Category Archives: Science

Microsoft Previews Windows 8 OS

Free Markets, Internet, Outsourcing, Private Property, Science, Technology

News comes that “Microsoft has launched the most complete preview yet of its forthcoming Windows 8 operating system.” Is that good or bad? I live with a Microsofty who tries to defend the Machine as best he can. Yet, I dread each and every improvement in this indispensable technology.

I’m just a simple user; not a designer. And each and every “improvement” seems to come with added complexity.

To me, a technological “improvement” means ease of operation. I long to go back several revisions of Microsoft Word and Outlook. I swear; each and every function I once achieved with one or two clicks of the mouse, now takes nine. I’ve even documented a bug or two, which, when challenged on, my better half smiles and walks away.

This weekend we were forced to replace the home’s telephones. (The free market is fabulous. Most Americans can afford a few “telephones.”) The lines kept crackling. It turns out the noise was not the fault of the old, trusted telephones, answering and fax machines.

The upshot of the improved technology: Whereas I was once able to press a single button, and by so doing activate the answering message; I now must click through a whole process to get the same result.

I am told that this added complexity and inconvenience is due to cheap innards. Extant hardware must be made to carry as much programming as possible. Designing for customer comfort is secondary to the price of the components.

Ultimately, each time I accidentally click to update my browser or any other of the things I use to function online, I dread the complexity that will ensue.

Some things are best kept simple. Technology is one such thing.

One Giant Step For SpaceX

Barack Obama, Private Property, Science, Technology, The State

Oh the contradictions of being a Republican! Republicans, the ostensible party for market forces, were furious when Barack Obama and his posse privatized aspects in the operation of NASA, the National Aeronautic Space Administration, perhaps the only good move BHO has ever made as president (although he should have privatized the whole thing).

Hungry to sustain the National Greatness Agenda in whatever statist way possible, conservatives slammed BHO on the NASA front.

Now, a private company based in California, called SpaceX, has launched a spacecraft to the International Space Stationbuilt. This via BBCNews:

The head of Nasa has hailed a “new era” in exploration after the launch of the first cargo delivery to the space station by a private company.
The Falcon rocket, topped by an unmanned Dragon freight capsule, lifted clear of its Florida pad at 03:44 EDT (07:44 GMT; 08:44 BST).
The launch system has been built by California-based firm SpaceX.
The initial climb to an altitude some 340km above the Earth lasted a little under 10 minutes.
Within moments of being ejected, Dragon opened its solar panels.
It also unpacked its navigation equipment.
Nasa’s administrator Charles Bolden said: “Today marks the beginning of a new era in exploration… The significance of this day cannot be overstated …

Freedom Speaks

Elections, libertarianism, Liberty, Ron Paul, Science, Sex

When he “stands tall” and unapologetic for the principles of freedom, Ron Paul is unbeatable. Just because Chris Wallace frames Paul’s ancient comments about AIDS, in the book Freedom Under Siege, as “controversial”—it doesn’t make them so. Here Paul states clearly the scientific facts about sexually transmitted diseases—facts that have been known for hundreds of years—and the implication of personal responsibility in a free society.

As to the future of the Paul campaign: Once people make the arduous journey to liberty and arrive at an understanding of it, they cleave to the Truth. So Paul’s numbers will be sustained—and rise.

Next Wallace makes a stupid point, accusing Paul of legislative ineffectiveness because of the 620 measured sponsored, only four of which ever made it to the House floor. The fact that Ron Paul’s attempts at passing legislation to repeal other legislation have fallen short is not an indictment of the Congressman, but of Congress. He fulfilled his mandate to try and beat back the state.

Here is the scrappy, assertive Ron Paul:

‘Generation Jobless’

Business, Economy, Education, Intelligence, Labor, Outsourcing, Race, Racism, Science, Technology

I wonder about those who claim our math and science students are first rank, and blame the high-tech sector and its greed for the “importation” of South and East Asian talent. Sure, there is an abundance of greed (not necessarily harmful in one of the freer sectors of the economy). There is also a requirement to display diversity, even if imported, so as to comport with the diabolic diversity policies peddled by all companies as zealously as do the state and CNN’s Soledad O’Brien. But neither are there any shortages of unskilled Americans in the sciences. Have the reductionists, who refuse to recognize this dumbing down, ever spoken to senior and serious high-tech talent; people who are employed and always overworked, because there are so few of them?

“Although the number of college graduates increased about 29% between 2001 and 2009,” reports the WSJ, “the number graduating with engineering degrees only increased 19%, according to the most recent statistics from the U.S. Dept. of Education. The number with computer and information-sciences degrees decreased 14%. Since students typically set their majors during their sophomore year, the first class that chose their major in the midst of the recession graduated this year.

Students who drop out of science majors and professors who study the phenomenon say that introductory courses are often difficult and abstract. Some students, like Ms. Zhou, say their high schools didn’t prepare them for the level of rigor in the introductory courses. [She’s more honest than the professors. “My ability level was just not there,” says Ms. Zhou of her decision” to drop out from electrical and computer engineering.]

Overall, only 45% of 2011 U.S. high-school graduates who took the ACT test were prepared for college-level math and only 30% of ACT-tested high-school graduates were ready for college-level science, according to a 2011 report by ACT Inc.”

Science classes may also require more time—something U.S. college students may not be willing to commit. In a recent study, sociologists Richard Arum of New York University and Josipa Roksa of the University of Virginia found that the average U.S. student in their sample spent only about 12 to 13 hours a week studying, about half the time spent by students in 1960. They found that math and science—though not engineering—students study on average about three hours more per week than their non-science-major counterparts.