Mr. Daschle accused the Bush administration of weakening the nation's science base by failing to provide enough money for cutting-edge research.
Okay - this is ridiculous. The graphs cover 20 years - 1983-2003. Bush has been in office for ~3 years. Explain again how this is his fault...??
The lag between the requests for grant proposals or the research/education funding and the results can be quite significant. While W. obviously isn't responsible for the current state of scientific affairs, it's fair to say the the decisions his administration makes will have real long-term effects that may not be obvious for ten or twenty more years. (Just think about how long it will take to find out effects of the changes in primary education...A kindergardner today won't hit the job market with a degree until 2020!)
I think there are very few museums that knowingly fake their data. There are, however, items in museum collections that have been shown to be fake, but were initially passed off as legitimate. (There are several examples where this happened with supposedly complete dinosaur skeletons that were actually assembled from multiple source animals.) Most of these are now just curiousities, but it raises credibility issues for museums in general. This new museum's technique of including references to "real science [research]" helps to increase the credibility of their exhibits.
Hey, let's face it, most scientists and researchers would rather see flashy presentations than boring old research papers (at least outside of their areas of expertise).
I quick flip through the website shows that they still have a flashy presentation, but then you have the option of looking at further reading (both scientific journals and popular media) and other websites. This is a definite improvement and I think it may be the museum equivalent of making the source code available. ("Hey, we're not just BSing, take a look at the research that backs us up!")
This sounds a lot like the information from Michael Pollan's _The Botany of Desire: A Plant's Eye View of the World_. It's a pretty interesting/entertaining read.
From the article: "Last year, a Senate Judiciary subcommittee held a hearing on the link between international copyright piracy and organized crime, and the FBI has said that there is strong evidence that organized-crime groups have moved into intellectual-property crime, using the profit to pay for other activities."
It doesn't say anything in there specifically about MP3s. I think the link discussed at those hearings probably had to do with the massive quantities of bootleg CDs/DVDs/software that can be bought on the street in a lot of countries. Linking that sort of thing with MP3 file-sharing is a tenuous connection at best.
If it weren't for Unions, chances are that you would be working a miserable, low wage job, and the country would be entirely in the pockets of the rich by now.
Glad we've managed to avoid that... Cynicism aside, labor unions have served an important role in the past in the U.S. and a few still do. Some of the largest, however, have serious problems because they have a leadership that is more concerned with keeping power than benefiting members. This, in turn, has made all unions look bad to a lot of people. Especially people that have never directly benefited from them.
Biodiesel and Bioethanol are not the same thing. One of the reasons that it can take a lot of energy to produce fuel-grade ethanol is that it needs to be distilled (just like vodka) and that's a relatively energy-intensive process.
Biodiesel uses a very different process (see this portion of the document mentioned by o'reor.
I don't think you can assume that teh energy costs are the same for the two different fuel types. (Plus, a some of the ethanol/biodiesel actual gets mixed with traditional gasoline and diesel for use in cars rather than being used straight.)
Actually, this has been studied and quantified. Specifically, see:
"Kim, H. C., G. A. Keoleian, S. Spatari and J. W. Bulkley. Optimizing Vehicle Life Using Life Cycle Energy Analysis and Dynamic Replacement Modeling. in Proceedings of the 2000 Total Life Cycle Conference, P-353. Detroit, MI: SAE International, 2000, Paper No. 2000-01-1499, 241-250"
As I recall, the conclusion on how often to replace a car really depended on what you were most concerned about (energy, air pollution, etc.), but it worked out that you should probably be replacing the car at least every ten years because of advances in technology.
In general, the use phase will dominate both from an energy and a pollution standpoint.
Most churches/priests will still make house calls for people that are sick/hospitalized/incapacitated. That's why although they may only be seen for a few hours on Sunday they're still working 40+ hours a week.
That said, I think in general that any additional options for "attending" church are probably good.
I know that some airports do (or at least used to do) "positive bag checks". My dad talks about transferring planes (in Germany, as I recall) one time where everybody had to point out there bag befor it got loaded on the plane. (They almost wouldn't let him board when he told them his bag wasn't there. Somehow, the bag managed to avoid the check, got loaded on a different plane, and even cleared customs in San Francisco without him.)
Personally, I keep wondering when the federal government is going to suggest that we're only allowed to wear an airport issued tyvek suit onto a plane...
But is improvement of skills really the primary motivation for people working on open source projects? I would think much higher on the list would be a motivation to "give something back" and, above all, peer recognition.
I was going to post in response to a couple of different comments, but there were so many people saying the same thing that got modded up...
First of all, I've been using zip disks since at least 1995 and I'd never heard of the "click of death" until today. Honestly, I've heard the same thing on dead 3.5" and 5.25" drives. Yeah, they're customer support may suck, but get over it.
As far as the poster that claimed that zips came out at the same time as CD-Rs, this was most definitely not the case. Zip drives came out in 1994. As of mid 1995, a CD-R was in the neighborhood of $500-600. Hardly competition for a $100-200 drive.
Having said all of that, I do thing that Iomega has lost this market. Once the prices of CD-Rs came down and people realized they could use them, it was all over. Now Iomega is just evolving old technology instead of trying to create the revolutionary techniques they need for a real success.
According to this site: "Currently, although the technology required to harness tidal energy is well established, tidal power is expensive, and there is only one major tidal generating station in operation. This is a 240 megawatt (1 megawatt = 1 MW = 1 million watts) at the mouth of the La Rance river estuary on the northern coast of France (a large coal or nuclear power plant generates about 1,000 MW of electricity). The La Rance generating station has been in operation since 1966 and has been a very reliable source of electricity for France. La Rance was supposed to be one of many tidal power plants in France, until their nuclear program was greatly expanded in the late 1960's. Elsewhere there is a 20 MW experimental facility at Annapolis Royal in Nova Scotia, and a 0.4 MW tidal power plant near Murmansk in Russia. "
I also recall having seen articles talking about attempts in Norway to capture wave/tidal energy for electricity generation.
I'm always a fan of renewable energy. I just wanted to point out that this is more an attempt to do something in a new way than to do something new.
Right now, I just take the handful of things my heart rate monitor will collect (total time, average HR, time in zone, calories) as well as the mileage and some comments. (I think the comments area is key...)
Of course, I keep track of a different set of things when I use the rowing machine, so some sort of set up utility to edit the fields would be nice.
Right now, I just use quicksheet on my PalmV. It works, even if it's not always the most userfriendly.
I've found that it really isn't that easy in practice (at least for me). I ran cross-country and track (the mile and 2-mile) for three years in high school back in the day, but I still had problems maintaining that steady pace that would let me go for really long distances.
A couple of years ago I bought a couple of books on training and a heart rate monitor and that made a huge difference for me. As long as I'm not exceeding my target zone, I can now run for five miles with no problem.
Oddly enough, this isn't as much of a problem for me when I row/scull...
Slashdot Mirror
The lag between the requests for grant proposals or the research/education funding and the results can be quite significant. While W. obviously isn't responsible for the current state of scientific affairs, it's fair to say the the decisions his administration makes will have real long-term effects that may not be obvious for ten or twenty more years. (Just think about how long it will take to find out effects of the changes in primary education...A kindergardner today won't hit the job market with a degree until 2020!)
Ummm, it doesn't print the haiku, it is the haiku.
I think there are very few museums that knowingly fake their data. There are, however, items in museum collections that have been shown to be fake, but were initially passed off as legitimate. (There are several examples where this happened with supposedly complete dinosaur skeletons that were actually assembled from multiple source animals.) Most of these are now just curiousities, but it raises credibility issues for museums in general. This new museum's technique of including references to "real science [research]" helps to increase the credibility of their exhibits.
Hey, let's face it, most scientists and researchers would rather see flashy presentations than boring old research papers (at least outside of their areas of expertise).
I quick flip through the website shows that they still have a flashy presentation, but then you have the option of looking at further reading (both scientific journals and popular media) and other websites. This is a definite improvement and I think it may be the museum equivalent of making the source code available. ("Hey, we're not just BSing, take a look at the research that backs us up!")
This sounds a lot like the information from Michael Pollan's _The Botany of Desire: A Plant's Eye View of the World_. It's a pretty interesting/entertaining read.
Yeah, but it's awefully hard to teach a lot of subjects without, I don't know, books?
A major goal of this project is to eliminate the long times that it's currently taking to get textbooks for the students.
Well, somebody else beat me to the punchline, but I figure I should still point out that the translation actually lists a speed of 4200 RPM.
According to Reuters, "Ashcroft declined to say where the raids had taken place, but noted warez groups often used schools as distribution hubs."
So I'd say it's a safe bet to say they're the same storyline.
One word: "overtime". Who wants to pay time and a half to government agents to look for copyright violations?
Assuming that's what they're really after, of course...
From the article: "Last year, a Senate Judiciary subcommittee held a hearing on the link between international copyright piracy and organized crime, and the FBI has said that there is strong evidence that organized-crime groups have moved into intellectual-property crime, using the profit to pay for other activities."
It doesn't say anything in there specifically about MP3s. I think the link discussed at those hearings probably had to do with the massive quantities of bootleg CDs/DVDs/software that can be bought on the street in a lot of countries. Linking that sort of thing with MP3 file-sharing is a tenuous connection at best.
Glad we've managed to avoid that...
Cynicism aside, labor unions have served an important role in the past in the U.S. and a few still do. Some of the largest, however, have serious problems because they have a leadership that is more concerned with keeping power than benefiting members. This, in turn, has made all unions look bad to a lot of people. Especially people that have never directly benefited from them.
Some cities (Northampton, MA and Troy, NY as I recall) turn over the unpaid ticket to a collection agency. The agency then tracks you down.
Biodiesel and Bioethanol are not the same thing. One of the reasons that it can take a lot of energy to produce fuel-grade ethanol is that it needs to be distilled (just like vodka) and that's a relatively energy-intensive process.
Biodiesel uses a very different process (see this portion of the document mentioned by o'reor.
I don't think you can assume that teh energy costs are the same for the two different fuel types. (Plus, a some of the ethanol/biodiesel actual gets mixed with traditional gasoline and diesel for use in cars rather than being used straight.)
Actually, this has been studied and quantified. Specifically, see:
"Kim, H. C., G. A. Keoleian, S. Spatari and J. W. Bulkley. Optimizing Vehicle Life Using Life Cycle Energy Analysis and Dynamic Replacement Modeling. in Proceedings of the 2000 Total Life Cycle Conference, P-353. Detroit, MI: SAE International, 2000, Paper No. 2000-01-1499, 241-250"
This was work produced by the Center for Sustainable Systems at the University of Michigan.
As I recall, the conclusion on how often to replace a car really depended on what you were most concerned about (energy, air pollution, etc.), but it worked out that you should probably be replacing the car at least every ten years because of advances in technology.
In general, the use phase will dominate both from an energy and a pollution standpoint.
Most churches/priests will still make house calls for people that are sick/hospitalized/incapacitated. That's why although they may only be seen for a few hours on Sunday they're still working 40+ hours a week.
That said, I think in general that any additional options for "attending" church are probably good.
I know that some airports do (or at least used to do) "positive bag checks". My dad talks about transferring planes (in Germany, as I recall) one time where everybody had to point out there bag befor it got loaded on the plane. (They almost wouldn't let him board when he told them his bag wasn't there. Somehow, the bag managed to avoid the check, got loaded on a different plane, and even cleared customs in San Francisco without him.)
Personally, I keep wondering when the federal government is going to suggest that we're only allowed to wear an airport issued tyvek suit onto a plane...
My grandmother uses Mac OSX. Heck, she's been using Macs for 15-20 years.
My mother, on the other hand...Well, she gets confused if the icons on her desktop are moved around in Windows 98.
Hmmm...Maybe techie genes skip generations?
And the text of the actual joke that AmEx is complaining about is google cached here.
But is improvement of skills really the primary motivation for people working on open source projects? I would think much higher on the list would be a motivation to "give something back" and, above all, peer recognition.
I was going to post in response to a couple of different comments, but there were so many people saying the same thing that got modded up...
First of all, I've been using zip disks since at least 1995 and I'd never heard of the "click of death" until today. Honestly, I've heard the same thing on dead 3.5" and 5.25" drives. Yeah, they're customer support may suck, but get over it.
As far as the poster that claimed that zips came out at the same time as CD-Rs, this was most definitely not the case. Zip drives came out in 1994. As of mid 1995, a CD-R was in the neighborhood of $500-600. Hardly competition for a $100-200 drive.
Having said all of that, I do thing that Iomega has lost this market. Once the prices of CD-Rs came down and people realized they could use them, it was all over. Now Iomega is just evolving old technology instead of trying to create the revolutionary techniques they need for a real success.
According to this site:
"Currently, although the technology required to harness tidal energy is well established, tidal power is expensive, and there is only one major tidal generating station in operation. This is a 240 megawatt (1 megawatt = 1 MW = 1 million watts) at the mouth of the La Rance river estuary on the northern coast of France (a large coal or nuclear power plant generates about 1,000 MW of electricity). The La Rance generating station has been in operation since 1966 and has been a very reliable source of electricity for France. La Rance was supposed to be one of many tidal power plants in France, until their nuclear program was greatly expanded in the late 1960's. Elsewhere there is a 20 MW experimental facility at Annapolis Royal in Nova Scotia, and a 0.4 MW tidal power plant near Murmansk in Russia. "
I also recall having seen articles talking about attempts in Norway to capture wave/tidal energy for electricity generation.
I'm always a fan of renewable energy. I just wanted to point out that this is more an attempt to do something in a new way than to do something new.
Right now, I just take the handful of things my heart rate monitor will collect (total time, average HR, time in zone, calories) as well as the mileage and some comments. (I think the comments area is key...)
Of course, I keep track of a different set of things when I use the rowing machine, so some sort of set up utility to edit the fields would be nice.
Right now, I just use quicksheet on my PalmV. It works, even if it's not always the most userfriendly.
I've found that it really isn't that easy in practice (at least for me). I ran cross-country and track (the mile and 2-mile) for three years in high school back in the day, but I still had problems maintaining that steady pace that would let me go for really long distances.
A couple of years ago I bought a couple of books on training and a heart rate monitor and that made a huge difference for me. As long as I'm not exceeding my target zone, I can now run for five miles with no problem.
Oddly enough, this isn't as much of a problem for me when I row/scull...
I just had this vision of all of these trains with big sails on top of them...
Still, it's always good to here that some cities are realizing the importance of renewable energy.