The education establishment basically argues "We need computers so the kids can learn"
Kids learned before computers. Computers can assist in learning, but they are not the end all be all of learning. I would be willing to bet that most computers in US schools are used the same as the one in my son's classroom, as a reward for good behavior.
The other big arguement is that "Every job requires at least a basic famialiarity with computers"
What most jobs require is an open mind and a desire to learn. If someone takes a typing class using a $99 typewriter, understands how a letter should look, how to make a letter look like should, and how to type, they can't figure out the basics of most word processors with just a short training period?
We are educating a generation of children who can't figure out a manual typewriter, a card catalog, can't do math without a calculator.
One of my old college professors is a Chemical Engineer. To this day, he makes triple his salary in consulting fees by verifying by hand the results that computers turn out. If there aren't people who know how to do complex mathematics by hand, how do we verify the results given by a computer are accurate?
This isn't gospel, but this is 10 year old memories, and my brain may be failing me.
I believe that 100Mhz limit was theorized because of RF interferance. It was believed that above 100Mhz, there would be too much crosstalk. Engineers have obviously found ways around this. I can only guess that they found better ways to design the boards, and maybe lower voltages had something to do with it.
But hey, I'm not an electrical engineer, maybe someone with more knowledge can solve this mystery.
FUD is the major problem with dealing with people about the issue of nuclear waste. The US Government treated every piece of information as a national secret for so long that people are ignorant about radiation, its effect on the human body and how we can control the waste.
Yes, Plutonium has an extremely long half life, yes it will still be emitting radiation for 40,000 years. But it emits Alpha particles for the most part. Basically, a Helium atom with no electrons, High positive charge that can do a lot of tissue damage. Because of its size and charge though, it has to be INGESTED to do its damage.
That is why the US no longer reprocesses nuclear fuel rods. Because the plutonium is entrained in the fuel pellets, it can't escape into the environment. The only way the plutonium can affect someone is if they swallow a thumb sized junk of metal.
Places where fuel is reprocessed, or in cleaning up old waste sites in this country, Vitrification has long been known to be an effective way of permanently sealing the waste from the environment. The waste is mixed into glass and formed into large bricks. In one case I am familiar with, the "bricks" were cylinders of glass, 3 feet in diameter and 10 feet long, then wrapped in stainless steel.
As someone else said, the high level waste, cesium and strontium for the most part, are the real killers, High energy gamma and neutron emitters, they have extremely short half lifes. In just 200 years the radiation levels emitted by a used fuel rod will be the same as the levels emitted by an unused fuel rod.
UN? Legally Bound?
Give me a break. The only "binds" on those treaties is peer pressure from other countries. Treaties are pieces of paper with flowery words on them unless someone is willing to enforce them.
Trust me, as soon as a country figures out how to make a significant amount of money by owning space resources, those words will go right out the window.
International Law is a nice phrase that makes people feel good, and it is useful for settling things that people are willing to fight over, but if push came to shove, someone will force private property rights on space objects no matter how much the UN kicked and screamed.
Just so people don't blame Guest accounts on Microsoft:
Guest accounts are a historical legacy that Microsoft included in their first servers because every Unix and Mainframe system in the world had an equivalent account.
Guest accounts on Mainframes allowed minimum functionality. For example, in 1983 I was taking a class at a university, I logged into one of the computer terminals as guest. One of the things I was given access to was a campus directory and computer use guidelines.
In his book "Cuckoo's Egg", Clifford Stoll, mentioned how the hacker he was tracking used the Guest account at various facilities to hide his tracks and provide a jumping off point for his next attack. For the most part these were all Unix systems. Microsoft hadn't developed its first server at this point.
The frustrating part about this account, is although you can disable it, because it is built in, you can't delete it. My work around for this is to rename it. If I name it "lakjf" or some other nonsense, it prevents most exploits that rely on an account named "Guest" to be present.
Slashdot Mirror
I have been arguing this for years.
The education establishment basically argues "We need computers so the kids can learn"
Kids learned before computers. Computers can assist in learning, but they are not the end all be all of learning. I would be willing to bet that most computers in US schools are used the same as the one in my son's classroom, as a reward for good behavior.
The other big arguement is that "Every job requires at least a basic famialiarity with computers"
What most jobs require is an open mind and a desire to learn. If someone takes a typing class using a $99 typewriter, understands how a letter should look, how to make a letter look like should, and how to type, they can't figure out the basics of most word processors with just a short training period?
We are educating a generation of children who can't figure out a manual typewriter, a card catalog, can't do math without a calculator.
One of my old college professors is a Chemical Engineer. To this day, he makes triple his salary in consulting fees by verifying by hand the results that computers turn out. If there aren't people who know how to do complex mathematics by hand, how do we verify the results given by a computer are accurate?
This isn't gospel, but this is 10 year old memories, and my brain may be failing me.
I believe that 100Mhz limit was theorized because of RF interferance. It was believed that above 100Mhz, there would be too much crosstalk. Engineers have obviously found ways around this. I can only guess that they found better ways to design the boards, and maybe lower voltages had something to do with it.
But hey, I'm not an electrical engineer, maybe someone with more knowledge can solve this mystery.
FUD is the major problem with dealing with people about the issue of nuclear waste. The US Government treated every piece of information as a national secret for so long that people are ignorant about radiation, its effect on the human body and how we can control the waste.
Yes, Plutonium has an extremely long half life, yes it will still be emitting radiation for 40,000 years. But it emits Alpha particles for the most part. Basically, a Helium atom with no electrons, High positive charge that can do a lot of tissue damage. Because of its size and charge though, it has to be INGESTED to do its damage.
That is why the US no longer reprocesses nuclear fuel rods. Because the plutonium is entrained in the fuel pellets, it can't escape into the environment. The only way the plutonium can affect someone is if they swallow a thumb sized junk of metal.
Places where fuel is reprocessed, or in cleaning up old waste sites in this country, Vitrification has long been known to be an effective way of permanently sealing the waste from the environment. The waste is mixed into glass and formed into large bricks. In one case I am familiar with, the "bricks" were cylinders of glass, 3 feet in diameter and 10 feet long, then wrapped in stainless steel.
As someone else said, the high level waste, cesium and strontium for the most part, are the real killers, High energy gamma and neutron emitters, they have extremely short half lifes. In just 200 years the radiation levels emitted by a used fuel rod will be the same as the levels emitted by an unused fuel rod.
UN? Legally Bound? Give me a break. The only "binds" on those treaties is peer pressure from other countries. Treaties are pieces of paper with flowery words on them unless someone is willing to enforce them. Trust me, as soon as a country figures out how to make a significant amount of money by owning space resources, those words will go right out the window. International Law is a nice phrase that makes people feel good, and it is useful for settling things that people are willing to fight over, but if push came to shove, someone will force private property rights on space objects no matter how much the UN kicked and screamed.
Just so people don't blame Guest accounts on Microsoft:
Guest accounts are a historical legacy that Microsoft included in their first servers because every Unix and Mainframe system in the world had an equivalent account.
Guest accounts on Mainframes allowed minimum functionality. For example, in 1983 I was taking a class at a university, I logged into one of the computer terminals as guest. One of the things I was given access to was a campus directory and computer use guidelines.
In his book "Cuckoo's Egg", Clifford Stoll, mentioned how the hacker he was tracking used the Guest account at various facilities to hide his tracks and provide a jumping off point for his next attack. For the most part these were all Unix systems. Microsoft hadn't developed its first server at this point.
The frustrating part about this account, is although you can disable it, because it is built in, you can't delete it. My work around for this is to rename it. If I name it "lakjf" or some other nonsense, it prevents most exploits that rely on an account named "Guest" to be present.