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jurasovaib

Albert Einstein - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia - 0 views

  • He received the 1921 Nobel Prize in Physics "for his services to theoretical physics, and especially for his discovery of the law of the photoelectric effect".[5]
  • He received the 1921 Nobel Prize in Physics "for his services to theoretical physics, and especially for his discovery of the law of the photoelectric effect".[5]
  • On July 12, 1939, a few months before the beginning of World War II in Europe, Szilárd and Wigner visited Einstein[74] and they explained the possibility of atomic bombs, to which pacifist Einstein replied: Daran habe ich gar nicht gedacht ("I had not thought of that at all").[75] Einstein was persuaded to lend his prestige by writing a letter with Szilárd to President Franklin D. Roosevelt to alert him of the possibility. The letter also recommended that the U.S. government pay attention to and become directly involved in uranium research and associated chain reaction research. The letter is believed to be "arguably the key stimulus for the U.S. adoption of serious investigations into nuclear weapons on the eve of the U.S. entry into World War II".[76] In addition to the letter, Einstein used his connections with the Belgian Royal Family[77] and the Belgian queen mother[72] to get access with a personal envoy to the White House's Oval Office.[72] President Roosevelt could not take the risk of allowing Hitler to possess atomic bombs first. As a result of Einstein's letter and his meetings with Roosevelt, the U.S. entered the "race" to develop the bomb, drawing on its "immense material, financial, and scientific resources" to initiate the Manhattan Project. It became the only country to successfully develop an atomic bomb during World War II. For Einstein, "war was a disease ... [and] he called for resistance to war." By signing the letter to Roosevelt he went against his pacifist principles.[78] In 1954, a year before his death, Einstein said to his old friend, Linus Pauling, "I made one great mistake in my life—when I signed the letter to President Roosevelt recommending that atom bombs be made; but there was some justification—the danger that the Germans would make them ..."[79]
jurasovaib

Speed of light - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia - 0 views

  • The speed of light in vacuum, commonly denoted c, is a universal physical constant important in many areas of physics. Its value is exactly 299,792,458 metres per second, a figure that is exact because the length of the metre is defined from this constant and the international standard for time.[1]
  • The first quantitative estimate of the speed of light was made in 1676 by Rømer (see Rømer's determination of the speed of light).[83][84] From the observation that the periods of Jupiter's innermost moon Io appeared to be shorter when the Earth was approaching Jupiter than when receding from it, he concluded that light travels at a finite speed, and estimated that it takes light 22 minutes to cross the diameter of Earth's orbit. Christiaan Huygens combined this estimate with an estimate for the diameter of the Earth's orbit to obtain an estimate of speed of light of 220000 km/s, 26% lower than the actual value.[105]
  • Beginning in the 1880s several experiments were performed to try to detect this motion, the most famous of which is the experiment performed by Albert A. Michelson and Edward W. Morley in 1887.[128] The detected motion was always less than the observational error. Modern experiments indicate that the two-way speed of light is isotropic (the same in every direction) to within 6 nanometres per second.[129]
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  • In 1972, using the laser interferometer method and the new definitions, a group at NBS in Boulder, Colorado determined the speed of light in vacuum to be c = 299792456.2±1.1 m/s. This was 100 times less uncertain than the previously accepted value. The remaining uncertainty was mainly related to the definition of the metre.[Note 8][104] As similar experiments found comparable results for c, the 15th Conférence Générale des Poids et Mesures (CGPM) in 1975 recommended using the value 299792458 m/s for the speed of light.[136]
anonymous

Augmented Revolution » Cyborgology - 0 views

  • The Egyptian resistance used web tools as well as physical space, and most importantly, they did so by looking at the intersection of both. They used the web to inform people how to behave in physical space, e.g., what to do with tear gas containers, who should stand in front of the crowds and how the crowds should move about the city. It makes little sense to argue about whether these are social media revolutions or not. Instead, we should recognize them as augmented revolutions. Only then can we debate just how and how much of a role the digital aspect played.
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    Thinking about how augmented reality impacts physical reality.
anonymous

Supersizing the Mind - Hardcover - Andy Clark - Oxford University Press - 0 views

  • Drawing upon recent work in psychology, linguistics, neuroscience, artificial intelligence, robotics, human-computer systems, and beyond, Supersizing the Mind offers both a tour of the emerging cognitive landscape and a sustained argument in favor of a conception of mind that is extended rather than "brain-bound." The importance of this new perspective is profound. If our minds themselves can include aspects of our social and physical environments, then the kinds of social and physical environments we create can reconfigure our minds and our capacity for thought and reason.
anonymous

A psychological perspective on augmented reality in the mathematics classroom - 0 views

  • The paper presents a framework for understanding AR learning from three perspectives: physical, cognitive, and contextual. On the physical dimension, we argue that physical manipulation affords natural interactions, thus encouraging the creation of embodied representations for educational concepts. On the cognitive dimension, we discuss how spatiotemporal alignment of information through AR experiences can aid student's symbolic understanding by scaffolding the progression of learning, resulting in improved understanding of abstract concepts. Finally, on the contextual dimension, we argue that AR creates possibilities for collaborative learning around virtual content and in non-traditional environments, ultimately facilitating personally meaningful experiences.
anonymous

Robot-Aided Learning and r-Learning Services | InTechOpen - 1 views

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    "R-Learning services include learning activities that utilize a direct physical experience, such as chanting and dancing (Kanda et al., 2004; Han et al., 2009a; Yujin, 2008), and learning that uses teaching props such as toys (Yujin, 2008; Movellan et al., 2009), and that delivers multi-media contents through a touch screen (Han et al., 2005; Han and Kim, 2006; Hyun et al., 2008). This final type of activity for delivery of multi-media contents can sub-divided into two categories: class management and class instruction (Han et al., 2009a). Class instruction can further be sub-divided into contents delivery type (Han et al. 2005; Han and Kim, 2006; Hyun et al., 2008) and participatory type through augmented virtuality (Han et al., 2009b), depending on the participation of the learners."
morganaletarg

Homosexuality at the Online Hogwarts: Harry Potter Slash Fanfiction - 1 views

  • rites observes that the majority of YA novels about gay and lesbian teens "are very Foucaultian in their tendency to privilege the discourse of homosexuality over the physical sexual acts of gay men, defining homosexuality more rhetorically than physically" (102-03).
    • morganaletarg
       
      reasons no one has ever actually enjoyed an LGBT YA book
  • Star Trek is widely considered to be the first "modern" fandom, and the majority of studies of participatory media fandom begin their history with Trek fans. However, activities that could be called "fannish" go back much further, and include eighteenthcentury unauthorized sequels of works such as Gulliver's Travels, the aforementioned Sherlock Holmes pastiches, and the entire body of literary and folk "retellings." See Brewer, Pflieger, Derecho, and Stasi.
    • morganaletarg
       
      sources on history of fandom
  • According to Francesca Coppa, the Internet enabled "an increasingly customizable fannish experience" (54). As a result, "[a]rguably, this may be fandom's postmodern moment, where the rules are 'there ain't no rules' and traditions are made to be broken" (57).
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  • how do depictions of adolescent sexuality in Potter fanfiction differ from those of published literature for adolescents?
  • One avenue that has yet to be explored, with specific regard to adolescent fans, is the potential to encounter and experiment with alternative modes of sexual discourse, particularly queer discourse.
  • "adolescent literature is as often an ideological tool used to curb teenagers' libido as it is some sort of depiction of what adolescents' sexuality actually is"
  • Slash, like other forms of fanfiction in the modern era, initially circulated by way of self-published zines. Because of the controversial nature of the stories, slash was available only to those who knew the right people in order to be put on mailing lists, and who had the financial resources to order zines and attend conventions-in other words, adults.
  • [S]lash is not so much queer in the act as it is queer in the space . . . . Slash is a sandbox where women come to be strange and unusual, or to do strange and unusual things, or to play with strange and unusual sand. The women may be queer or not, strange or not, unusual or not. The many different acts and behaviors of slash may be queer or not, strange or not, unusual or not. The queerness may be sexualized or it may not, and what is sexual for one woman may not be for another. The space is simply that: a space, where women can be strange and unusual and/or do strange and unusual things.8
  • Harry's discovery of his wizard nature is akin to a coming-out narrative-he escapes from a literal closet, and his relatives' horrified reactions bear a striking resemblance to the language of homophobia, especially in the way they hurl about words like "abnormality" (Chamber 2) as weapons. Thus, one can, from the perspective of the Muggle realm, read the entire wizarding world in terms of Julad's "queer space."
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    representation, history, fanwork does what published works don't
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    Your commentary provides a nice selection of pieces for readers. You model the best of Diigo work here! : ) (Even though I found this in a file cabinet -- of sorts!) YA novels are "Foucoultian" ?? Really? I've never read a YA book featuring homosexuality, but much media represents gay behaviors from heterosexual framework. Even Orange..New Black -- I think, anyway. Agree about fanwork doing what published works don't.
anonymous

DARPA's Robot Olympics » Cyborgology - 0 views

  • Schraube’s materialized action approach combines Actor Network Theory with Critical Psychology. From the latter, Schraube uses the idea of objectification which argues that technology is always imbued with human intention. From the former, he takes the idea that technologies always act back upon humans. In short, the materialized action approach says that technologies and humans have a mutually constitutive relationship, but this relationship is lopsided. Although both humans and technologies each act upon the other, humans take the primary position. Humans construct technologies in response to human problems. They build into these technologies cultural values and intentions. Technology is the material form of human action, but one without definitive consequences.
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    See article link to Schraube's technology as materialized action approach and comments about automation of physical tasks vs automation of mental tasks.
wstrahan

Spotify, YouTube, Streaming Services Are Killing Digital Downloads | TIME.com - 0 views

  • Now, with a deluge of  music streaming services letting fans listen to songs for free, the digital download may be going the way of the CD and the cassette tape before it.
  • U.S. digital track sales decreased for the first time ever in 2013, dropping from 1.34 billion to 1.26 billion, according to Nielsen SoundScan. CD sales also continued their ongoing decline, dropping 14 percent to 165 million. Digital album sales were stable, staying at 118 million sold last year. Meanwhile the number of songs streamed through services like Spotify, YouTube and Rhapsody increased 32 percent to 118.1 billion.
  • Spotify just arrived on U.S. shores in the summer of 2011, but it has become a lightning rod for controversy thanks to a chorus of artists who decry that paying musicians a fraction of a cent per listen is unfair.
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  • Digital downloads were a logical continuation of the business model that generated fat profits for record labels in the heyday of physical music stores. In some cases, with no manufacturing or distribution costs involved, a hit digital album could actually be more lucrative than a physical CD.
  • However, the music industry’s core problem—that lots of fans just don’t want to pay for music—remains an issue. Most people use the free, ad-supported version of Spotify, and the company recently expanded its free offering to mobile devices. The most popular platform for listening to music among young people is YouTube, which is almost entirely free.
  • U.S. digital track sales decreased for the first time ever in 2013, dropping from 1.34
jdinhhh

Human trafficking : A rising tide in Asia - New York Times - 0 views

  • Every year, millions of men, women and children in Asia venture to new places in search of a better life.
  • Human trafficking is on the rise in Asia as people flee poverty and conflict
  • Women and children are the most vulnerable. They are used for commercial sex, domestic labor and construction work.
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  • Trafficking amounts to a gross violation of human rights. Victims suffer physical and mental abuse and social stigmatization. They become isolated, losing ties with their former lives and families.
  • Trafficking hampers the struggle to end poverty and gender inequality in Asia.
  • We need to make it safer for people to move around by improving migration management and enforcement of labor standards.
anonymous

Carol Kuhlthau Information Search Process - 1 views

  • People engage in an information search experience holistically, with an interplay of thoughts, feelings and actions.  Common patterns of thinking, feeling, and acting are characteristic in each phase.  These studies were among the first to investigate the affective aspects or the feelings of a person in the process of information seeking along with the cognitive and physical aspects.  Rather than a steady increase in confidence from the beginning of a search to the conclusion, as might be expected, a dip in confidence is commonly experienced once an individual has initiated a search and begins to encounter conflicting and inconsistent information.  A person “in the dip” is increasingly uncertain and confused until a focus is formed to provide a path for seeking meaning and criteria for judging relevance. Advances in information technology, that open access to a vast assortment of sources, have not helped the user’s dilemma and may have intensified the sense of confusion and uncertainty.  Information systems may intensify the problem particularly in the early stages of the ISP by overwhelming the user with “everything” all at once.
jurasovaib

Recognising the proteins that indicate cancer : News : News + Events : National Physica... - 0 views

  • All diseases have proteins, or concentrations of proteins, specifically linked to them called biomarkers, and identifying these can prove a powerful diagnostic tool. Antibodies can be used to test for specific biomarkers because they only bind to specific molecules or groups of molecules. Problems can arise when they bind to groups of similar molecules, leading to false positives and unreliable information.
perezmv

Pandora Pulls Back the Curtain on Its Magic Music Machine | Fast Company | Business + I... - 0 views

  • "It’s true that the algorithms mathematically match songs, but the math, all it’s doing is translating what a human being is actually measuring," says Tim Westergren, who founded Pandora in 2000 and now serves as its Chief Strategy Officer. “You need a human ear to discern.”
  • Pandora’s secret sauce is people. Music lovers.
  • "That is the magic bullet for us," Westergren says of the company’s human element. "I can’t overstate it. It’s been the most important part of Pandora. It defines us in so many ways."
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  • It’s also important, at least in the beginning, for these music analysts to sit, physically, in the same room. That way, they can regularly peel back their headphones and engage with their colleagues about the music they’re categorizing.
  • (Pandora reportedly met with bankers recently about a $100 million offering)
  • "We want Pandora to feel like it’s talking to you," Westergren says. "We also literally talk to people. We have a team of people who are called listener advocates. Their job is just to respond personally to every single email, phone call, or letter we get. The identity of Pandora is forged through those collective interactions."
  • Pandora turned its first profit at the end of that year, earning $50 million in total revenues.
  • Analysts predicted 2010 would end with $100 million in revenues for Pandora--Westergren declined to confirm or deny the number, saying only of revenue, "It’s all going in the right direction."
braxtondn

Media Can Damage Self-Image | Psych Central News - 0 views

    • braxtondn
       
      This reminds me of the show "America's Next Top Model" because on their Facebook page, there are only pictures of super skinny females. There are no pictures of thick or plus size females. 
  • The study shows that women who possess these body image concerns are twice as likely to compare their own bodies to those of the thin models in the advertisements
    • braxtondn
       
      Most females have a bad habit of doing this when looking at Vogue Magazine or Seventeen Magazine. People also get discouraged from trying out to become a model because they don't think they have the "model look". It is not a healthy thing to do because it will only cause females to find more problems within themselves
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  • Conversely, women who are content with their bodies did not show any effects from viewing thin-ideal advertisements.
    • braxtondn
       
      Being comfortable in your own skin is the main key to being happy. Some may set goals for losing weight, by looking at other skinny models or the skinny/fit people used for fitness magazines , websites,and commercials.
  • “Women who already have low opinions of their physical appearance are at an even greater risk for negative effects from media images,” says Gayle R. Bessenoff, Ph.D., author of the study
    • braxtondn
       
      Already having low self-esteem can make the effect of media's "acceptable image" more damaging than to a person with a little bit more self-esteem
    • braxtondn
       
      The image that young women may think is acceptable to society is not so acceptable to the media unless you are a thin female. Everybody at some point wants to be thin, but they need to learn to be comfortable in their own skin because not everybody has the same bod shape.
  • The deleterious impact of advertisement is the subject of new research exploring the relationship between the so called “thin-ideal” media message and body-image issues among young women.
  • University of Connecticut researchers discovered female undergraduates who viewed advertisements displaying ultra-thin women exhibited increases in body dissatisfaction, negative mood, levels of depression and lowered self-esteem.
braxtondn

How the Media Affects the Self Esteem and Body Image of Young Girls | Divine Caroline - 0 views

  • The medias harmful affect on the self body image and self esteem of young girls has brought about some of these three damaging effects: eating disorders, mental depression, and physical depression.
    • braxtondn
       
      It is interesting and sad knowing that new media has this affect on young teens. Something should be done in order to help prevent such negative affect. The media needs to recognize that everybody will come in different shapes and sizes, instead of just focusing on one specific image.
  • “Women may directly model unhealthy eating habits presented in the media, such as fasting or purging, because the media-portrayed thin ideal body type is related to eating pathology”(Stice, Schupak-Neuberg, Shaw & Stein, 1994)
  • In Allie Kovar’s article, Effects of the Media on Body Image, she mentions that “the national eating disorder Association (2006) reports that in the past 70 years national rates of incidences of all eating disorders have dramatically increased across the board . . . Bulimia in women between the ages of 10 to 39 has more than tripled.” (Kovar, 1).
    • braxtondn
       
      The media's "thin ideal' is causing young teens to feel so poorly about themselves that it is causing more women to become diagnosed with eating disorders. There is no reason that the media should be having that much of an affect on teens that it is tripling the amount of eating disorders. The media ( actresses, models, and celebrities) should be looked upon by their success not by their body image.
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  • “If children grow up seeing thin women in advertisements, on television, and in film they accept this as reality and try to imitate their appearance and their actions”(Nature vs. Nurture, Shea, 1).
    • braxtondn
       
      THis is very true. Parents can stop this by controlling what their children can and can't watch. THere are so many things that parents can do to help boost their child's self-esteem also, they just need to try harder so that the media doesn't win.
  • “The ideal female has become thinner while the average American woman has become heavier…”(Domil, 2).
    • braxtondn
       
      Whats acceptable to the world is not acceptable to the media. Whats more important though? All that should matter is what each person thinks about themselves. Media is just negatively effecting society's image
  • The media is only going to get worse and put more pressure on the self body image of how it should “ideally” look
    • braxtondn
       
      The media is like an annoying bug that will never go away. We have to be stronger than what the media wants us to be and be above the media's influence.
peppermara

Interview with Jawole Willa Jo Zollar - 0 views

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    founder and artistic director of Urban Bush Woman out of New York City. -speaks of inspiration, influences of her movement/project -sheds light on intertwined history of the Black Art's Movement -reflects on community-what individual voices provide -"I can be me, and I can create from that place. I can create from who I am and from the strengths and vulnerabilities of my community."
braxtondn

BBC News - 'Selfie' body image warning issued - 0 views

  • added: "The attention to physical attributes may be even more dangerous on social media than on traditional media because participants in social media are people we know.
    • braxtondn
       
      I feel like it could be less harmless because of the fact that they accept their friends for who they are and what they look like. 
  • A preoccupation with weight and shape was one of the key features of current popular culture, and was a global phenomenon, she said
  • "The fascination with celebrities, their bodies, clothes and appearance has all increased the pressure that people typically feel at a time when they seek to establish their own identities and when their bodies are growing and changing," she said
    • braxtondn
       
      Is the comparison between self & a celebrity really going to help a person identify themselves ?
anonymous

In the Programmable World, All Our Objects Will Act as One | Gadget Lab | WIRED - 0 views

  • what’s remarkable about this future isn’t the sensors, nor is it that all our sensors and objects and devices are linked together. It’s the fact that once we get enough of these objects onto our networks, they’re no longer one-off novelties or data sources but instead become a coherent system, a vast ensemble that can be choreographed, a body that can dance. Really, it’s the opposite of an “Internet,” a term that even today—in the era of the cloud and the app and the walled garden—connotes a peer-to-peer system in which each node is equally empowered. By contrast, these connected objects will act more like a swarm of drones, a distributed legion of bots, far-flung and sometimes even hidden from view but nevertheless coordinated as if they were a single giant machine.
  • For the Programmable World to reach its full potential, we need to pass through three stages. The first is simply the act of getting more devices onto the network—more sensors, more processors in everyday objects, more wireless hookups to extract data from the processors that already exist. The second is to make those devices rely on one another, coordinating their actions to carry out simple tasks without any human intervention. The third and final stage, once connected things become ubiquitous, is to understand them as a system to be programmed, a bona fide platform that can run software in much the same manner that a computer or smartphone can. Once we get there, that system will transform the world of everyday objects into a design­able environment, a playground for coders and engineers. It will change the whole way we think about the division between the virtual and the physical.
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