Jessica Hellmann proposes that maybe we should move polar bearsfrom the North Pole, where the ice cap is more progressively disappearing, to the south pole where the ice cap is still disappearing but not exactly at the same pace. The concept being that while we are trying to reduce carbon dioxide levels, we should maybe give nature a helping hand by moving some of these species around to climates better suited to their sustainability.

The problem I have with this is that every time humans have interferred with the natural food chain in a specific area we have screwed things up so massively as to be unrepairable.

Let’s follow the logic in the case of polar bears just as an example. Assume we move 200 polar bears from the North Pole to the south. Yes there are seals in this area which are one of the primary food sources, but there are also a number of other prey that are not adapted to the presence of such a large land carnivore roaming around. Penguins for example will not have defensive mechanisms against Polar Bears and it would simply be like shooting fish in a barrel. Seals, who in the north create dens in the ice flows where they have an escape route under the sea ice will have no such protection in the south as most of Antarctica is a solid land mass. Again – like shooting fish in a barrel.

Mammals tend to bred based upon the availability of their food sources until they establish a natural equilibrium with the other plants and animals in the area which sustain them (present company excepted of course). With a very large abundant supply of food, Polar Bear populations in the south would tend to explode which would put further pressure on other already delicate food chain equilibriums. Such a situation would have radical implications for the entire food web all for the sake of those few animals at the top of the food chain which are, arguably, the most adaptable to changing circumstances.

In short – good idea, lousy execution.

The health of any ecosystem is only as good as its weakest link. If these people really want to make a difference then find the weak link in the food web and focus on the sustainability issues that impact the health and viability of that component. Polar Bears have adapted to global warming episodes in the past (Greenland was called Greenland for a reason in the not too distant past) and they will endure this one. The issue for Polar Bears is not the lack of accessibility of sea ice, it is the endangerment and accessibility of their food sources. Which means the weak link is further down in the food web.

Unfortunately it is always easier to apply a band-aid to the wound we can see rather than treating the internal causes. Hopefully that doesn’t mean transporting Polar Bears to Antarctica; something that will cause more harm than good I fear. – K

Education across different schools, and sometimes within the same school, is uneven at best. At higher levels of education each professor is responsible for his/her own exams and to ensure that those exams suitably measure the level of retention and the ability of students to apply the rudiments of the subject matter. No one should be fooled into thinking that successfully passing an exam is the end point in the learning curve. It is the starting point from which a student graduates from being a neophyte to apprentice to eventually someone that might actually know what the heck it is they are talking about.

By posting exams online, the opportunity exists to evaluate whether a program has established a sufficient level of knowledge acquisition by the students taking that program. For example, there is a vast difference between asking the question:

Q: State the 12 axioms of the real number system

and

Q: Which of the following is not an axiom of the real number system

1. a + ( b + c ) = ( a + b ) + c
2. a + 0 = 0 + a = a
3. a * b = b * a
4. ( | a + b | )² = ( a + b )² =  a² + 2ab + b²

Most first year calculus students should be able to tell you that the answer is (d). However in order to properly construct proofs, a student needs to know each of the 12 axioms by heart.

The construction of the exam is not just about what knowledge is being transferred from professor to student but also about the quality of that knowledge and whether the rigor of such training is sufficiently robust. Publishing exams allows students to examine the rigor inherent in the program to determine if a particular program is going to position them well to succeed or not later when it comes time to compete with everyone else for well paying careers.

If professors have the opportunity to see what other professors are testing their students on, then the bar will tend to be raised higher overall because no one wants to be seen as the professor who’s students got through 4 years of aerospace engineering based on multiple choice questions. Not to mention what an academic review board might have to say if they consistent see the quality of examinations being sub-standard compared to what everyone else is using.

You have to keep in mind that examinations are as much a reflection of what the professor is capable of teaching their students as it is a reflection of the capabilities of the students themselves. Poor exams mean poor knowledge transfer – means poor student understanding – means a less capable workforce – means disadvantaged businesses and fewer economic opportunities. – K

In his ruling Judge Louis Stanton granted 3 of Viacom’s 8 motions. Those being

1. Access to all videos removed by YouTube since it’s inception.
2. Access to all logs of videos watched including IP address and User Ids
3. Access to Google’s Video Schema which also connects to YouTube

What is disturbing about the ruling is a number of factors. The primary issue however is that there is no stated limitation in the terms of use of such information provided by Google to Viacom. That means there is no requirement for 3rd party verification of the disposal of such information once the purposes for which this information has been requested has been fulfilled. Essentially, Viacom can use any of the information however they choose to including the conducting of civil suits against individuals who upload copyright material similar to what the recording industry has been doing for some time.

While the judge ruled that access to an IP address and User Id does not, in of itself, constitute a break of someone’s privacy unless combined with other information, because there is no limitation of the terms of use of any information collected from YouTube, Viacom is free to do that data matching using other sources of data at their disposal.

For example, an IP address can allow someone to narrow down where that IP address physically resides by determining the sub-mask and range that it belongs to. You could narrow down to with a couple of blocks the exact neighbourhood the IP address belonged to. Using the IP address, subnet mask, and personal profile based on their YouTube ID, or even just the ID name itself, data matching could be done on anyone that has accessed a Viacom website or partner in order to uniquely identify who that person is.

The potential for mis-use of such information is far in excess of what the court has determined as part of its judgement. The fact that such a wide breadth of information has been made available, essentially with unrestricted use, as a legal precedence is something that should concern pretty much everyone. The problem is not just Viacom – its the fact that Viacom has cleared a path down a slippery slope that others with far less benign intentions will use to justify the erosion of personal privacy.

As the saying goes – the road to hell is paved with good intentions. – K

What seems to be evident from this DVD series is that without these currents, the basic food sources in a specific area would quickly be consumed without opportunity to replenish. One of the implications is that early forms of life would have had a built in defense mechanism against other predatory organisms. It would be easy to imagine that with the very earliest forms of life such defense would have been surely a matter of dumb luck. However with each circuit around the ocean currents, specialization would occur through natural selection in which less migratory organisms would develop more aggressive, predatory tactics and the more highly migratory organisms (at least to begin with) would develop more defensive tactics.

Currently there is this big push on to see if life ever evolved on Mars. The essence of the theory is that where there is flowing water, there exists the possibility of life. My thought however is that it isn’t just flowing water that is a requirement. You need to show geological evidence of some type of circulatory system for water otherwise the processes of natural selection have no opportunity to influence the evolution of amino acids to single celled organisms to multi-celled organisms.

In the case of Mars while water does appear to exist, circulation doesn’t. So my thought is that the best we will ever hope to find is the precursors of life, but not actual life itself. For that, we might actually have a better chance of finding life on Titan. – K