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Just sayin.

...can be found here.

I have to say, it looks awesome! Any idea when we can get our hands on it?

Additionally, I'd love to see the Very Short Introduction series by the Oxford University Press. I think they would be perfect for Wikipedia as extended content on major topics.

No where in the world do people give up their own constitutionally protected rights faster on the slightest scare than in the USA.

That's a ridiculous ssertion, not backed up by the fact that most democarcies have been eroding civil liberties like crazy recently. For example:

http://www.oup.co.uk/isbn/1-84-174183-3
http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/southasia/History/Indep endent/anti_terr.html
http://www.quaker.org/qcea/aroundeurope/2003/255.h tm#Third
http://uninews.unimelb.edu.au/articleid_2938.html
http://64.233.161.104/search?q=cache:l-h-3gElzYcJ: www.ihf-hr.org/viewbinary/viewdocument.php%3Fdoc_i d%3D5537+european+anti-terrorism+legislation&hl=en
http://www.forumsec.org.fj/news/2004/July/July_08. htm
http://www.statewatch.org/news/2003/apr/18funright s.html

"In 1994 a computer program called the Mosaic browser transformed the Internet from an academic tool into a telecommunications revolution. Now a household name, the World Wide Web is part of the modern communications landscape with tens of thousands of servers providing information to millions of users. Few people, however, realize that the Web was born at CERN, the European Laboratory for Particle Physics, in Geneva, and that it was invented by an Englishman, Tim Berners-Lee.

"This new book, published in the Popular Science list in Oxford Paperbacks, tells how the idea for the Web came about at CERN, how it was developed, and how it was eventually handed over for free for the rest of the world to use. This is the first book-length account of the Web's development and it includes interview material with the key players in the story."

How the Web Was Born

-FL

"In 1994 a computer program called the Mosaic browser transformed the Internet from an academic tool into a telecommunications revolution. Now a household name, the World Wide Web is part of the modern communications landscape with tens of thousands of servers providing information to millions of users. Few people, however, realize that the Web was born at CERN, the European Laboratory for Particle Physics, in Geneva, and that it was invented by an Englishman, Tim Berners-Lee.

"This new book, published in the Popular Science list in Oxford Paperbacks, tells how the idea for the Web came about at CERN, how it was developed, and how it was eventually handed over for free for the rest of the world to use. This is the first book-length account of the Web's development and it includes interview material with the key players in the story."

How the Web Was Born

-FL

Why did you write Judeo-Christian instead of Jewish and Christian?

I used "Judeo-Christian" because Christianity is based on Judism. Jews believed a Savior or Messiah come to redeem believers. When Jesus, who was Jewish, was supposedly born some took him as the Messiah. They then took what he taught and started the Christian religion. So, I used Judeo-Christian because Christianity got it's start in Judaism.

Perhaps I should explain why I said "supposedly born" above. I used it because I don't believe or know if such a person was born. I am agnostic, "a", without and "gnosis" knowledge, I don't possess the knowledge on whether a soul or spirit exists and if there's life after death and I'm jealous of those who have faith.

As for when I said "most Judeo-Christian holidays, sacred days, and celibrations have pagan or Zoroastan roots", admittedly I was overbroad. Perhaps it would of been more accurate to say some Christian holidays may of come from previous beliefs such as pagan beliefs and some early churchs were built on sites that were spiritually significant to those who were there before. My use of "pagan" was also broad encompassing pantheism and polytheism such as wicca, and others. It was a poor choice of words, I used it as a shortcut or way to cut words out. But I've gotten comments from others saying less words are better, that using a lot of words leads to confusion (like I'm doing now?) and I didn't expect many ./ers to have much knowledge on the subject.

My OED dates its use to 1899

Ooh, what edition of the OED do you have? I'd love to get the full 20 volumn edition of the OED.

And I hope I didn't cause any discomfort, I didn't mean to, I sometimes "shoot from the hips". Your post I found well formed and I need to work making all of mine the same. Because of an injury I suffered, I'm a TBI, Traumatic Brain Injury survivor, amoung other things I have poor impulse control.

WWW: later addon from MIT

Sorry to burst your bubble but WWW is a CERN invention (international organization part in Switzerland, and part in France). Check here and here.

While it's all well and good that Tim B-L gets all that publicity, please don't forget Robert Cailliau, who worked with TBL on the WWW at CERN (and who is - by the way - a very decent chap!). He's also been awarded the 1995 ACM Software System Award by the ACM for his work on the WWW - see http://www.acm.org/awards/ss_citations/1995A.html
See http://robert.cailliau.free.fr/ByLetter/M/Me/CV.ht ml for more details. Or read http://www.oup.co.uk/isbn/0-19-286207-3
Dan.

Not if the USPTO does their job by enforcing the obviousness criteria and tracking down prior art, as they are required to do.

it turns out patents are not used there to protect investments, but only for strategic purposes.

This is patently false. My previous employer had a couple patents that were specifically used to protect their investments in software research.

if there are software patents, you have to play the game, you can't opt out

Wrong. I can use the system honestly.

And, I can push for improvements to the system (as IBM is doing today) to correct abuses we've been seeing.

I also disagree with Shapiro, in that if you take the protections away, I will stop bringing my blocks to the pyramid (ie. keep my most innovative ideas secret-- do custom software with restrictive licenses).

• Programmers would actually use the patent database to look up information (I guess this is another thing you want to fix)
• The chance of independent discovery of what you develop is extremely low (as well as the chance of independent discovery of alternative equally good or better methods)

Microsoft can throw 50 programmers at reimplementing whatever I do, bundle it with Longhorn, and call it innovation, and I'm screwed. However, even the evil empire does on occasion buy IP from other innovators.

Shapiro's argument primarily is built on the supposition that the USPTO will not or cannot enforce the obviousness criteria. I think they can.

I'm curious, anyone want to chime in about Encyclopedia culture elsewhere? That is, outside the English-speaking world?

I fondly remember encyclopedias from when I was a kid, but I didn't really use them so much. I don't know if I'd buy a set now if I were a parent.

Now a good Dictionary, on the other hand, is something I find indispensible. And while I use the net for that a lot (thank you mycroft for the dictionary and wikipedia search options!) I still plan to buy the next edition of the full OED... hopefully I will be able to afford it about the same time they get around to publishing the 3rd edition.

Also I have some reference works from the late 1800s and early 1900s, and I must say, they may not be up to date but they are somehow Very Cool.

Capitalism and democracy are both ideology-based, but the ideologies cover largely different areas. Capitalist ideology claims the human condition is such that humans rather compete then cooperate; and that economies should be based on this concept. Democratic ideology claims the best way to rule a state is by the will of the majority of its citizenship of equals.

The political ideology of democracy overrules the economic ideology of capitalism. This enables us to take care of the orphans, the sick and elderly, which are an economic liability. These areas in which we interfere with capitalism indicate the concept that regulates capitalism in our societies: the concept of solidarity.

This concept is of course the foundation of socialist ideology. All capitalism in existence today is tainted by socialism. Pure capitalism creates wage slaves, which create socialist movements, which create revolution. Been there, done that (in Europe at least).

Historically speaking, even the very first democracy of Athens [PDF] had already some concept of solidarity; on the other hand, capitalist economies don't require democratic governments.

Buzz word: does (exactly) what it says on the tin

Quantum Theory: A Very Short Introduction is a pretty good, mathless (well, except for the appendix) look at some of the important discoveries of the 20th century.

Nor do I. Anyway, by picking on split infinitives,

Shame on you for picking on split infinitives.

Even the Oxford English Dictionary approves of split infinitives now.

To roughly quote Star Trek on the topic.

James T. Kirk was way ahead of his time in deciding "to boldly go" into far-flung galaxies. The "Star Trek" captain was out there splitting infinitives in his 1960s TV science-fiction series long before the "official" green light was given.

Now, in the New Oxford Dictionary of English (NODE), 30 editors and 60 consultants around the world have sided with Captain Kirk and given their blessing to what some grammatical sticklers still regard as anathema or worse.

Indeed, the compilers not only approve of splitting infinitives but also seem bent on dividing the English-speaking world - or at least the part of it that cares about language and grammar.

Among the volume's more than 2,000 new words and phrases, split infinitives rub shoulders with "shock jocks," "Blairite," "alcopops," "tamagotchi," and "zero tolerance" as acceptable present-day usage.

So there....

Where have you looked? There are dozens upon dozens of online journals, reference sites for law medicine, etc.

Why not try Google and find some intelligent content for yourself?

but the CD-ROM is UKP 175.00 plus VAT (US $295) so $550 per year is not necessarily the cheapest option.

I'd love one, don't know how I'd find the time for browsing all those cross-references though.

The paper by Davies is available online here.

Tim

However, US iodine deficiency has quadrupled to 12%. Are people who are "eating healthy" by avoiding salt causing a problem?

For that matter, this New Scientist article caught my eye. This research shows that sperm count decrease may be simply due to iodized salt. What really caught my attention was the mention that iodine deficiency causes smaller brains. We may be smarter than our ancestors 80 years ago.

I knew that iodine is added to salt to prevent goiter, but had missed the medical knowledge that it also prevents cretinism. Iodine is needed for proper brain development. The high incidence (17-60%) of goiter in affected areas indicates the level of the problem (still 43 million people).

So until the 1920s, perhaps half of the world population was less intelligent than now. Is it a coincidence that as the first iodized generation suffused society we had many fields boom in the 1960s?

Just yesterday I was reading an article on eye defects and correction from "The Oxford Companion to the Mind" (Edds. Gregory, Zangwill). The article explained that feedback must be important to eye development in order to get such close tolerances and accuracy, and that keeping the eyes focussed at a close fixed distance during late childhood and early adulthood might therefore cause short sight. The eye develops with the assumption that the fixed distance is "infinity" and loses its ability to focus further away. FWIW, I spent a lot of my teens staring at a screen at about arm length from my face. I lost the ability to focus further away. My focus is almost exactly at screen distance. If this is the case, children should be encouraged to spend time outdoors looking at distant objects.