KLB

Oh you would make for an evil, evil teacher. I love it.

Umm, no. All high schools should be blocking it because at the high school and university levels one should not be using Wikipedia to research reports. Blocking it at the high school level would eliminate one short cut to learning. Doing reports isn't just about learning about a specific subject. It is also about learning to do independent research and critical thinking. Wikipedia, however, tries to spoon feed both to the reader. Quite simply depending upon Wikipedia for one's studies is robbing one of a critical part of the educational experience.

The library blocking Wikipedia sounds plausible, especially if the library is affiliated with a school that doesn't want its students using Wikipedia for "research".

That does pose an interesting question. Can one "ground" out electronic equipment in space such that surges can be passed harmlessly to the main structure? Is there some way one could dissipate such electrical surges?

You know, even the title of threads like this make my head hurt. I get some sinking feeling I'm going to be sucked into some sort of Star Trek like paradox.

I'm sure in time it will become a very reliable and very secure browser. It is just going to have six months to a year of really bad "teething pains". If Apple throws a lot of development effort behind Safari they may be able to compress this time frame to a certain degree. It will also probably make Safari a more secure browser on OS/X as well as it will start doing things itself that it is allowing the OS to do.

Neither I nor the article are saying its Windows fault for the security issues in Safari. What was being said in the article is that Safari was depending upon APIs in OS/X that handle the security issues. Since Windows doesn't have those APIs the security issues aren't being addressed. This isn't the OSes fault, as much the Safari developers having made security assumptions that were only true on OS/X. It is a classic case of unexpected things happening when a program is broken off and separated from the OS it matured with. Safari was never truly secure in and of itself, it just happened that OS/X provided the security blanket for Safari so Safari didn't need to worry about this itself.

I absolutely agree.

Here's a good explanation of why Safari is running into problems on Windows in regards to security: http://www.betanews.com/article/Day_One_for_Safari_for_Windows_Becomes_ZeroDay_Nightmare/1181661606 Basically Safari developers are use to having the protection of OS/X and as such Safari is handing things off to the OS that OS/X would then filter, but Windows doesn't. Where as IE and Firefox would handle those things themself and would filter out the requests before sending them to the OS.

I downloaded and tested the Windows Safari today on my WinxP Pro box. It works great. Based on some testing I did with my website a month or two back on Safari 2.0 running on a Mac, it appears to me that the Mac and Windows versions of Safari will render virtually identically. As others have said this is going to be a great boon for web developers as we will finally be able to test on all major browsers at the same time without having multiple computers or parallel installs of Windows and OS/X. While Safari may not steal lots of the Windows market share, I expect it will grow its overall market share mostly at the expense of MSIE. The only thing I did not like about Safari is the way it renders text. It makes text too thick. I really think that all browsers should render text the same way and since Opera, Firefox and MSIE all handle text in the same way, Safari should adopt the same text rendering behavior.

Sayonara³ has some good observations for strengthening the structure of SFN. Moving the detritus to the bottom of the forum index can help the primary forums gain more attention. I'd also suggest people starting more threads on topical issues in the news (e.g. EPA Clean Water Act rule changes). Although not every topical issue needs to be as divisive as global warming. Topical issues can garner more search engine traffic and references from blogs. Topical discussions can broaden the appeal of SNF and draw in new members. Not everyone who has an interest in science can discuss the deeper parts of science, especially when complex mathematics becomes involved. Sysco has some good observations about homework help. I like the way SFN shifts homework help threads to a "black hole". From an academic standpoint, students should be doing their own homework and from a forum growth standpoint catering to students wanting a "free lunch" as Sysco calls it does not help build dynamic discussions. In regards to the size of one forum vs. another, don't get caught in the trap that bigger is better. What really matters is the signal to noise ratio. I participate in several webmaster related forums and it is the smallest of the forums that has the best signal to noise ratio. It is also the smallest of those forums that I participate in the most. The big forums have such a poor signal to noise ratio that I rarely find threads I'm truly interested in participating in.

A couple months ago I saw a series of different news reports citing a study that found microwaving a wet sponge for about five minutes pretty much sterilized it. Microwaving a sponge after sending it through a dishwasher along with one's dishes is apparently a very good way to keep sponges sanitary.

I can bring my eyes to a crossed position and then keep one eye "crossed" while moving the other eye independently in all directions. I can even switch between eyes by moving one eye independently then bringing it to the crossed position and moving the other eye independently. What really freaks people out is when I do a "figure eight" where by I cross my eyes, then move my right eye down, out, up and back to the center then do the same to the left eye. Learning to do this was a matter of practice (and a few headaches in the beginning). As Dhondy expressed it is simply a matter of exaggerating the convergence of focus. One way to practice is to focus on the head of a pencil and then while moving it from the far right of one's vision to one's nose and then to the far left. After awhile one can learn to "focus" on an imaginary point and do the trick without any focus aid.

I realized that was the point you were trying to make. It's another case of two people's sarcasm being lost to emotionless text. Oh well.

If maybe their stated objectives were just a ploy to gain legitimacy? Face it, without cheaters most of these paper mills would be out of business.

My mother has been a college professor for many years and one trick she likes to do is hand out multiple versions of the same test. She found this to be a great way to cause cheaters to fail on their own without having to prove they cheated. Over the years she foiled many students this way.

I saw that Wyoming is at the top of the per-capita CO2 emissions. The state politicians are fuming about this because they say it isn't fair to count CO2 emissions on a per-capita basis as their CO2 emissions are the result of electricity generation that that the state exports to millions of people nationwide. I guess in a way they do have a point.

Kudos for such a tenacious paper grader. As far as I'm concerned the terms of service of those paper mills that their papers are only for research purposes is bull. This is nothing more than to cloak their service in some sort of legitimacy. I'm sure the vast number of papers purchased are actually turned in for class assignments. If these services were legit, they would make their paper databases available to anti-plagiarism software to index and compare against. If an essay writing service were to do this, however, we all know they would be out of business very quickly.

My site is very heavily used by chemistry students and my traffic falls by 1/2 during the summer months. The percentage drop in traffic used to be much worse, but I've worked really hard at making it more interesting to professionals by paying scientists in environmental and chemistry related fields to write articles for me. Oh that is really sad.

I mostly participate in webmaster/website publishing related forums, with SFN being one of the few science forums I have found that I actually like. The main website publishing related forums I participate in include: http://www.websitepublisher.net/forums/ (Small but VERY GOOD) http://www.sitepoint.com/forums/ (Big but pretty good) http://www.webmasterworld.com/ (To big and overinflated self opinion)

Personally I thought students should be in school year round, this way I wouldn't see a drop off of traffic to my website during the summer months. Oh I know that comment will get someone's goat.

Well the hearings are done for now, which means I can take a break from ten days of nearly constant reading of transcripts and commentary (at least 10 hours per day, probably more). For those who were following the hearings and commenting on them via Trust But Verify the science part of the hearings was the most interesting. Contrary to what the mainstream media tried to portray, the soap opera moments were just irrelevant and annoying detritus. What the hearings uncovered about procedures inside of the French testing laboratory LNDD are extremely disturbing and should cause great concern by anyone who ever has to have a drug test especially if it is being processed at LNDD. As a result of what I saw uncovered during the hearings I was compelled to write and publish (this past Tuesday) an extensive article which is mostly based on the cross examination of prosecution witnesses titled: "When science, peer review & independent experts are anything but" This article was followed up by a commentary by another member of my family who is not a cycling enthusiast but is a scientist and intimately familiar with good "chain of custody" practices and the need for carefully followed drug testing procedures. Her article is titled: "LNDD: The Chain of Custody was broken" If you are a scientist, athlete or someone who is occasionally drug tested due to your occupation, I think you will find both articles very disturbing especially considering most of the anti-doping efforts in sports (including this case) is being funded via your taxes regardless of the country you live in. If based on what you have read in the mainstream media you believe Floyd Landis is guilty, read my two articles then after words ask yourself this question: "Would you trust the fate of your life and career in the hands of the French drug testing lab LNDD?" At the end of those articles if you can not honestly say you absolutely would trust your fate in LNDD's hands, how can you have any scientific certainty that Floyd Landis's samples were truly positive and that he is guilty? Remember Floyd Landis's guilt is supposed to be based on pure science, not speculation, hunches, character traits or hearsay.

I properly setup cap and trade system creates a diminishing supply of credits where each year there are fewer annual credits available than the previous year. The continually diminishing allocation of credits eventually makes the value of the credits high enough that even the hardest to clean up industries decide it is cheaper to clean up than buy credits. This is very similar in concept as fishing quotas where fishermen can sell their quotas to someone else. The only real difference being if one does not use/sell the credits they use in one year they can roll those over to the next year. What also happens is that just like environmental groups buy up land to turn into preserves, they can also buy up credits and permanently retire them. The thing about a cap and trade system is that it allows for very short term results as the easiest to clean up industries get funding to clean up via the sale of their excess credits while the hardest to clean up industries/processes get the time they need to invent new technologies. Without the cap and trade part of the equation, buying carbon credits really isn't a long term solution, although it does give a short term infusion of investment into alternative energies.

If done as part of a well structured cap and trade system, carbon credits could be a highly effective means of reducing the most carbon emissions for the least amount of money. Some may recall that many years ago a similar cap and trade system was set up for pollution associated with acid rain. Over the years this cap and trade system has been very effective at reducing the total emissions of pollution associated with acid rain. The EPA has published a report on how to set up an effective cap and trade system at: http://www.epa.gov/airmarkets/cap-trade/index.html The idea is very simple in that the total amount of a specific pollutant that is released is capped at a specific level that over time is continually reduced until the desired level is reach. If polluters (e.g. a factory) wants to exceed their pollution allowance, they must purchase pollution allowances from another company that is not using all of their pollution allowances. This allows money to flow to those places that can most cost effectively reduce their emissions, while allowing those who can not cost effectively reduce their own emissions to instead pay someone else to reduce their emissions. In the end you have the greatest amount of reduction in emissions for the least amount of money. Now I don't know about Al Gore's carbon footprint nor his personal energy conservation measures, however I would like to point out a couple of things: 1) As a former Vice President of the United States he has different security requirements from the average citizen. From a security and safety standpoint (for both him and everyone else) it may not make sense for him to make routine use of commercial airlines. In this case purchasing carbon offsets would be totally appropriate. 2) Al Gore's primary occupation is public speaking, as such extensive travel is a necessary part of his occupation. We should not begrudge someone the ability to make a living. In this case we should simply expect Al Gore to reduce his travel related carbon footprint as much as is practical (given the concerns expressed above) and to offset his footprint with carbon credits (e.g. cap and trade as explained above). I would hope that even if he does live in a "mansion," that it considerations have been taken to make it as energy efficient as possible (e.g. it had better not be using inefficient lighting) and that the energy it does use comes from non-fossil fuel sources as much as is possible given geographic limitations (e.g. he can buy electricity from renewable sources). Whatever carbon footprint is remaining after all direct means of mitigation have been exhausted should then be offset with carbon credits. Reducing one's carbon footprint isn't about taking a vowel of poverty or denying oneself the fruits of their lifetime's work. It is about taking measures to reduce one's impact as much as is possible and to offset the remaining impacts by helping someone else also reduce their impact. The objective is to reduce the total amount of CO2 being released into the atmosphere by all of society. If through buying carbon credits someone else is able to say put solar panels on their home and thus reduce their CO2 emissions the end result is that less CO2 is being released and the objective is reached.

Most of our lights have been switched over to CFLs. This along with some other tactics (e.g. putting electronic devices on power cord electrical switches) has help to cut our electric usage by 20%. The only lights in our house that are not CFL are: 1) our entry hall light, which gets run for maybe 10 min a day at most; 2) bathroom vanity lights, which again get run for maybe 15 min a day at most; 3) two 60watt bedroom sconces which are P-type bulbs and are on touch sensitive dimmers, gets used maybe one hour a day on average (I can't find 60 watt equivalent P-type bulbs let alone ones that can work on dimmers); 4) seven 20 watt halogen display case lights for my rock collection (light color and intensity is critical), etc., which get run maybe an hour or so every couple of months; and 5) our refrigerator (like that matters ) I'd guess that about 80% to 90% of our total lighting usage is now on CFLs. I absolutely love the energy savings. It is so nice to keep an extra $20 per month in my wallet. I expect we will have a complete payback on the CFLs we purchased within four months of their purchase on average. I'll agree with Pangloss about the longevity of CFLs, I love the fact that I won't be replacing bulbs in our most used lamp every six months. Heck simple replacement costs of incandescent bulbs vs. CFLs make them a good buy even if one doesn't consider the electrical savings.