Great slide show: How to tear down a nuclear power plant

Click on the link above to see a great slides show of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant destruction and work to stop the reaction.  

The finger of God

Tuition costs: Dependent on your major

The University of Nebraska--Lincoln is considering charging engineering majors more than, say, English majors.

[T]he proposal is expected to allow UNL, for the first time, to charge more tuition for some undergraduate programs than for others.

It would be a watershed departure from the concept that all Nebraska resident undergraduates should pay the same tuition for their degrees — currently $198.25 per credit hour — no matter what they study.

UNL previously dipped its toe into this water, however, by enacting a $40 per credit hour fee for engineering classes in 2007. Unlike traditional laboratory fees often charged for certain classes, the fee was not directly linked to a specific classroom expense.

At first glance, this almost makes sense. If students major in a field that costs more to teach, then perhaps it makes sense to charge more for the education. Engineering requires more lab work, more equipment, and maybe better teachers. So, perhaps students should pay for that. English, on the other hand, does not require particular facilities, at least not like those of engineering.

But, if you read the article, university costs are not the issue, at least not by major. The thinking is that an engineering student would make more money upon graduation and could therefore be charged more for his education. The proposed scheme is not based on university costs by major, but rather university costs in total and then those costs are skewed based on expected salaries.

Seems to me that an engineer could argue for a lower price if he promised to take a low paying job. Silly, isn't it?

PHD comics: The grand unified theory

While the video from PHD comics doesn't say it explicitly, what we're starting to see is the connection between cosmology and particle physics.

Physics who study the heavens are now interacting with physicists who study the nature of matter. For years, these were separate endeavors with little in common. Now, the scientists are finding common ground.

You heard it here: These collaborations will yield the Grand Unified Theory!

Watch the video, it's worth a few minutes.

Bing versus Google

Earlier today I needed to convert 6-inches to that distance in the units of meters. Search engines are known to perform computations. Here's what Bing provided:

which is terribly wrong. A meter is about 3-feet, so 6-inches, at 1/2-feet is about 1/6-meter or 0.17-meters.

I tried Google:

and got the right answer.

So, what's up with Bing?

Update: If I type in Bing: "6 inches to meters" I do get the right answer. So, what's the difference between "6-inches to meters" and "6 inches to meters" other than the dash after the 6? And, this is cute, for Google, the dash in the search terms, doesn't even return a wrong answer; rather I get no conversion.

Seems weird to me, but maybe I'm missing something.