I had to apply to book sleuth to find this one, but I loved it around 8th grade:
I'm pretty sure you're remembering Children of the Dust by Louise Lawrence.
"Nuclear missiles are flying toward their targets. One family is separated: the father finds his way to an underground shelter while his wife and three children seal themselves in their living room. But only Catherine, the eight year old, stays completely inside, away from radiation, hiding under a blanket-covered table. And only she will survive. Her older sister, before she dies, takes Catherine to Johnson, an eccentric survivalist. Meanwhile, in a government bunker, Bill Harnden, the father, mates and has another daughter, Ophelia. As the years pass, a few survivors try to establish an agricultural foundation for a new society above ground, while in the shelter machines preserve a society unable to function in a new world. When the leaders of the shelter decide to commandeer the livestock of the outsiders, Bill and Ophelia go to warn them. In Johnson's camp, now a small village, Bill finds that his daughter Catherine is the mother of the first of a new breed of genetic mutants who are covered with fine white fur and have strange white eyes and psychic abilities. By the next generation, it is clear that the society underground cannot last, and Ophelia's son Simon must establish a bond with 'homo superior, the children of the dust' so that technological knowledge is not lost forever."
This MIGHT be an interesting premise for some more grounded research. I mean, most sociological studies, I assume, start with an interesting question mostly made up of what some person thought was true, and wanted to find out for sure. But it's stupid to even have this as a story, unless someone's at least done some kind of valid inquiry! How about:
For women and men working on similar tasks, under similar deadlines, what is the average length of code minus comments (because, of course, you can write a c program that's all 1 line but readable it is probably not)?
Same thing, but how many comments?
Give random code to literate testers and have them rate it on readability, ability to modify, etc. (blind to gender of course).
etc.
I think what troubles me most about this is that she uses the (somewhat annoying to me as a woman) stereotype that women are "touchy-feely" as part of her explanation of the "better code". But hopefully most of you KNOW that not all women are that way, perhaps not even most (Meyers-Briggs would say 75%, but whatever); and moreso, that probably the women attracted to science and computing are unlikely to be "feely" with a capital F.
PS. My perl code is also unreadable, and I refuse to comment because I'm a brat (actually I tell myself I'll do it at the "end" so it's complete but that never happens)... guess I'm a failure to female coders!
Amazingly, Abortion Rights matter to those that choose to exercise them, and also to those that don't. If you're against it, current laws allow you to go ahead with the pregnancy. If you're not, and you make minimum wage and aren't married and actually DON'T want to be on welfare, well, you can make your choice as well. But it's soooo important that someone else not be in control of their life, that we'd vote for someone entirely based on that political stance. Amazing.
I agree with you that government is not a vehicle to fix all problems. 100%. But the problem is that neither side seems to think this anymore. On the left we want to give handouts to anybody we can define to need them, plus other asinine pork-barrel programs, or worst of all, take money away from upper-level research (NASA) to be wasted in the public school system. On the right we seem to want to throw money after certain pet projects (ahem, iraq), or, worst of all, legislate to death on things that government should have no bear on, or at very least should be left up to the states (gay marriage, stem cells, abortion, all the "hot-button" things that could be construed as "fixing every problem/thing my preacher tells me is EVIL").
Basically, I'd be a libertarian except on a few things. Maybe I'm a democrat-lite. But I definitely have no problem with a lot of "conservative" viewpoints, except when they want to make laws about my body and my choices that affect no one else.
You've got to be kidding me. This is the #1 reason that I can't really be a libertarian. Altruism and having people "take care of the poor" on their own time is a fantastic idea, except that it DOESN'T WORK. Human Beings are assholes, and most would as soon kick a guy in the gutter before giving him a dollar, much less pick him up and help him find a job. Just admit that you don't give jack sh*t about people who through luck or mental illness are in a bad situation.
If you quit the welfare program tomorrow I guarantee you crime would rise through the roof and local charities wouldn't be able to do anything more than they already do. How do I know? Because I volunteer all the time, and most charities (especially for the homeless and battered women shelters) are full to the TILT every day, and have to turn away people. It really is sad.
I think the main problem is that your average book store person, or even Amazon worker classifying the novel would have a hard time classifying some books as one or the other. Even most "hard sci-fi" books that I have read have a LOT of hand-waiving and I think you could be justified in calling that fantasy.
I was at one time (in my teens) very like-minded: I loved sci-fi but I hated ANYTHING in my local library with dragons on it, i.e. fantasy. A lot of these seemed like romance novels to me, just totally ridiculous and childish and most importantly not asking the right questions, which is what makes speculative fiction or sci-fi so interesting. HOWEVER, I found out once I got to college that I was just reading the wrong books. Just as I had discovered, sadly, that about 90% of sci-fi is crap, that same rule applies to fantasy. A few that changed my opinion: Lord of the Rings (obviously), Dune, the Sword of Truth series before it got lame, some of the books by Sheri S. Tepper. These all share the characteristics of creating multi-dimensional, interesting characters, asking questions which could reasonably be relevant to today's society, etc.
Oh no, not the Houston Comical! How do you stand the general level of intelligence of those comments? It drives me insane. There are about 3 or 4 types of people on chron.com and 3 or 4 of them annoy the sh*t out of me.
type #1 : douchey, gun-toting, semi or even overtly racist texan
type #2 : crazy nut job conspiracy theorist that uses the word "sheeple" way too much and drags iraq and bush into things on the thinnest of connections
type #2b : crazy nut job conspiracy theorist that uses the word "sheeple" and can't distinguish between a democrat, a socialist, and a communist.
type #3 : angry female type, sometimes bleeding for some "poor" person in a story, but otherwise suggests inane solutions to problems
type #4 : rarely, a voice of reason will appear that can actually type and use grammar. very rarely observed.
yes, but then you have someone like me who will come along and point out that really, humans are a part of nature as well, so anything we do is part of a "natural" process.:)
Ok... perhaps the legal repercussions were not what I was referring to. What I mean is if a staffperson for candidate X decides to go out and pay 1000 people to vote for that candidate... how likely is that to stay under wraps in terms of the NEWS?? Surely if you hear that candidate X is PAYING PEOPLE to vote for him/her you would be pretty upset about them figuratively taking a sh*t on our democracy, having no respect for the law, etc?
THANK YOU!!
Honestly the vote coercion thing is the stupidest argument. To get any appreciable results, you'd have to buy a LOT of votes, and getting that many people to stay mum about it would be impossible, not to mention there'd be a paper/money trail somewhere! jeez!
I have decided I am tired of this argument. Honestly. It's already illegal, so anyone caught doing this would face DIRE consequences... and if you can convince anyone that keeping it under wraps would be possible, I'll be amazed.
I like the implicit assumption here and in other posts is that we're talking about MALE scientists and their ditzy cosmo-reading girlfriends. There are plenty of counter-examples (my boyfriend and I are both scientists, and in my mind some of his religious beliefs are about as reasonable as astrology); there's no need to make the discussion gender-specific.
That said, a lot of astrology has roots in wicca and other "religions"... I don't know anyone that actually thinks it is science, though as an astrophysicist I do find an annoying number of people think astrology is what I DO FOR A LIVING. sigh.
I don't know if it got off the ground, but at Rice U. the grad students recently funded a project called "Rejecta Mathematica" for just such a purpose - the publishing of failed/rejected papers! I thought it was a good name, at least.
Ok, for fun I googled it, and they are taking submissions for their inaugural issue:
http://math.rejecta.org/
There is an excellent book "What if the moon didn't exist" that actually details a ton of different scenarios for how the earth + rocky body collision could have been different (larger, smaller, different directions) resulting in all kinds of different outcomes (relies heavily on evolutionary theory - for instance, without tidal slowing of the earth's rotation, day's would be 4 hours long and animal life would certainly be adapted differently).
Anyway, I recall the first chapter detailed the prevailing theory of the collision, and it definitely hit counter to the earth's rotation which was supposedly 4 hours/day and slower afterwards.
Though my guess is that they're less looking for `Top Gun' types of guys and more for the brainy scientist guys -- but guys who are physically fit too. I'm getting a phD in astrophysics and I compete in triathlons...
But I'm not a guy;)
Does anyone else find this list hilarious?
http://hemlock.knams.wikimedia.org/~leon/stats/wik icharts/index.php?wiki=enwiki&ns=articles&limit=10 0&month=08%2F2007&mode=view
WikiCharts -- Top 100 -- 08/2007
Views per day Percent Title
389 659 ± 1% 3.7114% 1. Main Page
17 773 ± 3% 0.1693% 2. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
11 368 ± 4% 0.1083% 3. Wiki
10 995 ± 4% 0.1047% 4. Harry Potter
9 649 ± 4% 0.0919% 5. Transformers (film)
5 286 ± 6% 0.0504% 6. Naruto
5 173 ± 6% 0.0493% 7. Wikipedia
4 427 ± 6% 0.0422% 8. Deaths in 2007
4 119 ± 6% 0.0392% 9. United States
3 827 ± 7% 0.0365% 10. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (film)
3 714 ± 7% 0.0354% 11. Sex
3 616 ± 7% 0.0344% 12. List of sex positions
3 584 ± 7% 0.0341% 13. Hypertext Transfer Protocol
3 535 ± 7% 0.0337% 14. The Simpsons
3 519 ± 7% 0.0335% 15. YouTube
3 486 ± 7% 0.0332% 16. Bleach (manga)
3 422 ± 7% 0.0326% 17. Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock
3 227 ± 7% 0.0307% 18. List of characters in the Harry Potter books
2 838 ± 8% 0.0270% 19. The Simpsons Movie
2 789 ± 8% 0.0266% 20. List of Konoha ninja
2 789 ± 8% 0.0266% 21. List of Akatsuki members
2 773 ± 8% 0.0264% 22. Optimus Prime
2 692 ± 8% 0.0256% 23. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
2 676 ± 8% 0.0255% 24. Seven Wonders of the World
2 514 ± 8% 0.0239% 25. Chris Benoit
2 449 ± 8% 0.0233% 26. Harry Potter (character)
2 416 ± 8% 0.0230% 27. 50 Cent
2 368 ± 8% 0.0226% 28. Megatron...
so all wiki users are nerdy harry potter fans interested in sex? ha!
WTF???
Soft Science?
Ok, admittedly I am a cosmologist, but there is no way that any actual, published research on cosmology is soft. If you want to talk about "random jackass's theory of cosmology he came up with while stoned" then there may be the mix of sociology and religion you're looking for.
From my personal experience, problematic kids are NOT necessarily tied to income levels, especially when you are from Oklahoma where everyone is stratified within the middle class. My private school (which I paid for by working illegally every summer) was inundated every year with "bad" kids that had been kicked out of every public school in proximity. They basically bought their way in. In the 8th grade about half the students in my small class (17 graduating) were from this sort of background. They made an otherwise bearable school life into a daily abhorrence, but I got through it... probably for the better as I think my skin is about a mile thick. BTW, if you've never had the fun of being one of very few actually poor kids in a private school, you are missing out on a very special experience. heh.
Campaigning would be a lot easier if graduate students were allowed to unionize. I am in the midst of such a fight with my university because our coverage is not only god-awful ($100,000 cap, insured pays 30% of costs), but it's expensive ($2150) and our company seems to keep it's costs down by making the claims process a nightmare. I know we're not valued much, but grad students absolutely should be allowed to unionize. It's ridiculous that the maid who cleans the hallway for a normal 8 hour day has way better insurance than myself, who is typically here working 12+ hours per day.
I know I'll get yelled at for not citing sources, but I'm sure (with all the legal expenses attending appeals upon appeals), a death sentence costs the taxpayer more than life in prison.
haha, ok, sure. I have a degree in physics from an Ivy, so I don't think I'm bringing down the national IQ. Also I have internal genitalia, not that I mind the assumption. This has nothing to do with not understanding how interest works. My trouble was not having realistic ideas about how using the cards "occasionally" will really add up, and how budgeting $50 for two weeks of food, even if it would work "in theory" would only keep me using those cards to bail me out. So by "stupid" I really meant naive, and perhaps a little undisciplined. Certainly something not uncommon in those just getting out in the world.
Slashdot Mirror
I had to apply to book sleuth to find this one, but I loved it around 8th grade:
I'm pretty sure you're remembering Children of the Dust by Louise Lawrence.
"Nuclear missiles are flying toward their targets. One family is separated: the father finds his way to an underground shelter while his wife and three children seal themselves in their living room. But only Catherine, the eight year old, stays completely inside, away from radiation, hiding under a blanket-covered table. And only she will survive. Her older sister, before she dies, takes Catherine to Johnson, an eccentric survivalist. Meanwhile, in a government bunker, Bill Harnden, the father, mates and has another daughter, Ophelia. As the years pass, a few survivors try to establish an agricultural foundation for a new society above ground, while in the shelter machines preserve a society unable to function in a new world. When the leaders of the shelter decide to commandeer the livestock of the outsiders, Bill and Ophelia go to warn them. In Johnson's camp, now a small village, Bill finds that his daughter Catherine is the mother of the first of a new breed of genetic mutants who are covered with fine white fur and have strange white eyes and psychic abilities. By the next generation, it is clear that the society underground cannot last, and Ophelia's son Simon must establish a bond with 'homo superior, the children of the dust' so that technological knowledge is not lost forever."
This MIGHT be an interesting premise for some more grounded research. I mean, most sociological studies, I assume, start with an interesting question mostly made up of what some person thought was true, and wanted to find out for sure. But it's stupid to even have this as a story, unless someone's at least done some kind of valid inquiry! How about:
For women and men working on similar tasks, under similar deadlines, what is the average length of code minus comments (because, of course, you can write a c program that's all 1 line but readable it is probably not)? Same thing, but how many comments? Give random code to literate testers and have them rate it on readability, ability to modify, etc. (blind to gender of course). etc.
I think what troubles me most about this is that she uses the (somewhat annoying to me as a woman) stereotype that women are "touchy-feely" as part of her explanation of the "better code". But hopefully most of you KNOW that not all women are that way, perhaps not even most (Meyers-Briggs would say 75%, but whatever); and moreso, that probably the women attracted to science and computing are unlikely to be "feely" with a capital F. PS. My perl code is also unreadable, and I refuse to comment because I'm a brat (actually I tell myself I'll do it at the "end" so it's complete but that never happens)... guess I'm a failure to female coders!
Amazingly, Abortion Rights matter to those that choose to exercise them, and also to those that don't. If you're against it, current laws allow you to go ahead with the pregnancy. If you're not, and you make minimum wage and aren't married and actually DON'T want to be on welfare, well, you can make your choice as well. But it's soooo important that someone else not be in control of their life, that we'd vote for someone entirely based on that political stance. Amazing.
I agree with you that government is not a vehicle to fix all problems. 100%. But the problem is that neither side seems to think this anymore. On the left we want to give handouts to anybody we can define to need them, plus other asinine pork-barrel programs, or worst of all, take money away from upper-level research (NASA) to be wasted in the public school system. On the right we seem to want to throw money after certain pet projects (ahem, iraq), or, worst of all, legislate to death on things that government should have no bear on, or at very least should be left up to the states (gay marriage, stem cells, abortion, all the "hot-button" things that could be construed as "fixing every problem/thing my preacher tells me is EVIL"). Basically, I'd be a libertarian except on a few things. Maybe I'm a democrat-lite. But I definitely have no problem with a lot of "conservative" viewpoints, except when they want to make laws about my body and my choices that affect no one else.
You've got to be kidding me. This is the #1 reason that I can't really be a libertarian. Altruism and having people "take care of the poor" on their own time is a fantastic idea, except that it DOESN'T WORK. Human Beings are assholes, and most would as soon kick a guy in the gutter before giving him a dollar, much less pick him up and help him find a job. Just admit that you don't give jack sh*t about people who through luck or mental illness are in a bad situation.
If you quit the welfare program tomorrow I guarantee you crime would rise through the roof and local charities wouldn't be able to do anything more than they already do. How do I know? Because I volunteer all the time, and most charities (especially for the homeless and battered women shelters) are full to the TILT every day, and have to turn away people. It really is sad.
I think the main problem is that your average book store person, or even Amazon worker classifying the novel would have a hard time classifying some books as one or the other. Even most "hard sci-fi" books that I have read have a LOT of hand-waiving and I think you could be justified in calling that fantasy.
I was at one time (in my teens) very like-minded: I loved sci-fi but I hated ANYTHING in my local library with dragons on it, i.e. fantasy. A lot of these seemed like romance novels to me, just totally ridiculous and childish and most importantly not asking the right questions, which is what makes speculative fiction or sci-fi so interesting. HOWEVER, I found out once I got to college that I was just reading the wrong books. Just as I had discovered, sadly, that about 90% of sci-fi is crap, that same rule applies to fantasy. A few that changed my opinion: Lord of the Rings (obviously), Dune, the Sword of Truth series before it got lame, some of the books by Sheri S. Tepper. These all share the characteristics of creating multi-dimensional, interesting characters, asking questions which could reasonably be relevant to today's society, etc.
Oh no, not the Houston Comical! How do you stand the general level of intelligence of those comments? It drives me insane. There are about 3 or 4 types of people on chron.com and 3 or 4 of them annoy the sh*t out of me. type #1 : douchey, gun-toting, semi or even overtly racist texan type #2 : crazy nut job conspiracy theorist that uses the word "sheeple" way too much and drags iraq and bush into things on the thinnest of connections type #2b : crazy nut job conspiracy theorist that uses the word "sheeple" and can't distinguish between a democrat, a socialist, and a communist. type #3 : angry female type, sometimes bleeding for some "poor" person in a story, but otherwise suggests inane solutions to problems type #4 : rarely, a voice of reason will appear that can actually type and use grammar. very rarely observed.
yes, but then you have someone like me who will come along and point out that really, humans are a part of nature as well, so anything we do is part of a "natural" process. :)
Ok... perhaps the legal repercussions were not what I was referring to. What I mean is if a staffperson for candidate X decides to go out and pay 1000 people to vote for that candidate... how likely is that to stay under wraps in terms of the NEWS?? Surely if you hear that candidate X is PAYING PEOPLE to vote for him/her you would be pretty upset about them figuratively taking a sh*t on our democracy, having no respect for the law, etc?
THANK YOU!! Honestly the vote coercion thing is the stupidest argument. To get any appreciable results, you'd have to buy a LOT of votes, and getting that many people to stay mum about it would be impossible, not to mention there'd be a paper/money trail somewhere! jeez!
I have decided I am tired of this argument. Honestly. It's already illegal, so anyone caught doing this would face DIRE consequences... and if you can convince anyone that keeping it under wraps would be possible, I'll be amazed.
I like the implicit assumption here and in other posts is that we're talking about MALE scientists and their ditzy cosmo-reading girlfriends. There are plenty of counter-examples (my boyfriend and I are both scientists, and in my mind some of his religious beliefs are about as reasonable as astrology); there's no need to make the discussion gender-specific.
That said, a lot of astrology has roots in wicca and other "religions"... I don't know anyone that actually thinks it is science, though as an astrophysicist I do find an annoying number of people think astrology is what I DO FOR A LIVING. sigh.
I don't know if it got off the ground, but at Rice U. the grad students recently funded a project called "Rejecta Mathematica" for just such a purpose - the publishing of failed/rejected papers! I thought it was a good name, at least. Ok, for fun I googled it, and they are taking submissions for their inaugural issue: http://math.rejecta.org/
There is an excellent book "What if the moon didn't exist" that actually details a ton of different scenarios for how the earth + rocky body collision could have been different (larger, smaller, different directions) resulting in all kinds of different outcomes (relies heavily on evolutionary theory - for instance, without tidal slowing of the earth's rotation, day's would be 4 hours long and animal life would certainly be adapted differently). Anyway, I recall the first chapter detailed the prevailing theory of the collision, and it definitely hit counter to the earth's rotation which was supposedly 4 hours/day and slower afterwards.
Does anyone else find this list hilarious? http://hemlock.knams.wikimedia.org/~leon/stats/wik icharts/index.php?wiki=enwiki&ns=articles&limit=10 0&month=08%2F2007&mode=view
WikiCharts -- Top 100 -- 08/2007
Views per day Percent Title
389 659 ± 1% 3.7114% 1. Main Page
17 773 ± 3% 0.1693% 2. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
11 368 ± 4% 0.1083% 3. Wiki
10 995 ± 4% 0.1047% 4. Harry Potter
9 649 ± 4% 0.0919% 5. Transformers (film)
5 286 ± 6% 0.0504% 6. Naruto
5 173 ± 6% 0.0493% 7. Wikipedia
4 427 ± 6% 0.0422% 8. Deaths in 2007
4 119 ± 6% 0.0392% 9. United States
3 827 ± 7% 0.0365% 10. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (film)
3 714 ± 7% 0.0354% 11. Sex
3 616 ± 7% 0.0344% 12. List of sex positions
3 584 ± 7% 0.0341% 13. Hypertext Transfer Protocol
3 535 ± 7% 0.0337% 14. The Simpsons
3 519 ± 7% 0.0335% 15. YouTube
3 486 ± 7% 0.0332% 16. Bleach (manga)
3 422 ± 7% 0.0326% 17. Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock
3 227 ± 7% 0.0307% 18. List of characters in the Harry Potter books
2 838 ± 8% 0.0270% 19. The Simpsons Movie
2 789 ± 8% 0.0266% 20. List of Konoha ninja
2 789 ± 8% 0.0266% 21. List of Akatsuki members
2 773 ± 8% 0.0264% 22. Optimus Prime
2 692 ± 8% 0.0256% 23. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
2 676 ± 8% 0.0255% 24. Seven Wonders of the World
2 514 ± 8% 0.0239% 25. Chris Benoit
2 449 ± 8% 0.0233% 26. Harry Potter (character)
2 416 ± 8% 0.0230% 27. 50 Cent
2 368 ± 8% 0.0226% 28. Megatron ...
so all wiki users are nerdy harry potter fans interested in sex? ha!
WTF??? Soft Science? Ok, admittedly I am a cosmologist, but there is no way that any actual, published research on cosmology is soft. If you want to talk about "random jackass's theory of cosmology he came up with while stoned" then there may be the mix of sociology and religion you're looking for.
From my personal experience, problematic kids are NOT necessarily tied to income levels, especially when you are from Oklahoma where everyone is stratified within the middle class. My private school (which I paid for by working illegally every summer) was inundated every year with "bad" kids that had been kicked out of every public school in proximity. They basically bought their way in. In the 8th grade about half the students in my small class (17 graduating) were from this sort of background. They made an otherwise bearable school life into a daily abhorrence, but I got through it... probably for the better as I think my skin is about a mile thick. BTW, if you've never had the fun of being one of very few actually poor kids in a private school, you are missing out on a very special experience. heh.
Campaigning would be a lot easier if graduate students were allowed to unionize. I am in the midst of such a fight with my university because our coverage is not only god-awful ($100,000 cap, insured pays 30% of costs), but it's expensive ($2150) and our company seems to keep it's costs down by making the claims process a nightmare. I know we're not valued much, but grad students absolutely should be allowed to unionize. It's ridiculous that the maid who cleans the hallway for a normal 8 hour day has way better insurance than myself, who is typically here working 12+ hours per day.
You can cash gov't checks at the convenience store?! Well hot damn, here I am living below the poverty level and I didn't even know that.
The Bell Curve, anyone?
mod parent up
I know I'll get yelled at for not citing sources, but I'm sure (with all the legal expenses attending appeals upon appeals), a death sentence costs the taxpayer more than life in prison.
My comfort game is scrabble. Followed by bridge, hearts, rummy, and slapjack. oldies but goodies. who needs technology. :)
haha, ok, sure. I have a degree in physics from an Ivy, so I don't think I'm bringing down the national IQ. Also I have internal genitalia, not that I mind the assumption. This has nothing to do with not understanding how interest works. My trouble was not having realistic ideas about how using the cards "occasionally" will really add up, and how budgeting $50 for two weeks of food, even if it would work "in theory" would only keep me using those cards to bail me out. So by "stupid" I really meant naive, and perhaps a little undisciplined. Certainly something not uncommon in those just getting out in the world.