I think it is worthwhile considering why people abstain from drinking. Long-term abstention is typically not motivated solely, or even in part, by some moral compass but rather by contraindications. Given the number of potential drug interactions, symptom-exacerbating effects and bodily stresses, stresses which people with life-shortening conditions typically cannot handle well, alcohol is probably not removed from otherwise healthy individuals. This is no different from the observation that people that buy treadmills are fatter than the average. Do treadmills make people fat?
The engineering introduction to programming course at my university uses Lego NXT robots as a mainstay. Having played around with them, I am amazed at the flexibility. Someone with a little time and dedication could make a pretty decent version of most of the robots in each of the videos.
That said, I've seen some great videos of NXT robots this year and was a little disappointed to see none of them in the list.
BTW, the Big Dog video's kick moment is probably the highlight of all. I was expecting a little tap but the kicker really goes all out and I almost feel sorry for him when the robot recovers so easily.
I read about the cover in a Cracked magazine list of the worst album covers ever. The image, or a censored version of it, appears in the article there.
At any rate, within 5 minutes I had found my way over to Wikinews (on a completely different surfing tangent) and discovered the UK censorship story.
Now curious, I headed over to Mininova to find that, sure enough, Scorpions torrents were suddenly hot stuff (lots of new torrents, tons of activity on older torrents). I'm not sure how this will reflect on album sales but it may just be that the stupid idea of putting a naked little girl on the cover has worked out to be a pretty damn good way of selling albums...even if it took over 20 years to start working.
In this book, Sharon Moalem writes about the scary ways diseases, parasites and bacteria alter human behavior. Genital herpes, for example, might just influence people to be more promiscuous (but not TOO promiscuous). There was also a discussion of some parasites, like a wasp that stings a spider to embed its eggs in the spider. The larvae then alters the spider's brain activity to reroute its web-making routine such that it creates a cocoon for the larvae. Similarly, parasites that thrive in sheep cause ants to become focused on running to the top of grass strands to be easy targets. This allows the parasites' eggs to be excreted in the sheep feces and still end up back in the sheep. The number of hypothetical cases of bacteria, parasites or viruses altering human mental activity is frightening at first. That said, I don't know how well-backed any of these hypotheses are.
I saw the Dark Knight the other day and pretty much accepted all the technology as cool and even somewhat plausible. Yes, I didn't "bat" an eye at the "battank" or the "batcycle" or the "bat-cell-phone-city-sonar-vision". I did scoff when the bullet hole left by the Joker was scanned to create a virtual bullet with the Joker's fingerprint on it.
I can actually see the movie technology being useful, especially compared to the technology in the article.
I'm currently a regular library user, high school student and library employee.
In the several months I've worked at a public library, I've ultimately come to realize the library is not quite the glorious center for societal education I once thought of it as. As a young child, my family took me to the library regularly and I went through literally hundreds if not thousands of books. This sort of thing is one of the more common uses of the library (probably the most worthwhile).
I still take books out of the library but I exhausted the supply of technical and science books in just a year or two and now really only rely on the library for fiction. When it comes to science, technical or general "learning" or "knowledge" books, the internet is a fine substitute, if not a superior option. I can easily investigate as deeply as I wish or skim over a huge range of data. Add digital subscriptions to magazines like Scientific American, etc. into the mix and there's little need to read nonfiction boooks (although I still do whenever a new one shows up).
I can safely state that most library use, at least in my rural hometown, is (in this order):
1. People using the internet for MSN, myspace, facebook, or youtube.
2. Older women taking out hordes of mystery or romance novels
3. Older men taking out hordes of western novels or (much more rarely) hordes of science fiction novels
4. Parents with very young children taking out hordes of picture books.
5. People researching something (usually decorating, cooking, weight loss or fixing their car).
Ultimately, very few people sign out books from the science section, so it is understandably small. I am tempted to feel dismayed but I do feel that any reading is better than most television viewing. The library has a valuable place in society, but not as a holy grail of knowledge. I use it for the limited amount of non-fiction it has and for the less limited selection of fiction. I read enough that I cannot presently afford to buy my own books, even from a bargain bin at a used book store. Within a generation, I'm sure the library will be largely phased out, especially as a place for learning. Budget cuts are already well in place and use is dwindling fast. I really do not differentiate and have no preference between reading from a screen or from a book. My mother simply can't stand to read much from a screen and I suspect many of her peers are the same. Years down the road, when virtually all people are comfortable with computers, the library will most certainly become just a center for fiction. I'd extrapolate that within twenty years fiction will have moved to the internet. The only concern is that this alienates people with very low incomes from reading. However, I'm positive owning a computer connected to the internet will be affordable and necessary for everyone very soon, pretty much nullifying any concern about the demise of libraries.
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I think it is worthwhile considering why people abstain from drinking. Long-term abstention is typically not motivated solely, or even in part, by some moral compass but rather by contraindications. Given the number of potential drug interactions, symptom-exacerbating effects and bodily stresses, stresses which people with life-shortening conditions typically cannot handle well, alcohol is probably not removed from otherwise healthy individuals. This is no different from the observation that people that buy treadmills are fatter than the average. Do treadmills make people fat?
The engineering introduction to programming course at my university uses Lego NXT robots as a mainstay. Having played around with them, I am amazed at the flexibility. Someone with a little time and dedication could make a pretty decent version of most of the robots in each of the videos. That said, I've seen some great videos of NXT robots this year and was a little disappointed to see none of them in the list. BTW, the Big Dog video's kick moment is probably the highlight of all. I was expecting a little tap but the kicker really goes all out and I almost feel sorry for him when the robot recovers so easily.
I read about the cover in a Cracked magazine list of the worst album covers ever. The image, or a censored version of it, appears in the article there. At any rate, within 5 minutes I had found my way over to Wikinews (on a completely different surfing tangent) and discovered the UK censorship story. Now curious, I headed over to Mininova to find that, sure enough, Scorpions torrents were suddenly hot stuff (lots of new torrents, tons of activity on older torrents). I'm not sure how this will reflect on album sales but it may just be that the stupid idea of putting a naked little girl on the cover has worked out to be a pretty damn good way of selling albums...even if it took over 20 years to start working.
In this book, Sharon Moalem writes about the scary ways diseases, parasites and bacteria alter human behavior. Genital herpes, for example, might just influence people to be more promiscuous (but not TOO promiscuous). There was also a discussion of some parasites, like a wasp that stings a spider to embed its eggs in the spider. The larvae then alters the spider's brain activity to reroute its web-making routine such that it creates a cocoon for the larvae. Similarly, parasites that thrive in sheep cause ants to become focused on running to the top of grass strands to be easy targets. This allows the parasites' eggs to be excreted in the sheep feces and still end up back in the sheep. The number of hypothetical cases of bacteria, parasites or viruses altering human mental activity is frightening at first. That said, I don't know how well-backed any of these hypotheses are.
I saw the Dark Knight the other day and pretty much accepted all the technology as cool and even somewhat plausible. Yes, I didn't "bat" an eye at the "battank" or the "batcycle" or the "bat-cell-phone-city-sonar-vision". I did scoff when the bullet hole left by the Joker was scanned to create a virtual bullet with the Joker's fingerprint on it. I can actually see the movie technology being useful, especially compared to the technology in the article.
I'm currently a regular library user, high school student and library employee. In the several months I've worked at a public library, I've ultimately come to realize the library is not quite the glorious center for societal education I once thought of it as. As a young child, my family took me to the library regularly and I went through literally hundreds if not thousands of books. This sort of thing is one of the more common uses of the library (probably the most worthwhile). I still take books out of the library but I exhausted the supply of technical and science books in just a year or two and now really only rely on the library for fiction. When it comes to science, technical or general "learning" or "knowledge" books, the internet is a fine substitute, if not a superior option. I can easily investigate as deeply as I wish or skim over a huge range of data. Add digital subscriptions to magazines like Scientific American, etc. into the mix and there's little need to read nonfiction boooks (although I still do whenever a new one shows up). I can safely state that most library use, at least in my rural hometown, is (in this order): 1. People using the internet for MSN, myspace, facebook, or youtube. 2. Older women taking out hordes of mystery or romance novels 3. Older men taking out hordes of western novels or (much more rarely) hordes of science fiction novels 4. Parents with very young children taking out hordes of picture books. 5. People researching something (usually decorating, cooking, weight loss or fixing their car). Ultimately, very few people sign out books from the science section, so it is understandably small. I am tempted to feel dismayed but I do feel that any reading is better than most television viewing. The library has a valuable place in society, but not as a holy grail of knowledge. I use it for the limited amount of non-fiction it has and for the less limited selection of fiction. I read enough that I cannot presently afford to buy my own books, even from a bargain bin at a used book store. Within a generation, I'm sure the library will be largely phased out, especially as a place for learning. Budget cuts are already well in place and use is dwindling fast. I really do not differentiate and have no preference between reading from a screen or from a book. My mother simply can't stand to read much from a screen and I suspect many of her peers are the same. Years down the road, when virtually all people are comfortable with computers, the library will most certainly become just a center for fiction. I'd extrapolate that within twenty years fiction will have moved to the internet. The only concern is that this alienates people with very low incomes from reading. However, I'm positive owning a computer connected to the internet will be affordable and necessary for everyone very soon, pretty much nullifying any concern about the demise of libraries.