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User: fiziko

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  1. And hole punches that size aren't for sale because the demand isn't there. There is no compelling reason for the market to shift. Starting from scratch, the A1/2/3/4/... system makes much more sense, and not just because folding A3 in half gives you A4, etc. Transitioning the entire country involves huge costs, so there's no great incentive to make the investment.

  2. Re:Universities aren't completely honest either on ITT Tech Is Officially Closing (gizmodo.com) · · Score: 1

    They are not responsible for the available job prospects, only for your ability to do the job the paperwork says you are qualified for. That's the difference here.

  3. CERNLIB on PC hardware: speaking from experience on Ask Slashdot: Choosing a Laptop To Support Physics Research? · · Score: 1

    First my credentials: I have an M.Sc. in experimental particle physics and spent six months at CERN collecting and analyzing that data, so this is the voice of experience, not guesswork. I was there in the year 2000, and have since moved into teaching.

    She'll want to be running the CERNlib under Linux. You can download that here. CERN is the world's biggest particle physics installation, and they produce PAW (Physics Analysis Workstation) and GEANT (forget the acronym; it was in beta and unavailable in my day) which are the standard software tools for particle physics analysis. CERN also releases their own version of Linux, available here. That's what she wants to be running for her goals, on a computer that has well above average processor power, memory and hard drive performance, but nothing particularly impressive for video and sound.

  4. Re:this report is inconsistent on New Paper Claims Neutrino Is Likely a Faster-Than-Light Particle · · Score: 3, Informative

    There is no way to validly misinterpret "has a negative mass squared" and then you proceed to misinterpret it?

    "The square of a negative mass" is a positive number. The square of an imaginary mass is negative, which is what they are talking about. It is clearly possible to misinterpret this. Before someone cries out that an imaginary mass is nonsense, I should point out that imaginary numbers appear in several legitimate places in science. I don't believe the results of this paper are correct, but I'm not about to dismiss them out of hand.

  5. Re:this report is inconsistent on New Paper Claims Neutrino Is Likely a Faster-Than-Light Particle · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Saying "has a negative mass squared" can be misinterpreted more easily than "the square of the mass is negative." One person read it as intended, and another read it as "you take a negative mass and square it." If the wording was completely clear, that misinterpretation couldn't have happened. Different brains will associate the words "negative mass" as a complete unit while others will associate "mass squared" as a complete unit.

  6. Re:this report is inconsistent on New Paper Claims Neutrino Is Likely a Faster-Than-Light Particle · · Score: 5, Insightful

    drdread66 doesn't have it backwards, the original article is unclear in its phrasing. It should have stated that the square of the mass is negative, which can be assumed when it accurately states that the mass is an imaginary number. Another commenter has linked back to the original paper on archiv.org; I always recommend going back to the source for science reporting anywhere online. As Einstein said when asked about his thoughts on a one page summary of the theory of relativity from a local paper, "things should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler."

  7. Re: Math author dies rich... on Calculus Textbook Author James Stewart Has Died · · Score: 5, Interesting

    The difference between his book and SO MANY of the other textbooks I have is that his is actually good. Why do you think everyone recognizes the name "James Stewart" as the calculus author? Is there a definite textbook author for any other courses? I've got two physics degrees and an education degree, and Stewart's calculus and David Griffiths' Electricity and Magnetism texts were the only two that seemed to be so pervasive.

    The main complaints need to be directed at publishers, not authors. Stewart started with a slow update cycle, but then publishers started putting books out of print and demanding new editions every two years to eliminate the used textbook sales market and try to force every student onto new editions. (If a book is out of print, the prof needs to order a new edition, because there is no other way to ensure there are enough available for all students.) Stewart is one of the authors who chose to meet the accelerated publication schedule instead of bowing out. Why begrudge him for filling a void that the publisher would fill with or without his help? I once tried ordering a textbook through a local brick and mortar store. This was 1998: the book was $110 at the campus bookstore, and the local Chapters (now owned by Indigo) expected to bring it in for a cost of $95 to me as a special order. They called before finalizing the order because the publisher checked their address and noticed they were not on campus, and changed to cost to them. Using the same proportionate markup, they would now have to charge me $180 for the same book. Tell me there's not gouging of customers going on there... (I spent $110 on campus instead, and ordered the rest of my textbooks online in later years to compete without the address flag. Saved an average of 15%, even after shipping fees.)

  8. Yes, they should: research supports this on Slashdot Asks: Should Schooling Be Year-Round? · · Score: 1

    Research clearly shows that skills regress if students don't apply those skills for over three weeks (on average; different students naturally have different retention rates.) Year round schools don't generally have significantly more school days than those with long summer breaks, they just have shorter and more frequent breaks. Kids *still* get times to be kids, but the classroom spends less time in review so more forward progress can be made. Year round schooling is better for the students, but it's not the most important reform needed in North America at the moment.

  9. Re:Really? on "ExamSoft" Bar Exam Software Fails Law Grads · · Score: 4, Informative

    The business next door proctors these and similar exams. They are expensive and not available in every community, so the test takers have often paid a relatively large amount of money at this stage of their lives, not just several hundred to take the test, but also travel, accommodations, missing day(s) of work, etc. to be where the test is available. The proctoring company does not charge them for the second attempt, but all of the expenses needed to be there get doubled.

  10. Re:Which means on Evidence of a Correction To the Speed of Light · · Score: 1

    What lack of observational evidence? Neutrinos do not produce Cerenkov radiation (light booms, caused by traveling faster than light) in a vacuum, but they do in a fluid such as they do at neutrino detectors such as this one. This indicates that they travel faster than light when light is barely slowed down, but not when light is in a vacuum. Hence, the evidence indicates that neutrinos travel close to, but not at the speed of light. How close? We haven't measured that yet (to my knowledge) but we can: detect them in materials with refractive index progressively closer to 1.00 until the light booms stop. That's when the speeds match.

  11. Digital Comic Museum on Recommendations For Classic Superhero Comic Collections? · · Score: 3, Informative

    I would head over to the Digital Comic Museum, create a free account, and start going through the public domain titles in addition to the Masterworks/Archives listed by others. The DCM will also give you access to stuff like The Spirit, Lev Gleason's Daredevil, Fawcett's Captain Marvel, Whiz (where CM first appeared), and Captain Billy's Whiz Bang, the golden age/western hero Ghost Rider (with the unfortunate outfit), and thousands of others. Follow your interests; the 1930s and 1940s were part of an era when superheroes weren't quite as dominant as they would later become, so you can find piles of romance, comedy, crime, and so forth in the mix.

  12. Re:how soon before on Scientists Propose Collider That Could Turn Light Into Matter · · Score: 4, Informative

    Not entirely devoid, no, but in my experience (as a former researcher; still have the CERN employee ID card) there is still some that is free of politics. The fact that results need to be reproducible to be accepted helps. The main concern is funding. As long as you can confidently tell your backers that there is money to be made either way, or find different backers with vested interests in different results, there is no pressure to fudge results. In fact, the project I worked on (ATLAS) had no outside input asking for bias in results that I could see in any way, shape or form. Of course, if that was the case universally nobody would question vaccines, but it still happens often, especially in fields like particle physics (which this article is talking about) in which application is so far down the road that most financial backers really are looking for the spinoff technology it takes to produce the result moreso than the result itself.

  13. Re:how soon before on Scientists Propose Collider That Could Turn Light Into Matter · · Score: 5, Informative

    Not at all. In science, there is just as much validity to "we did X but didn't get Y" as there is to "when we did X, Y was accomplished." In fact, Michelson and Morley are a prime example of "we did X but didn't get Y" in 1887, and they won the Nobel prize for it in 1907.

  14. Re:damn units on Traffic Optimization: Cyclists Should Roll Past Stop Signs, Pause At Red Lights · · Score: 4, Informative

    It depends on which you are using at the reference point. If the raw numbers are 40 for city A and 100 for city B, then city A has 150% fewer accidents than city B when city A is the reference point, but 60% fewer when B is the reference point.

  15. Obligatory on Bill Gates & Twitter Founders Put "Meatless" Meat To the Test · · Score: 3, Funny

    The cost of the alternatives: Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal strip 3105.

  16. Re:Simple on Why Speed-Reading Apps Don't Work · · Score: 1

    Reading speed also depends greatly on the complexity of the text being read. I've taught grade five students, given them new selections and timed them, testing comprehension afterwards. The fastest I've seen (by a HUGE margin) was around 1400 words per minute with over 80% comprehension. That exceptional student could read and comprehend college level novels, so grade 5 was a joke, but he couldn't read the college level stuff at more than 250 words per minute.

    Can you read the last novel you read at over 1000 words per minute? Not unless you are a hell of a lot faster than I can if you're also understanding it. (I top out around 750 wpm for the grade-9 level stuff you tend to see day to day.) Can you read kindergarten level text that quickly? Almost certainly, yes.

    The original poster may have seen those numbers in a seemingly reliable source. Without grade levels involved, the numbers are meaningless. That doesn't mean the poster pulled them "out of his/her ass," but it does mean context is lacking.

  17. Re:And there was much rejoicing on Anyone Can Buy Google Glass April 15 · · Score: 2

    Google Glass may not bring about the end of privacy, but it's part of the problem. This is proprietary garbage, so you don't even know what it's doing. Anyone who buys it is a damn fool.

    You aren't a damn fool just because you've bought one. Buying one just means you are curious and somewhat affluent. The "damn fool" part only kicks in if the thing is on and being worn while, say, doing Internet banking. As a teacher, I could see this being very beneficial to something like distance instruction, as it would be much more liberating than either teaching on a single whiteboard or depending on a third party camera person.

  18. Of course not on Should Microsoft Be Required To Extend Support For Windows XP? · · Score: 1

    The end of XP has been a long time coming. Microsoft should not be legally obligated to provide XP support. The fact that XP is so pervasive is a side effect of the lack of appeal of its successors. The XP problem isn't a result of Microsoft failing to compete with others, it failed to compete with itself. If I worked at Microsoft, I'd maintain support in an attempt to maintain that customer base, but they are under no legal obligation to do so. The more likely result is that they'll end up driving people to Mac (and, in far lesser numbers, Linux) because the XP software customers use doesn't work in Windows 8, so they're looking at buying a lot of new software for any system.

  19. More than that. on Don't Help Your Kids With Their Homework · · Score: 1

    As a professional educator working in the private industry, I can tell you that a lot of parents also cannot distinguish between "helping student understand principles better so student can do the homework independently" and "do homework for student." This can happen with poor tutors as well. If the "help" means the student doesn't understand the work enough to do it alone, it's not help. The student will then often end up in worse shape in the long run, as they won't understand future skills that the current skill is prerequisite to.

  20. Re:Cultural bias biggest factor on Men And Women Think Women Are Bad At Basic Math · · Score: 1

    I live in Alberta. From 1965 to 2004, we climbed to having the #2 math performance in the world, second to Hong Kong and one notch above Japan. (At that time, matrix operations were still included in our semi-remedial math programs.) The gender gap was closing the entire time. Our standards have only dropped since then. As I said in another reply, that's a contributing factor, but it started more recently than the closing of the gender gap in this region.

  21. Re:Cultural bias biggest factor on Men And Women Think Women Are Bad At Basic Math · · Score: 1

    That trend is out there, but started relatively recently compared to the closing of the gap. I also believe that will necessarily turn around at some point, as less competent local employees will force people hiring engineers and the like to hire from overseas in greater numbers than they are now. Something will have to give at some point in the near future.

  22. Cultural bias biggest factor on Men And Women Think Women Are Bad At Basic Math · · Score: 4, Insightful

    As a math and science teacher, I've seen multiple studies on performance of different genders in math and science. There is a gap in North America, although it's closing rapidly. (In the past 40 years, men have gone from having 20% higher averages than women to having 2% higher averages than women. Evolution doesn't act that quickly; it's a purely social bias.) Men still perform slightly higher than women in this region because there are still teachers out there who expect more from male students and push them harder. In other words, if the teacher *expects* female students to get 60s and down and *expects* male students to get 70s and higher, then that teacher who sees a male and a female student with 68% averages, then the teacher will work with the male to improve his performance, but not put in the same effort with the female student. It's a horrible thought, but it's still happening out there. The same is true for race factors, for "learning disabilities" (which I would rather call "learning anomalies" but that's another story) and more.

    Bottom line: there is a slight and closing gap between men and women in math and science in North America, not because there is any biological difference in this particular area, but because social biases that exist in the system are failing the female students more often than they are failing the male students.

  23. Re:"Apple Maps as in-car navigation" on Apple To Unveil Its 'iOS In the Car' Project Next Week · · Score: 1, Interesting

    Most Apple Maps issues were a side effect of an early launch. They thought they'd have another year with Google Maps, and development was incomplete, but they opted for poor navigation rather than no navigation. I find it about as effective as Google Maps for my region these days. They've had the time to make it the product they always wanted it to be.

  24. Huh on Japanese Man Already Lined Up To Buy iPhone 6 · · Score: 1

    When I first saw this headline in my Facebook feed, I assumed the source was The Onion. Wow.

  25. Re:More likely on Majority of Young American Adults Think Astrology Is a Science · · Score: 2

    Entirely possible. I used to mark assignments for a first-year University astronomy class, and about 6-7% of the students were upset that astrology wasn't included.