You don't actually believe 19cm rise do you? Surely you can see through a figure that meaningless. These figures have already been updated to say higher than that. Also at the other extreme, its something like 100M+ rise if all the ice melted, which I also don't believe, but a say 1-6 meter rise in the next 90 years I think is more possible. But even just a 1.5M rise would cause serious problems for some countries, especially during storms.
Also it doesn't matter if its in the next 10 years, 100 years, or 1000 years we get the sea rise of say just 10 meters. Sooner or later some generation will suffer the serious consequences and we cannot treat future generations with utter contempt out of an arragant close minded desire for greed now.
"They are trying to get the courts to rule on whether Global Warming will be _harmful_ to humans."
They should say it in a language business people understand. I.e. Money. Any Global Warming regardless of the cause will give sea rise which in turn displaces millions of people living near the coasts (global cost will be many billions). Plus the loss of every beach on the planet wiping out all coastal businesses dependent on beach tourism (cost again in many billions). Plus crop yields affected world wide (cost again in many billions). (Thats just 3 examples off the top of my head). Also when I say billions thats the very low end of the cost range. For example, the global cost of wiping out (or protecting) every coastal city thats even just only 10 meters (or less) above sea level must be way off into the trillions range globally. They could probably equate just sea rise with a global cost in billions per extra meter of sea rise. Thats a graph business people would understand.
But I deeply suspect these business people are not looking for the truth (whatever it is), they are instead looking for an excuse to use, regardless of any truth. Because as always, they are focused on finding ways to increase their money. As they say, "Follow the money". What do business people have to gain from this legal action?... Money. Otherwise they wouldn't take the time and money to start legal action.
"I don't think anyone should ever expect anonymity" and "British"
With a foolish attitude like that, they should try to get a job with the British Government.
Anonymity is almost a form of protection, however its *never* perfect protection. Anonymity is a poor man's protection in an imperfect world, but some small amount of poor protection is still better than no protection.
Its a fact of life not everyone in the world can be trusted, so all of us choose to hide some information. Therefore any attempt by governments to imply "if you've done nothing wrong, you've got nothing to hide" (tm) is simply part of government (and business) PR manipulation tactics to fool the masses into docile acquiescence. Knowledge is power so all of us have to be careful leaking all knowledge about ourselves. Plus all governments want more power (its why each politician got into that job in the first place, they want the power to rule and control others so they can ultimately personally gain from having that power over others, and its also why they always want ever more of everyones information because it gives them ever more power. Knowledge is power).
As for this model, she is (like many models) very evidently a HPD (Histrionic Personality Disorder), and the one thing HPDs want above almost all else is ever more attention, which is exactly what this case is giving her.
@AC: Wow, judging from your totally over the top frankly arrogant comments its you who needs "a sense of perspective" rather than flying off the deep end. If you AC, bothered to learn some "history", you would see there was a lot more to Heinrich Himmler than his high profile horrific acts during WW2.
Heinrich Himmler spent years scheming and manipulating to finally work himself into a position of immense power. It is that scheming and manipulation that allowed him to consolidate his position of power leading up to WW2. His behavior showed someone extremely driven (at almost any cost) to seek any way to gain power over others. Psychologically that's very interesting, as it strongly points to a personality disorder that I strongly suspect Mandelson shares many aspects with. A good example is their extreme self interest, with such a total lack of empathy for opponents. Knowledge and lies are a weapon to people like this. Mandelson is exactly like this. (People like them so often learn from a young age that lying gets them what they want and as they have no empathy to others they don't care they are lying. Worst still, they sadly see most people as overly trusting pawns their lies easily manipulate. Even worse, they consider themselves smarter for winning over trusting people).
We have seen atrocities throughout human history, so sadly there's nothing special about our time. Given the right circumstances (or more to the point, wrong circumstances) seemingly innocent people today would sadly be capable of similar levels of horrific contempt and lack of empathy to opponents and people they just see as their pawns, in their own rampant driven for self advancement at the expense of others. For example, the act of treating 1 person with contempt or 10 million people with contempt is simply the difference between the amount of power the person in power has. But if someone with a huge amount of power treats the lives of 10 million people with contempt, then you will find hundreds of thousands of people out of the 10 million are likely to end up dying if the contempt lasts months and years. We have seen that repeated throughout history and around the world. The people in power at the time, often don't want the 10 million to die. The point is, they don't care if they live or die. Their only concern if the 10 million died is what effect would that have on their own position of power. Its a totally self interested mindset. They don't even think about the victims they are only interested in how that affects them. Thankfully most people don't think like this sick minority of people, but sadly this minority so often seeks to gain extreme power over others, ultimately for their own gain from having such power over others.
If the world is to ever progress, we *all* need to learn to recognize this kind of person and then together we would have the power to stop them holding such positions of power over us all.
"It isn't helped by the fact he really looks like Hitler."
Its funny but also somewhat scary you say that, because for years I've thought he not only looked like but also behaved very much like Heinrich Himmler. At times I find Mandelson a truly scary character because he seems to have immense political power behind the scenes. Time and time again he has been linked with corruption. He has even been thrown out of Government twice, yet he is back for a 3rd time and within months of being back, somehow he has one of the most powerful jobs in New Labour. He must have some very powerful friends and considering the speed he has got back to such a powerful position, I wonder if he has also enough dirt on other MPs to blackmail and force himself back into such power. In some ways he is just as manipulative and controlling as Heinrich Himmler was. I think if Mandelson ever got anymore political power, He would create a nightmare country with him at the center of power.
Thanks for debugging my code. I wasn't giving it that much thought. I was more interested and focused on the social commentary aspect of it rather than its code integrity.:)
Then again, as its programmers in control of this kind of code, they can cheat by overloading the operators to bias the results to help boost programmers IQ.;)
This technology is the 1984 Orwellian concept of the Telescreen. I'm sadly dismayed and stunned no one has so far mentioned it on this page?!... How long before they will be able to use this kind of technology to see who is and isn't watching Party Political Broadcasts (and other political programs including anti-government documentaries) to workout who is and isn't against them?
(By the way, web based TV could in theory be used for this now. After all, knowledge is power and the Internet is a vast source of knowledge so its no wonder people who seek political power would very likely be thinking along these lines to monitor and profile what people do. Political power is the power to influence and control people so they will use whatever technology they can to increase their power).
"Unfortunately I'm pretty sure I'm no more intelligent than most. "
Define "most". The intelligence of the average programmer has to be above the average person, its just most programmers (thankfully) don't bother mixing that often with the average people to see just what they are like.
Its not just morally wrong, also its legally wrong, but apparently thats overlooked by the governments.
For example, if I buy a console, and then write a manual about how to modify that console, then legally that is wrong.
However, if I buy a car, and then write a manual about how to modify that car, then legally that is ok. (For example http://www.haynes.co.uk/ have been doing exactly this for decades).
So Lobbyists have fought to distort the legal status of consoles and media in general. An audio/film/game protection system isn't any more important than a car, yet we are all supposed to blindly just accept that it is because Lobbyists say it is and have forced a protectionist market onto these forms of media.
The closed nature of consoles prevents other smaller companies growing to support 3rd party products without the expressed legal permission of the console makers. They therefore control the market and the government helps them. So much for Capitalism's concept of goods traded in a free market when that market is closed off to all but the console makers and anyone forced to pay console makers effectively protection money, preventing the console makers taking legal action against them for violating access to their turf.
"Now how many crimes have you unknowingly broke today, citizen"
Well you've just committed one crime, you've shown decent, citizen, by joking about Big Brother;). So we need to add you to more of our lists. (After all, we need to know who to round up first, when we next want to distract political opponents).
"more data often makes it more difficult to find the needle in the haystack"
The more haystacks they look through the more needles they can find. It'll just cost a lot more to build such a big system. Luckily money isn't such a worry for them. (For them that is, as they don't end up paying for it!;)... Ironic really, they use our money to spy on all of us.
As for tangible results, that's a very interesting question. Who exactly is this huge and ever growing distributed system going to data mine?... I'm sure the idea of it is sold to everyone on the basis its all part of the war on fear, I mean war on terrorists (hiding on every street corner), but that's the point. Is this directed internally as well as externally?
We all know knowledge is power but with a system of such growing knowledge, what safe guards are in place to prevent greedy people in power exploiting this much growing knowledge (and power) for their own gain?
Because each time some more liberty is taken from us all, someone else (i.e. the people in power and their friends with the money) ends up profiting and gaining personally from our loss of yet more liberty.
In which case, Benjamin Franklin, must be spinning in his grave by now, i.e. "Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."... (Its amazing he said this over 200 years ago, yet still we make the same mistakes).
Troll, its a *FACT* he has been in there 14 years!!!... so you've totally missed the point, in your very off topic troll rant about easy web page editing?!?
"Why is he getting out now then" and "He either cannot or will not ever pay up"
They are very good questions. All the links tend to give the same information, so I did some more searching and found this... "The petitioner, Mr. Chadwick, has been imprisoned without trial for eight years in Delaware County, Pennsylvania for 'civil' contempt because he has been unable to deposit with the court $2.5 million in cash, funds which he maintains were part of an illiquid overseas real estate investment he does not control." http://www.amatterofjustice.org/amoj/cases/chadwick3.htm
This news was from 2003, so its very disturbing if he has been held 14 years without trial?. Also surely they would know after 14 years the legal status of his overseas real estate investments?.
It seems the legal system and government suffers from systemic procedural bureaucracy so bad that its taken years more to final free him, but suffocatingly bad bureaucracy is no excuse to allow the legal system to behave the way we have been lead to believe only happens in police state countries.
Talking about 1000 and 2000 years in the past, I prefer to think about what it could be like when we are seen as the distant past.
It seems very likely the changes in the next 1000 years are going to be much bigger than the changes in the previous 1000 years simply as we have so many better tools today, including far better information tools which helps to accelerate creating new technology.
I hope in 1000 years from now they will look back at us as if we are some kind of very early version of what they see as their technological dark ages. Although I would like to hope in 2000 years from now, the people then would be able to ask some of their oldest friends what it was like 1000 years ago.
"extended copyright might kill another production"
No, its the greedy, self serving, money grabbing, Narcissistic, control freaks who so often seek powerful jobs in big companies like Time Warner who are to blame (as usual). Their Narcissistic self interest at the expense of others forces people to finally take action against this kind of unfair treatment. They have tried for years to get some kind of fairness out of Time Warner.
If Windows 7 success is judged by how cheaply they sell it for, then how many more people would want to try it if they gave it away for free?
(Also surely this Microsoft & Amazon PR stunt is actually the opposite of success?... Because if any company released a truly desirable product people would be willing to pay a premium to own that product. Yet Microsoft & Amazon are trying to claim success by reducing its price... (talk about lies, damned lies and PR)).
"Why call it a flip-flop when you can give it it's proper name: an astable multivibrator?"
Because for decades its *also* been known as a flip-flop by millions of electronics engineers and its also a very visually descriptive name and yes its a fun name, that kids would *remember*
Also every single electronics engineer on the planet knows what a flip-flop is.
It never ceases to amaze me how some people are so inflexible in their thinking, as you have just shown. It seems its only you who wants to avoid the name due to some people may laugh!... good, let them laugh, and while they are laughing they will remember it all the more. Educating the kids with formal detailed names can come later. Unless that is you wish to alienate kids from subjects by boring them with way too much detail early on. I'm happy you were not my teacher. Any kid who starts to get entertained and interested in the subject will seek out more detailed information on their own and surely that is the greatest achievement of any teacher, to encourage kids to want to learn more on their own. The teachers who can inspire like that are some of the best teachers we remember the most throughout the rest of our lives.
1) Is fun
2) Teaches about circuits that are relevant to their life.
3) Doesn't rely too heavily on a black box microcontroller.
4) Individual components would probably be better.
5) I want them to understand the circuitry behind modern tech.
Given these criteria, I would vote, go for a flip-flop. Even the name appeals to kids. Its also historically the basis of a lot of digital electronics design. Its also fun as kids can see the LEDs working and replacing the resistors with potentiometers makes it easily to alter its speed interactively which is always fun for kids to see.
But I would say, as you are teaching electronics, before you move onto the flip-flop then first show them a single Transistor with a small switch wired to its base, showing the Transistor can itself act like a switch (use it to control an LED). They need to learn how transistors switch. (You can go onto explain about amplifying later... start with digital on-off operation, then expand to in between voltages, using a potentiometer on its base).
Both the flip-flop and the switch with a transistor + LED (and a few resistors), all adds up to less than $5 for the lot and you have a few important lessons easily covered in an interesting and visual way.
You can also make the flip-flop switch faster so they can't see the LEDs flashing any more, and then connect up a small cheap speaker, so they can hear it buzzing to show its still flipping. Its a very interactive way for kids to learn electronics, and its cheap and easy to make without even needing a circuit board. Just use tinned wires to form the circuit exactly like its circuit diagram.:)
This kind of organisation usually has a backup somewhere, they just have to find it. Its usually backed up on a post-it note somewhere. Maybe they should ask all of us to look for it, on the sides of our monitors.
Its called humor, its just the mod failed to read the main title said "biggest ever built by earthlings"
As in implying other non-earthlings also build spacecraft and some maybe bigger objects, which is in itself a funny concept. I was then building on that in the way scifi films react to aliens. So it was on topic and it was simply a joke. But it seems the mod and commenter prefer to enjoy putting people down. (Once a comment is put down it usually stays down due to Priming but I wouldn't stretch you mind to comprehend that).
All humor is like a Turing Test for humans. That mod and feder failed.
I think I should just politely point out, surely you're missing the main part of the news?... I mean, you can't think NASA's deadline accountancy errors are the biggest part of this potentially huge news event?
For example, from the main summary: "The international space station is by far the largest spacecraft ever built by earthlings"
I mean come on, hold the front page or what, call the joint chiefs now!... there are spacecraft bigger than we make up there!?!... UMMM??!!.... AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!! [inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale] AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!! cool or what!!?!
I didn't miss the 3.5% comment. That doesn't change the fact news organizations are big and so bias perceptions of what is seen as big news events. Its a fact news organizations can spread the news wide as they have many readers so each bit of news they release gets to become high profile news far more often and so is seen as a "news event". When blogs release news, most of that they say is simply drowned out and ignored as its readership is so much smaller than global media organizations.
If you still don't believe this then try this simple experiment. Setup a blog and start selling a product. Add up the number of units you sell in 1 week. Now get a national news organization to show your exact same product on its front page news. From the moment its shown in the news, compare how many units you sell during your following week, after your so called 15 minutes of fame. Its a no brainier that the national news coverage would vastly have far greater impact than your blog, yet nothing other than the means of delivery of the news about the product has changed.
Due to the shear size and power of news organizations they cannot help biasing the perception of what is seen as important news, but more than even that, they bias what is seen as a news event. They make it important news by showing that news. So its no wonder they appear to feature prominently in what is perceived as news events.
"hear some news snippet on the radio and want to post a comment"
Also this research wouldn't be able to detect if any news breaks first as a blog and then gets picked up by news organizations. The news organizations can spread the news wide as they have many readers, but the initial seed of news can still come from Blogs.
For example, I was watching in real time the night news broke of Michael Jackson had died. It was very evident the TV people were using the Internet news as their main source of initial information. The first mention he died came from the TMZ blog who were then quoted by TV people about the unconfirmed death, and then as soon as the LA Times web site joined TMZ in publishing he had (maybe) died (as yet unconfirmed), then suddenly all TV companies all jumped at the same time onto the bandwagon very evidently desperate not to be left behind in breaking the news.
My one concern with this Cornell research is that news organizations will try to manipulate it into implying they and only they feed news and so they ultimately control that news and so people are spreading copyright news. That relentless control freak Rupert Murdoch is determined to force news into a payed for service and will bias and twist any news he can in his favor. News papers are driven by shared information on the Internet as much as they are driving the news.
But then the question becomes interpretation or exploitation?... (exploitation as in the opportunity to exploit events for marketing and PR reasons, to imply they are doing things to help when they are just exploiting events for future profits).
Scientists are not the only people interpreting the results and often not the most vocal people most people get to hear. For example sales people in corporations have agendas they wish to push behind any PR opportunity that comes along. So what is seen as 'the truth' (tm) is constantly manipulated by them, ultimately for their own gain.
Slashdot Mirror
You don't actually believe 19cm rise do you? Surely you can see through a figure that meaningless. These figures have already been updated to say higher than that. Also at the other extreme, its something like 100M+ rise if all the ice melted, which I also don't believe, but a say 1-6 meter rise in the next 90 years I think is more possible. But even just a 1.5M rise would cause serious problems for some countries, especially during storms.
Also it doesn't matter if its in the next 10 years, 100 years, or 1000 years we get the sea rise of say just 10 meters. Sooner or later some generation will suffer the serious consequences and we cannot treat future generations with utter contempt out of an arragant close minded desire for greed now.
"They are trying to get the courts to rule on whether Global Warming will be _harmful_ to humans."
... Money. Otherwise they wouldn't take the time and money to start legal action.
They should say it in a language business people understand. I.e. Money. Any Global Warming regardless of the cause will give sea rise which in turn displaces millions of people living near the coasts (global cost will be many billions). Plus the loss of every beach on the planet wiping out all coastal businesses dependent on beach tourism (cost again in many billions). Plus crop yields affected world wide (cost again in many billions). (Thats just 3 examples off the top of my head). Also when I say billions thats the very low end of the cost range. For example, the global cost of wiping out (or protecting) every coastal city thats even just only 10 meters (or less) above sea level must be way off into the trillions range globally. They could probably equate just sea rise with a global cost in billions per extra meter of sea rise. Thats a graph business people would understand.
But I deeply suspect these business people are not looking for the truth (whatever it is), they are instead looking for an excuse to use, regardless of any truth. Because as always, they are focused on finding ways to increase their money. As they say, "Follow the money". What do business people have to gain from this legal action?
"I don't think anyone should ever expect anonymity" and "British"
With a foolish attitude like that, they should try to get a job with the British Government.
Anonymity is almost a form of protection, however its *never* perfect protection. Anonymity is a poor man's protection in an imperfect world, but some small amount of poor protection is still better than no protection.
Its a fact of life not everyone in the world can be trusted, so all of us choose to hide some information. Therefore any attempt by governments to imply "if you've done nothing wrong, you've got nothing to hide" (tm) is simply part of government (and business) PR manipulation tactics to fool the masses into docile acquiescence. Knowledge is power so all of us have to be careful leaking all knowledge about ourselves. Plus all governments want more power (its why each politician got into that job in the first place, they want the power to rule and control others so they can ultimately personally gain from having that power over others, and its also why they always want ever more of everyones information because it gives them ever more power. Knowledge is power).
As for this model, she is (like many models) very evidently a HPD (Histrionic Personality Disorder), and the one thing HPDs want above almost all else is ever more attention, which is exactly what this case is giving her.
@AC: Wow, judging from your totally over the top frankly arrogant comments its you who needs "a sense of perspective" rather than flying off the deep end. If you AC, bothered to learn some "history", you would see there was a lot more to Heinrich Himmler than his high profile horrific acts during WW2.
Heinrich Himmler spent years scheming and manipulating to finally work himself into a position of immense power. It is that scheming and manipulation that allowed him to consolidate his position of power leading up to WW2. His behavior showed someone extremely driven (at almost any cost) to seek any way to gain power over others. Psychologically that's very interesting, as it strongly points to a personality disorder that I strongly suspect Mandelson shares many aspects with. A good example is their extreme self interest, with such a total lack of empathy for opponents. Knowledge and lies are a weapon to people like this. Mandelson is exactly like this. (People like them so often learn from a young age that lying gets them what they want and as they have no empathy to others they don't care they are lying. Worst still, they sadly see most people as overly trusting pawns their lies easily manipulate. Even worse, they consider themselves smarter for winning over trusting people).
We have seen atrocities throughout human history, so sadly there's nothing special about our time. Given the right circumstances (or more to the point, wrong circumstances) seemingly innocent people today would sadly be capable of similar levels of horrific contempt and lack of empathy to opponents and people they just see as their pawns, in their own rampant driven for self advancement at the expense of others. For example, the act of treating 1 person with contempt or 10 million people with contempt is simply the difference between the amount of power the person in power has. But if someone with a huge amount of power treats the lives of 10 million people with contempt, then you will find hundreds of thousands of people out of the 10 million are likely to end up dying if the contempt lasts months and years. We have seen that repeated throughout history and around the world. The people in power at the time, often don't want the 10 million to die. The point is, they don't care if they live or die. Their only concern if the 10 million died is what effect would that have on their own position of power. Its a totally self interested mindset. They don't even think about the victims they are only interested in how that affects them. Thankfully most people don't think like this sick minority of people, but sadly this minority so often seeks to gain extreme power over others, ultimately for their own gain from having such power over others.
If the world is to ever progress, we *all* need to learn to recognize this kind of person and then together we would have the power to stop them holding such positions of power over us all.
"It isn't helped by the fact he really looks like Hitler."
Its funny but also somewhat scary you say that, because for years I've thought he not only looked like but also behaved very much like Heinrich Himmler. At times I find Mandelson a truly scary character because he seems to have immense political power behind the scenes. Time and time again he has been linked with corruption. He has even been thrown out of Government twice, yet he is back for a 3rd time and within months of being back, somehow he has one of the most powerful jobs in New Labour. He must have some very powerful friends and considering the speed he has got back to such a powerful position, I wonder if he has also enough dirt on other MPs to blackmail and force himself back into such power. In some ways he is just as manipulative and controlling as Heinrich Himmler was. I think if Mandelson ever got anymore political power, He would create a nightmare country with him at the center of power.
Thanks for debugging my code. I wasn't giving it that much thought. I was more interested and focused on the social commentary aspect of it rather than its code integrity. :)
;)
Then again, as its programmers in control of this kind of code, they can cheat by overloading the operators to bias the results to help boost programmers IQ.
This technology is the 1984 Orwellian concept of the Telescreen. I'm sadly dismayed and stunned no one has so far mentioned it on this page?! ... How long before they will be able to use this kind of technology to see who is and isn't watching Party Political Broadcasts (and other political programs including anti-government documentaries) to workout who is and isn't against them?
(By the way, web based TV could in theory be used for this now. After all, knowledge is power and the Internet is a vast source of knowledge so its no wonder people who seek political power would very likely be thinking along these lines to monitor and profile what people do. Political power is the power to influence and control people so they will use whatever technology they can to increase their power).
"Unfortunately I'm pretty sure I'm no more intelligent than most. "
;)
Define "most". The intelligence of the average programmer has to be above the average person, its just most programmers (thankfully) don't bother mixing that often with the average people to see just what they are like.
Here's a summary
if(person == PROGRAMMER)
{
IQ = (averagePerson + rand() & 0x7f) - numberOfSlashdotPostsPerWeek;
}
else if(person == SALES_PERSON)
{
IQ = (averagePerson - rand() & 0x7f) + numberOfSlashdotPostsPerWeek;
}
else if(person == SHOP_ASSISTANT)
{
IQ = rand() & 0x3;
}
else if(person == BOSS)
{
IQ = 0;
DeligateJob();
}
else if(person == POLYMATH)
{
IQ = (average_person * 2) + rand() & 0x1ff;
}
else if(person == NARCISSISTIC_PERSONALITY_DISORDER)
{
IQ = LieFunction();
}
else
{
IQ = average_person;
}
"moral wrongness"
Its not just morally wrong, also its legally wrong, but apparently thats overlooked by the governments.
For example, if I buy a console, and then write a manual about how to modify that console, then legally that is wrong.
However, if I buy a car, and then write a manual about how to modify that car, then legally that is ok. (For example http://www.haynes.co.uk/ have been doing exactly this for decades).
So Lobbyists have fought to distort the legal status of consoles and media in general. An audio/film/game protection system isn't any more important than a car, yet we are all supposed to blindly just accept that it is because Lobbyists say it is and have forced a protectionist market onto these forms of media.
The closed nature of consoles prevents other smaller companies growing to support 3rd party products without the expressed legal permission of the console makers. They therefore control the market and the government helps them. So much for Capitalism's concept of goods traded in a free market when that market is closed off to all but the console makers and anyone forced to pay console makers effectively protection money, preventing the console makers taking legal action against them for violating access to their turf.
"Now how many crimes have you unknowingly broke today, citizen"
;). So we need to add you to more of our lists. (After all, we need to know who to round up first, when we next want to distract political opponents).
;) ... Ironic really, they use our money to spy on all of us.
... I'm sure the idea of it is sold to everyone on the basis its all part of the war on fear, I mean war on terrorists (hiding on every street corner), but that's the point. Is this directed internally as well as externally?
... (Its amazing he said this over 200 years ago, yet still we make the same mistakes).
Well you've just committed one crime, you've shown decent, citizen, by joking about Big Brother
"more data often makes it more difficult to find the needle in the haystack"
The more haystacks they look through the more needles they can find. It'll just cost a lot more to build such a big system. Luckily money isn't such a worry for them. (For them that is, as they don't end up paying for it!
As for tangible results, that's a very interesting question. Who exactly is this huge and ever growing distributed system going to data mine?
We all know knowledge is power but with a system of such growing knowledge, what safe guards are in place to prevent greedy people in power exploiting this much growing knowledge (and power) for their own gain?
Because each time some more liberty is taken from us all, someone else (i.e. the people in power and their friends with the money) ends up profiting and gaining personally from our loss of yet more liberty.
In which case, Benjamin Franklin, must be spinning in his grave by now, i.e. "Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."
Troll, its a *FACT* he has been in there 14 years!!! ... so you've totally missed the point, in your very off topic troll rant about easy web page editing?!?
"Why is he getting out now then" and "He either cannot or will not ever pay up"
They are very good questions. All the links tend to give the same information, so I did some more searching and found this...
"The petitioner, Mr. Chadwick, has been imprisoned without trial for eight years in Delaware County, Pennsylvania for 'civil' contempt because he has been unable to deposit with the court $2.5 million in cash, funds which he maintains were part of an illiquid overseas real estate investment he does not control."
http://www.amatterofjustice.org/amoj/cases/chadwick3.htm
This news was from 2003, so its very disturbing if he has been held 14 years without trial?. Also surely they would know after 14 years the legal status of his overseas real estate investments?.
It seems the legal system and government suffers from systemic procedural bureaucracy so bad that its taken years more to final free him, but suffocatingly bad bureaucracy is no excuse to allow the legal system to behave the way we have been lead to believe only happens in police state countries.
Talking about 1000 and 2000 years in the past, I prefer to think about what it could be like when we are seen as the distant past.
It seems very likely the changes in the next 1000 years are going to be much bigger than the changes in the previous 1000 years simply as we have so many better tools today, including far better information tools which helps to accelerate creating new technology.
I hope in 1000 years from now they will look back at us as if we are some kind of very early version of what they see as their technological dark ages. Although I would like to hope in 2000 years from now, the people then would be able to ask some of their oldest friends what it was like 1000 years ago.
"all rolled into one"
Yes but what they didn't tell you is the protein comes from a radioactive spider. Now I just need some Spandex.
You need to learn to recognize when someone isn't joking, but then you are too busy pointlessly trolling, rather than trying to help.
"extended copyright might kill another production"
No, its the greedy, self serving, money grabbing, Narcissistic, control freaks who so often seek powerful jobs in big companies like Time Warner who are to blame (as usual). Their Narcissistic self interest at the expense of others forces people to finally take action against this kind of unfair treatment. They have tried for years to get some kind of fairness out of Time Warner.
If Windows 7 success is judged by how cheaply they sell it for, then how many more people would want to try it if they gave it away for free?
... Because if any company released a truly desirable product people would be willing to pay a premium to own that product. Yet Microsoft & Amazon are trying to claim success by reducing its price... (talk about lies, damned lies and PR)).
(Also surely this Microsoft & Amazon PR stunt is actually the opposite of success?
"Why call it a flip-flop when you can give it it's proper name: an astable multivibrator?"
... good, let them laugh, and while they are laughing they will remember it all the more. Educating the kids with formal detailed names can come later. Unless that is you wish to alienate kids from subjects by boring them with way too much detail early on. I'm happy you were not my teacher. Any kid who starts to get entertained and interested in the subject will seek out more detailed information on their own and surely that is the greatest achievement of any teacher, to encourage kids to want to learn more on their own. The teachers who can inspire like that are some of the best teachers we remember the most throughout the rest of our lives.
Because for decades its *also* been known as a flip-flop by millions of electronics engineers and its also a very visually descriptive name and yes its a fun name, that kids would *remember*
Also every single electronics engineer on the planet knows what a flip-flop is.
It never ceases to amaze me how some people are so inflexible in their thinking, as you have just shown. It seems its only you who wants to avoid the name due to some people may laugh!
1) Is fun
... start with digital on-off operation, then expand to in between voltages, using a potentiometer on its base).
:)
2) Teaches about circuits that are relevant to their life.
3) Doesn't rely too heavily on a black box microcontroller.
4) Individual components would probably be better.
5) I want them to understand the circuitry behind modern tech.
Given these criteria, I would vote, go for a flip-flop. Even the name appeals to kids. Its also historically the basis of a lot of digital electronics design. Its also fun as kids can see the LEDs working and replacing the resistors with potentiometers makes it easily to alter its speed interactively which is always fun for kids to see.
For example...
http://talkingelectronics.com/FreeProjects/5-Projects/Page16.html
But I would say, as you are teaching electronics, before you move onto the flip-flop then first show them a single Transistor with a small switch wired to its base, showing the Transistor can itself act like a switch (use it to control an LED). They need to learn how transistors switch. (You can go onto explain about amplifying later
Both the flip-flop and the switch with a transistor + LED (and a few resistors), all adds up to less than $5 for the lot and you have a few important lessons easily covered in an interesting and visual way.
You can also make the flip-flop switch faster so they can't see the LEDs flashing any more, and then connect up a small cheap speaker, so they can hear it buzzing to show its still flipping. Its a very interactive way for kids to learn electronics, and its cheap and easy to make without even needing a circuit board. Just use tinned wires to form the circuit exactly like its circuit diagram.
"too many copies" ... "having too few"
This kind of organisation usually has a backup somewhere, they just have to find it. Its usually backed up on a post-it note somewhere. Maybe they should ask all of us to look for it, on the sides of our monitors.
Its called humor, its just the mod failed to read the main title said "biggest ever built by earthlings"
As in implying other non-earthlings also build spacecraft and some maybe bigger objects, which is in itself a funny concept. I was then building on that in the way scifi films react to aliens. So it was on topic and it was simply a joke. But it seems the mod and commenter prefer to enjoy putting people down. (Once a comment is put down it usually stays down due to Priming but I wouldn't stretch you mind to comprehend that).
All humor is like a Turing Test for humans. That mod and feder failed.
"NASA is terrible with arbitrary deadlines"
... I mean, you can't think NASA's deadline accountancy errors are the biggest part of this potentially huge news event?
... there are spacecraft bigger than we make up there!?! ... UMMM??!! .... AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!! [inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale] AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!! cool or what!!?!
I think I should just politely point out, surely you're missing the main part of the news?
For example, from the main summary:
"The international space station is by far the largest spacecraft ever built by earthlings"
I mean come on, hold the front page or what, call the joint chiefs now!
I didn't miss the 3.5% comment. That doesn't change the fact news organizations are big and so bias perceptions of what is seen as big news events. Its a fact news organizations can spread the news wide as they have many readers so each bit of news they release gets to become high profile news far more often and so is seen as a "news event". When blogs release news, most of that they say is simply drowned out and ignored as its readership is so much smaller than global media organizations.
If you still don't believe this then try this simple experiment. Setup a blog and start selling a product. Add up the number of units you sell in 1 week. Now get a national news organization to show your exact same product on its front page news. From the moment its shown in the news, compare how many units you sell during your following week, after your so called 15 minutes of fame. Its a no brainier that the national news coverage would vastly have far greater impact than your blog, yet nothing other than the means of delivery of the news about the product has changed.
Due to the shear size and power of news organizations they cannot help biasing the perception of what is seen as important news, but more than even that, they bias what is seen as a news event. They make it important news by showing that news. So its no wonder they appear to feature prominently in what is perceived as news events.
"hear some news snippet on the radio and want to post a comment"
Also this research wouldn't be able to detect if any news breaks first as a blog and then gets picked up by news organizations. The news organizations can spread the news wide as they have many readers, but the initial seed of news can still come from Blogs.
For example, I was watching in real time the night news broke of Michael Jackson had died. It was very evident the TV people were using the Internet news as their main source of initial information. The first mention he died came from the TMZ blog who were then quoted by TV people about the unconfirmed death, and then as soon as the LA Times web site joined TMZ in publishing he had (maybe) died (as yet unconfirmed), then suddenly all TV companies all jumped at the same time onto the bandwagon very evidently desperate not to be left behind in breaking the news.
My one concern with this Cornell research is that news organizations will try to manipulate it into implying they and only they feed news and so they ultimately control that news and so people are spreading copyright news. That relentless control freak Rupert Murdoch is determined to force news into a payed for service and will bias and twist any news he can in his favor. News papers are driven by shared information on the Internet as much as they are driving the news.
"very open to interpretation"
... (exploitation as in the opportunity to exploit events for marketing and PR reasons, to imply they are doing things to help when they are just exploiting events for future profits).
But then the question becomes interpretation or exploitation?
Scientists are not the only people interpreting the results and often not the most vocal people most people get to hear. For example sales people in corporations have agendas they wish to push behind any PR opportunity that comes along. So what is seen as 'the truth' (tm) is constantly manipulated by them, ultimately for their own gain.