Slashdot Mirror

Speaking from experience many academic libraries cannot afford the extortionate fees charged by the journals. As far as community libraries go, I recently went into one and asked them if I could access Nature or Science and they laughed at me. And it was the largest community library for about 10 miles.

Try going to community college and trying to write a paper that relies on articles from journals that it does not subscribe to. Even Harvard says it cannot afford the fees. It's a classic case of abuse of IP. https://www.theguardian.com/sc...

The problem is only getting worse. And if you are not affiliated with an academic institution you are screwed. Some university libraries won't even let in members of the public and you invariably need a university login to use the computers if you are able to freely enter. http://www.dailytexanonline.co...

The general price of consumer goods went up by 73 percent between 1986 and 2004, but the price of serials increased by 273 percent, according to Tufts University. Congress gets big campaign contributions from the publishers so there is no realistic option for those who want to access research they already largely payed for via taxes. Unless you come with a realistic alternative you cant criticize sci-hub.

This news story essentially came out like the telephone game. The linked story came from a Daily Texan article (the UT student newspaper) which came from an anecdote by a PC repairman. There were too many intermediaries. The Daily Texan article is available here: http://media.www.dailytexanonline.com/media/storage/paper410/news/2008/06/27/TopStories/Computer.Repair.Technicians.May.Be.Acting.Illegally-3386027.shtml And essentially, what it's suggesting here is that you only need a PI license if you're snooping through a user's data for whom you're not repairing the computer. There will be plenty of repair shops taking care of single-owner Dells and Gateways who won't even need to remember the word "forensics" even exists until CSI comes on.

An article about this topic came up in the University of Texas newspaper recently.

http://media.www.dailytexanonline.com/media/storage/paper410/news/2008/03/20/University/Student.Sites.May.Violate.Ut.Rules-3276620.shtml

I absolutely couldn't believe it. The best quote: "Students are allowed to take notes for two reasons: Notes are available and helpful to recall information, and some students keep their notes as a part of their lifelong journey of obtaining knowledge."

Well, gee, thanks! I sure am glad the University is allowing me to take notes.

If this study is representative, then I'd say it's rather widespread.

(For those too lazy to RTFA, this study estimates 1-2% of the content in Medline is duplicated to some degree.)

It most certainly is terrorism, and is treated as such, even by President Bush's FBI:

"A Joint Terrorism Task Force arrested and charged a 27-year-old for allegedly planting a bomb at a women's health clinic in South Austin that performs abortion procedures."

There's no telling who he could have hurt or killed with his bomb. The mailman. The utility meter reader. Someone on the bomb squad cleaning up his mess. I-35 was partially closed, increasing traffic danger.

It is for jackasses like this that the death penalty must remain.

So far my state, Texas, has been rather silent on the subject of RealID. Link

But I do hope they do stand against it, not just for privacy or any of the other, but for the concept that the states would stand up for a cause. Against the federal government.

Yes, we all know we can trust the IRS to give us accurage information.

Hey, do you know any of those short-sighted folks who live on Cape Cod? I keep waiting for them to show up on /.

Frankly, Mr. Ebb should have known better. As a copy editor at what may be the most prestigious college paper in the U.S., I can attest to Wikipedia's occasional (though not pervasive) errors. Because of these, I have a standing policy of referring to Wikipedia only for corroboration, not confirmation. Anyone who fact-checks - for a living or otherwise - should already have in mind things like source bias, credibility, etc.

[...]he discovered his passion, which was, as he once put it, to augment relationships among human beings through technology.

• Patriot Act Abuses Seen
  
• Critics cite PATRIOT Act abuse and misuse
  
• Abuse of the "Patriot Act"
  
• Patriot Act Abuses and Misuses Abound, ACLU Says
  
• More Signs of Patriot Act Abuse

it is? it seems like mostly what the 'intelligence' community does in the united states these days is spy on unarmed, constitutionally-protected demonstrators. like these cases, for instance:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11751418/
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/artic le/2006/03/14/AR2006031401520_pf.html
http://www.dailytexanonline.com/media/paper410/new s/2006/03/24/TopStories/Students.Fbi.Lecture.Displ ays.Watch.List-1716066.shtml?norewrite200603281210 &sourcedomain=www.dailytexanonline.com
http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/artic le_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1001995631
http://www.upi.com/SecurityTerrorism/view.php?Stor yID=20060214-053955-9494r
http://www.tbo.com/news/metro/MGBTP976FJE.html

The Daily Texan (with gross photographs) reports on Thursday outside the Frank Erwin Center, a horde of zombies attacked the "American Idol" auditions. No one was hurt.

The zombies, 15 fake-bloodied actors in all, lurched out from under the IH-35 overpass and shuffled toward the Erwin Center, where they encountered the pop-star hopefuls.

Most of the 100 or so young people gathered outside had just been rejected by the "American Idol" review board, and they were talking, singing and waiting for rides home when the zombies arrived. "Braaaaaaains!" the zombies said. Nick Muntean, a UT radio-television-film graduate student who organized and participated in the zombie horde, added, "Television rots your braaaaaaains!" The pop-star wannabes were largely unimpressed.

Seen on Blue's News. I wonder if there are video clips of this!

it sure as hell isn't critical thinking.

Of course not, that would hinder everyone in power. Why, if students had critical thinking skills, they might be critical of their own university when after deregulation, they suddenly raise the tuition rates 37 percent, compared to 21% for the other major university using the same funding sources. If people had critical thinking skills, they'd understand why it's not "unamerican" to complain about armed vigilantees roaming our borders without training, even if the government refuses to step up to the task. It would be terrible if millions of people across our country stood up from their couches and decide they've had enough crap spoonfed to them through the airwaves. Imagine the nightmare that would result if people no longer trusted corporations. It would be absolutely horrible if millions stood up from their pews and decided that they will no longer follow the orders of their clergy on matters non-spiritual. And it would be downright catastrophic if people decided that a president that lies repeatedly to the public, starts a war without a real plan, appoints incompetent and inexperienced people to major roles in our country... even after a couple have been shamed out of office.

It doesn't matter what you do or who you are, if you're in a position of power, you want to be in charge of servile breeders, not critical thinkers who can form an argument, reason about facts, and not fall for your emotional pleas when your facts fail you.

This past event was better. Even the zombies look cooler (grosser)! Copied and pasted from AQFL:

The Daily Texan (with gross photographs) reports on Thursday outside the Frank Erwin Center, a horde of zombies attacked the "American Idol" auditions. No one was hurt.

The zombies, 15 fake-bloodied actors in all, lurched out from under the IH-35 overpass and shuffled toward the Erwin Center, where they encountered the pop-star hopefuls.

Most of the 100 or so young people gathered outside had just been rejected by the "American Idol" review board, and they were talking, singing and waiting for rides home when the zombies arrived. "Braaaaaaains!" the zombies said. Nick Muntean, a UT radio-television-film graduate student who organized and participated in the zombie horde, added, "Television rots your braaaaaaains!" The pop-star wannabes were largely unimpressed.

Seen on Blue's News. I wonder if there are video clips of this!

This past event was better. Even the zombies look cooler (grosser)! Copied and pasted from AQFL:

The Daily Texan (with gross photographs) reports on Thursday outside the Frank Erwin Center, a horde of zombies attacked the "American Idol" auditions. No one was hurt.

The zombies, 15 fake-bloodied actors in all, lurched out from under the IH-35 overpass and shuffled toward the Erwin Center, where they encountered the pop-star hopefuls.

Most of the 100 or so young people gathered outside had just been rejected by the "American Idol" review board, and they were talking, singing and waiting for rides home when the zombies arrived. "Braaaaaaains!" the zombies said. Nick Muntean, a UT radio-television-film graduate student who organized and participated in the zombie horde, added, "Television rots your braaaaaaains!" The pop-star wannabes were largely unimpressed.

Seen on Blue's News. I wonder if there are video clips of this!

Link I'll stay silent, but here's just one of many many links.

Actually they've done it. Sort of.

http://www.dailytexanonline.com/media/paper410/new s/2004/08/09/Entertainment/The-Alamo.Drafthouse.Ta kes.Its.Show.On.The.Road-701786.shtml

"...played host to eccentric events - like a showing of "Jaws" at Lake Travis, where moviegoers watched the film from inner tubes while swimmers under the water pinched their legs."

Lake Travis is just outside Austin, TX. It's not shark-infested, the most fearsome creature I've ever seen while scuba diving there was a giant catfish maybe 4-5 ft long. Hard to tell, it was dark and murky, scared the willies out of me coming up from behind!

Percy Schmeiser, a Saskatchwan farmer, was sued by agribusiness Monsanto...when the "roundup-ready" canola was found on Schmeiser's farm - blown there by the wind. Although Schmeiser didn't want the plants, and tried to get rid of the plants, he lost the lawsuit.

Without a renewed license, Iraqi farmers cannot replant each year's seeds, like 97 percent of them currently do. Also, they cannot sell or trade the seeds - because the genetic materials of the crops are patented.

"...The RIAA referred all of the Drexel cases to the Settlement Support Center, a group of lawyers who specialize in settling."

"...recieved calls from the "RIAA Settlement Support Center". A disgusting attempt at making themselves sound like the nice-guys they are known to not be."

I can't speak for North Texas, but I do know that in Central Texas (where I am from), recently a judge said "Hey RIAA, you can't sue all these people together, you have to file individual suits," so perhaps there is some hope that the Texas judges will stick it to The Man.

http://www.dailytexanonline.com/news/2004/12/01/To pStories/Court.Forces.Riaa.To.Revise.Music.Lawsuit s-817630.shtml

I did not know that human genes were patented. Are you sure the patent isn't with machines that are able to detect/view/manipulate human genes?

"Within six months of passing the PATRIOT Act, the Justice Department was conducting seminars on how to stretch the new wiretapping provisions to extend them beyond terror cases," said Dan Dodson, a spokesman for the National Association of Criminal Defense Attorneys. "They say they want the PATRIOT Act to fight terrorism. Then, within six months, they are teaching their people how to use it on ordinary citizens."

If you didn't vote in 2000, or know someone who hasn't then listen to this:

1) In 2000, national voter turnout was 51.3%. (Source http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0781453.html)
2) For a party to get federal funding, they need to get 5% or more.
3) That means that if the remaining 48.7% voted randomly then we could have a total of 11 parties running. (9 at 5% each, plus the standard 2).

11 parties nationally recognized in the US!!!! And all that has to happen is people must just vote - vote for anyone! Their dog! Their mom! Some weird-lookin' independent guy you hear about on the news now and then!

Ralph Nader wanted to get 5% of the vote in 2000, but only got 3%. That means 2% of the population could have just gotten up and made a powerful statement for change just by walking down the street to your nearest voting place, and pulled a random lever in a booth. You don't even have to agree with the guy.
(Source http://www.dailytexanonline.com/news/2000/11/09/Ne ws/Nader.Barely.Misses.Federal.Funding-700791.shtm l)

Anyhow, I encourage everyone to pass this on. That may make some of the apathetic voters go out and do some good. Having more alternatives would be a major help to the US election system. (Then, we can push for run-off elections so we can reduce the split-election problem)

Being jaded is one thing, being scared is another.

What's scary is when the term "terrorist' is used to describe ordinary people in a court of law. See here, here, here, and elsewhere.

Nope. Open source is still the best way to go, along with open government. When you let people hide "stuff", and when it's connected to massive political power and heaps 0 money, that's when crimes occur. The best bet is openness, bar none. It is not perfect, but it's the best design yet.

Fake security - real control. This is to keep people IN - not out.... "In Soviet America, Passport stamps You!"

The parent got modded funny for the Soviet Russia joke; but he should be getting modded Insightful for pointing out the real reason from these new passports.

Like me expand a bit on his insight: these biometric passports are the thin edge -- a proof of concept, if you will -- of mandatory National ID cards.

Indeed, Homeland Security will point out stories, like the one posted above about the 88 illegal immigrants taking a domestic flight from California to New Jersey and the general ability if illegals to bypass our borders, as evidence that we will need a "fool-proof" way of ascertaining identity not only at the borders but inside the United States.

And since the biometric passport will by then have been, however reluctantly, accepted, the government will apply the same technology to National ID cards.

Of course, a National ID card is only useful if it's checked, so expect to see uniformed men asking you to present it: "Your papers, Citizen!". This will also have the useful -- for the government -- side effect of getting the citizenry used to seeing and docilely taking orders from uniformed "security" officers; you can already see that happening in airports and government buildings, where we've all learned to shut-up and passively follow orders from any guy with three days of training and a badge, on penalty of delay, harassment or arrest.

(This acclimation to the presence of soldiers as quasi law-enforcement, incidentally, is one of the requirements Army War College grad Charles Dunlap posits for "The Origins of the American Military Coup of 2012", co-winner in 1992 of the of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff 1991-92 Strategy Essay Competition -- in other words, it's not a fringe tin-foil hat screed.)

Expect also that the government will quickly thereafter require presentation of the National ID for transactions that "terra'ists use", like banking or buying plane and train tickets, similar to the "Know Your Customer" requirements of the "Patriot" Act. A little way down the road, expect that the government will expanded the "significant economic activity" to encompass all credit card purchases -- and perhaps using the fig leaf of "preventing (economic) identity theft", will require your National ID Card be presented for all credit card purchases.

At that point, you'll either have to present you National ID Card several times a day, or remove yourself from "the grid" entirely. I can think of few ways better to suppress dissent than letting anyone contemplating it know that their movements can be tracked with this sort of granularity: "why did you use the ATM machine a block from the People Against Surveillance meeting, Citizen? are you a member of this anti-Patriotic organization"?

Now, some will accuse me of wearing my tin-foil hat too tight: I'll refer them to the subpoenaing of protest groups' membership records (dropped only after unfavorable publicity), the CAPPS II Airline screening and the subpoenaing of women's medical records of their abortions (this link from BusinessWeek, of all places, the FBI investigation of Freedom of Information act requests, and the Federal prosecution -- even after state charges were thrown out of court -- of peaceful protestors against Bush. And there are, unfortunately, many many more examples of the current administration supressing dissent -- in fact, if you're reading this, please reply with links to more of these cases.

I go to utexas.edu. I can vouch for the administrative craziness that all too often plagues this school. :)

This is the same place where the suits did everything they could to keep the FOIA and other legal mechanisms from revealing information about the post-9/11 surveillance system. UT even went after our state attorney general over this. A friend of mine said it best: "Never sue someone when they have a law school." ;)

The whole reference to UTWatch in the article creeped me out. UTWatch is a student-run organization which follows up on what the regents and other suits do. Like Ralph Nader in the 70s, its a mere watchdog organization checking if proposed policies will adversely affect the student body at large. Recently they have been very vocal speaking out concerning tuitition deregulation and the involvement of UT managing the Los Alamos laboratories. Not simply fact checkers, UTWatch does get involved when it smells something fishy.

I applaud what Mark Miller did. There is all sorts of cool things under the ground here at UT. Under ENS and RLM you can find a retired tokamak! More than just he are interested in whats buried. Simply put, what UT did (assuming it did something to spur this) simply lacked honor. ;)

I go to utexas.edu. I can vouch for the administrative craziness that all too often plagues this school. :)

This is the same place where the suits did everything they could to keep the FOIA and other legal mechanisms from revealing information about the post-9/11 surveillance system. UT even went after our state attorney general over this. A friend of mine said it best: "Never sue someone when they have a law school." ;)

The whole reference to UTWatch in the article creeped me out. UTWatch is a student-run organization which follows up on what the regents and other suits do. Like Ralph Nader in the 70s, its a mere watchdog organization checking if proposed policies will adversely affect the student body at large. Recently they have been very vocal speaking out concerning tuitition deregulation and the involvement of UT managing the Los Alamos laboratories. Not simply fact checkers, UTWatch does get involved when it smells something fishy.

I applaud what Mark Miller did. There is all sorts of cool things under the ground here at UT. Under ENS and RLM you can find a retired tokamak! More than just he are interested in whats buried. Simply put, what UT did (assuming it did something to spur this) simply lacked honor. ;)

I go to utexas.edu. I can vouch for the administrative craziness that all too often plagues this school. :)

This is the same place where the suits did everything they could to keep the FOIA and other legal mechanisms from revealing information about the post-9/11 surveillance system. UT even went after our state attorney general over this. A friend of mine said it best: "Never sue someone when they have a law school." ;)

The whole reference to UTWatch in the article creeped me out. UTWatch is a student-run organization which follows up on what the regents and other suits do. Like Ralph Nader in the 70s, its a mere watchdog organization checking if proposed policies will adversely affect the student body at large. Recently they have been very vocal speaking out concerning tuitition deregulation and the involvement of UT managing the Los Alamos laboratories. Not simply fact checkers, UTWatch does get involved when it smells something fishy.

I applaud what Mark Miller did. There is all sorts of cool things under the ground here at UT. Under ENS and RLM you can find a retired tokamak! More than just he are interested in whats buried. Simply put, what UT did (assuming it did something to spur this) simply lacked honor. ;)

• Insurance hassles in U.S.
• Doctor's Response to previous article

My response to the doctor: Bzzt, wrong. The guy went to the "wrong" hospital. You have to go to the correct Austin hospital to get into ER without insurance. Furthermore, last time I checked, malpractice rates for doctors have NOT gone down since Prop 12 was passed, contrary to what the Industry promised. Why? Because the real problem is that the Texas Board of Medical Examiners doesn't do its job: revoking the licenses of quacks who drive up the rates for everyone else. It only takes a few to make the risk pool go waaaay up for every other doctor (thus, increasing costs).

Pissed and offtopic,
-l

• Insurance hassles in U.S.
• Doctor's Response to previous article

My response to the doctor: Bzzt, wrong. The guy went to the "wrong" hospital. You have to go to the correct Austin hospital to get into ER without insurance. Furthermore, last time I checked, malpractice rates for doctors have NOT gone down since Prop 12 was passed, contrary to what the Industry promised. Why? Because the real problem is that the Texas Board of Medical Examiners doesn't do its job: revoking the licenses of quacks who drive up the rates for everyone else. It only takes a few to make the risk pool go waaaay up for every other doctor (thus, increasing costs).

Pissed and offtopic,
-l

Do the rich snobs who were against the proposed wind farm have a problem with unsightly desalination plants being built in the same state? Has anyone checked?

Maybe the MA legislature could pass a law requiring those rich snobs to only drink expensive, bottled water-- that way they don't have to sully their lips with "commoner's" water, and there's more of it to go around for us mere mortals without having to build some structure that will mess up their view.

...the Bevo Bucks vending machine at the Univ of Texas, with the swipe card system made by Diebold.
Get yer free Snickers bars, then head off to the polling station to contemplate which switch is the best way to vote Republican. All courtesy of Diebold.

For example, common voters, without any insider privileges, can cast unlimited votes without being detected by any mechanisms within the voting terminal

The vending machines here around campus (using a diebold system) were used by almost 600 students to get "free" food... In an audit they detected it... Full text here

I have both attended at work at UT in IT, so I can give you my observations.

For many years, UT had a non-centralized IT infrastructure. That is, the Colleges did one thing, the Administrative Computing Group did another thing, the Academic Computing Group did yet another thing, and the Libraries something else entirely. This was recently changed with the introduction of a new Office of Information Technology head by a new Vice Provost (Dan Updegrove, originally at Yale). One of the very first things I heard him address was the Social Security number problem in which every student, faculty, and staff member used their SSN as their ID. That practice had to change in order to meet both legal and privacy standards (see FERPA) , and UT has been trying for the past couple of years to make that happen. The trouble is, it was so integrated into all of the different services and departments that it is a slow process to remove it. They started to phase it out, but now UT is seeing the effects of this particular practice. I'm likely one of the ones who will be affected, so I'm waiting for them to announce where people can find that out. (It may be at the UT site, http://www.utexas.edu/datatheft/.

The Daily Texan (student newspaper) has an article about the theft, as does the Houston Chronicle.)

By the way, your Social Security Number isn't public information. It is required for use by some agencies of the government, but you are not required to provide your SSN to private groups unless they need to interact with certain government agencies (this includes your employers, who deal with the IRS). That being said, SSNs are so commonly used a search may pull up that information- but that doesn't mean it is legally public info.

We do risk getting off-topic mods at this point, but hopefully the moderators will be gentle...

You are of course right about Mr. al-Mujahir not even being imprisoned for 48 hours yet, but it still presents a dangerous precedent.

I would avoid arguing for precedent in decisions made during past US wars: remember that in WWII it was considered perfectly acceptable to put Japanese American citizens into concentration camps just because they were Japanese. Still, I take your point that from a purely legal (and I mean *legal* as opposed to *constitutional* because clearly much of the Constitution was ignored in WWII as well) standpoint, any precedent counts.

Finally, I give you The Daily Texan with a more thorough discussion of the breast fiasco. You must admit that considering what "Minnie Lou" symbolizes, the placement of a curtain in front of her bare breast does give a rather bad tone to Ashcroft's speeches.

Again, I think your points are valid and strong, but I think there are larger Constitutional issues that come before the law here.

Greets, jwz.

I've actually read this article before. It was pretty intriguing. As in all things, the evolution of the notion of a corporation as a legal person is inextricably tied to the historical processes at work at the time. It was also en vogue in Europe, then, to declare corporations as legal persons.

Mainly, a corporation is the result of the separation of ownership from management for the purpose of efficiency. Shareholders do not necessarily have a clue about running a particular business but they can see a deal based on what they do understand: financials. The Schizm allowed them to invest and have rights in a corporation without having to participate in its everyday functions.

Legally, it was a new idea. There was no precedent for this idea. However, the Courts said, by judicial fiat, that they ought to be treated as persons. The main intuitions seem to be A) the concept of limited liability which means the individuals making up a corporation cannot be held responsibile for the actions or debts of the corporation and B) that a corporation "lives on," so to speak, regardless of the individuals making up the company. It "owns" property, etc. all to its inked paper "self."

My conclusion: The corporation was a good, but ultimately flawed experiment. While the level of efficiency available with not having a particular person attached to a piece of property is intriguing, it leaves too much to question in terms of personal responsibility for action. I.e., your name isn't on the life support software so you aren't responsible for it. ACME LifeSupport, Inc. is responsible. That seems like crap to me. (Yeah, there's a whole discussion on UCITA, Open Source, and warrantification attched to this).

Furthermore, if property is attached to real people only, then you won't ever have a problem with, say, Mickey Mouse and copyright extension. All the artists will die, unlike Disney, which keeps going and going and going...

Nice little Encyclopedic entry: http://www.comptons.com/encyclopedia/ARTICLES/0025 /00471296_A.html

Op-Ed piece in our very own Daily Texan: http://www.dailytexanonline.com/01-30-01/PF2001013 004_s06_Criminals.html