flyingrose/science

DIY (do-it-yourself) electronics by a brilliant woman know as ladyada

From the page: "So, I get two or three emails a day, all basically asking the same thing: "Where can I learn about electronics?" In general, most of these people have seen some of my projects and want to be able to build similar things. Unfortunately, I have never been able to point them to a good site that really takes the reader through a solid introduction to microcontrollers and basic electronics. As a result, I've decided to spend some time while at EYEBEAM to create a simple pedagogical website called Microcourse.
Structure

The basis of this site is simple: instead of purchasing a $100-$200 'development board kit' (such as the basicstamp) and using it to build one project at a time, we will instead use a lowcost 'disposable' kit. When I say disposable I dont mean that you literally throw out the devboard when you're done (although you could), more that you can have a dedicated board for each project. Also, if you damage the devboard somehow, there is very little lost as each one is about $10.

I'm also biased toward this approach because it's how I learned microcontrollers and electronics at the MIT Media Lab: with the iRX boards designed by Rob Poor and currently maintained by Ari Y. Benbasat."

Do YOU believe there is equality for women and minorities. I assure you there is no such thing as equality for anyone. Read on, please:

From the page: "in 2005, Harvard's president is suggesting that women don't succeed in math and science because of their genetic code," said AAUW president Nancy Rustad. "This is a call for a renewed campaign for gender equity. Dr. Summers may not see it, but equity - for women and many others - is still clearly an issue...we would also like Dr. Summers to take a close look at existing inequities, some of which occur in his own university. Women continue to face major challenges when stereotypes like these prevail."

As a leader in gender equity research, the AAUW Educational Foundation has published key reports on the challenges that women and girls face during the course of their education, particularly in the areas of math and science. Some highlights include

* 1992: AAUW's groundbreaking report How Schools Shortchange Girls investigates the detrimental effects of gender stereotypes in education, particularly in math and science
* 1998: Gender Gaps - Where Schools Still Fail Our Children reports that both boys and girls continue to lag behind in science, math, and technology education and suggests ways to remedy the problem
* 2000: Tech Savvy: Educating Girls in the New Computer Age documents girls' perspectives on today's computer culture and explores how school curricula and classroom practices discourage girls participation in computer science and technology education
* 2003: Women at Work, a report chronicling women's status in the workforce, examines the persistent problem of occupational segregation and the small number of women entering high-tech industries."

There is much research on the A.A.U.W. site anyone involved in education or women's rights could put to good use. I gave computer & Internet related seminars for 7-8th grade girls in the late 1990s for them. Because of the topic, mine were the second most popular (after the Chemist who worked for M&M Mars who gave away pounds and pounds of candy - that is where I learned that asking questions and tossing the person who answered correctly a "prize" does wonders to encourage active participation.)

I would like to share two ironies that were not lost on me. They only let me speak the first year when a Doctor who was supposed to present was unavailable at the last minute. I offered to present in her place which concerned them as I was "unprepared" and "not a Doctor". I simply presented information on how Doctors could use state-of-the-art technology and computers such as fiber optic endoscopes, the ability to send radiographs from the hospital to the most accomplished Doctor of Radiology for immediate diagnosis and other subjects that I knew could inspire girls.

In a nutshell, here is the problem with math and science. We expect students to learn them with no idea what they're good for and no motivation to do so. At the first difficulty they drop the idea altogether or decide they're not smart enough. (If I had saved a nickel for every time I've been told girls are no good at math or been told that someone had no idea women worked on computers I would be very wealthy today.)

Give someone a goal they really want and how math and science are part of getting to that goal and they will do whatever it takes to learn. When we teach anything, put it in the context of something they would actually DO with it.

Ironically, I do not qualify to actually join the A.A.U.W. and the brilliant man I was seeing at the time could not comprehend why I was willing to give my time to a group that would not have me as a member. When I aced their test and they wanted to hire a woman I was hired with only an A.A. in Music before my Junior year started.

Everything is complex. Anyone who argues for black and white, yes/no, go/no go thinking lacks perspective. Step back and get a wider view and all subjects become clearer. Keep stepping back until you can see how all things are connected.

From the page: "Prigogine and Stengers depict modern science as being "against nature because it denies the complexity and the coming-into-being of the world in the name of a knowable, eternal world that is dictated by a small number of simple, unchanging laws". It is true that a great many phenomena can be described in terms of simple, linear mathematics. Yet, as Prigogine and Stengers point out, this approach unfortunately led to a mechanical vision of Nature in which Science became an instrument of domination and the scientist shut himself off from Nature with the rest of humanity in the ivory tower of supposed objectiveness.

Prigogine and Stengers plead for a new approach to science in which "the experimental dialogue is based on the two essential elements of the relationship between man and nature: understanding and modification." They go on to say, "Experimentation demands an interaction between theory and practice that implies a veritable strategy." In another book entitled "The end of Certainties", Prigogine writes, "We are witnessing the emergence of a science that is no longer limited to simplified, idealised situations but rather one which confronts the complexity of the world and allows human creativity to flourish as a singular expression of a fundamental trait common to all levels of Nature." "

This sure beats slathering or spraying poisons on yourself or the environment. I've got to get my new horse blog going so I can update the mosquito information (and tons more).

Note that one stumbler can hear the high frequency tones this device emits and so it is not a good solution for him. Each of us can hear and not hear difference frequencies so it may or may be a drawback for you. (And at $8 USD it wouldn't be a major risk - you could always give it to someone else.)

From the page: "Welcome to the Darwin Correspondence Project's new web site. The main feature of the site is an online database with the complete, searchable, texts of around 5,000 letters written by and to Charles Darwin up to the year 1865. This includes all the surviving letters from the Beagle voyage - online for the first time - and all the letters from the years around the publication of Origin of species in 1859."

Excerpts from three answers to a question on LinkedIn regarding gmail. You can get to the entire page but not reviews.

From the page: "The part that gets me is how little concern people have with Google and privacy. They can ID you, by IP address, to every single search you make. They keep this data for 18 months or longer. Throw in GMail, where they have your personal information, and they now know the search terms used by a specific person. Couple that with the fact that with a name you can find a tremendous amount of info about a person. There are people using Google checkout where they even have credit card and bank account information...Everyone wants to beat up Microsoft as the "evil empire". Who's looking over Google's shoulder on why they even need most of this information and how is it protecting. Yes, any mediocre DBA can plough through Google's mound of data on the backend and give you a personal profile of each person hitting their services that would scare most people to death. I don't use any of their stuff, because I don't trust them to protect the data, despite the pretty little marketing stuff they put out.

Regarding data mining... I'm not saying that google keeps your mails, I'm saying they are statically processed before reading, before deletion and every time you read it, label it, etc., so probably each word of all your deleted mail is counted and saved in their database... that's in their policy, when they say they save "non personal information" because in one hand no one will be able ever to see your deleted mails, just the amounts of words with some points system information.. I suppouse they give more points to word found in sentences with word "need" and "buy", as well related to the labels you use... but who knows!.

�Who needs this? Google ads. Imagine you always invite people to drink a beer, take an expresso.. whatever... then a good ad for you will be someone that's paying to advertise their expresso coffe machine. I think you get the point right?


Quite simply:

In order for Google to grow it relies on money from advertising.

Archiving the information rather than deleting allows the information to be subject to Googles passive filters and information gatherers.

This allows Google the possibility to see consumer trends in never before seen detail and accuracy.

This trend allows google to more strategically place ad's. And in turn generates more revenue for the publishers and marketers.

My guess is that Google can do this legally because they are not actually reading emails. Therefore Google is not invading privacy. Technically they arnt releasing any information about their clients either becuase its kept internal. In addition marketing and sales has for the most part been about numbers and statistics. With the following technology Google can greatly increase their ad rate statistics.

All Google has done is taken a software package like found on mxlogic.com [mxlogic.com] that scans for and reports something anonymously. For the sake of information google is using 'key word' filters.

The emails are passsing through filters and scanners in a way no different than that of virus and malware/spyware scanners.

Many people may recall a recent decision by the upper court to make individual email providors such as Hotmail and Google bound by the same laws and regulations regarding privacy as telecom companies and other sources the public believes to be private. For the govt. and other organizations to request and obtain emails they must first obtain a search warrent or have probable cause.

Even this decision will unlikely hinder Googles manipulation of the system for its personal gains. I fear that without regulation on this issue more people and businesses will start to manipulate the system for personal and commerical gains to a point that will ultimately cause one form or more of mass consumer manipulation.

This is the same Gavin who writes the Green Options blog. He is another visionary who has taken the time to step back from the daily grind to see the big picture and recognize healthier priorities.

What we THINK physical "reality" is and what is real are not always what are commonly believed. Given that the consensus is frequently wrong, I am inclined to lean towards this expert being wiser and the others having reached incorrect conclusions.

Never underestimate the power of suggestion and the equally great power of fear of loss of money.

From the page: "Dr Gray, whose annual forecasts of the number of tropical storms and hurricanes are widely publicised, said a natural cycle of ocean water temperatures - related to the amount of salt in ocean water - was responsible for the global warming that he acknowledges has taken place.

However, he said, that same cycle meant a period of cooling would begin soon and last for several years.

"We'll look back on all of this in 10 or 15 years and realise how foolish it was," Dr Gray said.

During his speech to a crowd of about 300 that included meteorology students and a host of professional meteorologists, Dr Gray also said those who had linked global warming to the increased number of hurricanes in recent years were in error.

He cited statistics showing there were 101 hurricanes from 1900 to 1949, in a period of cooler global temperatures, compared to 83 from 1957 to 2006 when the earth warmed.

"The human impact on the atmosphere is simply too small to have a major effect on global temperatures," Dr Gray said.

He said his beliefs had made him an outsider in popular science.

"It bothers me that my fellow scientists are not speaking out against something they know is wrong," he said. "But they also know that they'd never get any grants if they spoke out. I don't care about grants.""