Archive for May, 2017
Ideas for Skinning the Writing about Reading Cat
May 30, 2017Ideas for Skinning the Writing about Reading Cat
May 30, 2017
By now, we all know the emphasis the Common Core has placed on writing about texts, and we’re also aware of the effects that has had on writing: The writing of poetry has vanished in far too many schools while the five-paragraph essay has become institutionalized as the way to respond to what the Common Core says is “the special place” argument holds in the Standards. And too often this has resulted in writing that’s functional and mechanical but not terribly meaningful or interesting to read.
Patrick Sullivan, the author of the NCTE piece “The UnEssay: Making Room for Creativity in the Composition Classroom,” connects these results with “the kind of reductionism promoted by the Common Core Standards and the powerful, entrenched interest of the testing consortia,” And to push back on these forces, I want to offer some alternative ways for writing about reading. As in my first “
View original post 1,388 more words
Did Google Just Control The Weather?!?
May 28, 2017Did Google Just Control The Weather?!?
May 28, 2017
By Lak Lakshmanan, Technical Lead Big Data Professional Services and Matthew Feigal, Google Cloud Customer Engineer
How Google Wind uses machine learning to predict rain and then orchestrate Dutch windmills accordingly
Holland is one of the greatest countries to live in, but the one downside is that it rains most of the time. Rainfall has increased in the last century (18% since 1906, source KNMI), making the Dutch complain about the weather more than ever. That’s why Google Netherlands Cloud Platform team is launching Google Wind.
We leveraged existing Dutch infrastructure to realize this moonshot in record time. Google Wind uses machine learning to recognize cloud patterns and orchestrate a network of windmills* when rain is approaching. Test results look very promising, We’re proud to announce that from April 1st we’re able to help ensure clearer skies for everyone in Holland.
The data processing behind it all
After…
View original post 409 more words
AH-64 Apache helicopter in my front yard – Jim Lee of ClimateViewer
May 20, 2017“my father was a nuclear launch officer”
For the record, I love our U.S. military servicemen and women. I was born on Vandenberg AFB where my father was a nuclear launch officer and my grandfather built the runway at Shaw AFB near my home in Sumter, South Carolina. The 3rd Army just moved in at Shaw and this helicopter was likely training at the bombing range in Manchester State Forest, which is behind my house. I was amazed at how steady the Apache was as it hovered 15 feet off the ground for over ten minutes; it might as well have been parked on pavement. I would hate to be on the receiving end of those 30mm shells or a Hellfire missile, and I am thankful that I never will. Now if I could only get the jets to stop buzzing my house below 500 feet as they pound the bombing range, three times a day, that…
View original post 9 more words
DC LEAKS: Hillary Clinton Supports Geoengineering, err, Climate Intervention
May 20, 2017Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman John Podesta co-founded the Energy Future Coalition Steering Committee in 2002 and the latest DC Leaks contain a March 2015 meeting where they discuss how to fund geoengineering studies! Most people know that Clinton is a climate change lobbyist’s dream come true, but nobody knew that she’s willing to block out the sun with planes spewing chemicals to save us from global warming! This meeting follows the CIA funded reports of the National Research Council and National Academy of Science where public relations gurus decided to try to re-brand “geoengineering” as “climate intervention.”
The story goes like this:
- Polls show people hate the idea of controlling the weather, even to stop global warming.
- Climate change advocates say people won’t stop polluting, so climate engineering must be studied.
- Geoengineering advocates started calling for funding immediately following the COP21 conference, something that was planned in this meeting.
- The CIA et al…
View original post 2,303 more words
Inside knowledge: Is information the only thing that exists?
May 15, 2017
Physics suggests information is more fundamental than matter, energy, space and time – the problems start when we try to work out what that means
“IT FROM bit.” This phrase, coined by physicist John Wheeler, encapsulates what a lot of physicists have come to believe: that tangible physical reality, the “it”, is ultimately made from information, or bits.
Concepts such as entropy in thermodynamics, a measure of disorder whose irresistible rise seems to characterise our universe, have long been known to be connected with information. More recently, some efforts to unify general relativity, the theory that describes space and time, with quantum mechanics, the theory that describes particles and matter, have homed in on information as a common language.
Inside knowledge: The biggest questions about facts, truth, lies and belief
Forget alternative facts. To get to the bottom of what we know and how we know we…
View original post 151 more words
Rosettasister's Weblog 