The same for diplomacy. The ability that diplomats and world leaders could call each other if there is an issue or travel and meet each other in less than 24 hours is amazing.
Indeed. When Kaiser Wilhelm left for a holiday in July of 1914, history may have turned out very different if he took along a cellphone.
You mean technology like vaccines that wiped out smallpox, and will soon wipe out polio?
Smallpox has killed more people than all the war in history combined, including more than 300 million during the 20th century. That is six WW2s. That is important.
The problem with tech, is that once it is part of our lives, we no longer consider it "tech", and we take it for granted.
How old are you?
Old enough to have a smallpox vaccine scar on my arm. Old enough to remember polio killing people in America.
The headline asks a question that is based on a false premise. Techies are doing more than anyone to improve the world. We have gone 70 years without a major war. Why? Two reasons, better communications and nuclear weapons. Both of these are because the techies that built the Internet, launched the comsats, and split the atom. Today, the Internet is bringing literacy and prosperity to the third world. Better solar cells and windmills are bringing us clean energy. Wikipedia is compiling the world's knowledge, and Google is giving us a way to search it instantly.
All of this is being done by us nerds. Who else is doing as much to create a better world? Lawyers? Journalists? Politicians? I don't think so.
You're right, it's about logic. So let's teach them all electronics and circuit design. And mechanical engineering.
Yes, kids should have exposure to all of these things. I teach programming (using Scratch) and robotics (using Mindstorms) to 4th, 5th, and 6th graders. They love the programming, but they also learn how to design circuits and interface them to the robots. They learn the mechanics of grippers, leverage, and gear ratios.
This is way more useful that teaching them cursive writing, or the avoidance of split infinitives and dangling participles.
You can screw those up and not even know you are doing it wrong. A lot of things can "sort-of" work, with no clean and clear distinction between getting it right and getting it wrong. That is why programming is the best way to teach logic and reasoning. You design the logic, you run it, and it either works or it doesn't. If it doesn't, then you need to figure out what you did wrong and fix it.
If you are taught baking, you learn how to bake.
If you are taught investing, you learn how to invest.
If you are taught programming, you learn how to program, but you also learn how to think logically, deal with complexity, and systematically solve problems.
The prerequisites alone are undergraduate university math.
Understanding algorithms for sorting and searching require very little math. Complexity analysis requires understanding of exponents and logarithms, which are taught in junior high school. Most programming is more like doing plumbing than like doing math. "Okay, take this data stream and connect it to that socket, then run it through a filter and compress it..."
What is code.org and why should I care what its CEO thinks? Who gives a shit?
Code.org is a non-profit organization promoting the teaching of programming. They have wealthy benefactors, and are very influential. Whether or not you agree with their goals and methods, you should "give a shit" about who they are and what they do. You should also give a shit in general about STEM education. It is important.
Most of the space-based spin-offs came from the development of communication satellites, not from the moon landings. The first comsat was in 1962, before the moon race even started.
DES was unbreakable, until it was broken. MD5 was unbreakable, until it was broken. RSA was "unbreakable" last year. Not so much this year.
DES was actually designed to be crackable. MD5 is not an encryption algorithm. RSA has not been considered robustly secure for a long time, and was never considered unbreakable.
If decryption takes 1e6 times as long as encryption, the algorithm is easily crackable. If it takes 1e12 times as long, it is good enough for casual communications. 1e15 is secure against all but the most determined government sponsored crackers. If the ratio is 1e100 it is uncrackable in the life of the universe (the number of quarks in the universe is ~ 1e80). That ratio has been growing exponentially, far faster than computing hardware has been improving.
It's been common wisdom for years that with physical access to the device and unlimited time and resources, almost all encryption schemes can be defeated.
That is an utterly meaningless statement. Time are resources are NEVER "unlimited", because eventually, you will have to face the heat death of the universe.
Meanwhile, back to reality: Cryptography has been advancing way faster than cryptanalysis, and there are publicly available encryption algorithms that are essentially unbreakable, even using quantum computers. All of the cracking events you read about are done through social engineering and sloppy security practices. None of them happen because state-of-the-art encryption is cracked. That doesn't happen.
Yup, that's why we all remember the 1968 private Moon landing so well, right?
The moon race was a lavishly funded and otherwise pointless political exercise to show the world that we had bigger dicks than the Soviets. To use it as an example of government efficiency and effectiveness is silly.
Speaking of Soviet dick size: During WW2, the Soviet Red Army deployed a 2 inch trench mortar, but had difficulty keeping rain out of the barrel. Without explaining the purpose, they asked the Americans to supply thousands of condoms 12 inches long and 2 inches in diameter, which would fit perfectly over the muzzle. So the Americans manufactured the condoms... and shipped them in boxes marked "medium".
the only type of clean energy that can handle our demands would be nuclear
Wind power is already cheaper than nuclear, and if current trends continue, solar will be cheaper in less than a decade... which is far less than the lead time to build a nuclear plant.
and since that's also off limits because of the environmental lobby
No. Nuclear is off the table because of economics.
At the risk of destroying my karma further...
Oh come off it. Nobody on Slashdot gets modded down for being pro-nuke.
But then that just means you're being overcharged for Internet.
Only if you assume that it costs them more than $0 to provide the TV service. Since all the bits are delivered over the same cable, the marginal equipment cost is zero. So if they make more in advertising revenue than they pay in licensing fees, the cost is negative, and the "Internet only" people are being undercharged.
The likely reason they give TV away for free, is so they can claim a larger audience, and thus charge more for TV ads.
Yes. CO2 forms carbonic acid when it is dissolved in water, and acidifies the blood to lethal levels when above about 7%. With conditioning you can tolerate slightly higher levels.
No. You're talking MONOXIDE.
CO is much more toxic than CO2, but either can kill you.
CO2 only deprives the air of usual ratio of oxygen, and is not notice in itself.
No. This is wrong. If you add 7% CO2, you still have about 18% O2, which is more than enough for a healthy person. It is the CO2 that kills you, not the absence of oxygen.
Actually asphyxiation by breathing near pure CO2 isn't bad. It's remarkably swift.
Likely better than thallium or anticoagulants like warfarin. There isn't a perfect way to kill rats, but this seems like an improvement.
I'm not sure why they are using dry ice rather than just a tank of compressed CO2.
Likely because the dry ice is cheaper, easier, and more effective. It also requires less equipment and training.
Or pure N2 for that matter
N2 is lighter than air, and you need enough of it to completely displace the air. CO2 is dense, and even denser when it is at -109F, so it will flow into the burrows. It is toxic at about 7%.
which eliminates the stress response entirely
I doubt if most people with a rat infestation consider this to be a critical criteria.
I am a Netflix user and I will NOT cancel my cable. Reason: It costs me $0. The Comcast bundle of Internet+TV+Phone costs me exactly the same as just Internet. I have never actually watched cable, and it is not even connected to my TV, but it is nice to have it just in case someday there is something worth watching. In the meantime, it costs me nothing. The free landline phone is also handy when I misplace my cellphone somewhere in the house and need to make it ring so I can find it.
They tend to be less fallible than non-billionaires. Bill and Mark didn't get to be billionaires by winning the lottery. They made some smart decisions, hired good people, and built successful organizations. Also, they have a lot of money, and that can sometimes help make projects successful
There have been charter schools for over a decade and they suck even worse than public schools.
Charter schools get similar results as public schools. They sometimes do better, and sometimes not... but they do it for less money. Since they tend to be in low income neighborhoods, with limited budgets, the cost effectiveness is important.
They're little more than a siphon for moving wealth upwards.
Nonsense. Charter schools are most popular where the public schools are the worst, which is mostly low income areas. They help the poor the most, because the poor are the losers in the traditional public schools system.
The city with the most charters schools is New Orleans, which has some of the worst poverty rates in America.
Even worse, they're bringing down successful public schools.
Actually, public schools tend to improve when they are exposed to competition through parent choice.
If you want to fix schools, you have to disconnect their funding from property taxes.
... and likely a member of a teacher's union with a vested interest in the current lack of accountability.
they can cherry pick their inmates
Charter schools in most states are required to select their students using a public random lottery. There is no "cherry picking".
Free advice: By referring to students as "inmates", you don't sound like you have much objective credibility. You would be more persuasive if you avoided that sort of language. Focus on swaying the audience, not insulting your opponents.
Slashdot Mirror
Making change involves basic algebra. (e.g. cost: $4.97, handed $5. $4.97 + x = $5)
No it doesn't. Making change is just arithmetic.
Kids know enough math to make change by 3rd grade.
The same for diplomacy. The ability that diplomats and world leaders could call each other if there is an issue or travel and meet each other in less than 24 hours is amazing.
Indeed. When Kaiser Wilhelm left for a holiday in July of 1914, history may have turned out very different if he took along a cellphone.
Technology isin't that important.
You mean technology like vaccines that wiped out smallpox, and will soon wipe out polio?
Smallpox has killed more people than all the war in history combined, including more than 300 million during the 20th century. That is six WW2s. That is important.
The problem with tech, is that once it is part of our lives, we no longer consider it "tech", and we take it for granted.
How old are you?
Old enough to have a smallpox vaccine scar on my arm. Old enough to remember polio killing people in America.
The headline asks a question that is based on a false premise. Techies are doing more than anyone to improve the world. We have gone 70 years without a major war. Why? Two reasons, better communications and nuclear weapons. Both of these are because the techies that built the Internet, launched the comsats, and split the atom. Today, the Internet is bringing literacy and prosperity to the third world. Better solar cells and windmills are bringing us clean energy. Wikipedia is compiling the world's knowledge, and Google is giving us a way to search it instantly.
All of this is being done by us nerds. Who else is doing as much to create a better world? Lawyers? Journalists? Politicians? I don't think so.
You're right, it's about logic. So let's teach them all electronics and circuit design. And mechanical engineering.
Yes, kids should have exposure to all of these things. I teach programming (using Scratch) and robotics (using Mindstorms) to 4th, 5th, and 6th graders. They love the programming, but they also learn how to design circuits and interface them to the robots. They learn the mechanics of grippers, leverage, and gear ratios.
This is way more useful that teaching them cursive writing, or the avoidance of split infinitives and dangling participles.
So teach them baking, or investing.
You can screw those up and not even know you are doing it wrong. A lot of things can "sort-of" work, with no clean and clear distinction between getting it right and getting it wrong. That is why programming is the best way to teach logic and reasoning. You design the logic, you run it, and it either works or it doesn't. If it doesn't, then you need to figure out what you did wrong and fix it.
If you are taught baking, you learn how to bake.
If you are taught investing, you learn how to invest.
If you are taught programming, you learn how to program, but you also learn how to think logically, deal with complexity, and systematically solve problems.
The prerequisites alone are undergraduate university math.
Understanding algorithms for sorting and searching require very little math. Complexity analysis requires understanding of exponents and logarithms, which are taught in junior high school. Most programming is more like doing plumbing than like doing math. "Okay, take this data stream and connect it to that socket, then run it through a filter and compress it ..."
Most people do not need coding
Even fewer people need calculus, trigonometry, or even algebra. But high schools still teach that.
Please explain why anyone, other than an academic, would use calculus professionally yet not find programming useful.
As a practicing engineer, I spend a thousand times as much time coding as I do deriving closed form integrals.
What is code.org and why should I care what its CEO thinks? Who gives a shit?
Code.org is a non-profit organization promoting the teaching of programming. They have wealthy benefactors, and are very influential. Whether or not you agree with their goals and methods, you should "give a shit" about who they are and what they do. You should also give a shit in general about STEM education. It is important.
Most of the space-based spin-offs came from the development of communication satellites, not from the moon landings. The first comsat was in 1962, before the moon race even started.
DES was unbreakable, until it was broken.
MD5 was unbreakable, until it was broken.
RSA was "unbreakable" last year. Not so much this year.
DES was actually designed to be crackable.
MD5 is not an encryption algorithm.
RSA has not been considered robustly secure for a long time, and was never considered unbreakable.
If decryption takes 1e6 times as long as encryption, the algorithm is easily crackable. If it takes 1e12 times as long, it is good enough for casual communications. 1e15 is secure against all but the most determined government sponsored crackers. If the ratio is 1e100 it is uncrackable in the life of the universe (the number of quarks in the universe is ~ 1e80). That ratio has been growing exponentially, far faster than computing hardware has been improving.
It's been common wisdom for years that with physical access to the device and unlimited time and resources, almost all encryption schemes can be defeated.
That is an utterly meaningless statement. Time are resources are NEVER "unlimited", because eventually, you will have to face the heat death of the universe.
Meanwhile, back to reality: Cryptography has been advancing way faster than cryptanalysis, and there are publicly available encryption algorithms that are essentially unbreakable, even using quantum computers. All of the cracking events you read about are done through social engineering and sloppy security practices. None of them happen because state-of-the-art encryption is cracked. That doesn't happen.
Yup, that's why we all remember the 1968 private Moon landing so well, right?
The moon race was a lavishly funded and otherwise pointless political exercise to show the world that we had bigger dicks than the Soviets. To use it as an example of government efficiency and effectiveness is silly.
Speaking of Soviet dick size: During WW2, the Soviet Red Army deployed a 2 inch trench mortar, but had difficulty keeping rain out of the barrel. Without explaining the purpose, they asked the Americans to supply thousands of condoms 12 inches long and 2 inches in diameter, which would fit perfectly over the muzzle. So the Americans manufactured the condoms ... and shipped them in boxes marked "medium".
However (if I recall correctly), CO_2 (and CO) is heavier than O_2
No. CO is lighter than O2. Here is the math: (12 + 16) < (16 + 16). CO2 is, of course, heavier than O2: (12 + 12 + 16) > (16 + 16).
so it displaces the O_2 and causes oxygen deprivation for oxygen-breathers in suitably low positions in suitably enclosed spaces.
No. This is wrong. Either CO or CO2 will kill you long before they displace enough O2 to matter.
the only type of clean energy that can handle our demands would be nuclear
Wind power is already cheaper than nuclear, and if current trends continue, solar will be cheaper in less than a decade ... which is far less than the lead time to build a nuclear plant.
and since that's also off limits because of the environmental lobby
No. Nuclear is off the table because of economics.
At the risk of destroying my karma further...
Oh come off it. Nobody on Slashdot gets modded down for being pro-nuke.
Countries like the Scandinavian countries give the most per person - far more than the US god-botherers give
Wrong.
But then that just means you're being overcharged for Internet.
Only if you assume that it costs them more than $0 to provide the TV service. Since all the bits are delivered over the same cable, the marginal equipment cost is zero. So if they make more in advertising revenue than they pay in licensing fees, the cost is negative, and the "Internet only" people are being undercharged.
The likely reason they give TV away for free, is so they can claim a larger audience, and thus charge more for TV ads.
CO2 is toxic?
Yes. CO2 forms carbonic acid when it is dissolved in water, and acidifies the blood to lethal levels when above about 7%. With conditioning you can tolerate slightly higher levels.
No. You're talking MONOXIDE.
CO is much more toxic than CO2, but either can kill you.
CO2 only deprives the air of usual ratio of oxygen, and is not notice in itself.
No. This is wrong. If you add 7% CO2, you still have about 18% O2, which is more than enough for a healthy person. It is the CO2 that kills you, not the absence of oxygen.
We better hope we don't encounter aliens that feel the same way about us and see us as pests on "their" new planet.
What is your point? That aliens will treat us better if we are nice to rats?
Real life is not like Star Trek.
Actually asphyxiation by breathing near pure CO2 isn't bad. It's remarkably swift.
Likely better than thallium or anticoagulants like warfarin. There isn't a perfect way to kill rats, but this seems like an improvement.
I'm not sure why they are using dry ice rather than just a tank of compressed CO2.
Likely because the dry ice is cheaper, easier, and more effective. It also requires less equipment and training.
Or pure N2 for that matter
N2 is lighter than air, and you need enough of it to completely displace the air. CO2 is dense, and even denser when it is at -109F, so it will flow into the burrows. It is toxic at about 7%.
which eliminates the stress response entirely
I doubt if most people with a rat infestation consider this to be a critical criteria.
I am a Netflix user and I will NOT cancel my cable. Reason: It costs me $0. The Comcast bundle of Internet+TV+Phone costs me exactly the same as just Internet. I have never actually watched cable, and it is not even connected to my TV, but it is nice to have it just in case someday there is something worth watching. In the meantime, it costs me nothing. The free landline phone is also handy when I misplace my cellphone somewhere in the house and need to make it ring so I can find it.
Why is that? Because billionaires are infallible?
They tend to be less fallible than non-billionaires. Bill and Mark didn't get to be billionaires by winning the lottery. They made some smart decisions, hired good people, and built successful organizations. Also, they have a lot of money, and that can sometimes help make projects successful
There have been charter schools for over a decade and they suck even worse than public schools.
Charter schools get similar results as public schools. They sometimes do better, and sometimes not ... but they do it for less money. Since they tend to be in low income neighborhoods, with limited budgets, the cost effectiveness is important.
They're little more than a siphon for moving wealth upwards.
Nonsense. Charter schools are most popular where the public schools are the worst, which is mostly low income areas. They help the poor the most, because the poor are the losers in the traditional public schools system.
The city with the most charters schools is New Orleans, which has some of the worst poverty rates in America.
Even worse, they're bringing down successful public schools.
Actually, public schools tend to improve when they are exposed to competition through parent choice.
If you want to fix schools, you have to disconnect their funding from property taxes.
Good luck with that.
I work in K-12.
... and likely a member of a teacher's union with a vested interest in the current lack of accountability.
they can cherry pick their inmates
Charter schools in most states are required to select their students using a public random lottery. There is no "cherry picking".
Free advice: By referring to students as "inmates", you don't sound like you have much objective credibility. You would be more persuasive if you avoided that sort of language. Focus on swaying the audience, not insulting your opponents.
Dude. If someone want to shake up education to try something new, and wants to give a boat load of money - what's not to love?
... and if they team up with some billionaires, it means their effort is more likely to be successful, and more likely to make a difference.
This looks like a smart and logical move, despite the submitters attempt to manufacture outrage.
There is a Summit HS in my city, San Jose. My kids don't attend it, but some neighbors do, and they are very happy with it.