http://www.france24.com/en/20170226-renowned-french-historian-detained-10-hours-us-customs-officials
"A French historian was detained for 10 hours by US customs officials
this week while on his way to an academic conference in Texas.
Henry Rousso, 62, a specialist in the history of World War II who has taught at the Sorbonne in Paris and Columbia University in New York, was held for questioning after his flight from Paris landed in Houston on Wednesday."
While on the one hand Trump wants to create new jobs in the US, on the other he is single-handedly destroying international tourism and travel to the US. No one wants to travel to a country where they will be treated like a terrorist or some sort of criminal.
Sunday, February 26, 2017
Tuesday, February 21, 2017
solar water filtration system
http://www.salon.com/2017/02/21/universitys-solar-still-improves-ancient-water-cleaning-technology/
In November, the researchers registered a company called Sunny Clean Water and are hoping to have a production-ready version of their prototype by the end of the year. "
I believe clean water will be one of the most important problems in the near future, around the world. Any cheap method like this will be very welcome.
"But
rising awareness of water scarcity issues has led researchers like Gan
and his team in Buffalo to apply new techniques to make solar
distillation more efficient. Their solar vapor generator and condenser
uses porous paper covered with carbon black, a material that has a
near-zero reflectivity and therefore absorbs a higher amount of solar
heat. The carbon-covered paper is then placed over floating white
polystyrene foam and a thermal insulator that helps concentrate the
solar heat onto the carbon layer. The device is then placed on the
surface of a dirty water source while the paper acts as a sponge and the
carbon as an evaporator. The vapor then condenses on the angled wall of
the vaporizer, seeping into a culvert that collects the potable water.
Gan
and his team have claimed that their prototype produces as much as
three times more potable water as comparable solar stills, or about 4.2
cups an hour under sunny conditions. The average healthy adult needs
about eight cups of water a day. Crucially, this is all done using cheap
materials that can be scaled, meaning arrays of floating stills could
be tapped in emergency situations to provide a considerable amount of
fresh drinking water to a disaster-struck community, especially in the
sunny parts of Africa, Asia and Latin America.In November, the researchers registered a company called Sunny Clean Water and are hoping to have a production-ready version of their prototype by the end of the year. "
I believe clean water will be one of the most important problems in the near future, around the world. Any cheap method like this will be very welcome.
Wednesday, February 15, 2017
We need to completely revamp how we teach our children
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/feb/15/robots-schools-teaching-children-redundant-testing-learn-future?CMP=twt_gu
"In the future, if you want a job, you must be as unlike a machine as possible: creative, critical and socially skilled. So why are children being taught to behave like machines?
Children learn best when teaching aligns with their natural exuberance, energy and curiosity. So why are they dragooned into rows and made to sit still while they are stuffed with facts?
We succeed in adulthood through collaboration. So why is collaboration in tests and exams called cheating?
Governments claim to want to reduce the number of children being excluded from school. So why are their curriculums and tests so narrow that they alienate any child whose mind does not work in a particular way?
The best teachers use their character, creativity and inspiration to trigger children’s instinct to learn. So why are character, creativity and inspiration suppressed by a stifling regime of micromanagement?
There is, as Graham Brown-Martin explains in his book Learning {Re}imagined, a common reason for these perversities. Our schools were designed to produce the workforce required by 19th-century factories. The desired product was workers who would sit silently at their benches all day, behaving identically, to produce identical products, submitting to punishment if they failed to achieve the requisite standards. Collaboration and critical thinking were just what the factory owners wished to discourage."
Finland has started to completely revamp their educational methods. Let's look to them for advice.
"In the future, if you want a job, you must be as unlike a machine as possible: creative, critical and socially skilled. So why are children being taught to behave like machines?
Children learn best when teaching aligns with their natural exuberance, energy and curiosity. So why are they dragooned into rows and made to sit still while they are stuffed with facts?
We succeed in adulthood through collaboration. So why is collaboration in tests and exams called cheating?
Governments claim to want to reduce the number of children being excluded from school. So why are their curriculums and tests so narrow that they alienate any child whose mind does not work in a particular way?
The best teachers use their character, creativity and inspiration to trigger children’s instinct to learn. So why are character, creativity and inspiration suppressed by a stifling regime of micromanagement?
There is, as Graham Brown-Martin explains in his book Learning {Re}imagined, a common reason for these perversities. Our schools were designed to produce the workforce required by 19th-century factories. The desired product was workers who would sit silently at their benches all day, behaving identically, to produce identical products, submitting to punishment if they failed to achieve the requisite standards. Collaboration and critical thinking were just what the factory owners wished to discourage."
Finland has started to completely revamp their educational methods. Let's look to them for advice.
Sunday, February 12, 2017
graphic artist loses to robots, turns to alternative
https://arstechnica.com/business/2017/02/how-being-replaced-by-a-machine-turned-this-graphic-artist-into-an-activist/
"The biggest change he’s referring to is the technologically driven separation of people from traditional jobs. Experts predict that, by 2020, over 5 million jobs will be lost due to robotics, AI, 3D printing, and other technologies—largely in office and administrative work. But other sectors will be affected as well. After all, robots can deliver pizza, mop floors, make soup, work an assembly line, check in hotel guests, carry cargo onto battlefields, and perform surgery. It’s not too much of a stretch to imagine them one day displacing sex workers."
Trump wants to re-open coal mines, which is like bringing back buggie whips. We have to think more about what job displacement can mean. When I was young the magazine articles promised that robots would mean more leisure time for workers, not less pay and wealth transfer to corporations. That promise could still be realized.
"The biggest change he’s referring to is the technologically driven separation of people from traditional jobs. Experts predict that, by 2020, over 5 million jobs will be lost due to robotics, AI, 3D printing, and other technologies—largely in office and administrative work. But other sectors will be affected as well. After all, robots can deliver pizza, mop floors, make soup, work an assembly line, check in hotel guests, carry cargo onto battlefields, and perform surgery. It’s not too much of a stretch to imagine them one day displacing sex workers."
Trump wants to re-open coal mines, which is like bringing back buggie whips. We have to think more about what job displacement can mean. When I was young the magazine articles promised that robots would mean more leisure time for workers, not less pay and wealth transfer to corporations. That promise could still be realized.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
