I love New Scientist, true it is like the entertainment tonight of science news, but its fun to read.
As a science writer, I think many mainstream media outlets have reduced science coverage to rewriting press releases. Thats why Science and Nature are the insiders news sources, and everyone else reads the press releases that Science and Nature publish.
I completely agree with this, the training was to retain people since it costs like 35k to hire and train a new employee. Spending 20k a year to keep ones who are probably some of the better employess is probably worth it.
In addition, knowing case law allows examiners to be on a better level with the lawyers who they are sparing with. Plus those who do finish school and stay are valuable sources of legal info for those examiners who don't go to law school.
People I know had to take out loans when the tuition reimbursement program was suddenly halted, sucks, to have to suddenly lose a benefit espiaclly when other funds are being wasted.
This is incorrect as well. Vertical groupings are not all that matters. Rows matter too, as you can see properties change form left to right (or vise versa). Properties like electronegativity, atomic radius, etc. These effect a great deal of why certain elements react the way they do. THat is the beauty of the table, it shows an increadable number of variables and how they relate.
I think the spiral view is just connecting the inert gases to the group 1 metals, something that is taught when the table is read from left to right.
I got my bachelors in chemistry, but I also work on publications and publication design.
This new periodic map shows less information in a more cluttered, hard to decipher way.
The 1950s spiral chart is much better than the overly stylaized galaxy, but all of this is really nothing new.
Its the same table, the same relationships between adjacent atoms in the rows and columns that make the perodic table revolutionary.
This is just crap to make education seem artsy and cool. Fine if it works, but it doesn't really change anything. If students get interested in chemistry becuase of this great, but they will shift to the normal chart later beucase it contains more information.
The advertising thing is already working in some ways for companies like E-ink, which already have a e-paper product.
But, I see consumer products using this so you are not locked into what color you want at the time of purchase.
Hum, I don't like having a blue car anymore, I want it to be red. Nah, I want it to look like a Checkered Cab. Maybe they could sell downloadable images like they sell ring-tones.
Airport and train stations could use this stuff as arrival and departure signs, they could be placed on highways to display traffic warnings, parking info, remind you to wear your seatbelt.
Replace those stupid LCD photo frames....
Interactive white-boards in offices and class rooms. It would probably be really cool in class rooms. Teachers would stop having to spend all their hard earned money on cardboard posters to hang to stimulate the kids. They could change them quickly and easily.....
This discussion is great, but I think the problem of having conclusions that disagree from different studies indicates how medicine is much different from other "hard" sciences.
Sample sizes are very small, and you can't do everything that would give you the most accurate results, because, well humans are squishy and don't like to die for doctors to examine thier livers.
So, studies are smaller, more difficult to devise and interpret, and it takes more time and mistakes in experimental design and conclusions to get to the bottom of something...
Just my thoughts..
I don't think it is really that bad, but it should send a strong message to the lay public: don't believe everything you hear about the latest medical news.
I worked at a medical newspaper (pubs for docs) and first let me say that docs and researchers have to science differently than say chemists. Sample sizes are small, and you can't do whatever you need to do, they are people after all....
The thing that is good about this is that medicine, really does follow through. They did eventually disprove their earlier findings. The science principal of reproducing others work with slightly better experiments, really does work!!!
Now the public just has to realize that they shouldn't rush out and take but loads of vitamine XYZ just because one study said it did something...Wait a couple of years and check again!!!!!!
Re:Limit computers in elementary schools
on
Improving Education?
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
This is the second comment (I've seen so far) that computers should be kept out of classrooms. BS man!
There was even a slasdot once about a guy in india who is installing computers in poor areas of india, just so teh kids can play with it and experience what they will hopefully get to use in the future.
There are programs for teaching kids basic math and spelling, and reading. Some kids learn better visually from a computer, it gets them interested. Others it doesn't work.
1 - eliminate standardized testing, let teachers decide who should graduate, who should redue a grade level. We have taken the responsibility away from those who know the most...
2 - Kids are growing up faster, so change the system to suit. Make Middle School (which is where I stopped learned much) like high school. Use personality tests, allow more electives. Start helping students figure out what they like before its too late and all school is borning.
Make High school more like college. Create College like honors programs, and look to partner with univeristies and corporations to get more intellectual cooperation.
3 - Can the Fed. Education Department, except for keeping stastics maybe. Also most state DOEs exist to suck money away from local schools. Burn the overhead, use the money on teachers, principals, and the kids....
4 - At even the elementary level, have advocate teachers who are experts in a certain area, who can capture a kids interest in a certain area with real knowledge. This would help Science and Math, most elementary teachers are not well versed in either, so this would help them and the kids who might be science wizzes.
Forget Entropy arguements, metaphors are being mixed, phrases fouled up, and people are just looking stupid.
They must have meant "non-renewable" or they, in a very strange way, meant that solar panels are "reusable".
But it really is apple and oranges since solar panels are not really energy, just a way to harvest it in a desired form. Oil pumps are reuseable too. And just think the energy ultimately came from the same source, the sun. I suspect that these entropy arguments are not corect.
On this debate, who said western medicine was science? The only thing that really differentiates western medicine from other "alternatives" is that it at least listens to scientific findings. But like "Alternative" medicine, it also (in general) listens to the popularity of procedures.
A good example of this is accupunture. Its non western, but it became popular as an alternative therapy because western medicine, in my opinion, does not have many solutions to soft tissue (muscle) problems. So, doctors take not of its popularity. Scientific research is done, and low and behold, it does work on pain.....
Other applications are being investigated, but the advantage of western medicine is that it absorbs what works, both due to popularity and science, not just one.
Actually, I think some studies have shone that a lot of sun is still good.
Of people with skin cancer, those with lots of sun exposer had better outcomes than those with less sun exposure. Does not compute with the simple view of Tan=skin cancer.
Also, I think someday we will realize that sunscreen is a bad for you...
With that said, I still can't hit the beach withous sunscreen.
I see what you are saying, but look at some of the most traveled routes in the US. The East Coast and West Coast. Aren't they linear. I agree that you would not see a bullet train making money traveling from NY to LA, or probably even NY to Chicago, but DC to Boston, or San Fran to San Diego?
I think this is pretty funny, the words being used are pretty meaningless.
So you are saying that I can tele-commute with either my telecommunications service or my information service. Last time I tried tele-commuting with just a telephone it didn't work and I got fired.
Isn't the Washington Post an information service? When was the last time Comcast gave me any information, huh. Maybe CNN gave me information but not Comcast.
With this announcement, one has to wonder, "why can't we even get fast trains to work in the US?"
As someone who has ridden the shinkansen (spelling?) and also watched as the faster ones I couldn't afford traveled by a station, they are an awesome sight!!!!
Lower cost to orbit - whatever happened to catepul
on
Back to Moon in 2015?
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
I agree with one of responses that its the cost to orbit that NASA and/or private companies should research.
So, what ever happened to making a railgun, or more conventional catipult like system to fling stuff into space??
I know Arther C. Clark discussed it at some point and without rocket motors the G's needed to accelerate something from Earth's surface would SQUISH a human, but hell, it would work for supplies and raw materials.
Cylinders of O2 can withstand 15 Gs.
So why can't we fling some shipping containers full of sullpies up and meet them up there?
I would love some answers??
Regardless of whether this is a symptom of OSS or just the visibility of many projects that would never have been polished OSS or not, maybe there is room for a non-profit or something to collectively pay some programmers to polish some of the sourceforge nuggets.
I just see the smiliarity between this an governement funded research, military or NASA, which with the help of technology transfer, makes it into commercial products so the tech does not die.
Maybe there is room for a non-profit or something to collect funds and pick and choose some promisiing, but not polished programs and fund their completion.
It some cases it could be abused, but for the most part it might be useful.
Just opening the coffers is not practical, I know, I used to work on journals for the American Chemical Society. Some have said electronic submission and distribution to reviewers cost nothing, but these are custom made programs that handle this, and what about copy editing, layout, art, graphics. You won't believe the number of low res pictures researchers think can be published.
So what to do. There should tiers of subscriptions. For instance, I would love to read papers on certain subjects, so for $5 a month let me look at 2 papers from Journal X (online only). That way, when a article on thin films shows up in JACS (Journal of the American Chemical Society), I could sign up for, inexpensive, occasional access and be happy. But for langumire (which is about films) I could buy the expensive all access pass since I know I would use it.
Bundling these would also be good. Say your member ship in ACS or IEEE would give you access to 10 articles a month in whatever journal online. Sounds good to me, would solve some of the problems I believe.
Also authors should have unlimited access for ever on their own papers.
One more suggestion, if the government really wants articles from gov funded research freely available, I say let the original, un peer reviewed paper be free, and get the final one payed for.
Then people woudl see how much work is involved in making them into publishble papers. Also, this might improve the quality of papers submitted.
rambled on enough....
Journals are publishing departments outsourced so professors don't have to know how to do it.
Its cheaper, more poeple can afford it, and maybe more people will subscribe to journals that are slightly outside their area of expertise to see the
In a country where most people have multiple cards, how will any arms length system know which card to use?
For instance, I use a different credit card for my petrol purchases than grocery purchases, so I can't just wave my wallet like I can when I am getting into my office.
Sounds to me like a half baked idea, that probably needs a little more thought.
Bickering aside, studies about what sex is better at what are nonsense, because the only de-motivate.
If you want a technological society, you need the most people working, men and women, in all strata. Therefore, this Harvardite is taking a cop-out, saying it becasue of the women themselves that they are not being trained in science and engineering.
Could it be that the sexes are different, might approach things differently, and maybe the educational system needs to teach in different ways to accomidate both. Its mathmatically stupid to say half the population is not good at something so broad as science or math.
Slashdot Mirror
I love New Scientist, true it is like the entertainment tonight of science news, but its fun to read. As a science writer, I think many mainstream media outlets have reduced science coverage to rewriting press releases. Thats why Science and Nature are the insiders news sources, and everyone else reads the press releases that Science and Nature publish.
In addition, knowing case law allows examiners to be on a better level with the lawyers who they are sparing with. Plus those who do finish school and stay are valuable sources of legal info for those examiners who don't go to law school.
People I know had to take out loans when the tuition reimbursement program was suddenly halted, sucks, to have to suddenly lose a benefit espiaclly when other funds are being wasted.
I think the spiral view is just connecting the inert gases to the group 1 metals, something that is taught when the table is read from left to right.
There is nothing new here. Move along
This new periodic map shows less information in a more cluttered, hard to decipher way.
The 1950s spiral chart is much better than the overly stylaized galaxy, but all of this is really nothing new.
Its the same table, the same relationships between adjacent atoms in the rows and columns that make the perodic table revolutionary.
This is just crap to make education seem artsy and cool. Fine if it works, but it doesn't really change anything. If students get interested in chemistry becuase of this great, but they will shift to the normal chart later beucase it contains more information.
But, I see consumer products using this so you are not locked into what color you want at the time of purchase.
Hum, I don't like having a blue car anymore, I want it to be red. Nah, I want it to look like a Checkered Cab. Maybe they could sell downloadable images like they sell ring-tones.
Airport and train stations could use this stuff as arrival and departure signs, they could be placed on highways to display traffic warnings, parking info, remind you to wear your seatbelt.
Replace those stupid LCD photo frames....
Interactive white-boards in offices and class rooms. It would probably be really cool in class rooms. Teachers would stop having to spend all their hard earned money on cardboard posters to hang to stimulate the kids. They could change them quickly and easily.....
Sample sizes are very small, and you can't do everything that would give you the most accurate results, because, well humans are squishy and don't like to die for doctors to examine thier livers.
So, studies are smaller, more difficult to devise and interpret, and it takes more time and mistakes in experimental design and conclusions to get to the bottom of something... Just my thoughts..
I worked at a medical newspaper (pubs for docs) and first let me say that docs and researchers have to science differently than say chemists. Sample sizes are small, and you can't do whatever you need to do, they are people after all....
The thing that is good about this is that medicine, really does follow through. They did eventually disprove their earlier findings. The science principal of reproducing others work with slightly better experiments, really does work!!!
Now the public just has to realize that they shouldn't rush out and take but loads of vitamine XYZ just because one study said it did something...Wait a couple of years and check again!!!!!!
There are programs for teaching kids basic math and spelling, and reading. Some kids learn better visually from a computer, it gets them interested. Others it doesn't work. 1 - eliminate standardized testing, let teachers decide who should graduate, who should redue a grade level. We have taken the responsibility away from those who know the most...
2 - Kids are growing up faster, so change the system to suit. Make Middle School (which is where I stopped learned much) like high school. Use personality tests, allow more electives. Start helping students figure out what they like before its too late and all school is borning. Make High school more like college. Create College like honors programs, and look to partner with univeristies and corporations to get more intellectual cooperation.
3 - Can the Fed. Education Department, except for keeping stastics maybe. Also most state DOEs exist to suck money away from local schools. Burn the overhead, use the money on teachers, principals, and the kids....
4 - At even the elementary level, have advocate teachers who are experts in a certain area, who can capture a kids interest in a certain area with real knowledge. This would help Science and Math, most elementary teachers are not well versed in either, so this would help them and the kids who might be science wizzes.
They must have meant "non-renewable" or they, in a very strange way, meant that solar panels are "reusable".
But it really is apple and oranges since solar panels are not really energy, just a way to harvest it in a desired form. Oil pumps are reuseable too. And just think the energy ultimately came from the same source, the sun. I suspect that these entropy arguments are not corect.
On this debate, who said western medicine was science? The only thing that really differentiates western medicine from other "alternatives" is that it at least listens to scientific findings. But like "Alternative" medicine, it also (in general) listens to the popularity of procedures. A good example of this is accupunture. Its non western, but it became popular as an alternative therapy because western medicine, in my opinion, does not have many solutions to soft tissue (muscle) problems. So, doctors take not of its popularity. Scientific research is done, and low and behold, it does work on pain..... Other applications are being investigated, but the advantage of western medicine is that it absorbs what works, both due to popularity and science, not just one.
Of people with skin cancer, those with lots of sun exposer had better outcomes than those with less sun exposure. Does not compute with the simple view of Tan=skin cancer.
Also, I think someday we will realize that sunscreen is a bad for you...
With that said, I still can't hit the beach withous sunscreen.
I understand that tuner cards encode to MPEG as well as tune, but couldn't this be done cheaper with a decent CPU and a video card with video in?
Its funny but this question has kept me from moving forward on PVRs.
Might work pretty well...
So you are saying that I can tele-commute with either my telecommunications service or my information service. Last time I tried tele-commuting with just a telephone it didn't work and I got fired.
Isn't the Washington Post an information service? When was the last time Comcast gave me any information, huh. Maybe CNN gave me information but not Comcast.
As someone who has ridden the shinkansen (spelling?) and also watched as the faster ones I couldn't afford traveled by a station, they are an awesome sight!!!!
I agree with one of responses that its the cost to orbit that NASA and/or private companies should research. So, what ever happened to making a railgun, or more conventional catipult like system to fling stuff into space?? I know Arther C. Clark discussed it at some point and without rocket motors the G's needed to accelerate something from Earth's surface would SQUISH a human, but hell, it would work for supplies and raw materials. Cylinders of O2 can withstand 15 Gs. So why can't we fling some shipping containers full of sullpies up and meet them up there? I would love some answers??
Regardless of whether this is a symptom of OSS or just the visibility of many projects that would never have been polished OSS or not, maybe there is room for a non-profit or something to collectively pay some programmers to polish some of the sourceforge nuggets. I just see the smiliarity between this an governement funded research, military or NASA, which with the help of technology transfer, makes it into commercial products so the tech does not die. Maybe there is room for a non-profit or something to collect funds and pick and choose some promisiing, but not polished programs and fund their completion. It some cases it could be abused, but for the most part it might be useful.
Just opening the coffers is not practical, I know, I used to work on journals for the American Chemical Society. Some have said electronic submission and distribution to reviewers cost nothing, but these are custom made programs that handle this, and what about copy editing, layout, art, graphics. You won't believe the number of low res pictures researchers think can be published. So what to do. There should tiers of subscriptions. For instance, I would love to read papers on certain subjects, so for $5 a month let me look at 2 papers from Journal X (online only). That way, when a article on thin films shows up in JACS (Journal of the American Chemical Society), I could sign up for, inexpensive, occasional access and be happy. But for langumire (which is about films) I could buy the expensive all access pass since I know I would use it. Bundling these would also be good. Say your member ship in ACS or IEEE would give you access to 10 articles a month in whatever journal online. Sounds good to me, would solve some of the problems I believe. Also authors should have unlimited access for ever on their own papers. One more suggestion, if the government really wants articles from gov funded research freely available, I say let the original, un peer reviewed paper be free, and get the final one payed for. Then people woudl see how much work is involved in making them into publishble papers. Also, this might improve the quality of papers submitted. rambled on enough.... Journals are publishing departments outsourced so professors don't have to know how to do it. Its cheaper, more poeple can afford it, and maybe more people will subscribe to journals that are slightly outside their area of expertise to see the
In a country where most people have multiple cards, how will any arms length system know which card to use? For instance, I use a different credit card for my petrol purchases than grocery purchases, so I can't just wave my wallet like I can when I am getting into my office. Sounds to me like a half baked idea, that probably needs a little more thought.
Bickering aside, studies about what sex is better at what are nonsense, because the only de-motivate. If you want a technological society, you need the most people working, men and women, in all strata. Therefore, this Harvardite is taking a cop-out, saying it becasue of the women themselves that they are not being trained in science and engineering. Could it be that the sexes are different, might approach things differently, and maybe the educational system needs to teach in different ways to accomidate both. Its mathmatically stupid to say half the population is not good at something so broad as science or math.