Learning

Sorry about missing the update for March. I waited patiently for the HadCRUT4 data to update on the Met Office’s old webpage (recently deleted), but hadn’t realized they’d posted the March data on a new webpage because of a new … Continue reading →

The last time I got this pumped over how an artist was drawing a character, Mike Deodato was killing The Beast in the old pages of Secret Avengers. Now, it's Steve Epting doing just as dangerous a job, only this time it's with The Black Panther in the pages of the relaunched New Avengers! If you haven't picked up a copy yet, look at these;And both these images are just from issue #1! Having T'Challa join the Illuminati in the pages of New Avengers will undoubtably boost the characters profile, but Steve is literally turning in the type of take on the character where you wish every issue ended with a tease of a new Black Panther #1 - with Steve in tow! What do you think?

i caught myself staring at this image of the 2009 total solar eclipse that was skillfully put together by miloslav druckmuller and crew. to create the image, they stacked 38 individual images together and captured the fine structure of the sun's white corona, a far-reaching layer of the sun that we rarely get the chance to study because it is hugely out-shined by the blinding photosphere - except during a total eclipse. it amazes me just how far out the corona reaches - at least three times the width of the sun away. and its light flickers and changes as super-heated hydrogen bubbles up through the layers of the sun to be released into space, if it escapes the traps of the rolling magnetic fields.there exists an interesting mystery about our sun's corona. while the regular surface of the sun, the bright yellow bit hidden by the moon in the image above, has a temperature of about 6000 degrees celsius, the corona reaches a temperature of over one million! no one really knows how this happens, although "magnetic braids" might give a clue.we can see evidence of the sun's strong magnetic activity all the time. using specially-designed telescopes, we see solar flares, prominences and other activity happening closer to the sun's surface. to gain a feel for the size of our star - you can fit one hundred earths across the middle of the sun.this last photo is a still from the movie of the "tree of avatar" solar flare - well worth a watch.the surface of the sun appears alive with activity. every normal star out there in the universe also experiences these surface bursts and flares, but we cannot study them in as much detail because the stars are so far away. this realization makes me appreciate the work of the planets hunters, both professional and citizen scientists, even more. not only do they have to measure a miniscule dip in the light from the star because a planet passes in front of it and blocks it, but they have to try to be sure that the light dip isnt caused by normal stellar surface activity, nearly impossible to resolve at such large distances. despite the recent end of the kepler space telescope's lifespan collecting data of potential planets around distant stars, there is much astronomers have yet to learn from the telescope's plentiful archive. as of today, we have found between 719 and 889 exoplanets. i'm sure more and more will be revealed as the kepler data is explored. exciting times!

How to generate high voltage DC with a Cockcroft-Walton Multiplier circuit. a.k.a Cockcroft-Walton / Villard / Greinacher Cascade EEVblog #469 – Cockcroft-Walton Multiplier - [Link]

Rising tuition, declining government subsidies, stagnant endowments, and increased competition are challenging higher education like never before. College and university leaders are struggling to understand where these changes will lead and how they can make higher education more affordable, more accessible, and of greater quality for an increasingly diverse and aspiring student. Based on our interaction with university leaders and policy makers, we believe that the timeline for transformational change has shortened to five years. During this time, higher education will have moved from a provider-driven model to a consumer-driven one and, in so doing, upend a system that had endured for centuries. Half a decade from now, almost all universities will offer their students the option of undertaking their coursework in high-demand degree programs online. However, online offerings will no longer be the competitive advantage they are today. Most online enrollment will be open or provisional and more than 80 percent of professional degree programs, such as MBA, RN-to-BSN, and M.Ed., will be earned online. Additionally, by 2018, new types of widely accepted degrees will have emerged that are less time-consuming, less expensive, and more relevant to 21st century jobs. The vast majority of on-campus students will be enrolled in some online courses, a movement already afoot, with the Sloan Consortium’s 2012 Survey of Online Learning finding that approximately a third of all U.S. college students took at least one online course during the fall 2011 term. The increase of nearly 10 percent in online enrollments over the previous year is particularly meaningful given that overall enrollment declined in the United States for the first time in 15 years, and continued its decline across the developed world. Foreign universities with growing stature and competitive pricing will be aggressively recruiting U.S. students for their online programs. With thousands of universities in the United States and around the world online, students will have more choices in higher education than in any other consumer category. This unprecedented competition and the availability of many high-quality, low-priced options will have caused the tuition bubble to burst and the cost of attending college to tumble, putting even greater pressure on institutional budgets. While the relative cost of instruction will have declined due to increased scale, the incomes of many professors providing online instruction will have risen sharply. Some of these professors will have become the free agents of academe, with their courses widely accepted at both public and private universities around the world. While some international students will continue to come to the United States to study, we expect that almost all enrollment growth at U.S. universities will come from international students enrolled in online programs. Some public and private universities will have reached iconic status, ushering in a new breed of multinational educational organizations. These large multinational universities will provide curriculum and instruction in multiple languages and offer competitive pricing designed to suit local markets. Capitalizing on their reputations, they will have become leading global brands with student bodies well in excess of 100,000 choosing from many newly added degree programs designed to meet demand in Africa, Asia, Latin America, and India. As a result of greater use of technology in the delivery of higher education, construction of new buildings on the campuses of tax-supported institutions will have slowed significantly. At the same time, we expect that over the next five years university systems will be consolidating campuses at an increasing rate as trustees and legislators come to understand the economics of online learning and how vastly it can expand the reach of an institution. Companies like ours — Academic Partnerships — are helping

Edmund Burke: The First Conservative, by Jesse Norman. Charles Moore, Margaret Thatcher: The Authorized Biography.  I’ve browsed some of it, it looks really quite good, noting that in general authorized biographies bore me. Sheila Miyoshi Jager, Brothers at War: The Unending Conflict in Korea, the Korean conflicts in broader global perspective.  Good advance reviews, looks interesting on a browse. Economic Theory of Greed, Love, Groups, and Networks, by Paul Frijters with Gigi Foster.

WASHINGTON -- The fight over student loan interest rates, which will double to 6.8 percent on federally subsidized Stafford loans on July 1 if Congress doesn't act, grew messier on Wednesday with a promise from the Obama administration to veto a House of Representatives plan for a long-term change to interest rates. The White House, Congressional Republicans and Congressional Democrats have now offered widely divergent plans to avert the rate hike. The Obama administration favors a long-term fix that would base interest rates for student loans on the government's cost of borrowing, while Congressional Democrats want to extend the current interest rate for a year or two in order to reauthorize the Higher Education Act. Like the Obama administration's plan, the House Republican plan called for basing the interest rate on student loans on the 10-year yield on U.S. Treasury bonds. But the House Republican plan would allow rates to vary from year to year over the life of the loan. (Senate Republicans introduced a plan closer to the administration's: rates would vary from year to year for new loans, but they'd be fixed over the life of the loan, like a traditional mortgage.) The truly variable rate was unacceptable, the White House said in a policy statement Wednesday. The administration is also concerned that the plan doesn't provide lower interest rates for subsidized student loan borrowers, who are financially needy, and that it doesn't expand income-based repayment programs. If the bill passes in its current form, senior advisers would advise the president to veto it. The House is expected to consider the bill today.

ME Studies The department of English invites applications for a tenure-track assistant professor in ME Studies, starting Fall 2014. Applicants should demonstrate a sustained scholarly engagement with ME. Demonstrated expertise in one or more of the following areas is preferred: research I care about, topics I've been focusing on for years, theories I am familiar with, practices I approve of, and debates already settled by ME. Successful applicants will be less successful than I am but not so unsuccessful that it reflects poorly on ME. The lucky chosen one will have the opportunity to work with ME. Candidates must have a Ph.D. from an institution I approve of and have recommendation letters from people I know and respect but am not threatened by. Please send just the names of people you know I know by October 15th. My university is an Affirmative Action/Equal Employment Opportunity Employer and does not discriminate against any individual on the basis of age, color, disability, gender, national origin, religion, sexual orientation, veteran status or genetic information. However, applicants who cite ME are particularly encouraged to apply. Mead Embry is a pseudonym for an English professor. Editorial Tags: Hiring

Ford Foundation International Fellowships Program is graduating its last students. The program, which operates in 22 developing countries, has focused on students from marginalized groups with a commitment to social justice. Editorial Tags: International higher education

The U.S. Education Department today published its annual compendium of all the data you'd want to know about American education: "The Condition of Education 2013." The report, published by the National Center for Education Statistics, includes special focus sections on the employment rates of young adults (noting that those with bachelor's degree are far likelier than high school graduates to be employed) and on various aspects of student debt. Ad keywords: Student Aid & Loans