From the Oldies But Goodies file:
More Infoviz Art from Slate
Clarification on Commercial Hemp
Published by August 22nd, 2008 in education, metavalent and society. 0 Comments
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In rapid fire context of live Science Friday show in SL, I made a couple of factual transposition errors that require correction here.
Three NOBEL LAUREATES including Milton Friedman, George A. Akerlof, and Vernon L. Smith, in addition to over 500 prominent economists, endorse Professor Jeffrey A. Miron’s, The Budgetary Implications of Marijuana Prohibition.
Summary of HR 5843: A Federal Act to Remove Federal Penalties for the Personal Use of Marijuana by Responsible Adults (would not affect federal laws prohibiting the sale of marijuana for profit, import and export of marijuana, or manufacturing (cultivating) marijuana.) CORRECTED.
California legislators actually PASSED Assembly Bill 684, the California Industrial Hemp Farming Act, TWICE … for second year in a row, on April 30, 2007. Only to be vetoed by admitted Marijuana Smoker — albeit, in his youth — and now Governor Arnold. A recent survey reports that 71% of Californians support changing state law to allow hemp farming. And today, more than 30 industrialized nations grow industrial hemp and export to the United States, making it the only crop that is illegal to grow but legal for Americans to import.
Some longer standing Myths and Misperceptions about hemp, marijuana, cannabis.
Our governmental agencies are so paranoid over this issue, it makes one wonder what THEY are smoking. The sound data on hemp for ethanol production seems hopelessly obfuscated on the DOE site and I have just not had sufficient time and good fortune to find the HARD DATA that presents an authoritative, unbiased, and unvarnished comparison between hemp, sugar cane, switch grass, etc. for the production of cellulosic ethanol.
Why is hemp always omitted from these lists? If hemp is at the dead bottom of the list of ethanol yields, opponents of hemp would have a powerful tool in their cause. The fact that the data seems so elusive leads me to suspect that the opposite is possibly true, that hemp may well be in the top 3 to 5 crops for ethanol yield; however, I can not rely upon potential hyperbole from groups such as NORML or MPP (though they are often surprisingly rigorous, as they’ve learned that intellectual honesty is their only hope) on this one, because in order to be compelling, the sources I’m seeking must be authoritative and enjoy a reputation for unbiased analysis in the public’s eye.
Second Life Release Candidate Viewers for Mac
Published by August 15th, 2008 in metavalent. 0 Comments
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Might help any SL friends who bother to come back after this afternoon’s network issues. Ug, always at the most inconvenient time, huh? Wish we could justify more bandwidth or a dedicated server, but until some kind of revenue model justifies that, I can only thank you for the patience and hope this SWF helps to illustrate where to get the RC SL Viewer described in-world today. Feel free to post a comment if any questions.
We Command the Lightning’s Hand
Published by August 15th, 2008 in metavalent and physics. 0 Comments
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A little Science Friday fun for those Trailing Boomers who might recall that dreaded Kansas epic anthem.
Duly noted: sometimes only the top half of the first video frame is loading on initial page load. If video is started, launched to full screen, then returned to embed; that fixes it. But will try to track down whatever is encumbering intial page load. Thanks for patience with life’s perpetual beta test.
UPDATE: Can anyone help me to understand what THIS char is?
ℑ
It’s included in the embed string for the SciFri embedded player, above, apparently in service to stats server. Like this:
redirect.flv?http://media.libsyn.com/media/sciencefriday/lightning-081508.flv&height=255ℑ=http://www.sciencefriday.com/video
Is that char right, or a typo? Thanks!
Teaching MATLAB in 7th Grade
Published by August 14th, 2008 in education, metavalent and society. 0 Comments
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At last week’s SFSL, during the Kiss My Math segment, I’d offered that some educational institutions and researchers are beginning to challenge the somewhat puritanical convention that rote memory is the best and more effective cognitive skill we can develop in our children.
In no way did I mean to imply that rote memory is not a helpful skill. Nor did I mean to imply that Danica McKellar’s book, the topic of the segment, is without merit. Quite the contrary. Everything that the discussion focused upon made absolute sense and can only help to improve the prospects for young women and students in general. I certainly appreciate and applaud that work.
As an example of what I was suggesting, consider that “The Winsor School is dedicated to developing the individual talents of academically promising and motivated girls in grades five through twelve:
Students learn the specific details of the C++ and Matlab computer programming languages, strategies for approaching programming problems, and general algorithmic (systematic, step-by-step) thinking. Programming requires an ability to think precisely and symbolically, and a fascination with problem solving.
Purdue offers a very elementary MATLAB tutorial which I think further illustrates the accessibility of this kind of information, in the context of middle school students who possess even even moderate levels of interest and ability.
More generally, many innovative educators continue to find unique, age-appropriate, curriculum-specific ways to apply the timeless Deming System of Profound Knowledge for transforming business effectiveness.
Which leads me back to an Einstein quotation that has almost become a cliche, “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”
If we focus tightly upon rote memorization because we uncritically considered it the Pure Core of Genuine Education, we’re likely to keep getting the same results as the hundreds of generations who have done the exact same thing. If our world is increasingly characterized by Accelerating Change and an Intelligence Explosion in our immediate built environment, maybe we should allocate just a small portion of our pedagogical portfolio to considering the relevance of this all too palpable present tense.