""If more science graduates are desired, the findings suggest the importance of policies at younger ages that lead students to enter college better prepared (PDF) to study science.""

Secondary and college students are subjected to only the most minimal of discouragement compared with what they will experience in the real world of academic and industrial science. Research progress is based on multiple failures, punctuated by brief, intense flashes of insight. There is a lot of chance involved, because there is a great deal of educated guesswork leading to theories and experiments.

High school, and college barely begin to prepare you for grad school and life in the real world.

As a former headhunter, here is my best advice:

1. Avoid headhunters. All they'll do is attach a commission handicap toward hiring you.

2. Find out where there are places nearby where you'd like to work and are qualified.

3. Prepare a killer resume that describes your accomplishments in the terms of the job you could do for those employers.

4. Find out who the hiring managers are, and what positions, if any, are open.

5. Have three copies of your resume available. Walk in the front door cold, and tell the person at the front desk your name and who you are there to see about the job.

6. If the front desk person asks for a resume, give it to them.

Generally, this will get you in front of the hiring authority. While you're talking with that person, aside from telling them all about the great things you can do, ASK FOR THE JOB! "This sounds great! I can start on Monday, would that be too soon?" etc.

Good luck.

Ok, point taken.

However, now consider that virtually every desktop computer could be the equivalent of one neuron, but with vastly more memory storage and data processing capabilities, and that every computer is connected to every other computer via this internet thing.

Now suppose someone were to write a little program that would make these computers the actual equivalents of a conscious neural network, all connected together into one, gigantic sentient being, a super intelligent botnet.

Nerve impulses travel along nerve fibers as pulses of membrane depolarization. Within our brains and bodies, this is adequate speed for thinking and control. However, relative to the speed of light, our nerve impulses are laughably slow.

The maximum speed of a nerve impulse is about 200 miles per hour.

The speed of light is over 3 million times that fast.

Now consider what will happen when we create a sentient, electronic being that has as many neurons as we do, but its nerve impulses travel at the speed of light.

In terms of intelligence, that creation will be to us as we are to worms.

Totally agree. Not only has that time not come, it will not come until multiple disasters wreak devastation to the extent that the world is forced to allocate the funds that would be required to mitigate the problems. The recent tornadoes are a taste of things to come. Unfortunately, given the way humans are, we will probably not come to that pass until it is too late.

Like the canary in the coal mine. When the bird drops dead, no one would claim that the dead bird caused the gas that killed it, and no fool would stay in there long enough to succumb.

Similarly, climate change deniers have a problem understanding that the messenger is not the problem, or the cause of it.

..generally carry much stiffer penalties to compensate for the difficulty of enforcement, and to more effectively discourage breaking them.

Unfortunately, this doesn't work well as it creates a new group of criminals who are then likely to commit other crimes. They also engender contempt of the legal system and the police, leading to increased cheating in other areas.

You could call these laws "gateways to crime."

Gee, I'm completely mystified, so it must be TRUE!

Switched to linux some years back after getting fed up with BSA threats and MS paranoia, but kept one WinXP box for accounting, sitting in a lonely corner with no net connection. Added a couple Macs for marketing and admin functions. Then MS appeared to mostly get its act together, so a couple of Win7 boxes were added. I retired, and put a Win7 box on my desk for fun and games. So, current snapshot is linux for R&D operations and sales, Win7 for admin and goofing off, and WinXP (in isolation) for accounting.

Interesting, and disturbing, that many people seem to believe that if they write voluminously about something, the case is proven.

I've always found that truth can usually be stated succinctly, while lies require plenty of smokescreen.

Had to translate "attobreadcrumbs" to "femtomoles."

This kind of imposed "security" measure generally fails to provide any additional security, while at the same time treating children as criminals.

People treated as criminals, frequently respond by becoming so and thus provide continuing justification for the "security" measures that caused the problem in the first place.

Academic publishers have had a very long and profitable run, and are now fighting back against the free flow of information that they once thrived upon. They are fighting a losing game.

Publication has now become essentially cost free, the only costs being those to maintain the online information resources, and the time invested to review. Since reviewers were never paid in the past, and because data storage and access are incredibly inexpensive, and becoming even less expensive, and because finding and researching subjects is far faster and more convenient in digital form, the old paper journal format will eventually pass away.

As a result, the only option for the old publishing industry is to try and legislate protections for its business model. Ultimately this too will fail, as economic and other considerations make the old model unsustainable.