Couldn't one argue that authorization was granted by the database when a valid login/password pair was provided? I suppose that is a) too technical, and/or b) is a broad enough definition of "authorize" that any successful cracking of a password results in an authorized access.
Actually its even older than that, according to the article:
"Wang credits German engineer Adolf Busemann for the original concept. In the 1950s, Busemann came up with a biplane design that essentially eliminates shock waves at supersonic speeds."
The real breakthrough is in minor modifications to the wing design that cut down drastically in drag, reducing necessary fuel burn. While it may not be a field-able concept yet, they are gradually breaking down the barriers to a more efficient supersonic transport design.
Is this going towards a future where students do not need to be physical present on the campus?
Actually, the TEAL approach that replaced the large freshman physics lectures at MIT places a heavier emphasis on attendance. In a traditional lecture the professor doesn't know most of the students, and doesn't really care if 50% of them stop showing up after the first week. With TEAL there are interactive portions of the class (such as answering multiple choice questions with a personal remote) which are tracked and factored into the student's grade. In other words, if you don't show up, you can't get an A (no matter how well you have mastered the material).
Personally I don't think this is the best approach, but it certainly isn't forgiving of a student's absence from class.
As a side note, when I was a freshman, many of my classmates did not find the TEAL lectures to be terribly effective in teaching the material. Frequently they would go back into the video archive after class and watch recordings of the "traditional" lectures from years past to actually learn what was being taught. They just went to the TEAL lectures because they didn't want to loose their participation credit.
This reminds me of one of my third grade teachers. His class motto was "people with beards are great".
I can't help but think that he was on to something.
Actually, it also brings to mind a theme from Cryptonomicon, where programmers are referred to as Dwarves, "stout, taciturn, vaguely magical characters who spent a lot of time in the dark hammering out beautiful things." I don't think its a coincidence that beards go along with the territory.
You may have a point in that the appeal of many "classic" works of literature is simply not there for grade school students. Personally I was never a fan of Dickens, something I attribute to the fact he was paid by the word and so tended to go on interminably. That being said, some classic stories have timeless themes which appeal to young minds. I take exception to your categorizing Frankenstein with the work of Dickens and Hawthorne; to a young man with an interest in science, the idea of creating a superhuman, and the dangers of toying with such forces presented a truly seductive theme.
Is our definition of "classic" literature skewed towards somewhat inaccessible titles, written in a style that is not entirely painless for Americans to endure? Absolutely.
Is this choice with out reason? Not at all.
If you think struggling through Dickens today is a challenge, be glad that you don't have to learn Greek to read the works of Plato and Aristotle in their original form, not to mention adventures such as The Iliad, or The Odyssey.
Value does not come from simply being difficult, but in the case of many classic works of literature, the barriers to entry are more than outweighed by the knowledge to be harvested within.
Whether The Children of Hurin is such a classic is a question I can not answer, but do not discount it simply because it is not easy.
While Clinton's extra-marital activities may not be the most admirable thing he did while in office, I think a much more germane point would be his Balkan crusade. Everyone seems to forget that before Afghanistan and Iraq, American planes engaged in a massive bombardment of a modern republic. Everyone accuses the second Bush administration of being deceptive about the presence of weapons of mass destruction, but no one seems to remember that Clinton justified American involvement in the former Yugoslavia by vastly inflating the reports of genocide. While the UN did not supported the second Bush administration's invasion of Iraq, back in 1999 the UN Security Council attempted to pass a resolution demanding "an immediate cessation of the use of force against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and urgent resumption of negotiations" claiming that to allow such intervention "grossly violated the key provisions of the United Nations Charter."
Based on the findings of Mr. Johnson, I respectfully beg to differ.
the debris cloud extends from less than 125 miles (200 kilometers) to more than 2,292 miles (3,850 kilometers), encompassing all of low Earth orbit. The majority of the debris have mean altitudes of 528 miles (850 kilometers) or greater, "which means most will be very long-lived," he said. http://www.space.com/news/070202_china_spacedebris .html
Nicholas Johnson, Chief Scientist for Orbital Debris at Johnson Space Center
I wonder how 200k compares to the cost of airline flights at the birth of commercial aviation after adjusting for inflation? I'm guessing it's still quite a bit more, but maybe not too far? Either way, the point is that it's only a 1-2 orders of magnitude from where many people would be able to do it, including myself. And that makes me very excited. Very interesting question. As a bit of a benchmark, a flight in a Russian MIG fighter jet (http://www.atlasaerospace.net/eng/pilot.htm/) currently ranges from roughly $8K to $17K for a 45 minute ride. The projected space flight would be approximately 3.33 times the duration, so a MIG flight lasting the same would be roughly $50K (for one of the higher end aircraft such as the MIG-25 or MIG-31) or 25% of cost of the space flight. Considering the difference in velocity, distance traveled (MIGs have an operational ceiling of roughly 20km, while Virgin Spaceships are planned to climb to 140km) , and overall "WOW factor", I'd say that $200K is about the right amount for such an experience.
4: Because of the above, they managed to shoot a satellite from orbit. The US and Russia thought they were the only ones capable of this.
Military/Political motivations aside, that was a very short sighted thing to do. There has been some coverage in the mainstream media, but not nearly enough attention has been paid to the physical repercussions of the destruction of Fengyun-1C. The debris resulting from the impact are numerous and wide spread, and while they may each be smaller than a golf ball, even objects that small do serious damage when they are moving at speeds in excess of 4 km/sec as is the case. To further complicate the matter, there are tens of thousands of such fragments, and in the time since the initial destruction of the weather satellite, they have saturated the entire low earth orbit. LEO is by the way where the vast majority of artificial satellites live, including communications, surveillance, weather monitoring and with few exceptions, all the manned space missions.
When (and I mean when, not if) some of this debris impacts a satellite that has an effect on everyday life, expect to hear a lot more commotion about China's reckless endangerment of space. It takes millions if not billions of dollars to put these systems in orbit, but a 10 cent part can take down the network given the right conditions. The global community needs to take a stand now to prevent the irresponsible contamination of one of the planet's last commonly held resources: its orbits.
Honestly, a more competitive China is the best thing that could happen to American science. We need the impetus of a threatening adversary to not only motivate the practitioners of science, but also to open the floodgates of private/corporate/government funding.
And on a related note, people need to stop dismissing China simply because of their political system. I hate communists just as much as the next red blooded American, but saying they can't do science in a one party government with a control economy is simply short sighted and naive. Doesn't anyone remember the cold war? I seem to recall the Soviets putting the first satellite in orbit, and the first man (and woman) in space. Just because we beat them to the moon doesn't mean they were inept. If anything, history should remind us how effective the concentrated efforts of the government, the economy, the military and civilians of a nation can be. Political freedom does not by default lead to progress, nor does a lack of it guarantee regress.
I sympathize with all the posts about the lack of mobile phone etiquette and the dangers of "air-rage", but I really think that these are ignoratio elenchi. The real issue as far as the FCC should be concerned is a matter of feasibility with the existing communications network. Some suggestions have been made here as to why the relaxing of the existing ban might cause problems, and if these are valid, then the FCC made the right decision for the time being. They should of course encourage the communications industry to try and overcome these, or any similar technical limitations by paving the way for relaxed regulations.
That being said, it is nowhere in the FCC's jurisdiction to regulate the use of cell phones to limit "air-rage", and it is questionably within their jurisdiction to make regulations due to interference with avionics equipment. The latter could be (and is) dealt with by the FAA, and the former could be regulated by an act of congress, but it is worrisome if such federal agencies are being allowed to overstep their bounds, even in the interest of "a more civil society."
I find my self in an interesting combination of these two cases. While I am a salaried employee, my company primarily works on government contracts. This means that we need to account for our time down to the closest 1/10 of an hour as per US law. It makes for an interesting dynamic in the work place. Occasionally it also results in your manager telling you that you need to take a few days off since you have logged too many hours. Or of course the same situation could result in mountains of unpaid overtime, but such is reality.
I seem to remember being taught in school about this Homer guy. Apparently he lived about 2700 years ago and recited little poems including The Odyssey and The Iliad. There is something vaguely bard like about that, don't you think?
Universities aren't in the business of providing internet access.
Of course they are. Go to any university and ask the person responsible for filling the dorms what would happen if they cut off Internet access. They realize very well that internet access in a dorm room is considered essential, and that the demand for dorm rooms will take a hit if they don't have it. It's become a basic cost of doing business.
This reminds me of my freshman year at MIT. They were putting the finishing touches on a new dormitory, and no one could move in during the first part of orientation. There had been debate about what absolutely needed to be completed before they could start moving people in. Student opinion clearly stated that running water ranked below internet access.
Then again that could have more to do with how CS majors feel about showering. Either way, I think many people would be amazed at what kind of conditions college students will tolerate if they have a sufficiently vast connection to the internet.
Nuclear energy is even better than a renewable resource. In the right configuration, nuclear fuel can "breed" more fuel, or if you prefer, you could always design your reactor to provide a rare resource: weapons grade plutonium.
I'm not sure where the Washington Post got their numbers, but according to the USPTO's own Annual Report, they received more than 615,300 patent related applications, which were dealt with by 4,883 examiners. A reasonable calculation then suggests that they would have to process the applications in an average of 15 hours each to keep up with demand.
In actuality, only 332,535 patents were disposed in FY2006, which means the backlog (already in excess of on million patent applications) only grew. In a system where your application is not likely to even be looked at for the first 22 months, and it takes more than 2.5 years for the average application to be processed, they are desperately in need of help examining.
The most depressing part of the report is to look at their goals. The objective is not to reduce the backlog, or improve first action or total pendency time, it is simply to have the backlog increase by less than in previous years. With this kind of thinking, there is no end in sight. What is really needed is a radical change of leadership, such that the resources being allocated and the goals being set can actually improve the situation.
I am curious to see how parts of the third world reacts to an "eerie red" moon rise. Eclipses have prompted some pretty interesting responses in the past.
Corruption in Washington is nothing new. Over a century ago, the Grant Administration was plagued by a number of embezzlement schemes involving members of the cabinet, relatives of the president and his close associates. The parallels are striking when you compare Cheney's Halliburton with the Bristow (Secretary of the Treasury) Whisky Ring, the Belknap (Secretary of War) Trading Post incident, Jay Gould's and James Fisk' triggering of Black Friday, and the Sanborn Incident.
Every time accusations were made, the Republicans would "wave the bloody shirt," claiming that the southern Democrats were trying to destroy the government just as they had in the civil war (not unlike the call to national security and invoking the fear of terrorism we see in politics today).
Some things never change, and it seems like politics is just as partisan as it ever was. For an interesting take of the chaos of the Grant years and American society, I suggest reading Gore Vidal's 1876, while historical fiction, it attempts to adhere strictly to the facts of what was going on during that chaotic election year. The parallels to the 2000 Presidential Election are quite interesting as well; the only thing missing are hanging chads.
I just wanted to point out that while you may be limited in what you can do to improve your chances at this point, don't abandon all hope. I was deferred when I applied to MIT and Harvard for early admission to the class of 2006. While I didn't get admitted to Harvard, I did get into MIT, and in retrospect that was the best thing that could have happened to me (what was I thinking when I applied to Harvard to study engineering).
As a side note, one of my best friends from high school, considered the local math genius, did not get into MIT that year. Its generally accepted that College admissions is a form of black magic, and even those directly involved in the process seem unable to shed much light on its inner workings. Oh, and in case you were worried, he ended up going to Yale, so no harm done.
It seems that this is just reinforcing what has already been shown in the past. Video games or computer simulations have been used for decades to train pilots and soldiers. It only stands to reason that a profession which requires one to carry out a complex series of precise actions, as well as make decisions in a rapidly evolving environment (since just about anything can go wrong in surgery) could be aided through the use of video games.
My understanding was that this software makes such precautions irrelevant as it could be used to cross reference images and determine that BlogUser99, PhotoDad12, etc are in fact the same person.
Not a big deal, unless you happen to work for a conservative company and maintain an anti-government blog or some such thing.
The problem with Monopoly seems to be that every time my family sits down to play a game, it ends in someone flipping over the board and storming off. Mind you the youngest is in her mid-teens and the oldest is in her mid seventies.
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Couldn't one argue that authorization was granted by the database when a valid login/password pair was provided? I suppose that is a) too technical, and/or b) is a broad enough definition of "authorize" that any successful cracking of a password results in an authorized access.
At least in Massachusetts, the wiretapping laws cover both in-person and telephone conversations being recorded. The key bit is that unlike the majority of states, both parties need to consent to recording in MA. http://www.malegislature.gov/Laws/GeneralLaws/PartIV/TitleI/Chapter272/Section99
Actually its even older than that, according to the article:
"Wang credits German engineer Adolf Busemann for the original concept. In the 1950s, Busemann came up with a biplane design that essentially eliminates shock waves at supersonic speeds."
The real breakthrough is in minor modifications to the wing design that cut down drastically in drag, reducing necessary fuel burn. While it may not be a field-able concept yet, they are gradually breaking down the barriers to a more efficient supersonic transport design.
Hey, someone needs to protect American jobs with tariffs, because that worked so well in the 1930's.
Is this going towards a future where students do not need to be physical present on the campus?
Actually, the TEAL approach that replaced the large freshman physics lectures at MIT places a heavier emphasis on attendance. In a traditional lecture the professor doesn't know most of the students, and doesn't really care if 50% of them stop showing up after the first week. With TEAL there are interactive portions of the class (such as answering multiple choice questions with a personal remote) which are tracked and factored into the student's grade. In other words, if you don't show up, you can't get an A (no matter how well you have mastered the material).
Personally I don't think this is the best approach, but it certainly isn't forgiving of a student's absence from class.
As a side note, when I was a freshman, many of my classmates did not find the TEAL lectures to be terribly effective in teaching the material. Frequently they would go back into the video archive after class and watch recordings of the "traditional" lectures from years past to actually learn what was being taught. They just went to the TEAL lectures because they didn't want to loose their participation credit.
This reminds me of one of my third grade teachers. His class motto was "people with beards are great".
I can't help but think that he was on to something.
Actually, it also brings to mind a theme from Cryptonomicon, where programmers are referred to as Dwarves, "stout, taciturn, vaguely magical characters who spent a lot of time in the dark hammering out beautiful things." I don't think its a coincidence that beards go along with the territory.
You may have a point in that the appeal of many "classic" works of literature is simply not there for grade school students. Personally I was never a fan of Dickens, something I attribute to the fact he was paid by the word and so tended to go on interminably. That being said, some classic stories have timeless themes which appeal to young minds. I take exception to your categorizing Frankenstein with the work of Dickens and Hawthorne; to a young man with an interest in science, the idea of creating a superhuman, and the dangers of toying with such forces presented a truly seductive theme.
Is our definition of "classic" literature skewed towards somewhat inaccessible titles, written in a style that is not entirely painless for Americans to endure? Absolutely.
Is this choice with out reason? Not at all. If you think struggling through Dickens today is a challenge, be glad that you don't have to learn Greek to read the works of Plato and Aristotle in their original form, not to mention adventures such as The Iliad, or The Odyssey.
Value does not come from simply being difficult, but in the case of many classic works of literature, the barriers to entry are more than outweighed by the knowledge to be harvested within.
Whether The Children of Hurin is such a classic is a question I can not answer, but do not discount it simply because it is not easy.
While Clinton's extra-marital activities may not be the most admirable thing he did while in office, I think a much more germane point would be his Balkan crusade. Everyone seems to forget that before Afghanistan and Iraq, American planes engaged in a massive bombardment of a modern republic. Everyone accuses the second Bush administration of being deceptive about the presence of weapons of mass destruction, but no one seems to remember that Clinton justified American involvement in the former Yugoslavia by vastly inflating the reports of genocide. While the UN did not supported the second Bush administration's invasion of Iraq, back in 1999 the UN Security Council attempted to pass a resolution demanding "an immediate cessation of the use of force against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and urgent resumption of negotiations" claiming that to allow such intervention "grossly violated the key provisions of the United Nations Charter."
the debris cloud extends from less than 125 miles (200 kilometers) to more than 2,292 miles (3,850 kilometers), encompassing all of low Earth orbit. The majority of the debris have mean altitudes of 528 miles (850 kilometers) or greater, "which means most will be very long-lived," he said. http://www.space.com/news/070202_china_spacedebri
Nicholas Johnson, Chief Scientist for Orbital Debris at Johnson Space Center
When (and I mean when, not if) some of this debris impacts a satellite that has an effect on everyday life, expect to hear a lot more commotion about China's reckless endangerment of space. It takes millions if not billions of dollars to put these systems in orbit, but a 10 cent part can take down the network given the right conditions. The global community needs to take a stand now to prevent the irresponsible contamination of one of the planet's last commonly held resources: its orbits.
Honestly, a more competitive China is the best thing that could happen to American science. We need the impetus of a threatening adversary to not only motivate the practitioners of science, but also to open the floodgates of private/corporate/government funding.
And on a related note, people need to stop dismissing China simply because of their political system. I hate communists just as much as the next red blooded American, but saying they can't do science in a one party government with a control economy is simply short sighted and naive. Doesn't anyone remember the cold war? I seem to recall the Soviets putting the first satellite in orbit, and the first man (and woman) in space. Just because we beat them to the moon doesn't mean they were inept. If anything, history should remind us how effective the concentrated efforts of the government, the economy, the military and civilians of a nation can be. Political freedom does not by default lead to progress, nor does a lack of it guarantee regress.
I sympathize with all the posts about the lack of mobile phone etiquette and the dangers of "air-rage", but I really think that these are ignoratio elenchi. The real issue as far as the FCC should be concerned is a matter of feasibility with the existing communications network. Some suggestions have been made here as to why the relaxing of the existing ban might cause problems, and if these are valid, then the FCC made the right decision for the time being. They should of course encourage the communications industry to try and overcome these, or any similar technical limitations by paving the way for relaxed regulations.
That being said, it is nowhere in the FCC's jurisdiction to regulate the use of cell phones to limit "air-rage", and it is questionably within their jurisdiction to make regulations due to interference with avionics equipment. The latter could be (and is) dealt with by the FAA, and the former could be regulated by an act of congress, but it is worrisome if such federal agencies are being allowed to overstep their bounds, even in the interest of "a more civil society."
Honestly, if the French government though there were UFOs, they wouldn't bother to cover it up, they would just surrender.
I find my self in an interesting combination of these two cases. While I am a salaried employee, my company primarily works on government contracts. This means that we need to account for our time down to the closest 1/10 of an hour as per US law. It makes for an interesting dynamic in the work place. Occasionally it also results in your manager telling you that you need to take a few days off since you have logged too many hours. Or of course the same situation could result in mountains of unpaid overtime, but such is reality.
I seem to remember being taught in school about this Homer guy. Apparently he lived about 2700 years ago and recited little poems including The Odyssey and The Iliad. There is something vaguely bard like about that, don't you think?
This reminds me of my freshman year at MIT. They were putting the finishing touches on a new dormitory, and no one could move in during the first part of orientation. There had been debate about what absolutely needed to be completed before they could start moving people in. Student opinion clearly stated that running water ranked below internet access.
Then again that could have more to do with how CS majors feel about showering. Either way, I think many people would be amazed at what kind of conditions college students will tolerate if they have a sufficiently vast connection to the internet.
Nuclear energy is even better than a renewable resource. In the right configuration, nuclear fuel can "breed" more fuel, or if you prefer, you could always design your reactor to provide a rare resource: weapons grade plutonium.
I'm not sure where the Washington Post got their numbers, but according to the USPTO's own Annual Report, they received more than 615,300 patent related applications, which were dealt with by 4,883 examiners. A reasonable calculation then suggests that they would have to process the applications in an average of 15 hours each to keep up with demand.
In actuality, only 332,535 patents were disposed in FY2006, which means the backlog (already in excess of on million patent applications) only grew. In a system where your application is not likely to even be looked at for the first 22 months, and it takes more than 2.5 years for the average application to be processed, they are desperately in need of help examining.
The most depressing part of the report is to look at their goals. The objective is not to reduce the backlog, or improve first action or total pendency time, it is simply to have the backlog increase by less than in previous years. With this kind of thinking, there is no end in sight. What is really needed is a radical change of leadership, such that the resources being allocated and the goals being set can actually improve the situation.
I am curious to see how parts of the third world reacts to an "eerie red" moon rise. Eclipses have prompted some pretty interesting responses in the past.
Corruption in Washington is nothing new. Over a century ago, the Grant Administration was plagued by a number of embezzlement schemes involving members of the cabinet, relatives of the president and his close associates. The parallels are striking when you compare Cheney's Halliburton with the Bristow (Secretary of the Treasury) Whisky Ring, the Belknap (Secretary of War) Trading Post incident, Jay Gould's and James Fisk' triggering of Black Friday, and the Sanborn Incident.
Every time accusations were made, the Republicans would "wave the bloody shirt," claiming that the southern Democrats were trying to destroy the government just as they had in the civil war (not unlike the call to national security and invoking the fear of terrorism we see in politics today).
Some things never change, and it seems like politics is just as partisan as it ever was. For an interesting take of the chaos of the Grant years and American society, I suggest reading Gore Vidal's 1876, while historical fiction, it attempts to adhere strictly to the facts of what was going on during that chaotic election year. The parallels to the 2000 Presidential Election are quite interesting as well; the only thing missing are hanging chads.
I just wanted to point out that while you may be limited in what you can do to improve your chances at this point, don't abandon all hope. I was deferred when I applied to MIT and Harvard for early admission to the class of 2006. While I didn't get admitted to Harvard, I did get into MIT, and in retrospect that was the best thing that could have happened to me (what was I thinking when I applied to Harvard to study engineering).
As a side note, one of my best friends from high school, considered the local math genius, did not get into MIT that year. Its generally accepted that College admissions is a form of black magic, and even those directly involved in the process seem unable to shed much light on its inner workings. Oh, and in case you were worried, he ended up going to Yale, so no harm done.
It seems that this is just reinforcing what has already been shown in the past. Video games or computer simulations have been used for decades to train pilots and soldiers. It only stands to reason that a profession which requires one to carry out a complex series of precise actions, as well as make decisions in a rapidly evolving environment (since just about anything can go wrong in surgery) could be aided through the use of video games.
Not a big deal, unless you happen to work for a conservative company and maintain an anti-government blog or some such thing.
The problem with Monopoly seems to be that every time my family sits down to play a game, it ends in someone flipping over the board and storming off. Mind you the youngest is in her mid-teens and the oldest is in her mid seventies.