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Comment this is a two-way street (Score 1) 693

by Chaseshaw (#34371272) Attached to: 200 Students Admit Cheating After Professor's Online Rant
I think cheating is a SERIOUS issue and have no patience or respect for what these students did. HOWEVER, I think it's sloppy teaching to reuse the same midterms and questions over the years. Professors are paid to teach. Them writing their own material should be a part of their job description. They know this stuff inside and out--that's why they're teaching it. Now, I understand their job is busy and difficult in many ways, but I think recycling test material like this shows a disconnect from the professor and his students, and from the professors and the material. At least have some essay questions, or rewrite even 25% of the multiple choice questions would be a great start. Just having the TAs copy and paste is NOT an appropriate way to teach or to write an exam.
Science

Submission + - The Kilogram Is No Longer Valid, Says U.S. (foxnews.com) 2

Submitted by Velcroman1
Velcroman1 writes: For 130 years, the kilogram has weighed precisely one kilogram. Hasn't it? The U.S. government isn't so sure. The precise weight of the kilogram is based on a platinum-iridium cylinder manufactured 130 years ago; it's kept in a vault in France at the International Bureau of Weights and Measures. Forty of the units were manufactured at the time, to standardize the measure of weight. But due to material degradation and the effects of quantum physics, the weight of those blocks has changed over time. That's right, the kilogram no longer weighs 1 kilogram, according to the National Institute of Standards and Technology. And it's time to move to a different standard anyway. A proposed revision would remove the final connection to that physical bit of matter, said Ambler Thompson, a NIST scientist involved in the international effort. “We get rid of the last artifact."
Facebook

Submission + - SPAM: Police To Get Facebook Lessons

Submitted by jhernik
jhernik writes: Detectives will be trained to track down criminals on social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter

The police are to receive training on how to use Facebook and Twitter to catch people committing serious crimes. The National Policing Improvement Agency (NPIA) will overhaul its training modules to include sessions on the social networking sites for detectives.

Detective Training
“This programme is a vital part of the career pathway for detectives and the new training covers sensitive areas of policing where limited guidance existed previously,” said deputy chief constable Nick Gargan, acting head of the NPIA, in a statement to the Press Association.

“These improvements are exactly what detectives need to tackle the challenges and complexities of modern policing effectively,” he added. “The changes underline the importance to having a national agency to provide guidance and train detectives to a single high standard so they can work on investigations in any part of the country and give their colleagues and the public the best quality service in fighting crime.”
Link to Original Source
Crime

Thief Returns Stolen Laptop Contents On USB Stick 352

Posted by samzenpus from the it's-been-a-pleasure-being-your-victim dept.
While it's true that Sweden is responsible for unleashing IKEA and ABBA on humanity, not everything they produce is terrible. Their thieves are some of the most considerate in the world. An unnamed professor at Umeå University received a USB stick with all his data after his laptop was stolen. From the article: "The professor, who teaches at Umeå University in northern Sweden, was devastated when ten years of work stored on his laptop was stolen. But to his surprise, a week after the theft, the entire contents of his laptop were posted to him on a USB stick. 'I am very happy,' the unnamed professor told the local Västerbottens-Kuriren newspaper. 'This story makes me feel hope for humanity.'"

Comment slippery slope (Score 1) 314

by Chaseshaw (#33901342) Attached to: Webvention Demanding $80k For Rollover Images
Small-time software patent holders should get together and sue Webvention, citing that they are seeking to destroy the ability to patent software by ANYONE through their overly-aggressive and overly-ambitious campaigns. I, personally, think that innovative ideas should be rewarded. But just as the pdf went public, there are some things that are too useful or too common to make claiming them reasonable. Companies like Webvention are going to be responsible for the death of software patents.

Comment Yerkes Dodson Law (Score 2, Informative) 547

by Chaseshaw (#31850060) Attached to: How Many Hours a Week Can You Program?
I'm in a very similar position. Coding something that is not interesting with a boss that hovers over me and thinks my productivity goes up if I spend an hour a day in meetings with her (she is not tech-saavy by any means and lacks any understanding of program developing). I'm pretty good at forcing myself to work, but end up with 45-50 minutes of good work in an hour. I chalk it up to the Yerkes-Dodson Law ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yerkes%E2%80%93Dodson_law ) which basically says productivity has an inverse-U shape as a function of creativity. If you're a grunt adding receipts you need pressure on you to do your job and get anything done, but if you are asked to solve a problem creatively using a computer (e.g. most software development--the path to the finished version is not always explicit), high pressure from above makes productivity go way down.

Submission + - Dyson launches the bladeless electric fan (ft.com)

Submitted by Chaseshaw
Chaseshaw writes: "Dyson claims the bladeless fan, which works by forcing a jet of air out of a narrow circular slit and then over an aerofoil-shaped blade, is at least as efficient as its bladed counterpart, more comfortable and much safer.Conventional electric fans have gone largely unchanged for years,” notes Mr Dyson. “The fundamental problem has remained the same for more than 125 years – the blades ‘chop’ the air creating an uneven airflow and unpleasant buffeting." Mr Dyson and his team of fluid dynamics engineers developed the technology behind the bladeless fan after studying the performance of an earlier Dyson invention, the Dyson Airblade commercial hand dryer that uses sheets of clean air travelling at 400mph to dry hands far more quickly and efficiently than rivals."

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