Just as frightening, the article forecasts a situation where access to science tools is restricted not only by legislation, but by the will of society:
To Bill Nye, the "Science Guy" who hosted an Emmy award-winning series on PBS in the 1990s, unreasonable fears about chemicals and home experimentation reflect a distrust of scientific expertise taking hold in society at large. "People who want to make meth will find ways to do it that don't require an Erlenmeyer flask. But raising a generation of people who are technically incompetent is a recipe for disaster."
Imagine a really negative stigma developing for 'home scientists', developing due to neighbors' concerns about safety or repeated FBI visits such as in the article or whatever else... I agree with Mr. Nye that this could create a long-lasting decay of science in mainstream America. If so, we as a nation would be willingly giving up these tools (out of fear or whatever else), but reversing the process will be much more difficult!
The neutrino flux from the SNS should be much higher than the solar neutrino flux locally: ~10^6 nu/cm*s from the sun compared to ~10^15 nu/s (note different units) due to the SNS. The proposed neutrino detector can therefore achieve much higher flux by putting it close to the source (although it will only cover a small solid angle).
Here's a link on the estimated solar neutrino flux:
http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/HBASE/Astro/s olneu.html
Yes, Google caved in to the Chinese government. They made a decision to change a basic policy of the company (all information available to everyone). According to the interview, they have not given up everything, though: they still have a clear policy on how information must be disclosed (From the article):
"We also developed several elements that distinguish our service in China, including:
* Disclosure to users -- We will give notification to Chinese users whenever search results have been removed.
* Protection of user privacy -- We will not maintain on Chinese soil any services, like email, that involve personal or confidential data. This means that we will not, for example, host Gmail or Blogger, our email and blogging tools, in China.
* Continued availability of Google.com -- We will not terminate the availability of our unfiltered Chinese-language Google.com service. "
So, that seems all very good but my question is, will the government even let them keep these new policies now that google has shown it will compromise? Protecting confidential data sounds great, but I can imagine the government a few months from now offering an ultimatum: "Give us all data on these known dissidents, or immediately lose the right to operate in China..."
A science fiction story came out with this title many years ago (by Larry Niven). From what I remember of the story, a man has an electrode implanted to stimulate the pleasure center in his brain, plugs himself into the wall, and then starves to death as the power cord isn't long enough to reach the refrigerator!
Make v. 3.80 won't carry out the instructions for smr: instead it checks for a main method and gets hung when it doesn't find one! Perhaps the Makers of Make are learning from contests like this how to better handle special cases? (Or perhaps I don't know how to handle it properly...)
Scammers, he said, 'have the belief that white men are stupid and greedy.
I think scammers give us lots of evidence of their own stupidity and greed. Some of my greatest laughs come from reading over their mail (it comes about once a week right now):
...I am
compensating you with 10% of the total money Amount, now
all my hope is banked on you and I really wants to invest
this money in your country,
were their is stabilities of Government, political and
economic welfare. Honestly I want you to believe that this
transaction is real and never a joke.
If you want to teach trig this way, it will certainly be easier to learn. But then, your students will not appreciate or understand square roots and negative numbers.
I don't necessarily agree this will be easier to learn. Also, if the method does not generalize to irrational answers (that is, nearly ALL the answers out there since rational numbers are a fairly small subset...) it may not be appropriate for an introduction to trigonometry. A good special topic maybe, but not something to introduce the concept.
A quote in the pages of the book gives the impression that debate was going on about computers' role in industry: "The introduction of a computer rarely decreases a labour force. It is more likely, due to the increase in production, to expand labour requirements within parts of the organisation."
I think we are still trying to sell ourselves on this: the late nineties all about unbounded optimism for the role of technology in industry, and now after a little break we are right back in the same game.
the idea does have to break down, though: as one manufacturer realizes that computers and robots are cheap and easy to maintain compared to their large workforce, layoffs ensue. For better or for worse.
From the article:
"For instance, at the GE-manufactured checkpoint that I saw, the machine supposedly sniffs you for bomb residue.
Interestingly enough, there was a long line of people waiting to go through that checkpoint and be checked for bomb residue, which is something that just baffled me. I mean, don't people dread going through the checkpoint at airport security? Why voluntarily stand in line in order to pass through an airport security scanner if you don't have to?"
In other words, we've gotten so used to these security screenings that we go through them even when they don't lead Anywhere!
Slashdot Mirror
Imagine a really negative stigma developing for 'home scientists', developing due to neighbors' concerns about safety or repeated FBI visits such as in the article or whatever else... I agree with Mr. Nye that this could create a long-lasting decay of science in mainstream America.
If so, we as a nation would be willingly giving up these tools (out of fear or whatever else), but reversing the process will be much more difficult!
The neutrino flux from the SNS should be much higher than the solar neutrino flux locally: ~10^6 nu/cm*s from the sun compared to ~10^15 nu/s (note different units) due to the SNS. The proposed neutrino detector can therefore achieve much higher flux by putting it close to the source (although it will only cover a small solid angle). Here's a link on the estimated solar neutrino flux: http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/HBASE/Astro/s olneu.html
The facility puts out a huge flux of neutrinos, allowing improved measurements of the neutrino-matter interaction cross-section.
"We also developed several elements that distinguish our service in China, including:
* Disclosure to users -- We will give notification to Chinese users whenever search results have been removed.
* Protection of user privacy -- We will not maintain on Chinese soil any services, like email, that involve personal or confidential data. This means that we will not, for example, host Gmail or Blogger, our email and blogging tools, in China.
* Continued availability of Google.com -- We will not terminate the availability of our unfiltered Chinese-language Google.com service. "
So, that seems all very good but my question is, will the government even let them keep these new policies now that google has shown it will compromise? Protecting confidential data sounds great, but I can imagine the government a few months from now offering an ultimatum: "Give us all data on these known dissidents, or immediately lose the right to operate in China..."
A science fiction story came out with this title many years ago (by Larry Niven). From what I remember of the story, a man has an electrode implanted to stimulate the pleasure center in his brain, plugs himself into the wall, and then starves to death as the power cord isn't long enough to reach the refrigerator!
Make v. 3.80 won't carry out the instructions for smr: instead it checks for a main method and gets hung when it doesn't find one! Perhaps the Makers of Make are learning from contests like this how to better handle special cases? (Or perhaps I don't know how to handle it properly...)
I think scammers give us lots of evidence of their own stupidity and greed. Some of my greatest laughs come from reading over their mail (it comes about once a week right now):
That is genius at work!
Scratch that, I wasn't reading carefully enough. If the spread is indeed just Sin(x)^2, it must of course extend from 0-1 inclusive
If you want to teach trig this way, it will certainly be easier to learn. But then, your students will not appreciate or understand square roots and negative numbers. I don't necessarily agree this will be easier to learn. Also, if the method does not generalize to irrational answers (that is, nearly ALL the answers out there since rational numbers are a fairly small subset...) it may not be appropriate for an introduction to trigonometry. A good special topic maybe, but not something to introduce the concept.
Right near the levee breaches, see the interchange between highways 10 and 610: they are underwater with folks boating around the highway!
A quote in the pages of the book gives the impression that debate was going on about computers' role in industry: "The introduction of a computer rarely decreases a labour force. It is more likely, due to the increase in production, to expand labour requirements within parts of the organisation."
I think we are still trying to sell ourselves on this: the late nineties all about unbounded optimism for the role of technology in industry, and now after a little break we are right back in the same game.
the idea does have to break down, though: as one manufacturer realizes that computers and robots are cheap and easy to maintain compared to their large workforce, layoffs ensue. For better or for worse.
From the article: "For instance, at the GE-manufactured checkpoint that I saw, the machine supposedly sniffs you for bomb residue. Interestingly enough, there was a long line of people waiting to go through that checkpoint and be checked for bomb residue, which is something that just baffled me. I mean, don't people dread going through the checkpoint at airport security? Why voluntarily stand in line in order to pass through an airport security scanner if you don't have to?" In other words, we've gotten so used to these security screenings that we go through them even when they don't lead Anywhere!