The "This is what I've learned today." Thread

[Ohm]

I wanted to start a thread about "This is what I've learned today".
Because if you can write a summary explaining what terms and concept you studied, it will be reinforce. Also Professors on :ff: might correct you or better yet, direct you to better sources of information.


Hope this thread is helpful. :yup:

[Ohm]

I'll start.

Today I learned about Energy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy) from my science book (http://www.amazon.com/Science-Book-Everything-National-Geographic/dp/1426203373/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1255510255&sr=8-1).
It explained what energy is and the different types of energy in our universe.
There's Thermal,Nuclear,Gravitational,kinetic,electric and Magnetic and more. Also the definition of Energy which is "The ability for mechanics,Living organisms and other systems to do work,Unlike Chi or Life energy which is a form of Vitalism. Last but not least Energy quantities and the measurement of energy. The different units of measuring enery for example electricity (Volt,Amp, and Ohms :D ) force (newtons).

I'm quite excited about the physics section in this book and I'm going to read about forces and fields. :popcorn:

[livius drusus]

Cool thread idea. I shall enjoy mooching off y'all's new knowledge.

[LadyShea]

Today I learned more about the kinesthetic learning style, and also read from an expert who believes "learning styles" are a complete bullshit waste of time.

I plan to do some experiments with Kiddo to see if engaging his large muscle groups helps him learn to write...yes, he is my own personal lab rat.

[The Lone Ranger]

Great idea!

Just to clarify a bit, the definition of energy only helps if you know the proper definition of "work." "Work" is moving matter. (Matter is anything that occupies space and has mass -- that is, is affected by gravity.)

So, "energy" is the capacity to move matter. Anything that's moving has energy (by definition), and the energy of movement is kinetic energy. (Electricity is a form of kinetic energy, for example, since it's moving electrons.) Energy can be stored (in chemical bonds, for example); stored energy is potential energy.


Cheers,

Michael

[ceptimus]

You (nearly) always use the same unit for measuring energy - the Joule.

Volts, Amps and Ohms aren't units of energy - they're certainly units to do with electricity though. If you use the 'water flowing in a pipe' analogy then Volts are used to measure the pressure, Amps measure the rate of flow, and Ohms measure how much the pipework or valves or whatever resists the flow.

If you multiply the Volts and Amps together (for a DC circuit) you get Watts. A Watt is a measure of power (rate of energy usage) A Watt is one Joule of energy used every second.

So if you connected up a torch battery (say three volts) to a bulb and a current of two amps flowed, then that would be six Watts of power. If you switched it off after a minute, then you would have used 3 x 2 x 60 = 360 Joules of energy.

[Crumb]

torch battery
:pat:

[ChuckF]

Today I learned all about Rule 4 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, which discusses summons and service of process. Oh, and also some crap about negligence per se and joint tenancy.

[Ensign Steve]

Hey, I didn't come here to learn Latin!

[The Lone Ranger]

Illegitimi non carborundum!

[Ohm]

Illegitimi non carborundum!

Translation: "Don't let the bastards grind you down."

Thank you, wiki and TLR. :D

[Sock Puppet]

Utshay ethay uckfay upay.

I R LATIN EXPERT

[Ensign Steve]

:lolhog:

[Demimonde]

I learned about the roots of "despair" as a verb in English. We still use the definition "to be without hope" but in the past despair was intextricably linked with forgiveness. At the time this was only the provenance of God, but the element of being beyond redemption seems more powerful to me than simply a state without hope. Particularly as forgiveness/redemption is an act, where as "hope" is an abstraction.

Oh, and I learned to love Christopher Marlowe even more.

[Nullifidian]

The older sense of despair also appears in Act IV, sc. 1 (http://larryavisbrown.homestead.com/files/Malfi/malfi_IVa.htm) of The Duchess of Malfi when the Duchess is presented with wax figures of her husband and children, made to appear as if they are dead. She falls into a suicidal depression and Bosola counsels her against despair.

Here is discovered, behind a traverse, the artificial figures of Antonio and his children, appearing as if they were dead

BOSOLA: Look you, here's the piece from which 'twas ta'en.
He doth present you this sad spectacle,
That, now you know directly they are dead,
Hereafter you may wisely cease to grieve
For that which cannot be recovered.

DUCHESS: There is not between heaven and earth one wish
I stay for after this: it wastes me more
Than were't my picture, fashion'd out of wax,
Stuck with a magical needle, and then buried
In some foul dunghill; and yond's an excellent property
For a tyrant, which I would account mercy.

BOSOLA: What's that?

DUCHESS: If they would bind me to that lifeless trunk,
And let me freeze to death.

BOSOLA: Come, you must live.

DUCHESS: That's the greatest torture souls feel in hell;
In hell that they must live, and cannot die.
Portia, I'll new kindle thy coals again,
And revive the rare and almost dead example
Of a loving wife.

BOSOLA: O fie! despair? remember
You are a Christian.

DUCHESS: The church enjoins fasting:
I'll starve myself to death.

[curses]

Today I learned that I'm better at algebra than I thought I was ;)

Oh and we discussed the rule of thirds and how to do basic photo composition.

[Deadlokd]

Yesterday I learnt that there are a fuckload of viruses in the ocean, especially around deep sea hydrothermal vents. They serve to keep bacterial numbers down and return amino acids, nucleic acids, carbs and lipids back into the chain.

Today I learnt nothing because I'm finished for the semester. :flowerdance:

[Ohm]

Yesterday I learnt that there are a fuckload of viruses in the ocean, especially around deep sea hydrothermal vents. They serve to keep bacterial numbers down and return amino acids, nucleic acids, carbs and lipids back into the chain.

Today I learnt nothing because I'm finished for the semester. :flowerdance:

Pretty interesting. :chin:

[Dingfod]

Since I got rid of the DVR service and cut the cable TV back to Expanded Basic, we've been watching different programs on TV, a lot more home remodeling stuff, but also educational programs and lectures. This evening I learned about the geology of Oklahoma from Professor Bryan Tapp of the University of Tulsa Geosciences Dept. I found out that my parents once lived right on top of the middle of an ancient 9.9 mile wide, 9,000 feet deep meteor impact crater, the Ames Crater (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ames_crater), source of millions of barrels of oil and billions of cubic feet of natural gas. Since they moved away from Ames, Oklahoma in 2002, an informational walkthough display about the Ames Crater (http://www.amescrater.com/) has been erected right on Main Street in that tiny burg.

[D. Scarlatti]

Chesley Sullenberger went to Congress to testify about pilot compensation and they drowned him out with patriotic music.

(I learned that last night actually.)

[Dingfod]

Today I learned that I'm better at algebra than I thought I was ;)

Oh and we discussed the rule of thirds and how to do basic photo composition.Yesterday I learned curses is photogenic (read: cute as hell).

[Ohm]

Today I learned about the Origin of the moon in my science book.

I knew about it, but I really got into the details this time.

One of the details was the "Mare tranquillitatis" one of the "Lunar Mare" on the moon.Form by lava flows in the impact crates. Also How, a sort of a different, theory on how the moon was formed. I'm still investigating, but it's still the basic premise. A celestial body impact the earth about 4 billion years old and launch a rubble into space which them agglomerated into what we call the moon.

I'm checking out "Drop-moon" theory, It's pretty exciting.

Anyone was additional information about this with a great source? Thanks. :D

[yguy]

Today I learned about the Origin of the moonNo, you learned about a theory which attempts to explain the origin of the moon. Nobody knows how the moon got there, and no one ever will without asking somebody who saw it happen.

[Ohm]

Today I learned about the Origin of the moonNo, you learned about a theory which attempts to explain the origin of the moon. Nobody knows how the moon got there, and no one ever will without asking somebody who saw it happen.

It's quite obvious yguy, from the statements you so shamelessly omitted.

Today I learned about the Origin of the moon in my science book.

I knew about it, but I really got into the details this time.

One of the details was the "Mare tranquillitatis" one of the "Lunar Mare" on the moon.Form by lava flows in the impact crates. Also How, a sort of a different, theory on how the moon was formed. I'm still investigating, but it's still the basic premise. A celestial body impact the earth about 4 billion years old and launch a rubble into space which them agglomerated into what we call the moon.

I'm checking out "Drop-moon" theory, It's pretty exciting.

Anyone was additional information about this with a great source? Thanks. :D

[Shake]

Today I learned that I'm better at algebra than I thought I was ;)

Oh and we discussed the rule of thirds and how to do basic photo composition.

I've been learning recently that some people think algebra is hard. Then again, my classes pretty much assume a working knowledge of basic calculus, and the profs toss about phrases such as, "... and then the rest is just algebra," or, "I won't bore you with the algebra here ...".

Anyway, today I learned about how to map the s-plane into the z-plane. Where s is a complex number of the form <sigma> + jOmega, where <sigma> is the real part, and Omega is the imaginary part. Yes, Fourier and z-transforms, for filter design.

[Ohm]

Today I learned that I'm better at algebra than I thought I was ;)

Oh and we discussed the rule of thirds and how to do basic photo composition.

I've been learning recently that some people think algebra is hard. Then again, my classes pretty much assume a working knowledge of basic calculus, and the profs toss about phrases such as, "... and then the rest is just algebra," or, "I won't bore you with the algebra here ...".

Anyway, today I learned about how to map the s-plane into the z-plane. Where s is a complex number of the form <sigma> + jOmega, where <sigma> is the real part, and Omega is the imaginary part. Yes, Fourier and z-transforms, for filter design.

If you have time. Can you elaborate?

[fragment]

Reading a recent article by Elinor Ostrom (abstract (http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/325/5939/419)). She's recent co-winner of the Nobel economics prize, and seems to have done some interesting work on the factors that encourage people to organise amongst themselves to sustainably use common resources. Interestingly she only identifies one governance-related factor as important in avoiding tragedies-of-the-commons, and it's to do with users being in control: "When users... have full autonomy at the collective-choice level to craft and enforce some of their own rules, they face lower transaction costs as well as lower costs in defending a resource against invasion by others."

In the examples given, "users" seems to refer to individuals or small groups in local communities, so in these cases defending resources would seem to include keeping businesses from outside the area from accessing the resources unless they conform to the locally-made rules. This would be backed up by the fact that such businesses don't share with locals various user attributes that Ostrom identifies as important, such as common ethical standards and attitudes on the importance of the resource. I'm sure I'm going way beyond what Ostrom might say, but the idea that if you get both government and corporations out of the way people are more likely to sort out their own resource issues in a sustainable way holds a lot of appeal.

[Shake]

I don't have much time, Ohm, but the wiki on the Z-transform (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Z-transform) is pretty thorough and does a good job of explaining it. It also discusses its relation to the Laplace and Fourier transforms. These are all useful tools for solving certain types of problems.

At the heart of such things, is a very important concept known as convolution (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convolution). The animations there speak volumes to explain the mathematics behind it. They show some relatively simple cases, but I think it's enough to get the general idea of the concept. Once you have this idea down, it's easier to move on to the transforms. As the first link I posted mentions, they deal with seeing how functions in the time domain react in the frequency domain, and vice-versa. Convolution is a messy process. Not terribly difficult (necessarily), but tedious. Using transforms allows one to use easier operators, such as straight multiplication, rather than convolution.

[beyelzu]

Today I learned about primates in the oligicene, that even millions of years ago,there were some primates that were like modern prosimians and other primates that were like modern antrhopoids.


I also leaned that primates came to south america from africe, and rats too.

[Dingfod]

Who told you that? Some sciencey-type, I bet.

[Ensign Steve]

I hear Africe is beautiful this time of year.

[Dingfod]

And those ant rhopoids are something else over there.

[fragment]

Been teaching myself matrix algebra.

[Shake]

Bleah. I hated linear algebra. It always gave me fits.

Today, we learned how to do convolutions of periodic signals. Very similar to the above process, but with a slight twist. Still not too difficult once you get the hang of it.

[Kael]

Today I learned about conversational past participles in my German class. As one might imagine, this rocked my world. :8D

[Shake]

This class (digital signal processing) has also provided some good real world stuff. The professor was good to relate concepts to say CD recordings, like why your audio CD is made up from 44,000 samples per second of whatever music you're listening to. Your CD player has to know that rate in order to accurately reproduce the music.

Very simply, you have to take the highest frequency used (for audio approximately 15 kHz), doubling it, and then adding some extra room to prevent any 'aliasing', which is the addition, or more accurately, some overlapping of the high frequency information.

[Plant Woman]

Yesterday, I learned nothing, it was a holiday, so no school.

Monday however I learned all about Flash buttons. I am having fun designing with Flash. A new creative tool for my tool box. :bliss:

[Qingdai]

Today I learned what a serious low blood sugar looks like in a diabetic. Then I got to see the various ways (some ineffective) in which one can raise one's blood sugar.
I got to call 911 too.

Scared the shit out of me!

[Dingfod]

I learned that English is a bastard language with many fathers. Bungalow, a word I've heard several times recently as I've been looking at real estate, is Hindi, meaning low thatched cottage, particularly in Bengal.

[Ensign Steve]

We get a lot of our words from Hindi, including pajamas and shampoo. It makes me wonder what kind of naked, unwashed heathens we Euros were before the Indians schooled us.

[BDS]

What are pajamas and shampoo?

I learned that Marianne Moore, the famous modernist poet, idolized Christy Mathewson as a young woman. This is significant in the battle for supremacy between baseball and gridiron football. No woman of quality ever loved a football player.

[Watser?]

I learned something today watching The Weakest Link.

Turns out the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man are not part of the UK or of the European Union :nowai:

They are Crown Dependencies (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crown_dependencies).

[Dingfod]

We get a lot of our words from Hindi, including pajamas and shampoo. It makes me wonder what kind of naked, unwashed heathens we Euros were before the Indians schooled us.Without Hindi we would be without a cot or cushion to rest upon, a dinghy to row, gunnysacks for thugs to haul their stolen tom-toms to the jungle, pundits wouldn't be pariahs or juggernauts, we couldn't lacquer our polo mallets, nor would we be able to have a toddy on the veranda just to name a few.

[ceptimus]

I learned something today watching The Weakest Link.

Turns out the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man are not part of the UK or of the European Union :nowai:

They are Crown Dependencies (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crown_dependencies).
I knew that :yup: I thought you were going to say that you learned that Ann Robinson is a plastic faced bitch, but I guess you knew that already.

[Watser?]

Well, duh :D

[Ensign Steve]

We get a lot of our words from Hindi, including pajamas and shampoo. It makes me wonder what kind of naked, unwashed heathens we Euros were before the Indians schooled us.Without Hindi we would be without a cot or cushion to rest upon, a dinghy to row, gunnysacks for thugs to haul their stolen tom-toms to the jungle, pundits wouldn't be pariahs or juggernauts, we couldn't lacquer our polo mallets, nor would we be able to have a toddy on the veranda just to name a few.

Heathens, I tell ya.

[Ensign Steve]

The guitar riffs and solo in the Beastie Boys' No Sleep Till Brooklyn were played by Slayer guitarist Kerry King.

:carson:

:themoreyouknow:

[ChuckF]

Offensive non-mutual collateral estoppel! :larrybounce:

[Sock Puppet]

Oh shit, he's got Law Student Tourette's.

[Demimonde]

I learned I need to go on a roadtrip (http://www.bookedupac.com/) during my break. :eager:

The website is lame but the place looks fantastic! (http://www.bookedupac.com/id1.html)

[Dingfod]

Indeed.

TO OUR CUSTOMERS, ALARMED OR OTHERWISE

The economic crisis that forced us to consider closing at the end of this

year has mostly passed. To a large extent it was a crisis felt by

hundreds of antiquarian booksellers in America.

Many closed. We, fortunately, won't have to.

We will be open regular hours (10-5, Monday-Saturday) and welcome

all readers, dealers, browsers.

We are sorry for the alarm, but things did look discouraging for awhile.

Profound change has come to the antiquarian book business in the last

few years---when and if it will stop nobody knows but Booked Up, for

now and we hope for a long time to come, is still in the game.

[Shake]

The guitar riffs and solo in the Beastie Boys' No Sleep Till Brooklyn were played by Slayer guitarist Kerry King.

:carson:

:themoreyouknow:

Well know, this was an important tidbit of knowledge. I am glad I now know that.

[Sauron]

Today I learned why (and under what conditions) companies might choose to offer warrants or convertible bonds vs. offering equity, or taking on additional debt.

Reasons to Issue Warrants and Convertibles

A firm issuing convertibles vs straight debt because convertibles pay lower interest rate

A. If stock price later rises, conversion is indicated – company should have issued straight debt because now the company has to issue chunk of equity - dilutes ownership share and per-share value;

B. If stock price later falls,or the rise is not high enough to justify conversion – firm is better off than issuing straight debt. Interest on convertible is lower, and conversion never happens.

A firm issuing convertibles vs common stock

A. If stock price later rises, conversion is indicated – company is better off

B. If stock price later falls,or the rise is not high enough to justify conversion – firm should have issued stock. Firm would have gotten more $ at the earlier inflated price, compared to current price - conversion never happens

[wildernesse]

I learned that I would like to punch Bronson Alcott in the face.

[Gonzo]

Today I --->LEARNED<--- about the 1215 Magna Carta. I read about it's history and it's impact in judicial review / habeas corpus. The politics of the monarch King John II and his barons I found to be mighty interesting. And even more especially the future relationships between the Magna Carta adoring Jurist Edward Coke and Queen Elisabeth / the Parliament. He publicly acclaimed the document throughout his life, but allowed her decisions to override his beliefs. An interesting fellow.

I found it strange that it is so barely mentioned in US classrooms...
No, I don't.

[Gonzo]

This thread makes me realize how little I pay attention and/or am taught nearly nothing from my instructors.

I've noticed the only time I learn anything is when I take the initiative to teach it to myself.

[Angakuk]

I learned about the Magna Carta in school. I must have been doing something wrong.

[BrotherMan]

To be fair, Angakuk, they did just finish writing it.

:shiftier:

[livius drusus]

:iceburn:

[Angakuk]

You are right, of course. It was in Current Events, not History.

[Gonzo]

I mean, all they ever do is make it a bold faced vocab word with little information.

Also, as I said, I aint learner.

[Angakuk]

I am truly sorry that your school sucked so badly at providing you with an education. That was not my experience. I am no apologist for the public school system and I am well aware that it is deeply flawed. However, I somehow managed to acquire a decent education despite those flaws and often despite my own attempts to circumvent the process.

[Gonzo]

I've had a lot of brilliant teachers at my school, several I never had the priviledge to have classes with, and several I had. This year, though, they're all pretty mediocre.

For example, I take a course called AP BIO with my ninth grade Health teacher as the instructor (I am now in 12th grade, though I really have trouble relating to these dramatic slags that are high school childrens). Now this course is supposed to be a college level experience. Whatever. Let me first point out that she did not teach it ever before. In previous years a younger teacher who loved the class did. This lady, however, was forced into teaching it (reluctantly) because of the seniority bull. Why have somebody who didn't even WANT to teach a class replace somebody who was passionate about it? I don't understand. The problem is that she starts every single week lecturing us for about twenty minutes about how awful we all did on the previous test. She does ask us how she can help deliver the material better, but tells us it is our fault for "not taking the class seriously" and ignores most suggestions. It reminds me of the effect of Jimmy Carter's Malaise speech where he blamed everything on the people of the nation and had no real answer to the issues as a leader. Anyway, to contrast this, this teacher (while teaching) gets easilly distracted from explianing things and begins to chit chat with the masses of female students in the room. Then about five minutes later does that "SSSSSSSHHHHHHHHH" buisiness to try to shut everybody up. Then five minutes later she does it again. Then she complains more about how we never get anything done. When she delivers notes, she does not ever elaborate- but only reads them outloud. The tests drive me wild, too. I take my own tedious notes but the questions are never about concepts, they are bits of trivial info here and there. Argh.

I like my French II class, but it's still unfulfilling. Too much singing and watching movies. Fun, but not helping one bit.

One teacher is stupendous, and I have her for three more classes this year English, Speech, and Drama. She's like a grandmother to us and I also had her last year.

Since they cut the Creative Writing teacher job, however, I pretty much gave up on the place.

I look forward to college.

[Gonzo]

I recently watched an interview on CSPAN with this woman who had compiled a series of US HISTORY books and she did quite some talking on instituting a program among teachers that had them teach eachother. Not about teaching method, but the actual content and how they went about delivering it to their pupils. I very much liked this idea. And I dreamed about what my other teachers would have been like - had they ever sat in on a lesson by my old Psycology instructor, Mr. Lynch. I think anyone would have been impressed by his methods, if not inspired.

[erimir]

It reminds me of the effect of Jimmy Carter's Malaise speech where he blamed everything on the people of the nation and had no real answer to the issues as a leader.You mean the one where he said: "I'm asking you for your good and for your nation's security to take no unnecessary trips, to use carpools or public transportation whenever you can, to park your car one extra day per week, to obey the speed limit, and to set your thermostats to save fuel" when discussing how to make America an energy-secure nation?

I guess that depends on whether you consider those real answers. Those things would've helped, of course. But that actually seems like a pretty Libertarian thing to say... a lot of times they say what people ought to do (even though we all know they won't), but don't want to put incentives into practice that will actually get them to do it. "Just say 'NO' to oil."

[BDS]

I learned that the team with the best record in Major League Baseball during the strike-shortened season of 1994 was the now-defunct Montreal Expos. The Expos had an all-star out field that year, comprising Moises Alou, Marquis Grissom, and Larry Walker. In addition, Ken Hill went 16-5, and 23-year-old Pedro Martinez was 11-5, embarking on a Hall-of-Fame career. The Expos never had any money, and the team was broken up. They never won anything before or since -- the one year they had a great team, the strike prevented them from a possible World Series berth.

How I learned this is also sort of cool -- I have a friend whom I knew in college. He recently retired from his drudge-like 25-year job with the I.R.S. Wondering what to do, he decided to write a book about Frederick the 2nd, Holy Roman Emeperor and King of Sicily in the 13th century. His friends in the publishing industry told him that it would never get published (he has no credentials whatsoever as a historian or an author), but the first publisher he sent it to accepted it, and gave him an advance (the book is finished, but needs to be edited, etc.). He wants to write his second book about the '94 Expos -- which is how I learned about them.

[Gonzo]

It reminds me of the effect of Jimmy Carter's Malaise speech where he blamed everything on the people of the nation and had no real answer to the issues as a leader.You mean the one where he said: "I'm asking you for your good and for your nation's security to take no unnecessary trips, to use carpools or public transportation whenever you can, to park your car one extra day per week, to obey the speed limit, and to set your thermostats to save fuel" when discussing how to make America an energy-secure nation?

I guess that depends on whether you consider those real answers. Those things would've helped, of course. But that actually seems like a pretty Libertarian thing to say... a lot of times they say what people ought to do (even though we all know they won't), but don't want to put incentives into practice that will actually get them to do it. "Just say 'NO' to oil."

It's not about the content or purpose of a speech, it's about the response it gets.

That is why I, like Hitler, am a rabble rouser.



Seriously, though, you can't continuously be negative as a teacher it is counter productive. She, like Carter, tells us what WE can do, but never pays any attention to what SHE can do for us. I guess I look at the classroom as a mutual-group effort. Not one sided. The same with the nation or whatever else. I actually like Carter... but I am not an expert on the guy.

:D It's like this:

I only remember a few things about Jimmy Carter. He had big lips and liked peanuts. I now know that Jimmy Carter was and is a good man.

-Kurt Cobain in his Journals



I will go read it again though, because you make a good point. Maybe it's I who needs to try harder.

[Gonzo]

The Crisis of Confidence:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/carter/filmmore/ps_crisis.html

[erimir]

Obviously his speech didn't have the intended effect.

I'm not sure exactly why that was. A combination of factors, most likely. People don't want to be told to use less, and there were other people who wanted to tell them that there was no need for them to use less. And probably he wasn't able to get much of the policies in that speech put into law.

Of course, we're still dealing with the same problem now.

[wildernesse]

I think it's worser now.

[Gonzo]

Today I learned that Jimmy Carter is a much more inspirational leader than my Bio teacher. I was surprised at how relevant it was and still is. Now I wish I hadn't gotten got caught up in the post-Carter bashing.

http://blisted.breakthrough.tv/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/jimmy-carter.jpg

I will continue to travel this country, to hear the people of America. You can help me to develop a national agenda for the 1980s. I will listen and I will act. We will act together. These were the promises I made three years ago, and I intend to keep them.
Little by little we can and we must rebuild our confidence. We can spend until we empty our treasuries, and we may summon all the wonders of science. But we can succeed only if we tap our greatest resources -- America's people, America's values, and America's confidence




I usually blame Congress for just about everything. :P

[Shake]

Gonzo, do you know where you will go to college or what you will study there? Just wondering.

[Gonzo]

I want to go to St John's College (http://www.stjohnscollege.eu) with all my little heart. It is a Great Books curriculum liberal arts school and the oldest college in America, but seeing that it is 50,000$ a year and I am a poor boy (nobody loves me) - I will be attending Northern Michigan University in 2011 to study English Literature/ Creative Writing (after going to a public college for one year). I would like to extend my education past that as well, but I really only want to write books. I hate the idea of debt. -.-

[Gonzo]

Indeed.

TO OUR CUSTOMERS, ALARMED OR OTHERWISE

The economic crisis that forced us to consider closing at the end of this

year has mostly passed. To a large extent it was a crisis felt by

hundreds of antiquarian booksellers in America.

Many closed. We, fortunately, won't have to.

We will be open regular hours (10-5, Monday-Saturday) and welcome

all readers, dealers, browsers.

We are sorry for the alarm, but things did look discouraging for awhile.

Profound change has come to the antiquarian book business in the last

few years---when and if it will stop nobody knows but Booked Up, for

now and we hope for a long time to come, is still in the game.


How to sell a book:

http://www.routergod.com/fabio/fabio_haunting_love_stories.gif
Put this sexy beast on the cover.

I hope the local BookWorld will stay open for my entire lifespan. I fear a world without paper books. Curse the Kendel. Curse it too hell.
I think we have my Grandmother's original print of The Wizard of Oz around here somewhere but I remember it being pretty shabby.

Check out this man who loved books too much (http://www.allisonhooverbartlett.com/book.html). I laughed about this, thinking back to the times I have mulled over stealing some of my favorites doctrines out of the Library. n_n

[Ohm]

Today is decided to solidify the concept of Journalism. It's funny. While in Skeptic.com,I read a short really column about "Everything I Needed to Know About Skepticism I Learned from Scooby-Doo (http://www.skeptic.com/the_magazine/archives/vol15n01.html)", skepticism for kids. I remember watching it as a kid. One particular statement that caught my eye was. Something like "All journalism are not true.", If you remember a pup named scooby doo, you'll remember freddy's constant reading of "The National exaggerator".

This experience made me a little bit more selective of what sorts of Articles I read.Also made me buy magazine for updates in the scientific community, in between books.

[naturalist.atheist]

You might find a recent article in Science News interesting. It was about how most of the reported results in scientific papers is wrong.

[Ohm]

You might find a recent article in Science News interesting. It was about how most of the reported results in scientific papers is wrong.

Can you point me to the article? Let me check it out.

[erimir]

I learned about liberals and conservatives and the metaphors that inform their language for describing political issues:

George Lakoff: Moral Politics

George Lakoff is a pretty cool guy.

[mickthinks]

:dddp:

[mickthinks]

Yes (but don't let C*berst see you say that)

[erimir]

Does Coberst have a beef with George Lakoff?

[Sock Puppet]

About half of coberst's posts include quotes from George Lakoff.

[Gonzo]

Have you actually read half of his posts? o__o

learn anything new?

[Janet]

Does relearning things count? If so, what I learned today was that GIYI is not an appropriate answer to a reference question. It seems I need to learn that quite frequently.

[Sock Puppet]

I don't read every bit of twaddle coberst spews, but I do read a representative sampling. Mostly I learn what new way he has found to overgeneralize, hand-wave, or otherwise demonstrate how little he understands what he thinks he's addressing. It's sort of like playing the Jumble in the newspaper: not terribly fun or challenging, but a way to kill some time when I have a surplus of it.

[Ohm]

Well, today I found out that during Nucleosynthesis (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nucleosynthesis), The fusion of two Hydrogen atoms do not make Helium. You need four Hydrogen atoms. Because Two Hydrogen Atoms make "Deuterium (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deuterium)". 2 Deuterium + 2 Hydrogen atoms make Helium. All thanks to "Proton-Proton Chain reaction".

[naturalist.atheist]

Another way to look at it is that a group of four hadrons will require four hadrons.