Then we'd better start funding it now, rather than later. What happens when something goes wrong with these "conservative" designs that are known to have many many issues, like melting down? Can you say NIMBY all over again, just when people are starting to reconsider the promise of nuclear power?
Indeed. I don't see why we're pushing a technology that we know to have serious issues with stability, even on a smaller scale. The MSRE showed that we can build a safe nuclear reactor. In over 15,000 hours of critical operation, not once did the system exceed its safety margins. There were 0 instances of control rod scrams. No matter which mistakes you point at (metal embrittlement, evolution of uranium and plutonium)--we learned from them and figured out how to overcome them. This is how science and engineering works, and at the end of the day, we have a far superior design--but no funding.
The MSRE was a resounding success. We gained practical experience with a new technology: a far safer and more efficient iteration of nuclear power. We made mistakes (metal embrittlement, evolution of uranium and plution)--and we learned from them. They were costly in terms of money, but we walked away with the knowledge to do it better the next time. This is how science and engineering works.
No, it doesn't. But practice makes perfect, and these MOOCs make it more accessible. When my SO and I have family over, her nieces always want to "play" Khan Academy. I've never seen kids so excited to do "boring old fuddy duddy" math. As a result, they're ahead of their peers who don't do this stuff.
I learned a vast amount about logical thinking by being forced to. The machine doesn't do what you want, it does what it's told. You must be thinking of codemonkeys.
Last I checked, most companies don't want good code, they want code written yesterday, bugs and quality be damned, so long as they can ship something on an unrealistic deadline. Permacrunchtime. That said, the most brilliant idea with no execution is virtually worthless--but there should always be some time to go back and put the polish on.
Yep. I started out as a 4 year old kid, writing the shittiest, stupidest BASIC code you can imagine on a Commodore 64. You know what my first program did? It called a builtin routine to change the color of the screen. Then I learned to make it change to many different colors. It went from there. Software engineering was something I really started to get, about 14 years later (I never had a teacher), when I read some PHP (yuck) that was brilliantly put together. Clean, concise, easy-to-grasp, and best of all, it worked. Anyone can write bad code in any language--but it takes years of experience to write good code in a bad language. I knew right there that I wanted to write code that was on that level of good and it did a huge part to change my perspective. Software engineering is the icing on the cake, not the primary goal.
This is training minds to think like programmers. It is about understanding a problem, decomposing it, and asking them to express solutions to each sub-problem.
This, this, this, a million times, this. The real benefit of programming is gaining the ability to think in multiple modes, all of them logical, and to cope with solving problems that might have seemed previously intractable.
Programming a computer may not be a fundamental skill, but it is an exercise in applied problem solving. You're more likely to get exposure to critical thinking in a CS class these days than you are to find a class on basic critical thinking and logic in schools these days. Sure, I think we should push it harder in math--but getting the kid started early is a huge portion of the battle. Your parents didn't just throw you in the deep end without floaties when you learned to swim, did they?
Doing that might make you a good monkey--but as someone who's been programming virtually since his first memories (Commodore 64 on the floor, sneaking out in the middle of the night, just barely after I could read), it's not the sky. At some point you run into the fact that you can't do anything really original without pushing yourself way beyond the point-and-click approach. This is why I still push myself to improve my math skills, to improve my understanding of physics and chemistry, to learn new fields and new tools. If you want to do something really, truly interesting, you're going to wind up way down the rabbit hole, even if it takes you 20+ years. The only problem is that you can lead plenty of horses to water, but a lot of horses won't drink unless you lead them there, much less seek it on their own. I don't learn for a degree or a certificate or a promotion: I learn because it makes me a better human.
A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.
But in this case, it did expose them to the idea that computers aren't magic. To the idea that they can learn to do something that was before "magic". Most importantly of all, even if not a single one ever goes on to be a programmer, they've been forced to think critically. Programming, in its broadest sense, is applied problem solving. Critical thinking is severely lacking in schools. When was the last time you heard of kids in your area being taught the difference between a fact statement and an opinion statement? I was as a kid, but it seems to have gone the way of the dodo.
Just in case we're not clear, I meant free as in beer--not as in freedom. I'm talking strictly about keeping the actual physical results of production or an equivalent token thereof which can be exchanged for those physical results.
Without government? What planet do you live on? You're free to imagine idealistic scenarios, but the reality is that except for the very tippy top of the food chain, everyone has to pay off someone. This is the cut. It's taxes to a government or the need to launder money (in which case the entity doing the laundering takes their fee) to avoid taxes to some government. This government can be a recognized sovereign nation, a mafia-style group, whatever. But I challenge you to show me one place on Earth where the average worker takes home every last thing they worked for without paying up to someone.
Gallium has a molar heat of fusion of 5.59 kJ/mol and a mass of 69.723 g/mol. Paraffin (we're going with C31H64, or, hentriacontane here) has a median molar heat of fusion of 21 kJ/mol, and a mass of ((12.017 * 31) + (1.00794 * 64)) = 437.04 g/mol. If we take 437.04 / 69.723 = 6.2682, we see that we can have 6.2682 moles of Gallium for the same mass as paraffin. This leaves us with 5.59 * 6.2682 = 35.0 kJ of energy absorbed for the same mass of ~437g versus 21 kJ for paraffin. Gallium has a density of 5.904 g/cm^3, and Paraffin has a density of 0.781g/cm^3, therefore the gallium will not only absorb more heat, but also be substantially denser, to the tune of about 7.5x denser than paraffin. So, for 437g of gallium, we'll occupy 74 cm^3, and for 437g of paraffin, we'll occupy 559.5 cm^3.
It's been around 7 years since I took a chemistry course; I'd appreciate corrections on mistakes.
Couldn't he simply print the bitcoin given to him (no transaction, though it does require you trust him not to spend it) and take payment from another bitcoin transaction? That way, he isn't actually taking control of the BitCoin he's printing off (no transaction, no laundering) and his business is straight up printing?
The phase change material comes into equilibrium with the inner material, reducing the heat of the inner material (coffee) by moving some of it to the insulator. The two inner layers (coffe + phase change) are maintained in equilibrium by the outer insulating layer which appears to be traditional. Now, as for effectiveness, I'll let someone else spend the $40.
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Then we'd better start funding it now, rather than later. What happens when something goes wrong with these "conservative" designs that are known to have many many issues, like melting down? Can you say NIMBY all over again, just when people are starting to reconsider the promise of nuclear power?
Indeed. I don't see why we're pushing a technology that we know to have serious issues with stability, even on a smaller scale. The MSRE showed that we can build a safe nuclear reactor. In over 15,000 hours of critical operation, not once did the system exceed its safety margins. There were 0 instances of control rod scrams. No matter which mistakes you point at (metal embrittlement, evolution of uranium and plutonium)--we learned from them and figured out how to overcome them. This is how science and engineering works, and at the end of the day, we have a far superior design--but no funding.
The MSRE was a resounding success. We gained practical experience with a new technology: a far safer and more efficient iteration of nuclear power. We made mistakes (metal embrittlement, evolution of uranium and plution)--and we learned from them. They were costly in terms of money, but we walked away with the knowledge to do it better the next time. This is how science and engineering works.
Nope, but programming is a form of applied problem solving, and that is a valuable skill.
No, it doesn't. But practice makes perfect, and these MOOCs make it more accessible. When my SO and I have family over, her nieces always want to "play" Khan Academy. I've never seen kids so excited to do "boring old fuddy duddy" math. As a result, they're ahead of their peers who don't do this stuff.
I learned a vast amount about logical thinking by being forced to. The machine doesn't do what you want, it does what it's told. You must be thinking of codemonkeys.
In theory, theory and practice are the same. In practice, theory and practice are nothing alike.
Last I checked, most companies don't want good code, they want code written yesterday, bugs and quality be damned, so long as they can ship something on an unrealistic deadline. Permacrunchtime. That said, the most brilliant idea with no execution is virtually worthless--but there should always be some time to go back and put the polish on.
Yep. I started out as a 4 year old kid, writing the shittiest, stupidest BASIC code you can imagine on a Commodore 64. You know what my first program did? It called a builtin routine to change the color of the screen. Then I learned to make it change to many different colors. It went from there. Software engineering was something I really started to get, about 14 years later (I never had a teacher), when I read some PHP (yuck) that was brilliantly put together. Clean, concise, easy-to-grasp, and best of all, it worked. Anyone can write bad code in any language--but it takes years of experience to write good code in a bad language. I knew right there that I wanted to write code that was on that level of good and it did a huge part to change my perspective. Software engineering is the icing on the cake, not the primary goal.
This is training minds to think like programmers. It is about understanding a problem, decomposing it, and asking them to express solutions to each sub-problem.
My kingdom for mod points.
This, this, this, a million times, this. The real benefit of programming is gaining the ability to think in multiple modes, all of them logical, and to cope with solving problems that might have seemed previously intractable.
Programming a computer may not be a fundamental skill, but it is an exercise in applied problem solving. You're more likely to get exposure to critical thinking in a CS class these days than you are to find a class on basic critical thinking and logic in schools these days. Sure, I think we should push it harder in math--but getting the kid started early is a huge portion of the battle. Your parents didn't just throw you in the deep end without floaties when you learned to swim, did they?
A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.
-RAH
Doesn't matter a whit. It's applied problem solving, something strangely lacking in today's "gimme gimme" culture.
But in this case, it did expose them to the idea that computers aren't magic. To the idea that they can learn to do something that was before "magic". Most importantly of all, even if not a single one ever goes on to be a programmer, they've been forced to think critically. Programming, in its broadest sense, is applied problem solving. Critical thinking is severely lacking in schools. When was the last time you heard of kids in your area being taught the difference between a fact statement and an opinion statement? I was as a kid, but it seems to have gone the way of the dodo.
Just in case we're not clear, I meant free as in beer--not as in freedom. I'm talking strictly about keeping the actual physical results of production or an equivalent token thereof which can be exchanged for those physical results.
Without government? What planet do you live on? You're free to imagine idealistic scenarios, but the reality is that except for the very tippy top of the food chain, everyone has to pay off someone. This is the cut. It's taxes to a government or the need to launder money (in which case the entity doing the laundering takes their fee) to avoid taxes to some government. This government can be a recognized sovereign nation, a mafia-style group, whatever. But I challenge you to show me one place on Earth where the average worker takes home every last thing they worked for without paying up to someone.
Gallium has a molar heat of fusion of 5.59 kJ/mol and a mass of 69.723 g/mol. Paraffin (we're going with C31H64, or, hentriacontane here) has a median molar heat of fusion of 21 kJ/mol, and a mass of ((12.017 * 31) + (1.00794 * 64)) = 437.04 g/mol. If we take 437.04 / 69.723 = 6.2682, we see that we can have 6.2682 moles of Gallium for the same mass as paraffin. This leaves us with 5.59 * 6.2682 = 35.0 kJ of energy absorbed for the same mass of ~437g versus 21 kJ for paraffin. Gallium has a density of 5.904 g/cm^3, and Paraffin has a density of 0.781g/cm^3, therefore the gallium will not only absorb more heat, but also be substantially denser, to the tune of about 7.5x denser than paraffin. So, for 437g of gallium, we'll occupy 74 cm^3, and for 437g of paraffin, we'll occupy 559.5 cm^3.
It's been around 7 years since I took a chemistry course; I'd appreciate corrections on mistakes.
A slightly more subtle than glaringly obvious example of the No True Scotsman fallacy.
Someone always gets a cut, either by taxes to a government, or by laundering to avoid a government. Neither is free.
Couldn't he simply print the bitcoin given to him (no transaction, though it does require you trust him not to spend it) and take payment from another bitcoin transaction? That way, he isn't actually taking control of the BitCoin he's printing off (no transaction, no laundering) and his business is straight up printing?
Can I get mine with a peltier cooler and USB^H^H^HLightning port?
Nope. I find that a slow drip works better than a big rush and crash.
I wasn't saying it was an FDA issue, I was saying it was amusing and I stumbled across it in the course of looking for information.
The phase change material comes into equilibrium with the inner material, reducing the heat of the inner material (coffee) by moving some of it to the insulator. The two inner layers (coffe + phase change) are maintained in equilibrium by the outer insulating layer which appears to be traditional. Now, as for effectiveness, I'll let someone else spend the $40.