(Having never seen Minority Report, this might be redundant.)
I wonder if cops will be able to use this (after it becomes widespread, naturally) to stop criminals? There are two ways I could see this being used. First, like Lo-Jack, perhaps stolen cars could be stopped after it has been realized that they are definitely stolen. Secondly, crooks who are speeding away (or slowly driving away - see also white Bronco) could be stopped without causing excessive danger to other drivers (cf current police chases).
I agree that we should not count on having Social Security, and that a responsible person should take steps to attempt to ensure that they will not be a burden on the system (i.e., other tax-paying citizens).
As for the whole "coercive punishment" - see also repetitve redundancies as I don't believe punishment can be voluntary:) - I believe your logic to be flawed. Technically, punishment is the application of an aversive (or possibly the removal of a reward - depends on how technical you are being) with the goal to reduce a behavior. Negative reinforcement is the removal of an aversive with the goal to increase a behavior. Regardless of whether one is being technical (i.e., nitpicky), neither term makes sense unless one assumes that the goal of Social Security is to change one's behavior. That may be its effect, but hardly its goal.
The difference between effect and goal might seem to be nitpicky, but its central to your argument that Social Security is proof that you are "somehow at fault". If you accept that Social Security is not punishing you in an attempt to change your behavior, then it does not seem logical to think that its existence equates to you being to blame.
As for Social Security's coercive nature - all taxes are coercive. (Coercive actually being a good word - some people like to say taxes are forced on us, but we always have the option to not pay them and go to jail.) Many would rather their taxes not go to fund [insert objectionable activity that would be considered flamebait by some and insightful by others]. And, just like Social Security, many of these [objectional activities] are not well thought out. I guess what I'm getting at is that we can either complain about the problem, learn to accept the problem, or try to eliminate the problem. Unfortunately, most of us - myself included - usually fall into one of the first two camps.
You have constructed the most perfect strawman I have ever had the benefit of encountering before. Obviously, I did not say that it wasn't their fault. I was merely suggesting that blaming them was much easier than trying to fix the problem. Of course, I am a scientist and a fan of B. F. Skinner, so I do believe the word "fault" in this context is a mentalism, but as much as it is anyone's fault it is their own. Nevertheless, I believe that if we can help we should. An open question, IMO, is who "we" are. Are "we" the government, are "we" private charities, are "we" individuals doing what we think is right, or all of the above?
But your point is a good one. Obviously, we cannot maintain 2% growth forever, but we could probably maintain it for a long time (thousands of years, maybe even longer - IANAE?). It's been amazing how long we've been able to maintain Moore's law, or something similar to it.
we as a society are not going to simply let them starve, go homeless, get sick, etc.
you obviously haven't been outside lately. go look around in the streets of any major city.
I grew up in Atlanta and lived downtown for many years, so I've seen the homeless, and know they exist. Like many cynical slashdotters, I don't know how many panhandlers are really homeless, but I do know that the homeless/hungry problem is real. However, if we eliminated Social Security, then the problem would most likely be far worse, and would be far more likely to include people we know. That's what we could not tolerate as a society.
I hope I'm not sounding too cold-hearted here. I do feel bad for the homeless/hungry that I don't know, I'm just suggesting that most people are far more likely to want to take action when the problem becomes more personal.
What's wrong with just letting people save money on their own for their retirement? I say we end Social Security and let people plan for themselves.
Basically, what's wrong is that many people do not save money for their retirement. No doubt, most of these people do not read/., and yet are probably still aware that they should be saving money for their retirement, but either lack the ability or the will to do so.
The easy answer is to say, "Oh well, that's their fault," but when these people get to be in their 60's, 70's, etc., we as a society are not going to simply let them starve, go homeless, get sick, etc. Social Security could be scaled back by extending the age of collection, etc., and/or it's functionality could be wrapped up into other welfare programs, but it cannot be simply dropped.
Additionally, Social Security is something like a Ponzi scheme, and as such, if you stop paying into it now, then those who have already paid into it won't be able to get back what they put into it. So, it's either tough luck for the under-[insert age here] crowd in the future, or it's tough luck for the baby boomers now. Guess who will win that one?
In many areas of the US, we're seeing a rise in the demand for organic, non-trans-fatty, less-processed foods (e.g., Whole Foods). Actually, it's more acurate to say we're seeing a rise in the supply. The rise in demand necessarily preceded this rise in supply.
Similarly, if too many musicians over-process their music, we will see an increased demand for more "organic" music that will evenutally lead to an increased supply. The end result might even be better music.
Al_{13} is stable with an even number of iodine atoms and reactive with an odd number of iodine atoms, whereas Al_{14} is stable with an odd number of iodine atoms (or at least with 3 iodine atoms)? That is probably the best way to explain what seemed liked a contradiction to me. Thanks for the input. This then leads me to wonder if one could generalize this to odd(AL)-even(I) is stable and even(AL)-odd(I) is stable, although clearly this is just a question and doesn't even qualify as a hypothesis.
As an aside, I wish/. would support <sub> and <sup> or recognize TeX formatting.
That sounds like a better description to me. I agree "super-atoms" is a really bad name. I'm no expert in chemistry so perhaps there is something about these clusters that causes the radical moniker to be inappropriate.
The stories seem to contradict each other
on
A New Kind of Chemistry
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· Score: 4, Interesting
From the Times Dispatch story:
When the number of iodine "ornaments" is an even number, the "superatom" is very stable and doesn't react with other elements, even oxygen. If the number of "ornaments" is odd, the superatom is reactive.
From The Scientist:
For example, when the 14-atom aluminum cluster combines with three iodine atoms, it creates an ion with overall negative charge which is actually extremely stable. Such novel properties provide the potential for creating radically new nanoscale materials, Khanna said. He noted that the work on clusters containing iodine could have important medical applications, given the element's key role in a number of biochemical pathways.
I'm probably misreading something, but it seems that since there are 3 iodine atoms in this molecule, it should be reactive and not stable (at least acording to the first article).
It will be interesting to see if this opens up broad new areas of chemical engineering, but since the technology seems somewhat old, I am skeptical that this is as revolutionary as it sounds to my undereducated ears.
Well, if we have 2.68 fewer microseconds per day, then that comes to about 979 fewer microseconds per year, or about 1 ms. So, that should have no impact on whether or not we need a full leap-second.
Also, I'm wondering whether you were trying to be funny when you referred to slashdot as a "credible news report".:)
I'm glad someone else noticed this. I thought it was hilarious that Gates was disagreeing with the interviewer's assertion that they disagree. See also paradox.
One explanation is the one that has been posited elsewhere in this thread, namely that our particulates generate a cooling effect and that this range was when the particulates were "outperforming" the CO2, methane, etc.
Although I agree that correlation != causation, it often gives insight in experiments to run or theories to test. Of course, with our atmosphere we only have one, so doing controlled experiments on it are difficult, and would probably be ill-advised. The question I ask myself for this issue is: what is the danger if we are right (about greenhouse gasses), and what is the danger if we are wrong (about greenhouse gasses)?
If we are right, then it seems that we should act at once to reduce greenhouse gasses, because by the time the evidence is incontrovertible (I'll agree that luckily it is not yet there), it will be harder to take the necessary steps to fix the problem.
If we are wrong, then there are two other possibities I see. First, that by removing greenhouse gasses, nothing happens but a waste of time and energy. The other possibility is that we actually harm the environment somehow. This last possibility is very unlikely as we haven't been polluting the air long enough for the earth to be "hooked" on our greenhouse gasses.
If we do "waste" time and energy, is it possible that we will destroy our economy? Very unlikely. In fact, it could very well lead to more jobs as someone will have to install the scrubbers, etc., although IANAE (Economist).
Finally, one should also consider the likelihood that we are right against the likelihood that we are wrong. Right now, I would say there is a preponderance of evidence that greenhouse gasses lead to global warming, but that it not yet beyond a reasonable doubt. Still, that preponderance calls for action, as improving the air we breathe is most definitely not a bad thing.
that word "drop". I do not think it means what you think it means. When I look at those graphs I definitely see a rise over the last 30 years. Although I guess the "30 years" you're referring to could be 1940-1970. There is a drop during this range, although far less than the rise before and after it, and I do not know if the drop is statistically different from zero. My instinct says it is, but I don't always trust my instincts on these matters.
Aren't the particulates getting heated?
on
BBC on Global Dimming
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
I agree that this is a large jump to make. Just because the solar radiation isn't getting to the ground doesn't mean that the atmosphere isn't getting the full force of the solar radiation. It would seem IMO that the particulates that are absorbing the solar radiation would cause the atmosphere to get even hotter than if the ground were aborbing it, thus this is part of the greenhouse effect and not canceling it. Of course, IANAM (Meteorologist).
Jim Magoo sounds almost as obviously a fake name as John Doe (apologies to any Jim Magoo or John Doe out there), so if saying you're Jim Magoo is identity theft, then is the court stealing John Doe's identity by calling this guy John Doe? (Assuming, of course, this is not his real name, which would turn out to be a very weird coincidence.)
If a equatorial bulge occurred, it would cause reduced gravity, and this would cause a relative increase in the rate that time passes for someone at the equator versus an outside observer. (That is, time would still pass slower for the person at the equator than for someone in a flatter spacetime - but not as slow as it did before the equatorial bulge.)
See, the reason the Earth is moving slower is because the average equatorial bulge grew a tiny bit, thus slightly reducing the gravitational attraction for those living on the equator. Therefore, due to general relativity, time will now move a little faster due to local weaking of the gravitational field except that this is exactly canceled out by time moving a little slower due to SR affects caused by moving a tad faster. (OK, I made up the exactly canceling out bit - but it might be true! And, I also made up the equatorial bulge bit, too. OK, I totally didn't RTFA, and am really just making most of this up.)
But some people think they need far more money than they actually do - in order to buy stuff they don't actualy need. Of course, if it weren't for these people we wouldn't have near the number of jobs we currently have (or we'd all be working 20 hours per week). It's tricky, I'll admit, but once you've figured out what you don't need, you're more likely to figure out what you do need.
Naturally, Lazlo's hierarchy of needs comes to mind. You'll notice that cable, etc., is nowhere to be found on that hierarchy, unless you're including it under self-actualization.:)
and not "insightful" (as it is currently modded), but I, too, left a well paying job to go back to grad school. In my case, the job wasn't even boring, and my employer was great (gave me a laptop computer as a going away present), but I wanted to expand my horizons.
There are far more important things in life then money, and the sooner one figures that out, the closer one will come to having a fulfulling life. Of course, this goes back to the maturity equation someone else has already alluded to.
As to some of the original questions - most US schools will look kindly on relevant work experience (even - or perhaps especially - if that work experience is only tangentially relevant). Diversity is still the watchword here, and that includes diversity of experience. Since most grad students (at my school - UVA) have little to no work experience and are in their early to mid 20's upon entering grad school, the older, more experienced applicant has the benefit of bringing diversity. Additionally, as others have pointed out you likely have additional maturity (e.g., well-defined work ethic) that will give you more of an advantage in the course work than the disadvantage of being away from it awhile.
You might think it is worth the danger (I do), but the current reason that the Hubble is off limits for the space shuttle (even after it finally gets the green light again) is that the orbit of Hubble is such that if something goes wrong similar to what happened to the Columbia shuttle (and if it is detected) they would not be able to get to the ISS. The advantage of getting to the ISS is that there is an emergency escape vessel (a Soyuz) that they can use to get to Earth. I've tried finding a link on Google confirming my memory, but have failed to find one that spells this out explicitly, so take what I'm saying with a grain of salt.
either the wall is both straight AND perpendicular, or the wall is neither straight NOR perpendicular. Of course, the latter is less likely, and other fun tests can be done to test for planarity independently of perpendicularity.
Slashdot Mirror
(Having never seen Minority Report, this might be redundant.)
I wonder if cops will be able to use this (after it becomes widespread, naturally) to stop criminals? There are two ways I could see this being used. First, like Lo-Jack, perhaps stolen cars could be stopped after it has been realized that they are definitely stolen. Secondly, crooks who are speeding away (or slowly driving away - see also white Bronco) could be stopped without causing excessive danger to other drivers (cf current police chases).
I agree that we should not count on having Social Security, and that a responsible person should take steps to attempt to ensure that they will not be a burden on the system (i.e., other tax-paying citizens).
As for the whole "coercive punishment" - see also repetitve redundancies as I don't believe punishment can be voluntary :) - I believe your logic to be flawed. Technically, punishment is the application of an aversive (or possibly the removal of a reward - depends on how technical you are being) with the goal to reduce a behavior. Negative reinforcement is the removal of an aversive with the goal to increase a behavior. Regardless of whether one is being technical (i.e., nitpicky), neither term makes sense unless one assumes that the goal of Social Security is to change one's behavior. That may be its effect, but hardly its goal.
The difference between effect and goal might seem to be nitpicky, but its central to your argument that Social Security is proof that you are "somehow at fault". If you accept that Social Security is not punishing you in an attempt to change your behavior, then it does not seem logical to think that its existence equates to you being to blame.
As for Social Security's coercive nature - all taxes are coercive. (Coercive actually being a good word - some people like to say taxes are forced on us, but we always have the option to not pay them and go to jail.) Many would rather their taxes not go to fund [insert objectionable activity that would be considered flamebait by some and insightful by others]. And, just like Social Security, many of these [objectional activities] are not well thought out. I guess what I'm getting at is that we can either complain about the problem, learn to accept the problem, or try to eliminate the problem. Unfortunately, most of us - myself included - usually fall into one of the first two camps.
You have constructed the most perfect strawman I have ever had the benefit of encountering before. Obviously, I did not say that it wasn't their fault. I was merely suggesting that blaming them was much easier than trying to fix the problem. Of course, I am a scientist and a fan of B. F. Skinner, so I do believe the word "fault" in this context is a mentalism, but as much as it is anyone's fault it is their own. Nevertheless, I believe that if we can help we should. An open question, IMO, is who "we" are. Are "we" the government, are "we" private charities, are "we" individuals doing what we think is right, or all of the above?
But your point is a good one. Obviously, we cannot maintain 2% growth forever, but we could probably maintain it for a long time (thousands of years, maybe even longer - IANAE?). It's been amazing how long we've been able to maintain Moore's law, or something similar to it.
I grew up in Atlanta and lived downtown for many years, so I've seen the homeless, and know they exist. Like many cynical slashdotters, I don't know how many panhandlers are really homeless, but I do know that the homeless/hungry problem is real. However, if we eliminated Social Security, then the problem would most likely be far worse, and would be far more likely to include people we know. That's what we could not tolerate as a society.
I hope I'm not sounding too cold-hearted here. I do feel bad for the homeless/hungry that I don't know, I'm just suggesting that most people are far more likely to want to take action when the problem becomes more personal.
Basically, what's wrong is that many people do not save money for their retirement. No doubt, most of these people do not read /., and yet are probably still aware that they should be saving money for their retirement, but either lack the ability or the will to do so.
The easy answer is to say, "Oh well, that's their fault," but when these people get to be in their 60's, 70's, etc., we as a society are not going to simply let them starve, go homeless, get sick, etc. Social Security could be scaled back by extending the age of collection, etc., and/or it's functionality could be wrapped up into other welfare programs, but it cannot be simply dropped.
Additionally, Social Security is something like a Ponzi scheme, and as such, if you stop paying into it now, then those who have already paid into it won't be able to get back what they put into it. So, it's either tough luck for the under-[insert age here] crowd in the future, or it's tough luck for the baby boomers now. Guess who will win that one?
In many areas of the US, we're seeing a rise in the demand for organic, non-trans-fatty, less-processed foods (e.g., Whole Foods). Actually, it's more acurate to say we're seeing a rise in the supply. The rise in demand necessarily preceded this rise in supply.
Similarly, if too many musicians over-process their music, we will see an increased demand for more "organic" music that will evenutally lead to an increased supply. The end result might even be better music.
Al_{13} is stable with an even number of iodine atoms and reactive with an odd number of iodine atoms, whereas Al_{14} is stable with an odd number of iodine atoms (or at least with 3 iodine atoms)? That is probably the best way to explain what seemed liked a contradiction to me. Thanks for the input. This then leads me to wonder if one could generalize this to odd(AL)-even(I) is stable and even(AL)-odd(I) is stable, although clearly this is just a question and doesn't even qualify as a hypothesis.
As an aside, I wish /. would support <sub> and <sup> or recognize TeX formatting.
That sounds like a better description to me. I agree "super-atoms" is a really bad name. I'm no expert in chemistry so perhaps there is something about these clusters that causes the radical moniker to be inappropriate.
I'm probably misreading something, but it seems that since there are 3 iodine atoms in this molecule, it should be reactive and not stable (at least acording to the first article).
It will be interesting to see if this opens up broad new areas of chemical engineering, but since the technology seems somewhat old, I am skeptical that this is as revolutionary as it sounds to my undereducated ears.
Well, if we have 2.68 fewer microseconds per day, then that comes to about 979 fewer microseconds per year, or about 1 ms. So, that should have no impact on whether or not we need a full leap-second.
Also, I'm wondering whether you were trying to be funny when you referred to slashdot as a "credible news report". :)
I'm glad someone else noticed this. I thought it was hilarious that Gates was disagreeing with the interviewer's assertion that they disagree. See also paradox.
One explanation is the one that has been posited elsewhere in this thread, namely that our particulates generate a cooling effect and that this range was when the particulates were "outperforming" the CO2, methane, etc.
Although I agree that correlation != causation, it often gives insight in experiments to run or theories to test. Of course, with our atmosphere we only have one, so doing controlled experiments on it are difficult, and would probably be ill-advised. The question I ask myself for this issue is: what is the danger if we are right (about greenhouse gasses), and what is the danger if we are wrong (about greenhouse gasses)?
If we are right, then it seems that we should act at once to reduce greenhouse gasses, because by the time the evidence is incontrovertible (I'll agree that luckily it is not yet there), it will be harder to take the necessary steps to fix the problem.
If we are wrong, then there are two other possibities I see. First, that by removing greenhouse gasses, nothing happens but a waste of time and energy. The other possibility is that we actually harm the environment somehow. This last possibility is very unlikely as we haven't been polluting the air long enough for the earth to be "hooked" on our greenhouse gasses.
If we do "waste" time and energy, is it possible that we will destroy our economy? Very unlikely. In fact, it could very well lead to more jobs as someone will have to install the scrubbers, etc., although IANAE (Economist).
Finally, one should also consider the likelihood that we are right against the likelihood that we are wrong. Right now, I would say there is a preponderance of evidence that greenhouse gasses lead to global warming, but that it not yet beyond a reasonable doubt. Still, that preponderance calls for action, as improving the air we breathe is most definitely not a bad thing.
that word "drop". I do not think it means what you think it means. When I look at those graphs I definitely see a rise over the last 30 years. Although I guess the "30 years" you're referring to could be 1940-1970. There is a drop during this range, although far less than the rise before and after it, and I do not know if the drop is statistically different from zero. My instinct says it is, but I don't always trust my instincts on these matters.
I agree that this is a large jump to make. Just because the solar radiation isn't getting to the ground doesn't mean that the atmosphere isn't getting the full force of the solar radiation. It would seem IMO that the particulates that are absorbing the solar radiation would cause the atmosphere to get even hotter than if the ground were aborbing it, thus this is part of the greenhouse effect and not canceling it. Of course, IANAM (Meteorologist).
Zero is used to getting treated like he's nothing.
Jim Magoo sounds almost as obviously a fake name as John Doe (apologies to any Jim Magoo or John Doe out there), so if saying you're Jim Magoo is identity theft, then is the court stealing John Doe's identity by calling this guy John Doe? (Assuming, of course, this is not his real name, which would turn out to be a very weird coincidence.)
If a equatorial bulge occurred, it would cause reduced gravity, and this would cause a relative increase in the rate that time passes for someone at the equator versus an outside observer. (That is, time would still pass slower for the person at the equator than for someone in a flatter spacetime - but not as slow as it did before the equatorial bulge.)
See, the reason the Earth is moving slower is because the average equatorial bulge grew a tiny bit, thus slightly reducing the gravitational attraction for those living on the equator. Therefore, due to general relativity, time will now move a little faster due to local weaking of the gravitational field except that this is exactly canceled out by time moving a little slower due to SR affects caused by moving a tad faster. (OK, I made up the exactly canceling out bit - but it might be true! And, I also made up the equatorial bulge bit, too. OK, I totally didn't RTFA, and am really just making most of this up.)
Huh? I-- I don't know that! Auuuuuuuugh!
But some people think they need far more money than they actually do - in order to buy stuff they don't actualy need. Of course, if it weren't for these people we wouldn't have near the number of jobs we currently have (or we'd all be working 20 hours per week). It's tricky, I'll admit, but once you've figured out what you don't need, you're more likely to figure out what you do need.
Naturally, Lazlo's hierarchy of needs comes to mind. You'll notice that cable, etc., is nowhere to be found on that hierarchy, unless you're including it under self-actualization. :)
and not "insightful" (as it is currently modded), but I, too, left a well paying job to go back to grad school. In my case, the job wasn't even boring, and my employer was great (gave me a laptop computer as a going away present), but I wanted to expand my horizons.
There are far more important things in life then money, and the sooner one figures that out, the closer one will come to having a fulfulling life. Of course, this goes back to the maturity equation someone else has already alluded to.
As to some of the original questions - most US schools will look kindly on relevant work experience (even - or perhaps especially - if that work experience is only tangentially relevant). Diversity is still the watchword here, and that includes diversity of experience. Since most grad students (at my school - UVA) have little to no work experience and are in their early to mid 20's upon entering grad school, the older, more experienced applicant has the benefit of bringing diversity. Additionally, as others have pointed out you likely have additional maturity (e.g., well-defined work ethic) that will give you more of an advantage in the course work than the disadvantage of being away from it awhile.
You might think it is worth the danger (I do), but the current reason that the Hubble is off limits for the space shuttle (even after it finally gets the green light again) is that the orbit of Hubble is such that if something goes wrong similar to what happened to the Columbia shuttle (and if it is detected) they would not be able to get to the ISS. The advantage of getting to the ISS is that there is an emergency escape vessel (a Soyuz) that they can use to get to Earth. I've tried finding a link on Google confirming my memory, but have failed to find one that spells this out explicitly, so take what I'm saying with a grain of salt.
Or possibly you do know too many fresh college grads!
I mean really, cats? Work ethic? Call me a speciesist (specist?), but I only hire Ph.D. carrying dogs.
either the wall is both straight AND perpendicular, or the wall is neither straight NOR perpendicular. Of course, the latter is less likely, and other fun tests can be done to test for planarity independently of perpendicularity.