White House: Use Metric If You Want, We Don't Care
Earlier this year we discussed a petition on the White House's 'We The People' site asking the administration to adopt the metric system as the standard system of measurement in the U.S. Today, the administration issued a disappointing response. Simply put: they're not going to do anything about it. They frame their response as a matter of preserving a citizen's choice to adopt whatever measurement system he wants. Quoting Patrick D. Gallagher of the National Institute of Standards and Technology: "... contrary to what many people may think, the U.S. uses the metric system now to define all basic units used in commerce and trade. At the same time, if the metric system and U.S. customary system are languages of measurement, then the United States is truly a bilingual nation. ... Ultimately, the use of metric in this country is a choice and we would encourage Americans to continue to make the best choice for themselves and for the purpose at hand and to continue to learn how to move seamlessly ...
administration
americans
celsius
choice
cook
gallagher
gps
measurements
nation
national institute
patrick
petition
quoting
technology
united states
white house
There Is In Fact A Tech-Talent Shortage And There Always Will Be
For America to maintain its fragile role as the most innovative nation on earth, it must perpetually attract the world’s best and brightest. There will always be trailblazing engineers who stay in their home country, leaving the United States one notch below its potential. Yet, on the heels of comprehensive immigration reform, a new viral economic study claiming that there is no tech talent shortage has skewed the national discussion over why we need to aggressively attract high-skilled immigrants in the first place. An Economic Policy Institute study claims that there is a surplus of American engineers, and, as a result, has garnered national headlines in The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal and The Atlantic for busting “The Myth of America’s Tech-Talent Shortage”. It has fueled protectionist critics who rail against the high-skilled visa system for a being a low-paying indentured servitude scheme to trap vulnerable foreigners into low-paying, exploitative companies. While ...
america
american
argument
atlantic
competition
conditions
discussion
google
immigration
innovation
institute
internet
misconception
nation
policy
promotion
protectionist
science
skype
spotify
tech-talent
technology
tesla
united states
wall street journal
washington
US to Share Security Information With Brazil
The U.S. ambassador to the United Nations says the United States is offering to share with Brazil security lessons that emerge from investigations into the Boston Marathon bombing.
boston
brazil
investigation
nation
security information
united states
The Rage For MOOCs
An anonymous reader writes "Ever since Stanford's Sebastian Thrun and Google's Peter Norvig signed up 160,000 people for their online artificial intelligence course last year, educators and entrepreneurs have been going ga-ga for 'MOOCs' — massive open online courses. A new article in Technology Review, The Crisis in Higher Education, gives a balanced overview of the pluses and minuses of MOOCs as well as some of the technical challenges they face in areas like machine learning and cheating detection. The author, Nicholas Carr, draws an interesting parallel with the 'correspondence course mania' of the 1920s, when people rushed to sign up to take courses by mail. 'Four times as many people were taking them as were enrolled in all the nation's colleges and universities combined.' That craze fizzled when investigations revealed that the quality of the teaching was poor and dropout rates astronomical. 'Is it different this time?' asks Carr. 'Has technology at last advanced to the point where ...
carr
correspondence
detection
distance
education
google
intelligence
investigation
moocs
nation
nicholas
norvig
peter
quality
sebastian thrun
stanford
technology
university
Found more than 1 month ago on channel
Slashdot
Is China's Space Race An Opportunity For the US?
Hugh Pickens writes writes "Lieutenant General Frank Klotz (ret.), the former vice commander of Air Force Space Command, writes that it's worth considering whether aspects of the U.S.-Russian experience with space cooperation can be pursued with China to serve long-term American interests. "China has in many respects already reached the top tier of spacefaring nations — with profound implications for America's own interests in space," writes Klotz. While initially starting well behind the two original space powers, China has slowly but steadily added accomplishments to its space portfolio,conducting nineteen space launches in 2011 — twelve less than Russia but one more than the United States. It's worth recalling that even in the darkest days of the Cold War, the United States and its archrival at the time--the Soviet Union--embarked upon cooperative efforts in space, most famously with the joint Apollo-Soyuz docking mission in 1975 and today the first stage of one of the rockets that ...
accomplishments
action
alliance
america
american
apollo-soyuz
appropriations
atlas
beijing
china
chinese
chinese-owned
cooperation
experience
facility
frank
house
hugh pickens
implications
information
intention
klotz
lieutenant
mission
nasa
nation
opportunity
provisions
russia
soviet
technology
united states
washington
Found more than 1 month ago on channel
Slashdot