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  • 2007
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      • Did science go OTT at speed of light time?
        03/25/07
        Been thinking awhile how stultifying is the limit of light speed. No effective contact with even our nearest stars with chemical or even nuclear powered craft. So we can colonise moon and mars, but then what?

        Perhaps one day we will see the enlightenment as prelude to this relativistic li

      • Some notschool projects for researchers
        03/18/07
        Hardware list for a computer display

        Motherboard
        disc drives of each type, one open
        media from tape via floopy to CD and DVD and pen memory
        I/O cards labelled
        Input devices opened: keyboard, microphone, mouse, digicam, webcam
        Modem, router, switch opened
        CRT

      • Spare motherboards - draft 1.1
        03/18/07
        Motherboards as a teaching resource. Second draft., somewhat hurried, for topic ideas and ridicule. E&OE.
        Motherboards a source of notschool research projects, and as wall mounted stimulant for each researcher to find more projects.


        Motherboard as the Morris 1000 of computi

      • Towards the modern computer museum
        03/17/07
        Motherboards as a teaching resource. First draft., somewhat hurried, for topic ideas and ridicule. E&OE.

        For computer science, all hardware and much system software knowledge is triggered by a glance at the patterns in the boards.

        Basic circuit theory V=IR can be practiced

      • Motivating notschool
        03/17/07
        This is a long shot, but if notschools are to teach anything it must be by inspiration.
        Hence the topic is unimportant except as conduit for researcher and mentor to share an advance in knowledge, skill or awareness of talent. That you have potential, and someone else knows about it and is root

      • First trial of google's blogspot for sharing early notschool ideas
        03/16/07
        If you’ve read this far and want some light relief, you might glance at brewster’s first googleblog called physicslog . Only one piece so far, so you’ll be safe. The current plan – as if I ever planned anything – is to learn to blog well enough to put the whole notschool in blog and on googledocss.

      • Some technical fixes for global heating 1
        03/16/07
        None are original, this is a first collection. Please add to them.
        Few will agree with all these ideas, but the alternatives range from a few breeding pairs of warlords wandering arctic sands to our extinction.


        Engineering
        A large window of reflective foil at the Legrange

      • BBC suspends net learning project
        03/15/07
        Will this Canute action help or hinder foss in learning? Unexpected consequences says yes, the angry programmers are likely to get new jobs, but the anger will simmer and spoil over into being more creative, writing for an appreciative audience, knowing others can use and build on your work without

      • Nuclear goes positive!
        03/14/07
        Recent press speculation on nuclear cars of all things – build the bomb into a car to save terrorists the hassle – is so surprisingly positive that the deeper message of our need for fission surely underlies it. The writers of the pieces may not know it, probably don’t or they would speculate and sh

      • A fanfare for milk
        03/13/07
        Ben and milk community,

        Being there is being very helpful. Any loss of goodness is a major loss.

        Milk and ice and any other similar always was a 'loose' collection of undetermined and vaguely educational - whatever that means - aims but basically giving mutual

      • A fanfare for milk
        03/13/07
        Ben and milk community,

        Being there is being very helpful. Any loss of goodness is a major loss.

        Milk and ice and any other similar always was a 'loose' collection of undetermined and vaguely educational - whatever that means - aims but basically giving mutual

      • Forget banning smoking, its cars, chemicals and pop that will weaken and kill us. Standard rant updated.
        03/08/07
        Cars give fumes of small molecules, similar to hormones. These cause IQ drops along motorways, less fertility in motorway users - blamed on scrotal warmth of course by the media, and assault most body processes that use chemicals or nerves as messengers. The chemical industry does the same: the nast

      • How seeking simple patterns is made complex by our maths ignorance
        03/07/07
        The laws of science we can understand rest largely on proportion and symmetry, particles and resonance. But understanding stops there for most of us. Part is cultural, inbred from evolution. Indian numbers like 0 and 3 and 5 that moved west to us through the arab world carry hieroglyphic difficulty

      • In anti-slavery week, we should be looking at the unsung achievements and future of the movement too.
        03/06/07
        Without the wealth of the slave trade, British ports would not have been large enough to take the Luftwaffe bombing. Nor would Britain have had the finance to survive the lonely years while the Kennedy ambassador in London and other Brit-haters were rooting for Hitler. No matter that America claimed

      • We must go nuclear quickly or die, says Lovelock. In our billions ..
        03/06/07
        Why o why are so few pushing this sensible little argument?

        Believing churches don't, it would be a step too hard for their congregations.
        Parties can't, because their leaders would lose face in the debate.
        Scientists can't, because they would be tarred by the FUD

      • What does Dawkins’ God Delusion offer?
        03/03/07
        I suspect I will have no problem with his arguments, but will worry about their denoument.

        Freedom from bad and even destructive thinking, yes.
        But does his altruism need a map?

        Fine if you are bright and charismatic enough to carry the tribe with you. Because you then ho

      • History, living in it, and evolving
        03/01/07
        Long-settled coasts are littered with the stones of dead cities. The cells, the organs, some binding influence never made them hang together, perhaps they were eaten by a small predator like a virus or by a large predator like an empire or a philosophy. Many more died than lived. The big ones that s

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