Yes, because ALL Asians hate to shake hands.
There's a big difference between the generalities (We usually call that culture, not stereotypes) you're talking about, and the idiocy mentioned in this article.
Yeah, and if that person doesn't keep their coverage with that company... less income - fewer profits.
That sounds lovely, but falls apart when business oligarchies develop. Once you have five or six large established companies in a business area, it becomes more efficient for them to squash smaller, honest companies, than for them to improve their customer support.
Every private sector job I've ever worked has a percentage of boneheads in every dept., right up to ownership sometimes. The difference is when a company screws up often enough it goes insolvent and disappears
Because it IS a first step and shows (to me) a distressing overfocus on (purely) goal-orientated research in the reporter. I'd estimate that over 90-95% of research never provides the benefits people initially predict, while providing TONS of unexpected benefits instead. My argument is not over the value of the research, but rather the assumption that we can predict it's true value (or most useful direction) on the first step.
I can think of a dozen more interesting things we can do with this technology THIS YEAR. Why not talk about those rather than universal assemblers?
Using this approach, Einstein's research on simulated emission would have been possibly justified as "a potential way to increase the effectiveness of light bulbs".
Then Charles Townes and Arthur Schawlow's research on masers and visible light lasers would have possibly been justified as "creating military beam weapons" (That's what the public back then seems to have thought lasers were going to be used for.)
No-one predicted digital music, laser-based spectroscopy (over dozens of kilometers of atmosphere), laser-based distance measurement (to the Moon, no less), Raman spectroscopy or Confocal Microscopy until it was only one or two steps away. In some cases, it didn't happen until someone decided to play around, rather than seek a particular research goal.
The fact is that future technology is by definition unpredictable, and attempting to say "this will lead to this" is disingenuous at best. At worst, it risks investors/researchers ignoring experiments that are easy and potentially more valuable. Who would have thought ten years ago, that sticky tape and pencil graphite would result in a new sub-field of materials science? Now imagine how you could have possibly justified that experiment beforehand?
We as a global society need to accept that 90% (or higher) of research won't directly lead to valuable commercial results. We should accept that most of the research most valuable to future generations will be done for the sheer hell of it. If we happen to think of a commercial application that is viable in the next 10 years, double gold.
It is pie in the sky stuff to talk about mass synthesis of gold from other elements, but if we could do it cheaply, it would mean we could
a) coat everything metallic in gold as a super-corrosion-resistant covering, or
b) alloy cheaper metals with gold to make the corrosion-resistance intrinsic,
c) use gold-alloys in biomedical implants to reduce rejection.
Yes, that was actually my point. The poster's last comment made it seem that the only purpose for pursuing this would be to get a new manufacturing technique.
My comment was not on the value of the research, but on the lack of vision expressed in the introduction.
"Wow, we can shift atoms around, we can make new materials." Um, not yet, you can't, and not for a fair few years either.
A better response to this new approach might be "Right, now we've got a handle on individual atoms, what cool experiments can we conduct?" As point of fact, you'll find that I see the TRUE value of this as a research tool, rather than just a future production technique.
And for the love of god, stop assuming that everyone who you THINK disagrees with you must be a "cargo cult luddite". That's the sort of crap that stops the general public from listening to scientists.
Yes, but the original poster made it seem that the most important implication was "customisable materials", which is a fair few years in the future.
I'd be more interested in hearing about the types of matter-matter interactions this enables scientists to investigate.
"What happens when a nobel gas atom is brought near other atoms? Can it's reactivity be altered by near-space effects? Do one-dimensional arrays (not imbedded in support materials) have intrinsic properties that differ from 2 or 3-D arrays? Can we map the effect of strong magnetic fields on bond-lengths directly? Can we build molecules step-by-step, enabling us to fully characterise them spectrographically (rather than simulation), rather than use mass synthesis? Can we make a Quantum Dot this way?"
This is the sort of stuff that this research really enables us to investigate. Customisable materials can be pursued after we've first picked the low-hanging fruit this new step-ladder has made available.
It is now possible, then, for scientists to create entirely new materials or tweak existing materials — like silicon or copper, or another important element — to make them stronger or more conductive. Where will this particular avenue lead us?
Nowhere, unless you only want blocks of it 1 or 2 nanometers across, and are prepared to take a few hours to manufacture it. In this case, a scanning tunnelling microscope is being used by having a single massive (on an atomic scale) probe manipulating single atoms at a time. Until we can control millions of atoms at this degree of resolution AND at the same time (smaller parallel probes, or some fancy trick with complex electrical fields on a single probe tip), this is scientifically interesting, but useless for the bulk manufacture the poster hints at.
Damn skippy. Every time I'm forced to "participate" in a presentation, I'm reminded of the wizards dealing with the Cheerful Fairy from Terry Pratchett's Hogfather.
Unless your supervisor is attempting to make you or your job more visible to the management - then you BETTER do an impressive presentation.
Even if this isn't what your supervisor is attempting, it's in your best interest to act as if this is the plan. If there isn't any point to the presentation, make the point "Make sure I look good to the bosses."
Of course one way to do this (that I've pointed out above), is to only spend 20 minutes (or even 10 minutes) on a "30 minute" presentation. Everyone's impressed (or thankful) when a meeting finishes early.:D
Um. I'd have to say that if your presentation is boring enough that you have to resort to tricks like this, you've got more important things to worry about than the colour of your laser pointer. The best powerpoint I've EVER seen was a slideshow of six pictures, only one of which was a chart. The presenter split his talk up into four sections and addressed the four major aspects of his talk off the top of his head. The powerpoint only acted as a visual prompt for each section. The first and last slide were for the intro and the summary.
Have to put my vote onto this one as well.
If you have to put up text, put up summary dot points only (and true dot points, not entire paragraphs preceeded by a dot) and expand on the implications in your speech. (Yes, I know that this means you'll have to memorise your speech, shame that.) I always have to bite my tounge when someone puts up a wall of text and then starts to read it out to me. I get the overwelming desire to call out "If the only things in your speech is what you've put into the powerpoint, can you step outside and just let us read it?"
This is really good. Interactivity and involvement rather than droning on with Impress (sorry, no nod to PowerPoint from me).
No, not it's not. Pointless Interactivity is just as bad as Powerpoint, and smacks of a person running a child-care service. If you really want interactivity, ask yourself what problem the meeting is attempting to solve, then think of a way to allow people to DO something to solve that problem.
Example from my teaching career:
"We have to implement this new curriculum program from the Government in our teaching. Do I as an administrator/presentor:
a) Drone on and on about the new curriculum requirements, spieling through pages and pages of the official document and put everyone to sleep.
b) Get the audience to do something physical, that is only slightly related to the actual task and end up pissing everyone off about the waste of time, or
c) Get people into groups, give them a handout summarising the new curriculum expectations, and ask them to write up some lesson or unit plans for the new curriculum. Then spend the rest of the time going from group to group answering questions and sharing good ideas from other groups."
Yet administration nearly always chooses a or b. *sigh* And the ones that choose b think they're being so fresh and innovative. *double sigh*
Slashdot Mirror
Yes, because ALL Asians hate to shake hands. There's a big difference between the generalities (We usually call that culture, not stereotypes) you're talking about, and the idiocy mentioned in this article.
Yeah, and if that person doesn't keep their coverage with that company... less income - fewer profits.
That sounds lovely, but falls apart when business oligarchies develop. Once you have five or six large established companies in a business area, it becomes more efficient for them to squash smaller, honest companies, than for them to improve their customer support.
I agree with you conceptually, but that's the same government that is training its members that the law does not apply to them.
Assuming you meant "lives saved" by "lives", rather than "ruined", "ended", "imprisoned", or something else.
And big business is always law-abiding and ethical?
I assume the argument starts once the drink runs out?
But in the private sector, an incompetent employee can hide his incompetence by producing large enough amounts of Powerpoint slides.
Or getting into management. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dilbert_principle
Every private sector job I've ever worked has a percentage of boneheads in every dept., right up to ownership sometimes. The difference is when a company screws up often enough it goes insolvent and disappears
*Cough* Bank Bailouts *CoughCough*
So, basically you're saying that God is the spiritual/intellectual equivalent of a Rick-Roller?
I'm a pretty hairy guy, I'm getting a bit of a tummy and I watch the TV 1-2 hours each night shirtless. Poor, poor surveilance guys. :D
The result? People don't want their kids exposed to things that'll make them think about sex.
Which, is basically impossible. The scary thing as a teacher, is that when the kids grafitti their workbooks, it's always the BOYS drawing penises! :-S
I can think of a dozen more interesting things we can do with this technology THIS YEAR. Why not talk about those rather than universal assemblers?
Using this approach, Einstein's research on simulated emission would have been possibly justified as "a potential way to increase the effectiveness of light bulbs".
Then Charles Townes and Arthur Schawlow's research on masers and visible light lasers would have possibly been justified as "creating military beam weapons" (That's what the public back then seems to have thought lasers were going to be used for.)
No-one predicted digital music, laser-based spectroscopy (over dozens of kilometers of atmosphere), laser-based distance measurement (to the Moon, no less), Raman spectroscopy or Confocal Microscopy until it was only one or two steps away. In some cases, it didn't happen until someone decided to play around, rather than seek a particular research goal.
The fact is that future technology is by definition unpredictable, and attempting to say "this will lead to this" is disingenuous at best. At worst, it risks investors/researchers ignoring experiments that are easy and potentially more valuable. Who would have thought ten years ago, that sticky tape and pencil graphite would result in a new sub-field of materials science? Now imagine how you could have possibly justified that experiment beforehand?
We as a global society need to accept that 90% (or higher) of research won't directly lead to valuable commercial results. We should accept that most of the research most valuable to future generations will be done for the sheer hell of it. If we happen to think of a commercial application that is viable in the next 10 years, double gold.
And atomic printers being printed on then, ad infinitum. :P
*sigh* Couldn't you have done me the courtesy of reading my replies to similar comments before posting this?
You have to manipulate protons, not electrons, to convert an atom from one element into another element.
Bit they're bigger, so it must be easier, right? :-)
Much the same way it's easier to hit a bigger, stronger guy than a scrawny weakling. You'll hit the target okay, but then they get to hit back. :D
It is pie in the sky stuff to talk about mass synthesis of gold from other elements, but if we could do it cheaply, it would mean we could
a) coat everything metallic in gold as a super-corrosion-resistant covering, or
b) alloy cheaper metals with gold to make the corrosion-resistance intrinsic,
c) use gold-alloys in biomedical implants to reduce rejection.
Yes, that was actually my point. The poster's last comment made it seem that the only purpose for pursuing this would be to get a new manufacturing technique.
"Wow, we can shift atoms around, we can make new materials." Um, not yet, you can't, and not for a fair few years either.
A better response to this new approach might be "Right, now we've got a handle on individual atoms, what cool experiments can we conduct?" As point of fact, you'll find that I see the TRUE value of this as a research tool, rather than just a future production technique.
And for the love of god, stop assuming that everyone who you THINK disagrees with you must be a "cargo cult luddite". That's the sort of crap that stops the general public from listening to scientists.
I'd be more interested in hearing about the types of matter-matter interactions this enables scientists to investigate.
"What happens when a nobel gas atom is brought near other atoms? Can it's reactivity be altered by near-space effects? Do one-dimensional arrays (not imbedded in support materials) have intrinsic properties that differ from 2 or 3-D arrays? Can we map the effect of strong magnetic fields on bond-lengths directly? Can we build molecules step-by-step, enabling us to fully characterise them spectrographically (rather than simulation), rather than use mass synthesis? Can we make a Quantum Dot this way?"
This is the sort of stuff that this research really enables us to investigate. Customisable materials can be pursued after we've first picked the low-hanging fruit this new step-ladder has made available.
Cool. Now THAT story should be posted. :P
It is now possible, then, for scientists to create entirely new materials or tweak existing materials — like silicon or copper, or another important element — to make them stronger or more conductive. Where will this particular avenue lead us?
Nowhere, unless you only want blocks of it 1 or 2 nanometers across, and are prepared to take a few hours to manufacture it.
In this case, a scanning tunnelling microscope is being used by having a single massive (on an atomic scale) probe manipulating single atoms at a time. Until we can control millions of atoms at this degree of resolution AND at the same time (smaller parallel probes, or some fancy trick with complex electrical fields on a single probe tip), this is scientifically interesting, but useless for the bulk manufacture the poster hints at.
Damn skippy. Every time I'm forced to "participate" in a presentation, I'm reminded of the wizards dealing with the Cheerful Fairy from Terry Pratchett's Hogfather.
Unless your supervisor is attempting to make you or your job more visible to the management - then you BETTER do an impressive presentation. :D
Even if this isn't what your supervisor is attempting, it's in your best interest to act as if this is the plan. If there isn't any point to the presentation, make the point "Make sure I look good to the bosses."
Of course one way to do this (that I've pointed out above), is to only spend 20 minutes (or even 10 minutes) on a "30 minute" presentation. Everyone's impressed (or thankful) when a meeting finishes early.
Um. I'd have to say that if your presentation is boring enough that you have to resort to tricks like this, you've got more important things to worry about than the colour of your laser pointer. The best powerpoint I've EVER seen was a slideshow of six pictures, only one of which was a chart. The presenter split his talk up into four sections and addressed the four major aspects of his talk off the top of his head. The powerpoint only acted as a visual prompt for each section. The first and last slide were for the intro and the summary.
Have to put my vote onto this one as well.
If you have to put up text, put up summary dot points only (and true dot points, not entire paragraphs preceeded by a dot) and expand on the implications in your speech. (Yes, I know that this means you'll have to memorise your speech, shame that.)
I always have to bite my tounge when someone puts up a wall of text and then starts to read it out to me. I get the overwelming desire to call out "If the only things in your speech is what you've put into the powerpoint, can you step outside and just let us read it?"
Oh god. I've already posted, so I can't mod this comment up.
This is really good. Interactivity and involvement rather than droning on with Impress (sorry, no nod to PowerPoint from me).
No, not it's not. Pointless Interactivity is just as bad as Powerpoint, and smacks of a person running a child-care service. If you really want interactivity, ask yourself what problem the meeting is attempting to solve, then think of a way to allow people to DO something to solve that problem.
Example from my teaching career:
"We have to implement this new curriculum program from the Government in our teaching. Do I as an administrator/presentor:
a) Drone on and on about the new curriculum requirements, spieling through pages and pages of the official document and put everyone to sleep.
b) Get the audience to do something physical, that is only slightly related to the actual task and end up pissing everyone off about the waste of time, or
c) Get people into groups, give them a handout summarising the new curriculum expectations, and ask them to write up some lesson or unit plans for the new curriculum. Then spend the rest of the time going from group to group answering questions and sharing good ideas from other groups."
Yet administration nearly always chooses a or b. *sigh* And the ones that choose b think they're being so fresh and innovative. *double sigh*