand or even parse much of that, but I can follow one part and have an answer.
I most certainly can think of ways to apply my knowledge, but that does little good if it doesn't solve a problem a developer has. While I could get behind helping someone working on some product like a game or graphics engine by solving some problems to improve perceptual qualities, I have no interest in developing any sort of product for game development any more than most game developers have an interest in pursuing a project in neuroscience.
I thought that almost everyone saw that effect? To me, it's something very obvious. Old NTSC CRT TVs are flickery because they only refresh at 59.94 fields per second. I bet PAL CRTs are even worse.
I thought the same. Then I mentioned it in one of my lab classes and about a quarter of the students knew what I meant. I tested them, and those saw it, the others didn't. Same result after explaining it to them, trying to prime them to detect it. Good solid results in only some people, very reliable and unable to bias easily. Got to be in the wiring. Maybe a kind of speed of perception with an action similar to frame rate but not operating discretely as frames.
I'm a neuroscientist that covers sensation and perception and its bidirectional interaction with cognition, particularly attention. I've got comments and questions and very few answers after reading this. I'm seeing a lot of things stated as facts that I've never heard of before. Some of them make sense, and some don't. Some of them are correct, some not, and many more than the others combined I have no experience in and can't say. Those seem to be well supported, or at least well known, particularly among those who've obviously done their homework. I can find references to these among the publications (like ACM) that are most applicable to the field in question, but I can find precious little in my customary pubs and books. That's not to say the stuff in the technically oriented pubs is wrong, just that some may not be covered much (ie. 'not of interest') in my field. My field is very cautious about experimental evidence, but I suspect in gaming's perception area there are common knowledge kids of things that came from hear say (we have many of those in rocketry too). It might do well for both fields to compare works.
What catches my eye at first is this "myth". As stated it's overly simplistic. Which humans' eye? Some have different reaction times. Those who could probably detect 30 fps discontinuity are those who see the TV screen jiggle and waver when they chew something crunchy while watching (you know who you are, here's a place to own up to it). What part of the visual field, central or peripheral? They operate differently. Jittering or blurring of objects attended to or not? Betcha it happens more to those not attended to, but that's not noticed for the same reason (hypnosis can bring that out right nicely). And how is it frame rates matter when the visual system evolved as a constant flow analog system? If a phenomenon that shouldn't make a difference does, and that frame rate is strictly due to technical considerations, how do we know that a variable frame rate might not give even better results? Since the visual system does not have full-field frames that refresh, why should artificial presentations? Why not present faster moving objects at a high change rate, slower moving at a slower rate, more or less a timing equivalent to some video compression techniques? Some of this makes good sense from my perspective, some appears goofy but may not be, and some clearly is whack according to well supported experimental evidence from my side, not sure about yours.
Here's an interesting one, apparent motion from blurring, occurring at the retina, ostensibly due to 'reaction time' of light receptor cells (rods and cones). I can see how this might occur. But if it's a time lag that causes blurring, everything should be blurred, because the layers of cells of different types in the retina between the receptors and those firing down the optic nerve operate strictly by slow potentials -- there's not a 'firing' neuron among them. Or, if their processing, though slow, accounts for motion and compensates, preventing adding to the blurring, how can that be used to increase apparent motion?
A last point which I'm fairly certain isn't covered in gaming and graphics presentation because very few know much about it and we don't understand it well: 10% of the optic nerve is feed-forward, top down control or tuning of the retina and its processing. Motion perception can be primed, can suffer from habituation, and has variance in efficacy according to several factors. What cognitive factors have an influence on this, and how can that be used to improve motion perception and/or produce motion perception that's as adequate as what's being used now but requiring less external computational effort because internal computation is being stimulated.
It's probable that both fields have things of interest and use to the other, including things the other isn't aware of. I've said much the same following another article on a different subject. From this one I can see it's probable there's a few peoples' careers worth o
That's a quote from and the theme of "Flying Platforms and Jeeps" http://www.vectorsite.net/avplatfm.html all PD and referenced material on VTOL air/ground craft from 1950s to present. No, these weren't just a 50s and 60s fad. The last military oriented program was running in 2002. There have been greater and lesser successes within the class, but none have been successful compared to other vehicle types. When they compete with say, helos or hovercraft, they're just too inefficient. The amount of power it takes compared to their mass makes them notoriously hard to control.
Included in the web site referenced is the Avrocar, the 'flying saucer' built by AVRO for the US Army. When it wouldn't hover stable, the engineering team told the chief engineer that a flexible skirt would make it more efficient as well as stable. The chief engineer refused (likely was instructed to by management) and so missed out on developing the GEV (ground effect vehicle). ie. hovercraft.
One of the two Avrocars is on display in a military museum in Canada. The other suffered a great deal of rust damage on display outside the US Army Transportation Museum at Ft. Eustis, Virginia. It is now inside, waiting on a funding source that so far has not materialized that will pay for its refurbishment. Another attempt to salvage it, based on having it taken home to Canada, has progressed further in the talking phase thanks to many fans of AVRO and its products as well as authors of books on them, but has made no other progress. Full disclosure: I'm one of those fans, have been in talks with the authors, Canadian military and AVRO fans, and the Ft. Eustis museum. This is in large part to having been to the museum and seen the Avrocar many times (as well as being an AVRO Arrow fan), and having been stationed at Ft. Story, a satellite facility of Ft. Eustis, where we had a whole fleet of operational hovercraft. I'm not soliciting for it now, but hopefully someday soon.
Truly, the idea dies hard, with regards to both the future and the past efforts. Despite their problems, likely unsolvable, they'll keep building them. And we'll keep nostalgizing them.
(as TFA says) BLIO is free. Seems logical since at this point it's a working concept. It's an idea (seems to be a good one) with no implementation as yet, but it's not quite vaporware because it's based on a working technology and product. Still, it's out there for anyone who wants to develop an e-reader for its own sake (a free reader), or to compete with other readers (another commercial product).
The bad news is "Blio will adopt some form of DRM and proprietary formatting". The good news is there probably won't be time for someone to out together a betting pool on how long it will take to crack said DRM, because by the time they're ready to take wagers it'll be done.
Of course this all depends on whether the singularity will happen, making this and other technology that's not, um, singularity compliant? obsolete. I suppose we can always watch RayKay's output, and when he stops releasing new stuff, assume he's packing his bags for the singularity. I doubt the bags will be full of the "I [heart] The Singularity" t-shirts he's selling. Time will tell whether he'll return and instead sell "I Went To The Singularity And All I Got Was This Lousy T-shirt" t-shirts. Along with some other nifty stuff, also hopefully for free.
!= evidence of absence. This is especially true when the researchers narrow their data selection down so as to exclude many who might have the most experience with this as well as those most likely to even answer.
For the sake of illustration (full color, staple through the navel of course) let us consider an equivalent form of the study coming from the 'other side'. Let's start with the hypothesis that there exists on the male's prostate a pressure sensitive region so that manipulation, primarily of direct pressure, results in sexual stimulation up to and including orgasm. The primary means of manipulation is insertion of an object or body part through the anus. Subjective reports regarding this often say this orgasm is superior to other methods of stimulation. In our investigation, let's specifically exclude gay and bisexual males, and those with multiple partners. Oh, and by the way, we researchers are all women.
Now, how many of our restricted subject pool will have experienced this, how many will admit to it, how many will admit to it to a woman? And after we gather the data which has been so selectively elicited, how long do you think we'll keep our jobs after claiming that the lack of self-report of experience in this proves that there is no such reaction to prostate manipulation, and even if there is, those men are imagining it? If, that is, we are even allowed to publish it.
LHC isn't on the list for the simple reason that there was nothing to panic about.
In 2009.
If it's not appropriate for Tyson, a national stature scientist in the public eye, to make statements like this, then who is meant to be speaking up? There is no national science policy Tsar that I'm aware of, and if there is one they are flying so low under the radar that they may as well not exist.
Nobody. Science doesn't need protected. I especially don't need Tyson assuming to speak for me, ordo the vast majority of other scientists, without being asked to. Tyson is speaking for "US science" which does not exist except as a vehicle for political activity, hence it can assume a false body of approval within science.
In the current scientific/regligious climate in the US, where creationist nutjobs
BZZZZT, wrong, but thank you for playing. The nutjobs are those who believe the entertainers from both sides or no side at all that try to cram news media awfulism and argumentation in order to push their buttons and get their attention for its own sake. Both science and religion in the US proceed apace in peace and mutual respect or at the very least carefully avoiding each others' footsteps. The "science vs. religion" "arguments" are sensationalistic crap created by an extremely tiny minority and believed by far too many who can't seem to accept the fact that where someone claims to find argument, everyone doesn't, and seek to make themselves feel included by taking a side in the argument rather than taking up one or the other profession -- or at least examining them by approach those doing them rather than those talking about them -- and finding out.
I don't recall being asked if I'd like to have my science credited to the US, either upon entry into the science workforce or at the outset of each study. I resent being appropriated.
Tyson is an educator/entertainer and a scientist. None of this makes him qualified in any way to speak on the political implications of "scientific leadership", whatever that is supposed to be. Tyson should perhaps stick to the science, perhaps even doing some on the subject raised here. He might be surprised to find that scientific leadership is not what drives economic strength and security. If asked, I'm sure the economic and security leaderships would be glad to explain this fully.
From whence this wind blown rhetoric, Tyson? Scientific leadership has led nothing in this country but science itself for our entire history. And whither blowest? Is there some science pulpit coming open in the political arena? Science Czar perhaps? If so, you've got the talking pretty part down, but could use some work when it comes to realism. Willing suspension of disbelief applies to drama, not politics nor science.
To lead one must be involved. The more science is involved with politics the less it is allowed to lead itself much less any other segments of society. Scientists who attempt to lead more than science suffer from the handicap of relying on truth. Other practicing politicians do not suffer this same problem, and will eat your lunch.
For someone whose training is in an observational science, Tyson seems peculiarly unable or unwilling to observe the relationship of science to politics across history. Too close maybe? As an astronomer you should be familiar with that in order to be able to focus your instrument on a target, you need go be quite some distance away. As for me, that's where I plan to keep my science, because I've had mine looked over by the Department of Appropriation of Research for Political Agendas(DARPA) and those people piss me off and scare me.
And until the general population sees fit to show up at the lab to do their share of the work, fuck this 'we' shit. I do science for Science's sake. If there were an alternative called US Science, I'd refuse to do that sort. Luckily outside of politically motivated rhetoric there isn't.
Wrong mod applied. I'm serious and am carrying on discussion in a serious manner. That's not a troll. I may be critical, but rightly so and specify where and why, so flamebait wouldn't apply either.
The part I like best about your line of reasoning is that it applies to your views on Tyson.
I wouldn't pretend otherwise. When such a highly visible person makes such an overblown generalization on behalf of a profession that's no asking it be done for them, one can only assume an agenda lying outside the field itself. And how else to approach that but from the same direction. It'd be pretty damn difficult to editorialize and speculate on his motivation using objective quantification. It'd be impossible to do so without making myself appear acting in a similar fashion.
But whereas I speak for myself, Tyson assume to speak for all the science in the US, including myself, without permission.
25 years ago in OMNI.
It's (thermal) neutrons. They're used for fuel breeding. You an build a thorium reactor to produce them but it requires extra equipment. A U/Pu reactor requires only shielding to slow them down. The US hasn't approved a thorium reactor for anything more than experimentation despite the ability to build full scale reactors because they want to be able to produce high grade (either fuel or weapons grade) fissionables at every possible location. The US has no interest in 'clean & safe' nuclear.
Check the fusion projects the US has backed vs. those it hasn't and see what differs between those.
Alexi is a superb public story teller as well as a novelist. He goes out of his way to instigate situations so that he can build a story around it later. He related a story at the Press CLub in DC of speaking at the same affair where Bill CLinton claimed to have a Cherokee grandmother. When it was his turn Alexi (a Cour D'alene indian) started with the obvious slam to Clinton "Some of us don't need to have a Cherokee grandmother." He claimed to fear reprisal the entire night, noting CLinton's large size. But when CLinton finally engaged him, instead of beating him said "You know somethin'? You're fuckin' funny." He related other stories along those lines.
My money says he's done the same here, instigating a situation wherein he can develop a fear of an outcome only to have it turn out not to be negative, and definitely be worth the telling.
Got to admit, it's a slick gimmick. What less would you expect from a writer who has a book out that has its own soundtrack in the absence of an intervening movie.
I don't recall being asked if I'd like to have my science credited to the US, either upon entry into the science workforce or at the outset of each study. I resent being appropriated.
Tyson is an educator/entertainer and a scientist. None of this makes him qualified in any way to speak on the political implications of "scientific leadership", whatever that is supposed to be. Tyson should perhaps stick to the science, perhaps even doing some on the subject raised here. He might be surprised to find that scientific leadership is not what drives economic strength and security. If asked, I'm sure the economic and security leaderships would be glad to explain this fully.
From whence this wind blown rhetoric, Tyson? Scientific leadership has led nothing in this country but science itself for our entire history. And whither blowest? Is there some science pulpit coming open in the political arena? Science Czar perhaps? If so, you've got the talking pretty part down, but could use some work when it comes to realism. Willing suspension of disbelief applies to drama, not politics nor science.
To lead one must be involved. The more science is involved with politics the less it is allowed to lead itself much less any other segments of society. Scientists who attempt to lead more than science suffer from the handicap of relying on truth. Other practicing politicians do not suffer this same problem, and will eat your lunch.
For someone whose training is in an observational science, Tyson seems peculiarly unable or unwilling to observe the relationship of science to politics across history. Too close maybe? As an astronomer you should be familiar with that in order to be able to focus your instrument on a target, you need go be quite some distance away. As for me, that's where I plan to keep my science, because I've had mine looked over by the Department of Appropriation of Research for Political Agendas(DARPA) and those people piss me off and scare me.
And until the general population sees fit to show up at the lab to do their share of the work, fuck this 'we' shit. I do science for Science's sake. If there were an alternative called US Science, I'd refuse to do that sort. Luckily outside of politically motivated rhetoric there isn't.
I'd put this at top 10 of a decade, much less a year. Someplace or other http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=10/01/01/0945239 carried a story about the first real advance in neural/machine interface technology in years.
On Y2K day, the website calendar of the US Naval Observatory (our observational time keeping experts; National Bureau of Standards count them, these guys tell us when they start and stop and need readjusting) read JAN 1, 19001.
See if there's still a screen capture of that around, I know several circulated back then. Then if anyone challenges you, simply show it to them and say "We didn't oversell. We got it right. They didn't."