SciFri "The World is Flat" podcast linky: http://snipurl.com/1pq37
All SciFri podcasts: http://www.sciencefriday.com/feed/
August can also be the time for good rants! Bob <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, let's
hear more! Health care, religion, breaking 'Net Neutrality', poisoned
food [this week it's "organic" soybeans from China], Katrina, impending
Hurricane Dean, are all examples of how technology and everything else
are being hurt by this incompetent gummint administration that hates
gummint--that all needs to be fixed while we also fix technology.
The future is bright when the idealogues step aside and make room for
people who care to work toward a positive future for everyone. The
future is bright when the corporate shills step aside to make room for
conscientious, creative public servants who work for 'we, the people'.
As of August 25th, we've lived in a passive solar home for 27
years--MidAtlantic region [heating/cooling cost this year ~ $300]. I see
few other similar homes in the US. I still hear, see, read propaganda
that indicates that our experience is nearly impossible, yet my
neighbors and many others complain about how expensive energy is. There
was another uninformed propaganda piece against [cheap] wind energy in
yesterday's Delaware newspaper, claiming that wind turbines are
dangerous, loud-- only a few days after I stopped in Somerset, PA to
photograph the wind [turbines] farm which are quiet, stable, and a month
after examining close-up another remarkably quiet, powerful wind farm in
SW Portugal.
I mention this because it's important to discuss computers and
technology in relation to everything else. Where one technology is
denigrated, misrepresented, or worse, denied, others can also be
adversely affected.
Betty
Earlier today I was replaying a podcast of a Science Friday interview
with Thomas Friedman about his recent book "The World is Flat." An
important part of Friedman book is a warning about the USA's
mismanagement of technology. Much like the post here about Gov. Rick
Perry's line-item veto of $2.7 million of education funding. Friedman
spoke of Bush's slashing of funding for the National Science Foundation
and scientific research in general. Friedman decried a management style
that did not value asking questions because all questions were answered
by ideology (wasn't this in vogue during a period of history called the
Dark Ages?). Friedman also pointed out that if the USA stops getting it
right the rest of the world will get it right and the USA will be left
behind in the world of technology and the general world economy.
So in a bigger sense the recent discussion of health care and Bill Nye is
about broken computers. Just not computers that are already broken. Some
of us are trying to figure out how to keep our computers from being
broken in the future.
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