The free content culture of the internet is democratising art and music, and is leading us to a digital playground where everyone can make some money out of their creations, right? Well, that’s not how it worked out in Sven Johnson’s Future Imperfect…
Continue reading The bludgeoning of Gepetto: how “free” culture killed creative careers
Here’s your second “well, duh” story of the day – experiments in New York schools that serve high-poverty demographics indicate that offering kids financial rewards for good grades makes their average results skyrocket.
About two-thirds of the 59 high-poverty schools in the Sparks program — which pays seventh-graders up to $500 and fourth-graders as much as $250 for their performance on a total of 10 assessments — improved their scores since last year’s state tests by margins above the citywide average.
The gains at some schools approached 40 percentage points.
For example, at PS 188 on the Lower East Side, 76 percent of fourth-graders met or exceeded state benchmarks in English — 39.6 percentage points higher than last year, when the kids were in third grade.
At MS 343 in The Bronx, 94 percent of seventh-graders met or surpassed state standards in math this year — 37.3 points higher than last year, when the students were sixth-graders.
In all, of the 61 fourth and seventh grades involved in the pupil-pay program, only 16 improved less than the citywide average gain in math since last year, while 21 did so in reading.
Principals at the highest-scoring schools cautioned that the Sparks program was just one of many factors in the test-score jumps.
But many reported seeing indisputable academic benefits — including more motivation, better focus and an increase in healthy competition for good grades among students.
Now, there’s probably an argument to be made about the sanctity of education and the corruption of kids with money here, but I’m not sure it holds much water beyond staff-rooms. What matters in education is results, right? If you can get kids who are otherwise completely unmotivated to put some effort into learning and bettering their prospects, where’s the problem with spending some cash to do it?
You might say that education should be pitched as being its own reward, and that’s a charming philosophy familiar to me from my privileged middle-class background, but I think it’s pretty safe to say that system evidently isn’t working well among those who most need it. And hey – if you’re preparing kids for entry into a capitalist economy where making money is a tangible and observable benefit by comparison to the more nebulous notion of “bettering oneself intellectually”, why not use money as the carrot at the end of the stick? When idealism has failed, maybe pragmatism deserves a a crack of the whip. [via SlashDot]
It shouldn’t come as a huge surprise – after all, anything that uses networked computing is at risk without the proper precautions – but independent researchers have declared oil rigs to be extremely vulnerable to hacking attempts.
While oil companies have made huge improvements in offshore safety and environmental protection, their efforts to secure important data have been poor, the SINTEF team says.
The group says that the current “integrated operations” model, which uses onshore workers to control processes carried out on the platform via networked PCs, leaves communications open to attack.
According to Science Daily, the team interviewed “key personnel in the petroleum sector” to get a sense of the data protection measures currently in place. The interviewees confirmed “that the number of safety incidents on production systems (platforms) has risen during past few years.”
Researchers said that hackers have already made their presence felt on oil platforms.
“The worst-case scenario, of course, is that a hacker will break in and take over control of the whole platform,” says SINTEF scientist, Martin Gilje Jaatun. “Luckily, this has not happened yet, but we have heard of a number of incidents that could have turned into something quite dramatic. For example, virus attacks have led to process electronic equipment becoming unstable.“
Frankly I’m surprised there haven’t been any major incidents so far, but it’s safe to assume that the inevitable resurgence of oil prices (not to mention the increasingly politicised nature of the fossil fuel industry) will make unmanned rigs into highly appealing target for hackers interested in protest or profit. [image by ccgd]
In fact, the profit motive is probably the stronger of the two… profit, or the prospect of free fuel. Any terrorist group or pirate nation looking for a ready source of the black gold would find it easy enough to hire some disaffected code-kiddie, then pay (or threaten) them enough to get them to bypass the security on an unmanned rig and then fiddle the telemetry for long enough to allow a physical invasion of the platform. Hey presto – a big base in offshore waters with all the oil you could ask for, and a target that even a major government is going to think twice about simply bombing to smithereens…
Researchers at the University of Twente have developed a biodegradable resin that can be used to create precise replicas of forms within the body around which new tissues can be grown:
The resin can be given different properties depending on where in the body it is to be used. Cells can be sown and cultured on these models, so that the tissues grown are, in fact, produced by the body itself. The new resin has been developed by Ferry Melchels and Prof. Dirk Grijpma of the UT’s Polymer Chemistry and Biomaterials research group. An article on this breakthrough will be appearing in the authoritative specialist journal, Biomaterials
The method used to recreate the specific forms is called stereolithography, the improvement in this system is that the resins have hitherto not been biodegradable. This means:
If, for example, a child has a heart valve disorder, a 3D digital image of the heart valve can be created using a CT scanner. The model in the stereolithograph can be copied exactly with the new resin. If the structure is made porous, the child’s own cells can be placed on it. This porosity also gives nutrients access to the cells. Ultimately, after the carrier structure has broken down, only the natural tissue remains.
Which is a rather wonderful development.
Despite its association with a bygone era of anachronistic and bulky (but very stylish) technology, steam power is making a comeback thanks to stimulus money from the US government. Combined Heat and Power (CHP) systems are appealing to large organisations because of the efficiency they offer, but the same logic could apply to more domestic situations as well:
Today, most of the time, we make electricity and generate heat in different places. We get our electricity for lighting and power from a central station located far away and transmitted to us through the grid. Heating or cooling, on the other hand, is often accomplished with on-site boilers or electric radiators. Both systems work less efficiently when they stand alone. Together, waste heat generated during the process of making electricity can be scavenged and piped around to provide climate control.
Makes sense, right? It sure does – and it’s environmentally sound as well.
A DOE report released late last year found that CHP was already responsible for reducing American emissions by 248 million metric tons of CO2, which is equivalent to taking 45 million cars off the road. That’s a lot more than wind, solar or any of the other renewables. They have such a big impact because they effectively double the amount of work that we get from burning the same amount of fossil fuel.
With the extra impetus to reduce carbon dioxide emissions to combat global warming, these electric plants that also use their excess heat could experience a lot more growth over the next 30 years. To do so, though, they have substantial challenges to overcome.
For one, many of the regional benefits of CHP are not recognized by existing environmental and utility regulations. Utilities resist CHP systems because they complicate their transmission infrastructure and they say that’s costly. And people have grown used to having their power generated in some far off place and often object to the installation of a power plant nearby.
Ah, good old NIMBYism… but perhaps those complaints will be fainter once the markets have made fossil fuels into ludicrously expensive commodities again. [image by waddie]
It’s interesting to note yet another field of concern and endeavour where the solution might involve a move back from centralised provision to localised. Economics, politics and now energy… is it time for the return of the city-state?