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see http://www.canoe.ca to see the hole in the WTA!

One common argument in favor of a zygote's not being a life is the argument that it is just a ball of cells. This same argument is carried further to early stage fetuses before the nervous system is developed to the extent of anything resembling consciousness. [some take it even further. I am trying to summarize a variety of arguments quickly here and have probably not captured every nuance. Please do not quibble unless you think there is some way of phrasing it that is especially useful]

Recently, findings were published from a study which entailed injecting live human fetal cells into a developing monkey fetus brain. The experiment was a success in that the human cells developed fully and were incorporated into the monkey brain... huh? When the researchers were killing these monkeys, did they give any thought to the notion that they were killing a being with partial but fully developed human nervous system?

Am I taking sides in this issue? Well, you decide after I tell you where in the middle I stand. Between what isn't a human life and what is a human life there is a vast grey area. Clearly we need to draw a line somewhere, but wherever we draw a line we are going to be able to find seeming "inconsistencies". But draw a line we must. I am in favor of drawing a more conservative line that errs on the side of preserving more of what "might be" humans, because I think devaluing humanity is a slippery slope. Is this an inconsisten position? Not more than any other. But is it a "costly" position in terms of "humanity"?

We know that there are plenty of scientists among us who would be perfectly willing to experiment on human adults or children in the name of science. Certainly we'd get the best results that way, and the cost of a small number of botched experiments would be more than made up for by the millions of lives improved and saved with our new knowledge. If we experimented on volunteers, what's the diff? Most/many scientists give at least lip service to the supposed ethical problem they see with experimenting on actual human subjects. Well, limits on fetal research or stem cell research are simply a small extension to the "keep off the grass" area. The cost is less knowledge about human biology, only more slowly developing cures to defects and frailties. But defects and frailties are part of what makes us human. What we have in common with our ancestors is that we are mortal. We live, we love, we die. (interesting: I'm applying the leftwing/romanticized/artsy view of humanity, liberal arts if you will, as opposed to the cold calculations of cost-benefit... now who is the hypocrite?) What if we could eradicate death... should we? Really?

What I find disturbing is the insanely egotistical drive for prolonging the lives of those close to us that this medical research represents. If prolonging and improving human life is your goal, well dig deep and save the children of Africa. If prolonging and improving your life is the goal, I have trouble joining in. Or maybe it's the "Nazi-scientist's" pursuit of knowledge for its own sake without regard to the humanity of the subjects that disturbs me. Or maybe these scientists are just buried in their research and don't even want to think about the issues, and it bothers me that they draw a conclusion without much thinking? Or maybe there is some merit to my suspicion that politics plays a role and if it's "conservative" they hate it and if it's "liberal" they like it, for what else could explain the way the two sides seem to line up?

I don't expect you to instantly come around to my postions here, but I hope you walk away realizing that there is more to think about here than "oh, the other side just doesn't get it". I, for one, think I've shown that I get a lot more of it than you do.

I defy anyone to explain to me how (as W would have it) it can be okay to finance research on human stem cell lines that were created before a certain date (date of W's speech?), and verboten to finance research on stem cells created after that date.

If scientists can live with a ban on experimenting on humans, they ought to be able to live with an only slightly more liberal definition of what is a human. Different people have different opinions and we reach middle ground in the political arena. I'd guess that Bush doesn't think he knows all the answers either, but realizes there are solid pros and cons and powerful political forces on both sides, and his decision was a compromise--generally, the ability to compromise is extolled as a virtue, you will recall.

It was ruled that the original judge (Thomas Penfield Jackson) would not preside over the penalty phase of the trial since it was determined (fairly or not...) that he was biased against Microsoft, based on statements he made durring the trial. The DOJ denied these charges presumably because they wantedan advantage durring the penalty phase.

This new article identifies Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly as the presiding judge for the penalty phase.

--CTH

Where do you get these wonderful statistics about the average lifespan of homosexuals? I'd like to see even one reference to this, regardless of how dodgy the source might be.

How about the Oxford's International Journal of Epidemiology or The CDC? If do do this Google search, you will find many articles about where the the average life expectancy of a non-HIV infected homosexual is about 42 years. =P

While it is true that women may get the disease easier, at least in Canada, the ratio of males to women who have the disease is 13:1 but that's not the case in Africa. Yet another good reason for women to be chaste and not abuse themselves with IV drugs.

There are also some nice graphs at Aids Central for those who don't want to read.

How so ? Give me any examples of that (human rights). It is a serious question.

The death penalty. Easy enough.

I could also go into better standards on freedom of speech, assembly, etc. As an example, look at the Guerrila Drive-In event in Minneapolis. This has been a successful event for two years and this year, because a movie entitled "Vampire Hookers" was to be shown, the city stepped in claiming a lack of proper permits, etc, when the organizers had made sure to get the proper paperwork completed just as in the two years prior. Now, in Berlin, some guy just dropped a headless cow from a helicopter. Another guy is displaying dead bodies that have been sealed in plastic and set dancing around a float in the love parade. Would these acts of speech be allowed in America?

I could go into the various social reforms - better education, universal health care, public transportation, environmental protection (actually living up to the Kyoto treaty), etc. And, more on topic, isn't voting one of the most basic rights in a democracy? America's high barriers to voting (registration is enough of a hassel) compared to mandantory registration in many European nations would be a good example there.

Of course, I haven't even touched on the human rights violations of American corporations, but since these are largely aimed at non-Americans, I'll leave them for another discussion. The fact that businesses, thanks to the 14th amendment, have the exact same rights as individuals, is proof enough that the United States has some problems with its human rights policies. For further review, I would direct you to Amnesty International's page on US human rights violations, but it seems to be down at the moment.

The targetting systems are accurate enough to track a dove flying in front of home plate a la Randy Johnson

It's not stealing in Canada...

Actually, it's a matter of dispute. Recent court rulings have supported pirating DirecTV signals in Canada. However, the Crown is appealing the decisions.

The law seems fairly clear:

No person shall

(c) decode an encrypted subscription programming signal or encrypted network feed otherwise than under and in accordance with an authorization from the lawful distributor of the signal or feed;

(d) operate a radio apparatus so as to receive an encrypted subscription programming signal or encrypted network feed that has been decoded in contravention of paragraph (c); or

(e) retransmit to the public an encrypted subscription programming signal or encrypted network feed that has been decoded in contravention of paragraph (c).

In any case, the main issue is whether it is ethical to pirate DirecTV even if there is a loophole in Canada's perverse telecommunications laws.

There is a similar question of whether it is ethical to even pay for DirecTV in Canada since DirecTV cannot be legally sold in Canada. The practical reason is that DirecTV can disable illegal receivers. Their measures might now work against the device described in this article.

speaking as a Canuck, I find our government's pronouncements about the very tiring on a good day and bloody irritating on a bad one.

Did anyone pay attention to the last election. One of their more ridiculous promises was to fund and build a "Canadian" portal to keep Canadians away from nasty american imperialist things like yahoo. This wondersite is supposed to be the one-stop solution to everything Canadian on the web. This is worrisome on several fronts:

1) It WILL end up being a slave to pro-government interest groups as the CBC is.

2) It's unfair to use government money to comete directly with private companies such as canoe and the like.

3) It will be a huge beast that sucks yet more of my tax money for a service that I don't need...

Canada has a few advantages, but these are overshadowed by our sad, pathetic anti-Americanism and self-righteous condemnation of sucess.

I didn't see Canada creating the internet...

There was an interesting article I found yesterday on the end of the Universe. Turns out the Universe will expand forever. I think a self renewing Universe would have been more interesting. The article also talks about the theory of flatness in space. The proof seems to be in that the Universe is flat-as-in-paper and not curved as thought. It's all got to do with the amount of Dark Matter in the Universe.

David vs. Goliath

Microsoft still beating up on everyone, including the small guy.

If you want to find out more about China, please read Jan Wong's China. It's a great read by someone who worked in Maoist China, left and then retured twice: in the mid/late 80's and then in the mid/late 90's.

From the Canoe review:

Jan Wong, the Globe And Mail terrier everyone loves to hate -- and who loves to hate everyone -- has written a followup to Red China Blues, her autobiographical account of her adventures in China as a student and "a good little Maoist." This one's about her six years as The Globe's Beijing correspondent, rounded out by a secret return visit earlier this year.

Wong has an advantage over the average correspondent or tourist in China, since she looks and speaks Chinese and thus attracts less attention and suspicion while doing her work. Plus, as a one-time member of the party faithful, she offers rare insight into the politics and culture of the Communist state.

I remember seeing this sort of thing in Popular Mechanics a while ago (or some mag), but it was using gasoline powered shoes. I found some interesting things on them however, they are gasoline powered shoes that allow you to get about 4 meters to the stride and allow people to run about 40km/hour (or so the article says) It comes from a russian design.

Daily radar has an article about them here and another article about the gaspowered shoes is available here I want a pair of these!

Actually, both BCE (which owns Sympatico internet service, the CTV television network, a mini-satellite network, and a bunch of newspapers), and CanWest Global (which owns the 'Global' television network, a dizzying number of newspapers (or just has major interest in some), movies and many other ventures) had been recently investigated by the CRTC as part of their license renewal because of the fact there is some concern that these companies hold far too much control over the media and this threatens both the depth of coverage of stories as well as the objectiveness of the journalists covering them.

The problem is worse when the State-owned CBC is told by politicos to become more "profitable", then start to copycat the private media stations, and start competing for a bigger share of the advertising market. So, the State television becomes more like a whorthless popular pap provider like private networks than quality content provider for the minority of people who really understand culture (and are the only people who really matter - as opposed to the masses of corporate fare-sucking unwashed consumer hordes).

Interestingly, the people the most opposed to tha increase of advertising share are the private broadcasters; they're the most vocal in wanting to keep the CBC a State-operated network so it won't intrude too much in their lucrative advertising.

But it seems it still won't please the likes of Konrad Black, who would like the State minimized to the point that it solely looks at Konrad's interests (as long as Konrad doesn't pay any taxes for it), so Konrad keeps his crusade to destroy the State as much as possible, especially if it won't let him be anointed.

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That will leave us and our MP3 collections (which, BTW, I say fall under fair use) free at last! I don't know if this is what Microsoft intends to happen, but I fully support it!

BTW, for you folks who didn't bother to read the real article, you can find it here. Please read this one before you chime in with ill-informed comments! Don't bash Microsoft until you actually comprehend the facts. I know that's a lot to ask of /.ers, but I've yet to give up....

Unfortunately, it looks like BOTH the Pluto and the X-33/34 missions have been canceled. I guess NASA doesn't have enough money for either of them. I wish they could have made at least one of these two work - I'm much more interested in this stuff than the ISS.

Uh, there was a commercial FastCGI module available for the Netscape servers. Does the same thing most people use mod_perl for: it allows slightly-modified CGI code to be compiled and cached by a persistent Perl interpreter.

The only problem is that it was sold to another company, which was in turn acquired, and it was taken off the market. You may want to contact Adero to see if they'd be so kind as to point you in the right direction.

If you're running the Netscape/iPlanet webserver on NT or Win2K, you can also use ActiveState's PerlEx, which is another similar persistent-Perl engine.

There also appears to be a reasonably modern Perl NSAPI module, which is philosophically the closest thing to mod_perl in that it lets you get close to the metal and write true server modules in Perl. It's here.

Velocigen, another commercial product, isn't exclusively a Perl engine. It's a logic and content caching engine that uses XML tags that can hook to cached and embedded code--including Perl. It's probably a different development experience from these other systems, but if persistent Perl is your goal, this should do it too.

Ever tried searching the Web?

can be found on Canoe.ca. Particularly the "Bell Canada" ads where an image with a transparent background, about 100 X 100, slowly "falls" down the screen over top of the goddamn text. It is even more annoying as it falls about about the same rate that I read, such that I'm always trying to read around it.

Is it successful? God, no. Now I'll open up a link on Canoe, throw it in the background for 5 - 10 seconds while I read another page so that the ad is gone by the time I read the article.

Stop pestering us with ads dammit. I change the channels in between commercials (or mute it and read during that time). I close my eyes when I pee in public bathrooms because that damn Zoom media is everywhere. I throw fliers in the garbage. I do not read billboards along the street as I am driving because I'm driving. My attention is on the street. Don't take that to mean that you should buy the damn pavement and stick your logos there, because I'll look up into the sky to spite you. I ignore banner ads, popup ads, junk email, product placements, inserts, fliers, labels, branding, newspaper ads, magazine ads, advertising rags that try to pass themselves off as magazines, "reviews" which are really promotions, and any other forms of advertising I can possibly think of.

When I need or want your product, I'll research it. Until then, leave me alone.

I saw Monkeybone last night and I'm still digesting it. The action sequence towards the end of the movie was some of the funniest bits of movie making in years. Some of the movie, however kind of dragged on and was just inappropiate. The theatre I was in was full of kids who didn't get the sex jokes (That seduction thing with the bed was the funniest thing I've seen in a long time!) and I think they were kinda disturbed by the Downtown stuff - heck, it weirded me out.
After I got back from the theatre, I wanted to see what other people thought so I checked out some other reviews.
Canoe and The Toronto Star hated it. Salon loved it, calling it a classic. The Globe and Mail was somewhere inbetween calling saying: Kids won't know what to make of it, adults will think it's for kids, and critics will eagerly dump on the thing. Of all the reviews I think I agree the most with this one.
I'm still undecided witch my opinion. It's much more than a simple gross out movie and there's some interesting imagry and throughts in the movie (exploring the subconscious) and there were some excellent lines ("Choke my monkey" hehe - still gets me). I really think it's going to take another viewing to get a real handle on this movie.
The Salon review linked above also has a bit on the studios reaction to the movie.

The comedy channel thought of doing this until Viacom snuffed it out.

Actually, the copyright that now exists was hijacked by Republic pictures.

It's still an oustanding idea though.

Is Keanu Reeves really worth $27million and 15% gross MORE than Jet Li? It's Keanu who needs more physical training; many (most?) of us think he needs more theatrical training as well. Yet still, according to the above article, Li was offered a measly $3million -- no wonder he bailed! What were the producers thinking?

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safety Sorry No. Go down and have a look at the 'murder' columns, shows a value of deaths per 100k. US ends up w/ double digits with countries like the USSR, Latvia & Brazil - Drastically higher than sub 2 values of star performers like Canada, Belgium, Greece and Japan..

freedom Sorry No. Have a look at the Corruption Index (Scroll to Table 1), American Imperialism (and here), McArthyism.. I wont bother with the links: DMCA, Marijuana Prohibition, Prostitution, Collusive Monopolies (RIAA/MPAA), The Cuban Embargo, Kent State Massacre, Vietnam, Cambodia, Bay of Pigs, Iran-Contra Affair, Watergate, Assassinations of John/Bobby Kennedy & MLK, Invasion of Granada, The War on Drugs, Internet Censorship in Schools/Libraries, Consumerism, Work holism, Invasion of Dominican Republic, Gulf War, Systemic Racism (weak gay rights)... etc etc

quality of life Sorry No. Canada has the highest Standard of Living on the planet - 7 years running...

I went to Chicago for NewYears eve to visit some friends. On the way home we heard a news reporter 'lead out of a story' by saying "...and after all; we are the richest and most powerful people in the world." What I began to think is that Americans have begun to treat their 'democracy' (*ahem*) like a Religion. There is no debate. They have enjoyed a very good 150 years - and like all successful civilizations; it will eventually end. If America didnt have such a large piece of 'virgin' North America to exploit for natural resources, and did host a World War (or two) Im betting the world would be a very different place. The 'success' of America dosnt prove the 'rightness' of Capitalism - so get that out of your head. America's 'success' is not success at all! (See adbusters.org about consumerism and mindlessness). America would do itself a favour and learn a little collective humility. Surely the last election has taught you something...

The system has been horribly corrupt by politicians and business people 'on the take'. Their is no longer anyone in Washington who intends to lead Americans. To help America lead and become better global citizens - and try their best to help set a good example - and take examples from those who are already doing good. No person on this planet should be without the rights described in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms or the US Constitution (or similar documents written or yet-to-be written). Like it or not this is a Global Village and we should be working together for the good of us all.

I refuse to become cynical and jadded. People will respond that this is 'The Real World' - to that I suggest people decide what we are choosing to make this 'Real World' become? Like it or not our collective action/inaction everyday sets the course for the future. We need to stop the 'present' America from setting the course that it is now (and using arms/propaganda to force others into capitulating). (I wont bother with the globalization/imperialist/enslavement/end-of-the-p lanet scenario that is our current future).

Please American PEOPLE do something about your government.

It hasn't been for many years. Everyone knows Canada is the best country in the world in which to live. Sure, they have their problems, but the UN can't be wrong 7 years in a row can they? (Well, they probably can, but it's still a nice gesture).

Rogers communication, which is partly owned (if not owned completely) by AT&T Canada, is also rolling out GSM service in Canada...

Too bad FIDO (Microcell Communications) has already been offering GSM, but at 1900 mHz, instead of the world stand of 1800mHz.

Here's the story on Canoe.ca

Why would anyone be thinking about Turkey?

The only recent news about them involves a US military spokesman there that denies Iraq's claims of having shot down a US fighter jet [see here]; and a few weeks ago there were news stories about the Turkish government repressing (foreign) free enterprise business [see here]; and a heck of a long time ago (well, a few months, anyway) a bunch of boorish Brits got their asses kicked for desecrating the Turkish flag during a soccer match [see here].

Anyway, point is, nothing much seems to be happening in Turkey, so why are we assumed to be thinking about it?

Until some sort of really great geek hardware comes bursting out of its borders, or until they start some war with a neighbour, I just don't see why I'd ever think about Turkey.

Jus' curious about the original author's thinking...

--

Why would anyone be thinking about Turkey?

The only recent news about them involves a US military spokesman there that denies Iraq's claims of having shot down a US fighter jet [see here]; and a few weeks ago there were news stories about the Turkish government repressing (foreign) free enterprise business [see here]; and a heck of a long time ago (well, a few months, anyway) a bunch of boorish Brits got their asses kicked for desecrating the Turkish flag during a soccer match [see here].

Anyway, point is, nothing much seems to be happening in Turkey, so why are we assumed to be thinking about it?

Until some sort of really great geek hardware comes bursting out of its borders, or until they start some war with a neighbour, I just don't see why I'd ever think about Turkey.

Jus' curious about the original author's thinking...

--

Why would anyone be thinking about Turkey?

The only recent news about them involves a US military spokesman there that denies Iraq's claims of having shot down a US fighter jet [see here]; and a few weeks ago there were news stories about the Turkish government repressing (foreign) free enterprise business [see here]; and a heck of a long time ago (well, a few months, anyway) a bunch of boorish Brits got their asses kicked for desecrating the Turkish flag during a soccer match [see here].

Anyway, point is, nothing much seems to be happening in Turkey, so why are we assumed to be thinking about it?

Until some sort of really great geek hardware comes bursting out of its borders, or until they start some war with a neighbour, I just don't see why I'd ever think about Turkey.

Jus' curious about the original author's thinking...

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The elections are going to last five weeks. That's plenty enough. Do you really wants elections à la United States where they drag on forever? People act all surprised when an election is called, as if they just discovered that politics existed!

And no, Day isn't for legalization of marijuana.

-Earthling

First off, bookmark Canoe and visit it once a day. Stay plugged in, your Canadian damnit.

Second, Day is a redneck facist. I live in Alberta, and trust me, he blows goats.

Finally, I said it before, and I'll say it again... If those Yanks vote Bush into office, we are gonna burn your WhiteHouse again.

For tech news, I check BBC Tech News, Ace's Hardware, Tom's Hardware , or ARS Technicia. ZDNet has become way to sensational and biased. And all the crappy banners! More like The National Enquirer of geekdom.

For discussions, I check K5 or Rootprompt. And Slashdot. But it's tough to have a discussion here anymore.

I'm sorry to say, but Slashdot, while I check it regularly, is starting to have too high a signal-to-noise ratio. Not enough "discussion" too much "babooey to natalie portman's beowulf cluster of hot grits and penis bird on toast."

It's safer to stay off the main page if I want some interesting discussion. As well, I don't tolerate mistakes in my profession. No matter what I do, I like it to be as perfect as humanly possible. While I know mistakes happen, there have been far too many here, adding to the signal-to-noise ratio, and reducing my faith in accurate articles.

I get my news elsewhere, but I still come back, hoping the old days will return.

Just look at Canada, for example. There, two men are being prosecuted for obscenity because they've used computers to create realistic snuff films portraying fabricated and fictitious violence (not that normal porn isn't violent enough as it is). Without government intervention to declare these films false and criminal, people might think them real and might act upon the impulses generated by viewing them.

It's the same with anonymous speech. You may pretend you understand what is credible and what is not, and you may even be right. But it's a natural part of human nature to assess anonymous speech with some value when ranking memes. Only through law can we save people from themselves and reestablish which memes have value and which are credible; law is a pillar of legitimacy and credibility in an uncertain world.

Check out this Time article on the effects divorce has on children. To think the media/Internet play a greater influence than parents on kinds is rediculous.

here is a link from slashdot where the same thing is used to make robots.

Last march, Canadian astronaut Judith Lapierre almost walked out of a long-term space station simulation experiment when a drunken russian astronaut started making passes at her.
Is this the kind of crap we can expect from Destination MIR ?
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You can't have it both ways.

YOU CAN HAVE IT BOTH WAYS.

From http://www.canoe.ca/TimeCanada0009/0 4_time8.html

What is really at risk in the Arctic is part of the thermostat of Earth itself. The difference in temperature between the tropics and the poles drives the global climate system. The excess heat that collects in the tropics is dissipated at the poles, about half of it through what has been nicknamed the ocean conveyor, a vast deep-water current equivalent in flow to 100 Amazon Rivers. Much of the rest of the heat is conveyed as the energy in storms that move north from the tropics. If the poles continue to warm disproportionately faster than the tropics, the vigor of this planetary circulatory system may diminish, altering prevailing winds, ocean currents and rainfall patterns. Already, severe and unpredictable storms in the northern hemisphere may be a sign that the global system is changing. Canadians like to think they will be winners in a global-warming era. Warmer weather, the theory goes, will make it possible to grow more food for export. That could happen, but there are no guarantees. Grain production in the breadbaskets of Canada and the U.S. could be in jeopardy if rainfall becomes less steady and predictable. Moreover, greater climate change could be ahead. Growing numbers of scientists fear that the warming trend will so disrupt ocean circulation patterns that the Gulf Stream, the current that warms large parts of the northern hemisphere, could shut down. If that happens, global warming would, ironically, produce global cooling--and bring on a deep freeze.

the link on the main /. thread changed. Find it here: http://www.canoe.c a/MoneyNewsTechnology/aug15_cowplandquits.html

This wasn't in the text of the article, but it's an update on recently posted material.

This article on Canoe.ca states that Jimmy Smits, Samuel L. Jackson, and Anthony Daniels have already left the Sydney set of Star Wars. Smits is already done his work (having only been announced that he was cast on Friday!), Jackson is done dialogue and must return in August to do a few action scenes, and Daniels will return briefly for work in Italy (Naboo) and Tunisia (Tatooine).

This wasn't in the text of the article, but it's an update on recently posted material.

This article on Canoe.ca states that Jimmy Smits, Samuel L. Jackson, and Anthony Daniels have already left the Sydney set of Star Wars. Smits is already done his work (having only been announced that he was cast on Friday!), Jackson is done dialogue and must return in August to do a few action scenes, and Daniels will return briefly for work in Italy (Naboo) and Tunisia (Tatooine).

Found this article from Canoe.ca about Japan conferees giving new 'dot-something'
So, can we get something like '.geek' and '.nerd'? Or something like './."?

Found this article from Canoe.ca about Japan conferees giving new 'dot-something'
So, can we get something like '.geek' and '.nerd'? Or something like './."?

It's about time! Russia has already held up the launch, what, three times now? This is a bit surprising, though, since I just read at canoe that the date was expected to be announced tomorrow.
I want to know how well this is going to be inspected before launch. Do we really want the ISS failing because somebody didn't want to save face? (Let's hope ISS works better that IIS 8p ).

To quote: "The "extraordinarily detailed database" holds a dossier on almost every person in Canada with as many as 2,000 pieces of information about each person's education, marital status, ethnic origin, mobility, disabilities, income tax, employment and social assistance history.".

It's scary stuff to say the least. Ostensibly, this information has been collected "to plan schools, hospitals, utilities", but it's only one step from being a huge money-maker when sold to advertisers. How would you like to receive targeted marketing from medical companies when they learn from your medical records that you have such-and-such a disease/condition?

Apparently (though I can't find the news article relating to it), there is going to be a dismantling of this database, but do you trust that the information will be destroyed? Or will it be broken down into smaller chunks and disseminated among government agencies responsible for particulars? When you decide to run for prime minister at age 50, will the two months that you were on welfare in your 20's be delivered to the media by some source?

TheGeek

Why are we so intent on replacing newspapers when they are the most effective medium for news?

I disconcurr that they are the most effective medium. Here's my rant: Like all media, newspapers need to be profitable. No surprise, this is accomplished by having more revenue than expenditures. For newspapers this formula causes a variety of problems:

1. Percent of non-content expenditure is high. Every day my newspaper spends x dollars... and x is a very big number indeed. Most of that x goes to paying for non-content stuff. If you add up how much is spent on journalists (plus their support expenses) and wire service and photographers and then compare that to how much is spent on production personnnel, consumables (ink, paper, film etc), sales and support staff, distribution (moving 250,000 newspapers in vans!), promo, marketing, exec yatta yatta... you find out that less than 10% of expenditures is spent on developing content! This is not an effective way to get the news out.

2. Revenue requirements demand a mass market. Any newspaper with less than 100,000 sales is doomed. There just won't be enough readers to support ad revenue. So how does a newspaper maintain readership levels? By stampedeing to the Lowest Common Denominator. The content is kept easy (grade 8 reading level), short (those gen X-ers hate to read more than 200 words... witness the fact you've given up on this post already) and only cover topics perceived as having the widest appeal. That, my friend, is low-quality content.

3. It's plain just not efficient. Our paper runs three Sun E300s, a 220R and a small boatload of sparc 10s as servers. We have 250ish clients (65 of which are yosemite-or-better macs. Not cheap). More than enough computing power to put up a hefty news www site. If that were done, we would eliminate the cost of production and distro (there are more people designing ads than writing news, btw) allowing for either a) more news or b) more profit.

With one glance at the Washington Post while I'm buying coffee at 7-11

7-11 coffee? DC is a tough town! It's true that consumer convenience is the primary reason for the continuance of the newspaper... a point succinctly made by our former publisher "If we weren't a tabloid, we'd be out of business"... in reference to being easy to read on the bus. The biggest thing keeping papers around is that it is portable, cheap and universally accessible. A computer weighs 10kg, costs $1000+ and sits on your desk. But with the recent "day-trade-on-your-cellphone" tech front opening up, it's only a matter of time before the electronic media catch up in that dept.... and a cellphone is even easier to read on the bus than a tabloid!

DrEldarion wrote "They've already done experiements where they put electrodes on a guy and he was able to move a cursor around the screen just by thinking about it... (sorry, I forgot where I read that... no link :/ ) "

Here's some links to articles about that:

• Brain Implant Allows Paralyzed Man To Control Computer
• Implant Lets Computer, Paralyzed Man's Brain 'Talk'
• Brain Implant Helps Quadroplegics Communicate
• Medical Marvel Links A Brain And A Computer
• New Brain Implant Connects To Nervous System
• Thought-Activated Computing
• Brain Implant allows Paralysed Man To Communicate With Computer

• Also, a Slashdot article:

• Brain Implants Control Computers

" Anyways, I'm sure that eventually you'll just have a DataJack in your head (just like in ShadowRun!) where you'll just plug in a cable and you're all set. "

Sounds like fun to me! ;-)

Impossible means no one's done it yet.

It is supposed to be 2.2 mbit downstream, 1.1 up but I have found my max speeds to be about 140k/s both ways, with the record at 180 down. I get 1 static IP and they have no options for more

I pay 65$ CDN a month, which is 43.36$ US. If it has ever gone down, I haven't noticed. Fortunately for me they don't offer this service anymore so people can't suck up my bandwidth quite as easily. Now they sell the nortel 1 meg modem service with PPPOE which i think is 900/128kb/s i think.

My setup is still better than cable here because cable is capped at 50kbyte/s send whereas i can send at 140 which is much better for running webservers and such.

according to the wall street journal:
in French
in English
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BeDevId 15453 - Download BeOS R5 Lite free!

Slightly off topic under this topic I guess. But here is another story from Ottawa. Part of the now familiar pattern... www.canoe.ca/Canoe/canoecnews.html

Beaten to unconciousness and then had her head held underwater by a girl who bragged about it at school the day after.

Happy now?

More info on Virk here.

Essentially, Pinkerton sued Weezer and Geffen Records over the title of their album Pinkerton as trademark infringement. Weezer won the case, but the fact that something so obviously non-detective-agency-related as their album (Pinkerton refers to a character in the Pucini opera Madame Butterfly) makes these guys look pretty bad... not to mention the judge who had the gall to issue a preliminary injunction.

-l

Your posts are misinformed and full of bullshit. They have no value. Compare this to a beautiful work of music.

You mean like this one.

You did not expect compensation when you posted

Yes, I did, I just said so. Does that matter? No. Is that my point? Yes.

No one will pay you to explain why you're too incompetent to understand capitalism, but bands can make millions of off their music.

No one's paying you either, so give me the freebies, eh? And then I'll explain to you how capitalism destroyed the free press and, unchecked, how it will destroy free speech. Capitalsim works great, given normal patterns of supply and demand. Take those away, and enforce price support with the pointy end of a gun, and that's not the kind of capitalism I want around.

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