Archive for April, 2007

Famed singer Sheryl Crow has come up with the cure to “global warming”:

I have spent the better part of this tour trying to come up with easy ways for us all to become a part of the solution to global warming. Although my ideas are in the earliest stages of development, they are, in my mind, worth investigating. One of my favorites is in the area of forest conservation which we heavily rely on for oxygen. I propose a limitation be put on how many squares of toilet paper can be used in any one sitting. Now, I don’t want to rob any law-abiding American of his or her God-given rights, but I think we are an industrious enough people that we can make it work with only one square per restroom visit, except, of course, on those pesky occasions where 2 to 3 could be required. [Emp mine]

On the fifth anniversary of a coup that briefly toppled him, President Hugo Chavez said Thursday that soldiers who disagree with his government’s socialist leanings should leave the military. “Today every commander at every level is obliged to repeat, from the soul and raising the flag high, this slogan: ‘Fatherland, Socialism, or Death!'”

read more | digg story

Now that women are starting to outnumber men on most college campuses, feminists are in the hunt for fresh opportunities to further their agenda.

The New York Times reports on their efforts in a field traditionally dominated by men: computer science. Apparently, programming is just not cool enough for girls:

“The nerd factor is huge,” Dr. Cuny said. According to a 2005 report by the National Center for Women and Information Technology, an academic-industry collaborative formed to address the issue, when high school girls think of computer scientists they think of geeks, pocket protectors, isolated cubicles and a lifetime of staring into a screen writing computer code.

This image discourages members of both sexes, but the problem seems to be more prevalent among women. “They think of it as programming,” Dr. Cuny said. “They don’t think of it as revolutionizing the way we are going to do medicine or create synthetic molecules or study our impact on the climate of the earth.”

Certainly, few people would study computer science if there weren’t useful things to be done with computers. But if your goal is to be an doctor, materials engineer, or climate scientist (why does the media feel the need to push global warming in every science article?), why would you spend four years studying the theoretical foundations of information technology? Virtually all scientific and engineering disciplines require working with computers, but only one specializes in transforming real-world problems into code.

If computer science is not about your programming skill, then what is it about?

Moving emphasis away from programming proficiency was a key to the success of programs Dr. Blum and her colleagues at Carnegie Mellon instituted to draw more women into computer science. At one time, she said, admission to the program depended on high overall achievement and programming experience. The criteria now, she said, are high overall achievement and broad interests, diverse perspectives and whether applicants seem to have potential to be future leaders. [Emp. mine]

“Broad interests,” “diverse perspectives” and “leadership skills” are politically-correct code words for affirmative action. Once skills are thrown out, what exactly is left? Imagine if airlines and hospitals announced that they were changing hiring criteria from flying ability and medical skill to “diverse perspectives?” Whom would you prefer to have written the software running your airport’s radar – someone with programming experience or “broad interests?”

The NYT implies that computer science is about more than “a lifetime of staring into a screen writing computer code.” That’s certainly true, but ultimately, programming is about sitting on front of a computer screen for years on end and solving highly abstract problems. Whether due to social or genetic factors, more men happen to be suited to that environment than women. (As an application developer in a corporate environment, I can attest to this.) Denying that reality carries a cost: aspiring students who become victims of political correctness because they are found guilty of having the wrong chromosome.

Are politicians more knowledgeable than rocket scientists when it comes to planning the next U.S. moon shot?

House and Senate appropriators have pushed back against NASA’s proposed termination of a planned 2011 robotic lunar lander mission, directing the agency to spend $20 million this year to continue work on a follow-on to the 2008 Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter.

…we do not agree with your decision to terminate the LPRP program at this time pending a further examination of program requirements, design, cost and viability,” the letter reads. “Therefore we direct that $20 million be provided to continue planning for a potential LPRP mission during the remainder of [2007].”

“I do not need a robotic lander to reduce risks for the human landings,” [NASA Administrator Mike] Griffin said. “Everybody who has carefully looked at that has said you don’t need it.”

Politicians may have a number of reasons for preserving missions that teams of NASA specialists deem unnecessary: the media from moon rovers is a cheap thrill, it preserves funds promised to constituents ($105.8m in ’07), and it competes with similar missions from half a dozen other nations, which will “end up with lots of pictures of the same place.”

Good publicity, certainly, but not an efficient way to run a space program.  But what else can you expect when you mix science and government?