Indeed they do (and far better than most English-speakers speak any foreign language). My point was that this has been professionally translated from Greek into many languages, beginning with German on January 13 (paywall, sadly). So there is no point in criticising the English of the original Greek author or authors.
Hm, not the feeling I got. Scandinavian countries (and Cypriots but that's a special case) are way more fluent in English with a way better accent (better == clearer) than Germans I've met. And I've met a lot of both actually.
I'm in the crowd that's getting into analog electronics and digital circuits backwards, as it were, by starting with programmable microcontrollers (Arduinos etc.) and moving outward from them on the circuit board. I found the latter book was particularly well suited for self-learning. It is also huge and, as far as I can tell, vastly comprehensive. The writing is clear and concise. Explanations of concepts often draw on analogy, classical electrical theory, and quantum physics alike. This multitude of approaches has helped me grasp the fundamentals more firmly than other books. It also keeps an eye on practical applications. Sections on, say, power rectifiers or op amps or timers or debouncing circuits or whatever all show you many variations on a theme, with discussion of what you would want to use in which situations.
Also, if I'm speaking to anyone else like me, software engineers who want to know hardware, buy all the books you can, but get an oscilloscope. I waited far too long for this purchase. I wouldn't write code without a debugger; this is the hardware equivalent. I recently got this little Rigol model: https://www.adafruit.com/products/681 . It costs the same as a few big electronics books, and it's the difference between stumbling around a room in the dark and having illumination everywhere.
Since our daughter was three, we have read aloud to each other every night. Like others in this thread, we don't have a TV. When she was younger, she would sometimes draw or play with Playmobil while we read, but still we would always read together. When she became old enough, we would pass the book around and each read a bit. She would typically read one or two pages, a "reading sacrifice," while one of us would finish the chapter. She is now 10. We still read to each other every night, and she herself has become a voracious reader as well as an enthusiastic writer, using google docs to collaborate with friends and share with family and teachers. She reads chapters of her favorite books or her own writing aloud to us. She has her own laptop computer (chromebook to dual-boot linux for Minecraft), which I think she uses responsibly. When she goes online to chat with friends or play on a Minecraft server, she tells us where she's going. Just as we'd want to know if she's visiting a friend's house, we want to know who she's spending time with online. Ditching the TV (who needs it?) and replacing it with family reading has been wonderful for all of us.
There are so many great books that are enjoyable for young and old alike. It will of course depend on your and your child's proclivities, but our favorites over the years have included: The Wizard of Oz books (all 12 volumes, some of which are quite dark, except Ozma's birthday; blech); The Ramayana (seriously); Winnie the Pooh; Stuart Little; Narnia; Hobbit; Sherlock Holmes; Agatha Christie (we read 60 of these together after she turned 7; her favorite is The Body in the Library); Hugo Cabret; The Golden Compass; Sea of Trolls; Treasure Island; Tripods; Wrinkle in Time; Earthsea Trilogy; LOTR; Rumpole of the Bailey; James Thurber; Lemony Snicket (esp. All the Wrong Questions). In addition, she has her own favorites that she's read alone to herself over the years.
She also reads many graphic novels, which have greatly influenced her own storytelling and art. She has loved Amulet, Flight, Delilah Dirk, In Real Life, The Silver Six, Ghostopolis, Bad Island, Zita the Space Girl, Drama, Sisters, Smile, Rapunzel's Revenge, Bone.
For reading aloud, I especially recommend Sherlock Holmes, Agatha Christie, and other crime/mystery books with 19th-century decorum. They expose the crime, puzzles, characters, and social dynamics, while leaving the explicit sex and violence off stage. (She can of course ask about anything she likes.)
I hope people will respond with their favorite out-loud reading books.
The title is a bit hyperbolic. The article shows how the Van Allen belts constitute a "nearly impenetrable" barrier preventing "ultra-fast electrons" from approaching the earth.
In fairness, the article is almost as bad as the title. It isn't even clear at first that they are taking about belt electrons rather than cosmic-ray electrons, which have many orders of magnitude higher energy.
The gist of the article seems to be, "The sharpness of the outer edge of the inner Van Allen belt is due to scattering of high-energy belt electrons off cold plasma surrounding the Earth" but it's really difficult to tell.
For one optimistic moment there, I thought this was going to be about, you know, ethics. Like how Uber abuses its drivers, or how it demeans women, or how it threatens journalists. But no, "ethically challenged" means they don't break the rules successfully enough.
I am all for govt. funding scientific endeavours and space exploration like this.
But one thing I don't like about the comic is it implies that many problems faced in the world like hunger and malaria are not easily solvable.
IMHO, It is quite simply a travesty that there is still so much absolute poverty and deaths (through malnutrition easily curable and/or preventable diseases) in the third world. Many of these problems were solved in the early 20th century- It is a lack of political will of governments and the collective apathy of its citizens, who are engrossed in their own first-world problems.
To answer the xkcd comic: Yes. 15 years should be enough to at least halve world-wide deaths due to hunger and diseases like Malaria and Cholera, If the citizens of the first world make it a voter issue. Such endeavours will pay themselves multiple times over. (increased human output, new trading markets for companies, reduced population growth) And you don't need to sacrifice funding for scientific research to do it(coughs military budgets).
