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Education

South Carolina To Give 1 Laptop Per School Child 279

Posted by kdawson from the begins-at-home dept.
ruphus13 sends in an OStatic article outlining the plans of the state of South Carolina, inspired by the One Laptop Per Child project, to provide laptops to local elementary school children. "The South Carolina Department of Education and the non-profit Palmetto Project have teamed up to get a laptop in the hands of every elementary school student in South Carolina... The OLPC/SC hopes to distribute as many as 50,000 laptops this spring to eligible students. The effort is underwritten and managed by the Palmetto Project, whose mission is to 'put new and creative ideas to work in South Carolina.' While low-performing school districts with limited resources are a special focus for the OLPC/SC, the group is adamant on one point: There are no free laptops. In order to receive a laptop, children need to give a small monetary donation — the project coordinators say a dollar or two is sufficient."It's not obvious from browsing around the OLPC/SC site what software the XO laptops will be running; but by following links one gets the impression that they will be powered by Linux, not XP.
Government

Obama Answers Science Policy Questionnaire 550

Posted by Soulskill from the one-down,-one-to-go dept.
thebestsophist writes "A couple months ago, Scientists and Engineers for America, Science Debate 2008, and a bunch of other science organizations sent McCain, Obama, and all the Congressional candidates a bunch of questions on science and technology. Topics included biosecurity, genetics research, and national security, as well as the more common questions on research and education. Well, Senator Obama just answered." Senator McCain has not responded to the questionnaire at this point in time, but the site has a profile of his views and actions relating to science policy, which provides a good basis for comparing the candidates' stances. We've previously discussed the differences between the two candidates' technology platforms. According to a recent NPR story, both candidates intend to keep politics out of science.

Comment Re:So we'd need to... (Score 1) 501

by Maverick TimeSurfer (#24289389) Attached to: Floating Cities On Venus

1) Wear suits to protect us from the poisonous atmosphere and lack of oxygen.

This is why you stay inside your comfortable, exceedingly roomy (it has to be, to stay up), floating city.

2) Stay under cover to protect us from the various radiation (no magnetic field as I understand it).

Venus's atmosphere is more than sufficient to protect you from radiation.

3) Keep a complex life support system functioning in a complex artificial environment where failure means death.

This part is true. But it's got some benefits that a Moon, Mars, or space colony lacks. Like, pressure is free, and if you breach the hull, you've got a slow leak with probably a few days to fix it before you start sinking dangerously, and possibly a CO2 poisoning risk if it's a really huge leak. And breathable air is cheap and readily available (just electrolyze CO2- don't even need to pressurize it like you do on Mars), unlike the Moon (where you need to crack it out of rocks or bring it with you) or space (where you just have to bring it with you).

Beware Your Online Presence 677

Posted by Zonk from the watch-what-you-put-out-there dept.
Mz6 wrote to mention an article in the NY Daily News stating that an increasing number of employers are Googling their prospective employees during the interview/hiring process. From the article: "'A friend of mine posted a picture of me on My Space with my eyes half closed and a caption that suggests I've smoked something illegal,' says Kluttz. While the caption was a joke, Kluttz now wonders whether the past two employers she interviewed with thought it was so funny. Both expressed interest in hiring Kluttz, but at the 11th hour went with someone else."

Clinton, Lieberman Propose CDC Investigate Games 429

Posted by Zonk from the truly-contagious-outbreak-of-puyo-pop dept.
Gamespot reports that Senators Clinton and Lieberman have asked the Centers for Disease control to investigate how games impact us poor deluded citizens. From the article: "Even though the legislation--called the Children and Media Research Advancement Act--does not include restrictions, it appears to be intended as a way to justify them. That's because a string of court decisions have been striking down antigaming laws because of a lack of hard evidence that minors are harmed by violence in video games. The original version of the bill earmarked $90 million for the study, but Lieberman press secretary Rob Sawicki said that the committee had approved the measure without any dollar figure and that such a figure would be added later during the appropriations process." Gamasutra has some background on the bill, which was originally proposed in 2003.

Comment intel holding back? (Score 1) 204

by vmircea (#9646394) Attached to: Bypassing Intel's Overclock Limit Reveals DDR2-667
Could it be that Intel is keeping DDR2-667 support for yet another revision of their new chipsets even though the memory support is clearly here today?

sure why not? intel could be postponing on brining out their biggest guns for later on when it would be better to shoot them off, they might also want to see what the competition will do and bring out before they bring out their best, but on the same note, who knows what else Intel might be holding back? They might have some other amazing thing that they are waiting to spring on the public at an appropriate time...

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