Why do people like to pretend they are addressing a post but instead go off on a different tangent? I did not say anything about foriegn countries sending money to the US, but yet one can apparently be insightful by pretending a post says whatever is convenient (not my definition of insightful though). I said it was in their best interest to keep the money coming in from the US. Therefore they won't "cut us off" and stop selling to us.
Whether or not we will run out of money and at some point in the future and be unable to buy the goods is a completely different matter and not what I was addressing. Someone said they might go on a power trip and decide to cut us off, just because. And I said as long as we are sending money their way, it would be in their best interest not to cut us off.
It is in the foriegn companies' best interest to keep the money flowing though, so they won't "cut us out", which was the point of the first post I thought.
It does have some potential of helping science education. On the other hand, I could see a lot people without much interest in science figuring they could wing a biology degree (less math) to just get a free degree. Maybe these would be better than existing teachers, maybe not.
My point was that if you want scientific advances, the best way to go about it is to spend money on research, not to give away free bachelor's degrees. There are a lot PhDs wanting to do research who can't get jobs, but spending potential research money on free degrees to people who are unlikely to be doing scientific research helps very little. The poster was suggesting that because science was good, giving away free degrees in science must be good.
They would not be flipping burgers immediately, but they would have a hard time finding a job in the field and would become teachers for 4 years. The majority would then leave teaching and start looking for a job and likely find their employment prospects in science had not improved.
>>This may not be true in all cases, but people who actually know what they're talking about don't usually need the law to back up what they say.
I think a Feynman biography mentioned that Gell-mann was talking about a lawsuit over one of Feynman's books where it seemed like Feynman was taking credit for one of Gell-mann's discoveries.
That was a different situation, but I thought it was kind of interesting to see great scientists reduced to that level.
>>I think that might have been a subtle reference to Einstein, who was as a patent clerk while writing his papers.
Yes, that is why I wrote this:
"The money could be better spent on scientific research by trained researchers instead of on the faith that some burger-flipper may someday turn out to be an Einstien."
Anyways, Einstien had a PhD and was a trained researcher. He wanted a university position, but there were not enough science jobs. There are a lot of people in the same boat today - PhD physicists working as software engineers and financial analysts. Maybe it would be better to spend taxpayer money so that these people could do science fulltime instead of using taxpayer money to give away free bachelor's degrees.
>>Right now, if you have a decent degree in maths or a hard science and you cannot get a good job, then either you are being lazy or you have some kind of major personality problem
Right now, most people with a bachelor's degree in physics (no grad degree) work in IT and finance. While these might be good jobs, it means that there are not many good jobs "in the field" of science.
Such a proposal in the article would end up forcing people into teaching for 4 years, but that is debatable whether that is a good outcome, especially if the people thought they were going to have high paying science jobs lined up and get "forced" to become teachers. Some have here have mentioned that teacher *retention* is the main problem to begin with.
Patent clerk is kind of "working in the field" of science at least.
I think taxpayer money could be better spent in advancing scientific research instead of giving away free bachelors degrees in science when the job market has no need for it. The money could be better spent on scientific research by trained researchers instead of on the faith that some burger-flipper may someday turn out to be an Einstien.
I'm not saying that scientific research isn't without value (I have a physics degree) or that we shouldn't spend money on scientific research; I am just saying that a bunch of people getting free BS degrees in science isn't really a very good way to address the demands of the job market or the advancement of science.
>>>>I'm not convinced that there are that many jobs available in science
>>Advances in science and engineering both create jobs. A couple of coots putting together a transistor in Bell Labs apparently spawned off the international industry that pays CmdrTaco's salary.
A bunch of science majors flipping burgers doesn't lead to any advances in science and engineering.
I'm not convinced that there are that many jobs available in science (thus not much need for more graduates). Engineering is probably different though.
Relativity and quantum physics (the very big, the very fast, and the very small) are so beyond one's everyday experience that much of it will not seem very intuitive, and trying to think in traditional terms often is misleading.
Part of the problem is that you are trying to think of a photon as a particle, but it is not. It exhibits particle-like properties at times (photo-electric effect) and wave-like properties at other times (interference patterns). But it is not a particle, and it is not a wave. It is something else, and there is not anything in your everyday experience that will really help you get your mind around this.
Even further than that, the company in question is basically a company that sells information (their analysis of other information) and would probably be very quick to complain if thier product was being distributed beyond paying customers.
A normal person would not have been fined that much. It was a corporation using the copyrighted material in the process of conducting business. I'm not sure they were even fined or if this is just a number they agreed to pay.
They could have just sent links to the original articles and saved all the hassle.
>>First of all, I believe you really don't know what you want to do until you get (at least) a couple of years of college under your belt.
What percentage actually go to college?
Maybe it isn't the greatest idea to prepare everyone for college if the majority don't go. If they are not going to go to college, then getting a taste of different vocational skills would be beneficial.
I think instead of forcing them to declare a major, it would be better to just give better counseling, especially to those students undecided about college. My high school had various recommended curricula for those who knew they were not going to college and those who knew they were, but it wasn't forced upon them.
British TV progamming is already available in America. There is the BBC America channel on cable, and many popular shows end up on other cable channels or on PBS stations. This exposure is much higher for the average person than what the website would be, so the website itself would contribute very minimally to the secondary effects that you have stated.
It seems like they took the easiest and cheapest approach, which seems reasonable to begin with to see what the demand really will be. Don't people complain about the licence fee because they say they never watch the BBC to begin with? Now they have to pay for internet (not even tv) access to shows they never watch. Maybe they should charge a license fee for computers instead, and make it large enough to cover all the cross-development expenses and the ISP bandwidth expenses while they are at it.
If the requirement is that they have to keep everyone happy, and it costs too much to do that, then saying "screw it" and doing nothing seems like the logical conclusion.
Offering non-DRM would just make the bandwidth problem even worse, which is already a problem with the ISPs.
Ultimately there is a cost benefit decision to me made, and they also have to take in account all the people paying the license fee who would rather their money be spent somewhere else to begin with.
Who exactly posts on Slashdot? Isn't largely geeky virgins living in their mother's basement who have time to post on the internet, and are happy to find some virtual community where everybody agrees with them and feel compelled to defend cool companies and flame uncool companies?
This data really isn't the other side of the argument. It's just a piece of data. Data is important in removing politics. When you have a lot of data from different sources and different types of measurements then you may see a trend. Some data may disagree with the overall trend, but it does not invalidate the trend if the majority of the other data supports the trend. All the experts get togeather and try to determine whether there is a trend. Some may disagree whether the trend exists, but if there is a consensus by the majority of researchers then that is important. It may not be accurate in the long run, but it is the best possible determination at the moment.
There will always be politics, but a real problem is that when politics start attacking the idea of a scientific consensus itself. The history of science is all about *proving* the consensus wrong, not simply attacking the idea of the consensus. The consensus is important.
I do wish the extremism on both sides of the debate would go away, but many of those attacking the idea of scientific consensus are very similar to those preaching creation science. Seeing that most Americans don't believe in evolution, I think it is important to at least try to promote the idea that scientific consensus is important, and that those outside the consensus should be viewed with some skepticism. Some people may get a little carried away, but in the US one is facing an uphill battle when the executive branch has actively fought against you and has taken it upon themselves to re-write science.
The 1990's might have still been the hottest decade, just not in the US. The effect of this bug on worldwide warming is said by the author to be just a 1-2% reduction in the speed of warming.
It's a consensus because everybody's data from various types of measurements generally agree with the trend.
From what I understand, at step 3 in your process the Japanese econonmy wasn't in great shape and they embraced Total Quality Management (TQM) principles to make their products more competitive in other countries.
China does have an advantage in that they can see what worked for Japan, but I have also heard that Japan was already culturally primed to embrace TQM, they just needed someone to tell them that is what the marketplace wanted. China may have a different cultural response. They seem to like cheap lower- quality goods themselves, whereas I don't know if that was the case in Japan. I have heard that the cheap shoddy stuff was just for export in Japan.
Slashdot Mirror
Why do people like to pretend they are addressing a post but instead go off on a different tangent? I did not say anything about foriegn countries sending money to the US, but yet one can apparently be insightful by pretending a post says whatever is convenient (not my definition of insightful though). I said it was in their best interest to keep the money coming in from the US. Therefore they won't "cut us off" and stop selling to us.
Whether or not we will run out of money and at some point in the future and be unable to buy the goods is a completely different matter and not what I was addressing. Someone said they might go on a power trip and decide to cut us off, just because. And I said as long as we are sending money their way, it would be in their best interest not to cut us off.
It is in the foriegn companies' best interest to keep the money flowing though, so they won't "cut us out", which was the point of the first post I thought.
The US is a huge consumer. They can't cut us out all the way.
What was Zubrin's plan for landing? Another post mentions that no one has figured that out yet.
It does have some potential of helping science education. On the other hand, I could see a lot people without much interest in science figuring they could wing a biology degree (less math) to just get a free degree. Maybe these would be better than existing teachers, maybe not.
My point was that if you want scientific advances, the best way to go about it is to spend money on research, not to give away free bachelor's degrees. There are a lot PhDs wanting to do research who can't get jobs, but spending potential research money on free degrees to people who are unlikely to be doing scientific research helps very little. The poster was suggesting that because science was good, giving away free degrees in science must be good.
They would not be flipping burgers immediately, but they would have a hard time finding a job in the field and would become teachers for 4 years. The majority would then leave teaching and start looking for a job and likely find their employment prospects in science had not improved.
>>This may not be true in all cases, but people who actually know what they're talking about don't usually need the law to back up what they say.
I think a Feynman biography mentioned that Gell-mann was talking about a lawsuit over one of Feynman's books where it seemed like Feynman was taking credit for one of Gell-mann's discoveries.
That was a different situation, but I thought it was kind of interesting to see great scientists reduced to that level.
>>I think that might have been a subtle reference to Einstein, who was as a patent clerk while writing his papers.
Yes, that is why I wrote this:
"The money could be better spent on scientific research by trained researchers instead of on the faith that some burger-flipper may someday turn out to be an Einstien."
Anyways, Einstien had a PhD and was a trained researcher. He wanted a university position, but there were not enough science jobs. There are a lot of people in the same boat today - PhD physicists working as software engineers and financial analysts. Maybe it would be better to spend taxpayer money so that these people could do science fulltime instead of using taxpayer money to give away free bachelor's degrees.
>>Right now, if you have a decent degree in maths or a hard science and you cannot get a good job, then either you are being lazy or you have some kind of major personality problem
Right now, most people with a bachelor's degree in physics (no grad degree) work in IT and finance. While these might be good jobs, it means that there are not many good jobs "in the field" of science.
Such a proposal in the article would end up forcing people into teaching for 4 years, but that is debatable whether that is a good outcome, especially if the people thought they were going to have high paying science jobs lined up and get "forced" to become teachers. Some have here have mentioned that teacher *retention* is the main problem to begin with.
Patent clerk is kind of "working in the field" of science at least.
I think taxpayer money could be better spent in advancing scientific research instead of giving away free bachelors degrees in science when the job market has no need for it. The money could be better spent on scientific research by trained researchers instead of on the faith that some burger-flipper may someday turn out to be an Einstien.
I'm not saying that scientific research isn't without value (I have a physics degree) or that we shouldn't spend money on scientific research; I am just saying that a bunch of people getting free BS degrees in science isn't really a very good way to address the demands of the job market or the advancement of science.
>>>>I'm not convinced that there are that many jobs available in science
>>Advances in science and engineering both create jobs. A couple of coots putting together a transistor in Bell Labs apparently spawned off the international industry that pays CmdrTaco's salary.
A bunch of science majors flipping burgers doesn't lead to any advances in science and engineering.
I'm not convinced that there are that many jobs available in science (thus not much need for more graduates). Engineering is probably different though.
Relativity and quantum physics (the very big, the very fast, and the very small) are so beyond one's everyday experience that much of it will not seem very intuitive, and trying to think in traditional terms often is misleading.
Part of the problem is that you are trying to think of a photon as a particle, but it is not. It exhibits particle-like properties at times (photo-electric effect) and wave-like properties at other times (interference patterns). But it is not a particle, and it is not a wave. It is something else, and there is not anything in your everyday experience that will really help you get your mind around this.
Even further than that, the company in question is basically a company that sells information (their analysis of other information) and would probably be very quick to complain if thier product was being distributed beyond paying customers.
A normal person would not have been fined that much. It was a corporation using the copyrighted material in the process of conducting business. I'm not sure they were even fined or if this is just a number they agreed to pay.
They could have just sent links to the original articles and saved all the hassle.
>>First of all, I believe you really don't know what you want to do until you get (at least) a couple of years of college under your belt.
What percentage actually go to college?
Maybe it isn't the greatest idea to prepare everyone for college if the majority don't go. If they are not going to go to college, then getting a taste of different vocational skills would be beneficial.
I think instead of forcing them to declare a major, it would be better to just give better counseling, especially to those students undecided about college. My high school had various recommended curricula for those who knew they were not going to college and those who knew they were, but it wasn't forced upon them.
British TV progamming is already available in America. There is the BBC America channel on cable, and many popular shows end up on other cable channels or on PBS stations. This exposure is much higher for the average person than what the website would be, so the website itself would contribute very minimally to the secondary effects that you have stated.
It seems like they took the easiest and cheapest approach, which seems reasonable to begin with to see what the demand really will be. Don't people complain about the licence fee because they say they never watch the BBC to begin with? Now they have to pay for internet (not even tv) access to shows they never watch. Maybe they should charge a license fee for computers instead, and make it large enough to cover all the cross-development expenses and the ISP bandwidth expenses while they are at it.
If the requirement is that they have to keep everyone happy, and it costs too much to do that, then saying "screw it" and doing nothing seems like the logical conclusion.
Offering non-DRM would just make the bandwidth problem even worse, which is already a problem with the ISPs.
Ultimately there is a cost benefit decision to me made, and they also have to take in account all the people paying the license fee who would rather their money be spent somewhere else to begin with.
The thread title "Yahoo - it's the new AOL" seems to indicate that the implication was beyond just the fact that the survey may be biased.
Who exactly posts on Slashdot? Isn't largely geeky virgins living in their mother's basement who have time to post on the internet, and are happy to find some virtual community where everybody agrees with them and feel compelled to defend cool companies and flame uncool companies?
This data really isn't the other side of the argument. It's just a piece of data. Data is important in removing politics. When you have a lot of data from different sources and different types of measurements then you may see a trend. Some data may disagree with the overall trend, but it does not invalidate the trend if the majority of the other data supports the trend. All the experts get togeather and try to determine whether there is a trend. Some may disagree whether the trend exists, but if there is a consensus by the majority of researchers then that is important. It may not be accurate in the long run, but it is the best possible determination at the moment.
There will always be politics, but a real problem is that when politics start attacking the idea of a scientific consensus itself. The history of science is all about *proving* the consensus wrong, not simply attacking the idea of the consensus. The consensus is important.
I do wish the extremism on both sides of the debate would go away, but many of those attacking the idea of scientific consensus are very similar to those preaching creation science. Seeing that most Americans don't believe in evolution, I think it is important to at least try to promote the idea that scientific consensus is important, and that those outside the consensus should be viewed with some skepticism. Some people may get a little carried away, but in the US one is facing an uphill battle when the executive branch has actively fought against you and has taken it upon themselves to re-write science.
The 1990's might have still been the hottest decade, just not in the US. The effect of this bug on worldwide warming is said by the author to be just a 1-2% reduction in the speed of warming.
It's a consensus because everybody's data from various types of measurements generally agree with the trend.
From what I understand, at step 3 in your process the Japanese econonmy wasn't in great shape and they embraced Total Quality Management (TQM) principles to make their products more competitive in other countries.
China does have an advantage in that they can see what worked for Japan, but I have also heard that Japan was already culturally primed to embrace TQM, they just needed someone to tell them that is what the marketplace wanted. China may have a different cultural response. They seem to like cheap lower- quality goods themselves, whereas I don't know if that was the case in Japan. I have heard that the cheap shoddy stuff was just for export in Japan.
Wages will eventually go up in these countries, like in Japan. They will be tough competitors, but they won't totally dominate the West.