Ah, peaks in sunspot activity (every 11 years) are great. Unless, of course, you're trying to maintain sensitive satellite communication systems...
Anyway, there's a great site run by NOAA (http://www.sec.noaa.gov/SWN/) that has updated images of the Sun, sunspot activity, solar storms, and aurorae activity. Definitely worth checking out, especially if you live in an area that could possibly see aurorae.
It's not that black holes "suck" in everything; they are just a very compact and massive object, which therefore exerts a huge gravitational force on everything. Much of the gas near the event horizon of a black hole will get sucked in, and by mass there is much more gas than stars near the black hole. The dynamics and orbits of the nearby stars are affected by the black hole, but that doesn't mean they are sucked in. Supermassive black holes at the centers of galaxies rarely pull in another star (about every 10^5, 10^6 years or so). Remember that the Sun is about a million times more massive than the Earth, yet the Earth is not sucked into the Sun. The mass ratio between a star and the black hole is about the same.
The warning signs listed on their sites aren't even the ones people should look out for! How about torturing animals? Implications/threats/hints/whatever of sexual assault? Those are the kids who will be more dangerous than a student who happens to be depressed.
As for writing violent stories -- when I was younger (late jr. high/early h.s. years) I wrote a lot of depressing and violent stories. (btw, I am female). It wasn't because I was a violent person; it was because I was depressed, and I didn't understand it. How many fourteen-year-olds understand depression? I didn't know why I felt that way, and I didn't know that it wasn't *normal*, so writing the stories was the only way I knew how to deal with it. I never turned in anything violent, but I turned in many the depressing creative-writing assignment.
Meanwhile, during that time, I was a bit of a loner -- only one or two close friends -- and definitely a loser, reject, etc., with no self-esteem. Not only that, I fought constantly with my mother, so I was often unwilling to turn to her. What if one of the jerks who taunted me constantly decided to turn me in, as a lark? That wouldn't have solved any of my problems!
Wouldn't it be more effective for someone who wants to turn in another to instead talk to them, and maybe be nice to them for a change? Oh, wait, but then they'd look like a dork as well for talking to such a loser.
Sigh. Just when I was thinking things couldn't get any worse for high school students, some hair-brained idea like this comes along.
So my question to Pinkerton is: Do you have ANY clue what you're doing? Do you have any understanding of adolescence? Teen-age depression? The rampant stigmas in high school against being quiet, being smart, liking computers or math, or even just being different? Sure, we'll turn in the depressed kids, and then the ones who complain about the prominence of athletics (because they're obviously subversive), etc. Please, Pinkerton, I want to know. How is this going to help any of the individuals who will be turned in? Because I can guarantee you, it wouldn't have helped me, and I still turned out fine. Like the extremely vast majority of teenagers who wrote violent and depressing stories, I was never any sort of threat to anyone.
Were they able to collect statistics on how the internet voters voted, as compared to the overall population of Arizona? I'd imagine that could be an interesting statistic. (Although, given this primary season, more interesting in the Republican Party than the Democratic.)
How are most of these geek issues? The Internet sales tax is an interstate commerce issue; albeit one that affects Internet users more than the rest of the population. The controversies swirling over the CDA (which is absolutely ridiculous, it was declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court) is no different than any of the other free speech/parental control battles as the Republicans try to force their very conservative values on everyone. The DOJ hearings on Microsoft deal with monopolies and so, like the Internet tax issue, is handled by the federal government. That is an issue of big business, and is a "geek issue" only because well, it's M$.:) The privacy issues, with medical records and the IRS, deal more with beauracracy than the Internet. Finally, even encryption is just another example of "we-can-have-this-technology-but-no-one-else-can".
These are all issues that affect EVERYONE, not just Internet users. And they're not even the biggest issues -- are you going to vote for a candidate based on his ideas about exporting technology, or about his ideas for education and health care reform? Besides, most candidates' opinions on these "geek issues" follow with their stands on the role of the government in other areas of society.
Internet users may be the key electorate this year, but that may have more to do with Internet users being middle-class, well-educated, and having a LOT of access to information -- the sort of information about a candidate that could perhaps make or break an election (or at least help an individual make a decision). Just remember to vote, people, otherwise you have no right to complain.;)
Actually, the tides will just be a slightly stronger-than-average spring tide. A spring tide occurs when the moon is at either the full or new moon position -- the sun and the moon are lined up which increases the tidal forces in one direction. (Neap tides occur at first and third quarter -- when the moon and sun are exerting forces on the Earth that are perpendicular to one another. Thus, neap tides are slightly less than regular tides.) There's a lunar perigee once a month, and you don't see any warnings of extraordinary tides. However, combined with the spring tide, docks and beaches might notice tides slightly more drastic than a normal spring tide.
This explanation of dark matter sounds a lot like Feynman's explanation of anti-particles -- that anti-particles are just particles moving backwards in time. Also, this theory requires that the universe will eventually stop expanding and contract back into a "Big Crunch." Most calculated values of omega lately have been between 0.1 and 1.0, and the belief that the universe will contract someday is becoming less and less common. (Also, I once saw a calculation that claimed that if the universe could contract, it would have already done so, unable to expand this far.)
Finally, Schulman's calculations haven't been published yet, but the New Scientist article plays like a passage from Einstein's Dreams. Throw in some Feynman and some decade-old cosmological theories, and we get an explanation for dark matter? Seems awfully unlikely to me.
I think this has to do with the fact that the Catholic Church emphasizes all of its traditions and rituals over the simpler form of spirituality used by the Protestant churches. Catholics are supposed to find God in the Mass every Sunday -- of the ones who attend weekly (about one-fifth? one-fourth?), I would imagine that some do, and some don't. Maybe it boils down to how much can you accept that something can't be rationally explained.
Furthermore, the Protestant churches often teach a literal interpretation of the Bible, and all teach that faith in Jesus is the one way to heaven. Catholics teach that it's living a good life, being a good person, and doing good deeds which get you into heaven -- and that faith isn't even really necessary. (Granted, they tiptoe around it by saying that everyone has the spirit of Jesus within, even if they don't know it, and then there's that whole purgatory thing . . . ) So perhaps many Catholics don't have a strong faith, and maybe they mumble through the Our Father and the Hail Mary. But maybe they're satisfied with that, because it's not the faith that's important, it's how they live their life that's important.
Finally, as a Catholic, I think that Catholics as a whole need to find their funny bone. I found the CyberRosary amusing, not offensive. Although there's quite a difference between the iMac's and the little old ladies at church who pray the rosary.:)
As a 20-year old female who would have wanted the Hot Wheels computer (or better yet . . . Transformers!), I find those two computers quite sexist. (Go back and read the descriptions of the computers -- each is targeting a specific stereotype, with both the computer itself and its description.) There's not even a neutral middle ground for say, a family with a few children.
Instead of two separate computers for boys and girls, why not one design, with rockets and spaceships on it? That would be something that boys AND girls would find cool, and it could have space-related games, and educational packages about space flight, the solar system, the universe, etc. That would be a great way to get youngsters (boys AND girls) interested in science and technology, rather than some crappy dress-up Barbie software. What's the point of trying to encourage a young girl to use a computer if she'll just be making decals? Couldn't the darn thing at least have some math and science packages? (I once asked my mom why Barbies didn't have red hair, as I do, and she snorted, "Because Barbies can't do math.")
Of the toys listed above (Lego, Barbie, Hot Wheels, Plastic Tool Chest), only one is inherently sexist -- the Barbies. None of the others are specifically aimed at one gender, or only played with by one gender. None try to promote an unattainable ideal, or any kind of conformity -- except for the Barbies.
Or maybe I'm just lucky in that my parents encouraged me to be active, and learn about the world around me (thus sparking my interest in science), instead of sending me off with my mother's old dresses to play dress-up.
Slashdot Mirror
Anyway, there's a great site run by NOAA (http://www.sec.noaa.gov/SWN/) that has updated images of the Sun, sunspot activity, solar storms, and aurorae activity. Definitely worth checking out, especially if you live in an area that could possibly see aurorae.
It's not that black holes "suck" in everything; they are just a very compact and massive object, which therefore exerts a huge gravitational force on everything. Much of the gas near the event horizon of a black hole will get sucked in, and by mass there is much more gas than stars near the black hole. The dynamics and orbits of the nearby stars are affected by the black hole, but that doesn't mean they are sucked in. Supermassive black holes at the centers of galaxies rarely pull in another star (about every 10^5, 10^6 years or so). Remember that the Sun is about a million times more massive than the Earth, yet the Earth is not sucked into the Sun. The mass ratio between a star and the black hole is about the same.
As for writing violent stories -- when I was younger (late jr. high/early h.s. years) I wrote a lot of depressing and violent stories. (btw, I am female). It wasn't because I was a violent person; it was because I was depressed, and I didn't understand it. How many fourteen-year-olds understand depression? I didn't know why I felt that way, and I didn't know that it wasn't *normal*, so writing the stories was the only way I knew how to deal with it. I never turned in anything violent, but I turned in many the depressing creative-writing assignment.
Meanwhile, during that time, I was a bit of a loner -- only one or two close friends -- and definitely a loser, reject, etc., with no self-esteem. Not only that, I fought constantly with my mother, so I was often unwilling to turn to her. What if one of the jerks who taunted me constantly decided to turn me in, as a lark? That wouldn't have solved any of my problems!
Wouldn't it be more effective for someone who wants to turn in another to instead talk to them, and maybe be nice to them for a change? Oh, wait, but then they'd look like a dork as well for talking to such a loser.
Sigh. Just when I was thinking things couldn't get any worse for high school students, some hair-brained idea like this comes along.
So my question to Pinkerton is: Do you have ANY clue what you're doing? Do you have any understanding of adolescence? Teen-age depression? The rampant stigmas in high school against being quiet, being smart, liking computers or math, or even just being different? Sure, we'll turn in the depressed kids, and then the ones who complain about the prominence of athletics (because they're obviously subversive), etc. Please, Pinkerton, I want to know. How is this going to help any of the individuals who will be turned in? Because I can guarantee you, it wouldn't have helped me, and I still turned out fine. Like the extremely vast majority of teenagers who wrote violent and depressing stories, I was never any sort of threat to anyone.
Were they able to collect statistics on how the internet voters voted, as compared to the overall population of Arizona? I'd imagine that could be an interesting statistic. (Although, given this primary season, more interesting in the Republican Party than the Democratic.)
Oh, wait. It's after midnight. It IS March 1.
Never mind.
These are all issues that affect EVERYONE, not just Internet users. And they're not even the biggest issues -- are you going to vote for a candidate based on his ideas about exporting technology, or about his ideas for education and health care reform? Besides, most candidates' opinions on these "geek issues" follow with their stands on the role of the government in other areas of society.
Internet users may be the key electorate this year, but that may have more to do with Internet users being middle-class, well-educated, and having a LOT of access to information -- the sort of information about a candidate that could perhaps make or break an election (or at least help an individual make a decision). Just remember to vote, people, otherwise you have no right to complain. ;)
Actually, the tides will just be a slightly stronger-than-average spring tide. A spring tide occurs when the moon is at either the full or new moon position -- the sun and the moon are lined up which increases the tidal forces in one direction. (Neap tides occur at first and third quarter -- when the moon and sun are exerting forces on the Earth that are perpendicular to one another. Thus, neap tides are slightly less than regular tides.) There's a lunar perigee once a month, and you don't see any warnings of extraordinary tides. However, combined with the spring tide, docks and beaches might notice tides slightly more drastic than a normal spring tide.
Finally, Schulman's calculations haven't been published yet, but the New Scientist article plays like a passage from Einstein's Dreams. Throw in some Feynman and some decade-old cosmological theories, and we get an explanation for dark matter? Seems awfully unlikely to me.
Furthermore, the Protestant churches often teach a literal interpretation of the Bible, and all teach that faith in Jesus is the one way to heaven. Catholics teach that it's living a good life, being a good person, and doing good deeds which get you into heaven -- and that faith isn't even really necessary. (Granted, they tiptoe around it by saying that everyone has the spirit of Jesus within, even if they don't know it, and then there's that whole purgatory thing . . . ) So perhaps many Catholics don't have a strong faith, and maybe they mumble through the Our Father and the Hail Mary. But maybe they're satisfied with that, because it's not the faith that's important, it's how they live their life that's important.
Finally, as a Catholic, I think that Catholics as a whole need to find their funny bone. I found the CyberRosary amusing, not offensive. Although there's quite a difference between the iMac's and the little old ladies at church who pray the rosary. :)
As a 20-year old female who would have wanted the Hot Wheels computer (or better yet . . . Transformers!), I find those two computers quite sexist. (Go back and read the descriptions of the computers -- each is targeting a specific stereotype, with both the computer itself and its description.) There's not even a neutral middle ground for say, a family with a few children.
Instead of two separate computers for boys and girls, why not one design, with rockets and spaceships on it? That would be something that boys AND girls would find cool, and it could have space-related games, and educational packages about space flight, the solar system, the universe, etc. That would be a great way to get youngsters (boys AND girls) interested in science and technology, rather than some crappy dress-up Barbie software. What's the point of trying to encourage a young girl to use a computer if she'll just be making decals? Couldn't the darn thing at least have some math and science packages? (I once asked my mom why Barbies didn't have red hair, as I do, and she snorted, "Because Barbies can't do math.")
Of the toys listed above (Lego, Barbie, Hot Wheels, Plastic Tool Chest), only one is inherently sexist -- the Barbies. None of the others are specifically aimed at one gender, or only played with by one gender. None try to promote an unattainable ideal, or any kind of conformity -- except for the Barbies.
Or maybe I'm just lucky in that my parents encouraged me to be active, and learn about the world around me (thus sparking my interest in science), instead of sending me off with my mother's old dresses to play dress-up.