I'm sorry, you're right in principle but wrong in practice. I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that you are not trained in the natural sciences.
I am a synthetic organic chemist, with a background in biochemistry and molecular pharmacology. Forget trying to understand the human body in detail, or an organ in detail, or even a cell in detail; we barely understand chemical reactions - the most elementary processes in life that would lie at the bottom of your mythical categorization hierarchy!
It is only very recently that physical organic chemists and organometallic chemists have unraveled the detailed picture of how diatomic molecules can split on metal surfaces. Organic chemists can enumerate a variety of reactions to transform a functional group into another (want to oxidize an alcohol to an aldehyde? try TEMPO/NMO, TPAP/NMO, PCC, PFC, Al(OiPr)3/acetone...) but can't typically tell you which reaction will be best, what the yield will be, or what will happen on scale-up. To make a "natural product" (i.e. a complex metabolite discovered in a living organism) can take months to years in a lab, even though nature's enzymes can make the compound in exquisite purity in a couple steps that we may or may not even begin to understand. (Palau'amine, a complex natural product, has seen vigorous efforts directed at its synthesis for 15 YEARS or so and remains a challenge unresolved by legions of skilled chemists.)
In light of this, it is laughable to even suggest that scientists do a "step by step" analysis. I'm sorry, but we don't have the fancy machines in movies that give us molecular structures by scanning a glass vial. Medical imaging technology is still in a state that will look comically primitive in a few decades. The genome, while we have a draft sequence, is far from annotated and in a useful form. Not only do we not have even the feeblest understanding of how to predict the folding of complex proteins, we can't even make them in a reliable manner (hence the ongoing debacle at FDA and elsewhere about generic biologics, e.g. "biosimilars"). In short, the state-of-the-art in biological science today is akin to trying to figure out how to replicate a Core 2 processor with no documentation and the only tools available being a light microscope and a two-pan balance. Sure, it'd be great to just say "subdivide it and use statistical analysis" but that won't actually get you anywhere.
This isn't to say progress isn't being made. We have unraveled the genetic code, deduced myriad metabolic pathways, created (sort of) functional artificial organs, and eradicated smallpox. Today I carried out a reaction that five years ago was not known to exist. I have colleagues who are building ever more powerful NMR/MRI spectrometers, delicate methods for probing cell surface glycosylation (known to be involved in a variety of disease states; see Carolyn Bertozzi's work for wonderful examples of this research), training bacteria to churn out novel antibiotics, deciphering the mechanism of photosynthesis (which one day might lead to better solar cells), developing shuttle molecules to bring drugs across the blood-brain barrier, and figuring out how to adorn nanotubes with biologically interesting substances.
I tire easily of hearing people who don't do scientific research (again, engineering is NOT science; each field has its own challenges and own rewards) telling us that we aren't making fast enough progress. I work twelve hour days; some of my colleagues work longer. Progress is painstakingly slow, though not for lack of trying. Would more money help? Sure, money always helps, but in the end the problems we are asked to address are the most challenging ever tackled. The Iraq war will be long forgotten before we have a perfect antidepressant; Web 2.0 will be Web 20.0 when we finally figure out the details of aging. I won't claim that we will have a Unified Field Theory before AIDS is cured, but I wouldn't hold my breath on either.
Please, cut us some slack... what we do IS too complicated for mere mortals to understand, which is a big problem since (for the moment) us researchers are also mere mortals. (But we are working on solving that, too.:-)
Are you being facetious? By "minimal amount of money" I mean that I spend enough to offset my entire carbon footprint, but nothing more. I.e., I take responsibility for myself but leave it to others to do the same.
Again, I am not advocating for everyone to devote every dollar and every waking minute to saving the environment. As I said, "it's a start." However, I do believe that most people out there (even here on the fairly environmentally conscious west coast) have not even taken the fairly minimal set of steps that I have; if they did, perhaps things would change a little for the better?
For what it's worth, I agree. Al Gore is not a scientist (and you will note that his Nobel was not in one of the sciences). However, he is almost certainly substantially more qualified than most of us to discuss economics, for even being Vice President would (I expect) expose you to a lot of the relevant conversation.
That said, there are still people more qualified than him to address economics. The problem is that business leaders tend to think short-term. The scientists are providing a long-term outlook that MUST be heeded. How exactly we want to respond I do fully leave to the economists and political scientists, but any response must begin by accepting the best conclusions of the scientific community. (I would also note that on political issues, including the response, the views of the public matter a great deal more. This is because people ARE entitled to their own opinions. I am arguing that the public does not have a great deal of weight in the analysis of the situation since the analysis is scientific, not political, and the people are not entitled to their own facts.)
A Manhattan Project would be great, but it happened not only because there was an immediate, visible threat, but because there were credible scientists attesting the the viability of a project that, by conventional wisdom, should not have worked. If the Roosevelt administration had claimed that there was "substantial disagreement" among scientists over whether nuclei can even be split (which is somewhat analogous to what is happening today with global warming), the Manhattan Project would never have gotten off the ground.
I thought we were dealing with facts? But if the facts don't match my opinion, get emotional and personal. [read blue smoke and mirrors]
You missed my point. The facts themselves are evident but difficult to interpret. I am not a climate scientist; I am not going to try to interpret them. For interpretation, the best I can do is listen to the consensus view of those who are qualified to interpret the data.
So, please lead by example, what are you doing to reduce carbon emissions?
I bike 16 miles round-trip to work, every day, usually in the rain (especially during winter) instead of driving.
When I do drive, I drive a highly fuel efficient compact car. (Not a hybrid, though that will be my next car.)
I recycle religiously, including pulling aluminum cans out of the waste and moving them to recycling.
My professional research involves developing new synthetic methodology that is intrinsically environmentally friendlier than existing techniques.
My computers are (within practicality) optimized for minimal power consumption.
When at home I use sunlight for lighting during the day, CF bulbs at night.
I volunteer in the field, helping plant trees and other plants that beautify parks and consume atmospheric CO2.
Though it may be a gimmick, I also spend a minimal amount of money each year to purchase carbon credits to offset 100% of my carbon footprint.
I'm no saint, but to borrow a line from BP's recent advertising, "it's a start."
Part of the problem is that we see a perpetuation of the myth that everyone's opinion is equally valid on this issue (or any issue, for that matter).
There is of course the old phrase, "you are entitled to your own opinion, not to your own facts." But let's suppose that everyone agrees on the basic facts. The facts in question are not things like global average surface temperature; the global warming opponents are correct that we do not have actual temperature data for most of the planet's history. Instead, the facts are more obscure: oxygen isotope ratios, nitrogen exchange rates, geological strata, etc.
Valid interpretation of these data (and their significance vis a vis human involvement) is HARD! I am an organic chemist by training, which probably makes me better suited to analyze the facts than most, but even I readily admit that I have difficulty deciphering the maze of evidence out there. Fortunately, there are others (climatologists) who have spent decades or longer learning all there is to know about climate science, and scrutinizing the data. The OVERWHELMING CONSENSUS among PhD-level climatologists (and I know a few personally) is the global warming is REAL, and is HUMAN CAUSED.
Now, the problem arises when politicians, businessmen, and even scientists stepping outside their discipline start second-guessing the climatologists' work. I submit that unless you have equivalent training, education, and experience as those with whom you disagree on a fundamentally scientific issue, your opinion COUNTS LESS. I completely ignore the ramblings of the people talking about sunspots, et cetera, because I trust that the majority of climate scientists knows what it is doing. My only alternative is to go for a PhD in that field, and start slowly bringing myself to the majority's level.
It strikes me as interesting that most people (not necessarily most on Slashdot, though) tend to willingly accept the pronouncements of auto mechanics, physicians, and electricians, for example, all of whom are similarly professionals but working in fields much more comprehensible and accessible than climate science. But when it comes to global warming, suddenly everyone and their brother know more than the professors.
Please, do tell, how do you get cheap and abundant power from salt water? Make sure you don't cheat by adding in some other compounds that are consumed stoichiometrically.
You are missing the point. I AM a chemist. I probably understand orbitals and electronegativity better than most on Slashdot, but I do not fault chemistry sets for not being so directly educational.
At the age when kids would use chemistry sets (I started when I was about eight), so much underlying information is absent that it is unrealistic to teach real chemistry. You can't truly understand orbitals without quantum mechanics, which in turn requires linear algebra and multivariate calculus. So don't bother! When I played with a chemistry set I didn't understand pH or activity coefficients, but I still appreciated acid-base reactions. Nor had I ever heard of redox reactions or the Nernst equation, but electroplating was cool. Chemistry sets inspired me to study and learn at the meager level I could, and as I grew older and more knowledgeable they undoubtedly played a role in me going into science - and into organic chemistry in particular (with its heavy emphasis on experimental research).
Chemistry sets are motivators, not educators. They have historically done for chemistry what "Star Trek" has done for physics.
Don't forget what FEMA was called by a member (can't remember which) in hearings by the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform on Hurricane Katrina: "Failed Every Major Assignment."
Ah, the joys of watching C-SPAN in the middle of the night...
While useful, I would point out that rsnapshot is an open source program that trivially does this on any UNIX/Linux OS. (I would also assume that Time Machine uses hardlinks, not symlinks, as they are much more useful.)
This won't stop me from buying the upgrade, though...
There are additional complications for Science: the articles are required to be very short, but to get into the journal they usually must also be very expansive and profound. Ditto for Nature. The result is the articles being very dense, much more so than in journals even somewhat more specific (e.g. the Journal of the American Chemical Society).
To a layperson (e.g. TSA screener), that looks a hell of a lot like a TV bomb
This is really going out on a limb, but maybe we should expect "security professionals" (as they would like to be called) to have a tad more knowledge about explosives than what someone would see in a typical season of 24?
Do these people also think that terrorists are going to beam into the restricted area because it happened on Star Trek?
Many of their recent papers seem more focused on how to scale and utilize the type of computing cluster they have than they relate to any sort of medical progress
How do you figure? By my count, about two of the most recent twenty publications/conference talks are mainly about the computer architecture. The majority are legitimate chemical physics and biophysics.
Keep in mind that this group, and others like it, don't do any laboratory work. Their research is about "understanding protein folding," not actually developing pharmaceuticals, for which other groups (and companies) are better suited.
As far as I can tell, they are doing exactly what they claim to.
First, I am not an "Apple Fanboy" (the vast majority of my 15+ machines, including the one I am typing on, run Linux).
However, I should note that there is a difference between Apple not covering something and others not covering something. Other companies, in my experience, use warranty terms as an excuse to always deny service. Apple uses them only in cases where it is CLEARLY justified. I have taken my PowerBook in for repair of a part not covered by warranty and they replaced it anyway. Another machine was PAST warranty, and the Apple Store just extended it for free so I could get service. They _care_ about customer retention and, more importantly, word of mouth. They know that Apple uses are typically a close bunch and that if one person is pissed off then the bad feelings can spread throughout the community. (Cf. Jobs' quick moves to ameliorate fallout from the iPhone price drop.)
I would be genuinely surprised if Apple denied warranty service on a broken hinge, even if it is technically not covered.
I would merely point out that choosing Science is an exceptionally bad example for the following reasons:
1) It is published by a non-profit organization (the American Association for the Advancement of Science). 2) Science IS one of the most respected places to publish. To get into Science a paper must be deemed to be of compelling and immediate interest to scientists across multiple disciplines. This is not the universities' perception, it is reality. 3) Science has extremely low personal and institutional subscription fees, far below those for more specialized weekly journals. (Remember, Science has 51 issues a year.)
I have never heard a science librarian (and I have talked to quite a few) complain about Science, Nature, the Journal of the American Chemical Society, Physical Review Letters, Infection & Immunity, etc. The librarians believe that they are getting what they pay for with these journals. Those they DO complain about tend to be (contrasting with the points above):
1) Published by for-profit companies (okay, Nature is too, but there are exceptions to every rule). 2) Specific, obscure, and/or low quality: Tetrahedron Asymmetry, Biorheology, etc. (I am not going to lie: the publisher Elsevier is single-handedly price gouging the living daylights out of universities). 3) Have high institutional subscription fees (I have seen _monthly_ chemistry journals with institutional rates of almost $20,000/year) and/or are forcibly bundled with unwanted journals.
Attempt to carry out what is basically technological espionage against some of the best technological espionage people in the world... real smart move.
At the risk of being a dork (wait, this is Slashdot, never mind), I would point out that "Musings" is inconsistent with MOST of the other episodes that allude to CSM's history. For example, in "Paperclip" it is made clear that CSM was working with Bill Mulder, Victor Klemper, the Well Manicured Man, and others in the 50s on alien-human hybrids (or at least some other form of genetic experimentation). In "Travelers" a main character reminisces and recalls a visit from CSM and company in the hospital, certainly before the Bay of Pigs. Finally, in "The Truth" CSM himself remarks that "his" story has scared every president since Truman in 1947. Since "Musings" has information from the least presumably reliable source of any of these, it is generally considered to be apocryphal.
Not that this prevents it from being a fun - or depressing - episode. And no, I do not forget this is all television and doesn't really matter in the grand scheme of things.
Given the targets and, more importantly, the specificity of the described attacks, I would almost bet money that - if ever caught - it will be found that the break-ins were funded by and/or committed by the foreign intelligence branch of another government.
Especially notable is that L-3 Communications (note: NOT Level3 Networks, an entirely unrelated company with an unfortunately similar name) was attacked. L-3 is a major, major contractor for highly classified work with the Department of Defense. Other organizations on the list are less prominent but nonetheless important players in U.S. defense electronics.
It has been long recognized that virtually all opposing foreign governments (except, interestingly, North Korea) have active electronic and communications espionage programs against both the U.S. government and leaders in scientific and engineering fields. This is in fact the main reason that the rather silly-named U.S. Cyber Command (http://www.af.mil/news/story.asp?storyID=12303050 5) was created.
The brain is basically an enormous collection of cells performing primary metabolism (which presumably was functioning) but that also has loads of secondary metabolic pathways in the form of electrochemical communication.
This is why drugs exist (LSD, ritalin, halothane, take your pick) that can have a profound effect on consciousness: they change the chemistry of the brain.
Alternative fuels basically require us to replace every car, truck, and generator in the developed (and the developing) world.
Oh really? Are you sure there is no way to prepare conventional fuels from alternative fuel sources? Remember that if you derive your fuel from living plants then the carbon dioxide cycle is closed - you can burn gasoline to your heart's content.
are we causing global warming ? Good question, we're not actually sure, and we don't understand the mechanism behind it (if so, please point to an accurate climate model, we can maybe tolerate 1% error margin, but certainly no more than that)
1%? Even though you haven't actually enumerated the variable that you want predicted to 1% tolerance, I will note that virtually no scientific study creates models this accurate. Most papers are published with data reported at the 95% confidence level.
As for the mechanism of global warming, yes it is complex. Yes, both natural and "human" influences are at play. But it is not impossible to sort out.
Furthermore. Climate models currently have (at best) 20% error margin PER YEAR. That means that we can predict what global warming is going to do next year, but after that the error is bigger than the measurement. After 5 years there is no signal left.
First, you have a naive understanding of error analysis (with random error you don't simply multiply uncertainty by the number of sequential measurements; I am most familiar with this in a chemical context, so I refer you to, e.g., Quantitative Chemical Analysis by Daniel C. Harris, paying special attention to the difference between error propagation for discrete measurements [random error] and error propagation for molecular weights from isotopic masses [non-random error]). Second, where are you getting this 20% number? I'll accept peer-reviewed Communications, Articles, or Reviews in journals including, but not limited to, Science, Nature, Environmental Science & Technology, or the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States (or appropriate international counterpart). Be sure that you do not conflate "climate model" with "weather model" (note that the former does not provide annual predictions).
Not to be too picky, but something can consume electricity and still be a closed system.
In thermodynamics, a system is "closed" if it does not exchange matter with the surroundings (but optionally may exchange heat and/or work). A system that does not exchange heat or work is called an isolated system.
Earth is not isolated, but it is very nearly a closed system (we launch craft into space, meteors land).
I believe all knowledge (or, if you like, art) should be preserved. I may agree with you that anything by L. Ron Hubbard is rubbish, but that doesn't mean it should be destroyed. If nothing else, in the future it may provide valuable insight into the way one part of our civilization thought (or, as the case may be, did not think).
Also, come on... grouping Das Kapital and Atlas Shrugged in the same category as Windows 98 for Dummies? I think that the latter may have had just a little less importance for the development of the modern world.
Even if you don't like Marx and Rand, their ideas on economics and politics continue to be influential today.
I was thinking something similar when I read the headline post.
I am a geek of chemistry, computers, and politics. I care deeply about matters such as the DMCA and internet freedom.
HOWEVER... I am also not selfish enough to think that these are the most important issues facing us today, because they are not. My decision on which candidate to vote for will be based on what I believe are much more significant issues: foreign policy (especially as concerns the current debacle in the Middle East), military strategy, environmental policy, and trade relations.
I am continually astonished at how many Slashdotters seem to think that just because WE care a lot about, say, the MAFIAA, that it should be the overriding concern of all citizens.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm sorry, you're right in principle but wrong in practice. I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that you are not trained in the natural sciences.
:-)
I am a synthetic organic chemist, with a background in biochemistry and molecular pharmacology. Forget trying to understand the human body in detail, or an organ in detail, or even a cell in detail; we barely understand chemical reactions - the most elementary processes in life that would lie at the bottom of your mythical categorization hierarchy!
It is only very recently that physical organic chemists and organometallic chemists have unraveled the detailed picture of how diatomic molecules can split on metal surfaces. Organic chemists can enumerate a variety of reactions to transform a functional group into another (want to oxidize an alcohol to an aldehyde? try TEMPO/NMO, TPAP/NMO, PCC, PFC, Al(OiPr)3/acetone...) but can't typically tell you which reaction will be best, what the yield will be, or what will happen on scale-up. To make a "natural product" (i.e. a complex metabolite discovered in a living organism) can take months to years in a lab, even though nature's enzymes can make the compound in exquisite purity in a couple steps that we may or may not even begin to understand. (Palau'amine, a complex natural product, has seen vigorous efforts directed at its synthesis for 15 YEARS or so and remains a challenge unresolved by legions of skilled chemists.)
In light of this, it is laughable to even suggest that scientists do a "step by step" analysis. I'm sorry, but we don't have the fancy machines in movies that give us molecular structures by scanning a glass vial. Medical imaging technology is still in a state that will look comically primitive in a few decades. The genome, while we have a draft sequence, is far from annotated and in a useful form. Not only do we not have even the feeblest understanding of how to predict the folding of complex proteins, we can't even make them in a reliable manner (hence the ongoing debacle at FDA and elsewhere about generic biologics, e.g. "biosimilars"). In short, the state-of-the-art in biological science today is akin to trying to figure out how to replicate a Core 2 processor with no documentation and the only tools available being a light microscope and a two-pan balance. Sure, it'd be great to just say "subdivide it and use statistical analysis" but that won't actually get you anywhere.
This isn't to say progress isn't being made. We have unraveled the genetic code, deduced myriad metabolic pathways, created (sort of) functional artificial organs, and eradicated smallpox. Today I carried out a reaction that five years ago was not known to exist. I have colleagues who are building ever more powerful NMR/MRI spectrometers, delicate methods for probing cell surface glycosylation (known to be involved in a variety of disease states; see Carolyn Bertozzi's work for wonderful examples of this research), training bacteria to churn out novel antibiotics, deciphering the mechanism of photosynthesis (which one day might lead to better solar cells), developing shuttle molecules to bring drugs across the blood-brain barrier, and figuring out how to adorn nanotubes with biologically interesting substances.
I tire easily of hearing people who don't do scientific research (again, engineering is NOT science; each field has its own challenges and own rewards) telling us that we aren't making fast enough progress. I work twelve hour days; some of my colleagues work longer. Progress is painstakingly slow, though not for lack of trying. Would more money help? Sure, money always helps, but in the end the problems we are asked to address are the most challenging ever tackled. The Iraq war will be long forgotten before we have a perfect antidepressant; Web 2.0 will be Web 20.0 when we finally figure out the details of aging. I won't claim that we will have a Unified Field Theory before AIDS is cured, but I wouldn't hold my breath on either.
Please, cut us some slack... what we do IS too complicated for mere mortals to understand, which is a big problem since (for the moment) us researchers are also mere mortals. (But we are working on solving that, too.
Are you being facetious? By "minimal amount of money" I mean that I spend enough to offset my entire carbon footprint, but nothing more. I.e., I take responsibility for myself but leave it to others to do the same.
Again, I am not advocating for everyone to devote every dollar and every waking minute to saving the environment. As I said, "it's a start." However, I do believe that most people out there (even here on the fairly environmentally conscious west coast) have not even taken the fairly minimal set of steps that I have; if they did, perhaps things would change a little for the better?
For what it's worth, I agree. Al Gore is not a scientist (and you will note that his Nobel was not in one of the sciences). However, he is almost certainly substantially more qualified than most of us to discuss economics, for even being Vice President would (I expect) expose you to a lot of the relevant conversation.
That said, there are still people more qualified than him to address economics. The problem is that business leaders tend to think short-term. The scientists are providing a long-term outlook that MUST be heeded. How exactly we want to respond I do fully leave to the economists and political scientists, but any response must begin by accepting the best conclusions of the scientific community. (I would also note that on political issues, including the response, the views of the public matter a great deal more. This is because people ARE entitled to their own opinions. I am arguing that the public does not have a great deal of weight in the analysis of the situation since the analysis is scientific, not political, and the people are not entitled to their own facts.)
A Manhattan Project would be great, but it happened not only because there was an immediate, visible threat, but because there were credible scientists attesting the the viability of a project that, by conventional wisdom, should not have worked. If the Roosevelt administration had claimed that there was "substantial disagreement" among scientists over whether nuclei can even be split (which is somewhat analogous to what is happening today with global warming), the Manhattan Project would never have gotten off the ground.
- I bike 16 miles round-trip to work, every day, usually in the rain (especially during winter) instead of driving.
- When I do drive, I drive a highly fuel efficient compact car. (Not a hybrid, though that will be my next car.)
- I recycle religiously, including pulling aluminum cans out of the waste and moving them to recycling.
- My professional research involves developing new synthetic methodology that is intrinsically environmentally friendlier than existing techniques.
- My computers are (within practicality) optimized for minimal power consumption.
- When at home I use sunlight for lighting during the day, CF bulbs at night.
- I volunteer in the field, helping plant trees and other plants that beautify parks and consume atmospheric CO2.
- Though it may be a gimmick, I also spend a minimal amount of money each year to purchase carbon credits to offset 100% of my carbon footprint.
I'm no saint, but to borrow a line from BP's recent advertising, "it's a start."Part of the problem is that we see a perpetuation of the myth that everyone's opinion is equally valid on this issue (or any issue, for that matter).
There is of course the old phrase, "you are entitled to your own opinion, not to your own facts." But let's suppose that everyone agrees on the basic facts. The facts in question are not things like global average surface temperature; the global warming opponents are correct that we do not have actual temperature data for most of the planet's history. Instead, the facts are more obscure: oxygen isotope ratios, nitrogen exchange rates, geological strata, etc.
Valid interpretation of these data (and their significance vis a vis human involvement) is HARD! I am an organic chemist by training, which probably makes me better suited to analyze the facts than most, but even I readily admit that I have difficulty deciphering the maze of evidence out there. Fortunately, there are others (climatologists) who have spent decades or longer learning all there is to know about climate science, and scrutinizing the data. The OVERWHELMING CONSENSUS among PhD-level climatologists (and I know a few personally) is the global warming is REAL, and is HUMAN CAUSED.
Now, the problem arises when politicians, businessmen, and even scientists stepping outside their discipline start second-guessing the climatologists' work. I submit that unless you have equivalent training, education, and experience as those with whom you disagree on a fundamentally scientific issue, your opinion COUNTS LESS. I completely ignore the ramblings of the people talking about sunspots, et cetera, because I trust that the majority of climate scientists knows what it is doing. My only alternative is to go for a PhD in that field, and start slowly bringing myself to the majority's level.
It strikes me as interesting that most people (not necessarily most on Slashdot, though) tend to willingly accept the pronouncements of auto mechanics, physicians, and electricians, for example, all of whom are similarly professionals but working in fields much more comprehensible and accessible than climate science. But when it comes to global warming, suddenly everyone and their brother know more than the professors.
Please, do tell, how do you get cheap and abundant power from salt water? Make sure you don't cheat by adding in some other compounds that are consumed stoichiometrically.
(Advance warning: I am a professional chemist.)
You are missing the point. I AM a chemist. I probably understand orbitals and electronegativity better than most on Slashdot, but I do not fault chemistry sets for not being so directly educational.
At the age when kids would use chemistry sets (I started when I was about eight), so much underlying information is absent that it is unrealistic to teach real chemistry. You can't truly understand orbitals without quantum mechanics, which in turn requires linear algebra and multivariate calculus. So don't bother! When I played with a chemistry set I didn't understand pH or activity coefficients, but I still appreciated acid-base reactions. Nor had I ever heard of redox reactions or the Nernst equation, but electroplating was cool. Chemistry sets inspired me to study and learn at the meager level I could, and as I grew older and more knowledgeable they undoubtedly played a role in me going into science - and into organic chemistry in particular (with its heavy emphasis on experimental research).
Chemistry sets are motivators, not educators. They have historically done for chemistry what "Star Trek" has done for physics.
Don't forget what FEMA was called by a member (can't remember which) in hearings by the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform on Hurricane Katrina: "Failed Every Major Assignment."
Ah, the joys of watching C-SPAN in the middle of the night...
While useful, I would point out that rsnapshot is an open source program that trivially does this on any UNIX/Linux OS. (I would also assume that Time Machine uses hardlinks, not symlinks, as they are much more useful.)
This won't stop me from buying the upgrade, though...
There are additional complications for Science: the articles are required to be very short, but to get into the journal they usually must also be very expansive and profound. Ditto for Nature. The result is the articles being very dense, much more so than in journals even somewhat more specific (e.g. the Journal of the American Chemical Society).
Do these people also think that terrorists are going to beam into the restricted area because it happened on Star Trek?
How do you figure? By my count, about two of the most recent twenty publications/conference talks are mainly about the computer architecture. The majority are legitimate chemical physics and biophysics.
Keep in mind that this group, and others like it, don't do any laboratory work. Their research is about "understanding protein folding," not actually developing pharmaceuticals, for which other groups (and companies) are better suited.
As far as I can tell, they are doing exactly what they claim to.
First, I am not an "Apple Fanboy" (the vast majority of my 15+ machines, including the one I am typing on, run Linux).
However, I should note that there is a difference between Apple not covering something and others not covering something. Other companies, in my experience, use warranty terms as an excuse to always deny service. Apple uses them only in cases where it is CLEARLY justified. I have taken my PowerBook in for repair of a part not covered by warranty and they replaced it anyway. Another machine was PAST warranty, and the Apple Store just extended it for free so I could get service. They _care_ about customer retention and, more importantly, word of mouth. They know that Apple uses are typically a close bunch and that if one person is pissed off then the bad feelings can spread throughout the community. (Cf. Jobs' quick moves to ameliorate fallout from the iPhone price drop.)
I would be genuinely surprised if Apple denied warranty service on a broken hinge, even if it is technically not covered.
And I thought twisted was a Python framework...
I would merely point out that choosing Science is an exceptionally bad example for the following reasons:
1) It is published by a non-profit organization (the American Association for the Advancement of Science).
2) Science IS one of the most respected places to publish. To get into Science a paper must be deemed to be of compelling and immediate interest to scientists across multiple disciplines. This is not the universities' perception, it is reality.
3) Science has extremely low personal and institutional subscription fees, far below those for more specialized weekly journals. (Remember, Science has 51 issues a year.)
I have never heard a science librarian (and I have talked to quite a few) complain about Science, Nature, the Journal of the American Chemical Society, Physical Review Letters, Infection & Immunity, etc. The librarians believe that they are getting what they pay for with these journals. Those they DO complain about tend to be (contrasting with the points above):
1) Published by for-profit companies (okay, Nature is too, but there are exceptions to every rule).
2) Specific, obscure, and/or low quality: Tetrahedron Asymmetry, Biorheology, etc. (I am not going to lie: the publisher Elsevier is single-handedly price gouging the living daylights out of universities).
3) Have high institutional subscription fees (I have seen _monthly_ chemistry journals with institutional rates of almost $20,000/year) and/or are forcibly bundled with unwanted journals.
Attempt to carry out what is basically technological espionage against some of the best technological espionage people in the world... real smart move.
At the risk of being a dork (wait, this is Slashdot, never mind), I would point out that "Musings" is inconsistent with MOST of the other episodes that allude to CSM's history. For example, in "Paperclip" it is made clear that CSM was working with Bill Mulder, Victor Klemper, the Well Manicured Man, and others in the 50s on alien-human hybrids (or at least some other form of genetic experimentation). In "Travelers" a main character reminisces and recalls a visit from CSM and company in the hospital, certainly before the Bay of Pigs. Finally, in "The Truth" CSM himself remarks that "his" story has scared every president since Truman in 1947. Since "Musings" has information from the least presumably reliable source of any of these, it is generally considered to be apocryphal.
Not that this prevents it from being a fun - or depressing - episode. And no, I do not forget this is all television and doesn't really matter in the grand scheme of things.
Given the targets and, more importantly, the specificity of the described attacks, I would almost bet money that - if ever caught - it will be found that the break-ins were funded by and/or committed by the foreign intelligence branch of another government.
0 5) was created.
Especially notable is that L-3 Communications (note: NOT Level3 Networks, an entirely unrelated company with an unfortunately similar name) was attacked. L-3 is a major, major contractor for highly classified work with the Department of Defense. Other organizations on the list are less prominent but nonetheless important players in U.S. defense electronics.
It has been long recognized that virtually all opposing foreign governments (except, interestingly, North Korea) have active electronic and communications espionage programs against both the U.S. government and leaders in scientific and engineering fields. This is in fact the main reason that the rather silly-named U.S. Cyber Command (http://www.af.mil/news/story.asp?storyID=1230305
I wonder how long it will be before someday auctions a vulnerability discovered in the auction site itself.
No, only part of the chemistry was "there."
The brain is basically an enormous collection of cells performing primary metabolism (which presumably was functioning) but that also has loads of secondary metabolic pathways in the form of electrochemical communication.
This is why drugs exist (LSD, ritalin, halothane, take your pick) that can have a profound effect on consciousness: they change the chemistry of the brain.
As for the mechanism of global warming, yes it is complex. Yes, both natural and "human" influences are at play. But it is not impossible to sort out. First, you have a naive understanding of error analysis (with random error you don't simply multiply uncertainty by the number of sequential measurements; I am most familiar with this in a chemical context, so I refer you to, e.g., Quantitative Chemical Analysis by Daniel C. Harris, paying special attention to the difference between error propagation for discrete measurements [random error] and error propagation for molecular weights from isotopic masses [non-random error]). Second, where are you getting this 20% number? I'll accept peer-reviewed Communications, Articles, or Reviews in journals including, but not limited to, Science, Nature, Environmental Science & Technology, or the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States (or appropriate international counterpart). Be sure that you do not conflate "climate model" with "weather model" (note that the former does not provide annual predictions).
Vote By Mail solves a lot of problems, including the issue of having to take time off from work.
Not to be too picky, but something can consume electricity and still be a closed system.
In thermodynamics, a system is "closed" if it does not exchange matter with the surroundings (but optionally may exchange heat and/or work). A system that does not exchange heat or work is called an isolated system.
Earth is not isolated, but it is very nearly a closed system (we launch craft into space, meteors land).
I disagree.
I believe all knowledge (or, if you like, art) should be preserved. I may agree with you that anything by L. Ron Hubbard is rubbish, but that doesn't mean it should be destroyed. If nothing else, in the future it may provide valuable insight into the way one part of our civilization thought (or, as the case may be, did not think).
Also, come on... grouping Das Kapital and Atlas Shrugged in the same category as Windows 98 for Dummies? I think that the latter may have had just a little less importance for the development of the modern world.
Even if you don't like Marx and Rand, their ideas on economics and politics continue to be influential today.
I was thinking something similar when I read the headline post.
I am a geek of chemistry, computers, and politics. I care deeply about matters such as the DMCA and internet freedom.
HOWEVER... I am also not selfish enough to think that these are the most important issues facing us today, because they are not. My decision on which candidate to vote for will be based on what I believe are much more significant issues: foreign policy (especially as concerns the current debacle in the Middle East), military strategy, environmental policy, and trade relations.
I am continually astonished at how many Slashdotters seem to think that just because WE care a lot about, say, the MAFIAA, that it should be the overriding concern of all citizens.