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Actually, most of these uploads should go to the Wikimedia Commons, not Wikipedia proper. Files uploaded to Commons can be used on any Wikimedia site, including any language of Wikipedia, Wiktionary, etc. Files uploaded to the English Wikipedia can only be used on the English Wikipedia. The Commons admins are largely a different group of people from the English Wikipedia admins, although there's some overlap. Adminship is given out on a per-project basis; only a few dozen stewards have any privileges across projects.

Actually, most of these uploads should go to the Wikimedia Commons, not Wikipedia proper. Files uploaded to Commons can be used on any Wikimedia site, including any language of Wikipedia, Wiktionary, etc. Files uploaded to the English Wikipedia can only be used on the English Wikipedia. The Commons admins are largely a different group of people from the English Wikipedia admins, although there's some overlap. Adminship is given out on a per-project basis; only a few dozen stewards have any privileges across projects.

Actually, most of these uploads should go to the Wikimedia Commons, not Wikipedia proper. Files uploaded to Commons can be used on any Wikimedia site, including any language of Wikipedia, Wiktionary, etc. Files uploaded to the English Wikipedia can only be used on the English Wikipedia. The Commons admins are largely a different group of people from the English Wikipedia admins, although there's some overlap. Adminship is given out on a per-project basis; only a few dozen stewards have any privileges across projects.

Does anything on Wikipedia ever really get deleted? I thought the Mods and Admins had full access to deleted pages.

Yep, that's generally true. Anyone who can delete things can also undelete things, and there are lots of people who can do both: over 1600 on the English Wikipedia, 250 on the Wikimedia Commons -- any administrator. Hypothetically a sysop would be able to use Wikipedia as a private file store this way, since views of deleted content aren't logged, but that's probably not worth it. :)

If you upload something that even the admins shouldn't see, generally an "OMG lawsuit" kind of thing like personal information, you can get your revision oversighted -- still stored, but only restorable by someone with shell access. This doesn't currently work for uploads, though, as far as I know.

Actually, though, deletion of files was permanent for a long time, until a couple of years ago. This created a fun doomsday scenario where a rogue or compromised sysop account could run a script to delete all images on Wikipedia unrecoverably. I don't think backups were kept then either, so they'd have to be manually gotten back from mirrors and things like that. Fun stuff. Part of the new hardware setup uses ZFS snapshots to back up the files now, from what I've been told, although I haven't worked with that directly.

Does anything on Wikipedia ever really get deleted? I thought the Mods and Admins had full access to deleted pages.

Yep, that's generally true. Anyone who can delete things can also undelete things, and there are lots of people who can do both: over 1600 on the English Wikipedia, 250 on the Wikimedia Commons -- any administrator. Hypothetically a sysop would be able to use Wikipedia as a private file store this way, since views of deleted content aren't logged, but that's probably not worth it. :)

If you upload something that even the admins shouldn't see, generally an "OMG lawsuit" kind of thing like personal information, you can get your revision oversighted -- still stored, but only restorable by someone with shell access. This doesn't currently work for uploads, though, as far as I know.

Actually, though, deletion of files was permanent for a long time, until a couple of years ago. This created a fun doomsday scenario where a rogue or compromised sysop account could run a script to delete all images on Wikipedia unrecoverably. I don't think backups were kept then either, so they'd have to be manually gotten back from mirrors and things like that. Fun stuff. Part of the new hardware setup uses ZFS snapshots to back up the files now, from what I've been told, although I haven't worked with that directly.

Does anything on Wikipedia ever really get deleted? I thought the Mods and Admins had full access to deleted pages.

Yep, that's generally true. Anyone who can delete things can also undelete things, and there are lots of people who can do both: over 1600 on the English Wikipedia, 250 on the Wikimedia Commons -- any administrator. Hypothetically a sysop would be able to use Wikipedia as a private file store this way, since views of deleted content aren't logged, but that's probably not worth it. :)

If you upload something that even the admins shouldn't see, generally an "OMG lawsuit" kind of thing like personal information, you can get your revision oversighted -- still stored, but only restorable by someone with shell access. This doesn't currently work for uploads, though, as far as I know.

Actually, though, deletion of files was permanent for a long time, until a couple of years ago. This created a fun doomsday scenario where a rogue or compromised sysop account could run a script to delete all images on Wikipedia unrecoverably. I don't think backups were kept then either, so they'd have to be manually gotten back from mirrors and things like that. Fun stuff. Part of the new hardware setup uses ZFS snapshots to back up the files now, from what I've been told, although I haven't worked with that directly.

Does anything on Wikipedia ever really get deleted? I thought the Mods and Admins had full access to deleted pages.

Yep, that's generally true. Anyone who can delete things can also undelete things, and there are lots of people who can do both: over 1600 on the English Wikipedia, 250 on the Wikimedia Commons -- any administrator. Hypothetically a sysop would be able to use Wikipedia as a private file store this way, since views of deleted content aren't logged, but that's probably not worth it. :)

If you upload something that even the admins shouldn't see, generally an "OMG lawsuit" kind of thing like personal information, you can get your revision oversighted -- still stored, but only restorable by someone with shell access. This doesn't currently work for uploads, though, as far as I know.

Actually, though, deletion of files was permanent for a long time, until a couple of years ago. This created a fun doomsday scenario where a rogue or compromised sysop account could run a script to delete all images on Wikipedia unrecoverably. I don't think backups were kept then either, so they'd have to be manually gotten back from mirrors and things like that. Fun stuff. Part of the new hardware setup uses ZFS snapshots to back up the files now, from what I've been told, although I haven't worked with that directly.

Why don't they instead just allow linking to youtube videos without the WP nazis removing them?

First, presumably the article probably means Wikimedia Commons rather than Wikipedia itself. That said, one of Wikipedia's biggest goals is to have all media content as open and accessible as possible. They accept only free, open, and unencumbered file formats.

YouTube is pretty much the exact opposite of Wikipedia. That is, you cannot download the content for your own use or to redistribute it, there is no open source software that can easily view YouTube content, there is no intelligent discussion of said content (only "omfg americas r soooo dumb"), and nobody except YouTube employees are allowed to express an opinion on whether or not the content is suitable for deletion. And finally, there is no certification that the content being viewed is in the public domain or is being used within the bounds of fair use.

Why don't they instead just allow linking to youtube videos without the WP nazis removing them?

First, presumably the article probably means Wikimedia Commons rather than Wikipedia itself. That said, one of Wikipedia's biggest goals is to have all media content as open and accessible as possible. They accept only free, open, and unencumbered file formats.

YouTube is pretty much the exact opposite of Wikipedia. That is, you cannot download the content for your own use or to redistribute it, there is no open source software that can easily view YouTube content, there is no intelligent discussion of said content (only "omfg americas r soooo dumb"), and nobody except YouTube employees are allowed to express an opinion on whether or not the content is suitable for deletion. And finally, there is no certification that the content being viewed is in the public domain or is being used within the bounds of fair use.

Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, yes; however, Wikimedia Commons is "A database of freely usable media files to which anyone can contribute." Wikiversity is "a Wikimedia Foundation project devoted to learning resources, learning projects, and research for use in all levels, types, and styles of education from pre-school to university, including professional training and informal learning." Wikibooks can definitely use functional examples.

Wikipedia isn't necessarily going to have audio and video; it may just link to Wikimedia Commons.

In all reality, the title of this article itself is kind of poor. It should really say "Wikimedia Gears Up For Explosion In Digital Media".

Posting anonymous because I can't remember my password.

We already have archive.org for anything out of copyright, or freely redistributable.

Not for long - The Internet Watch Foundation have just blocked archive.org to all UK population.

caffeine doesn't fuck you up.

For the most part, LSD doesn't cause true hallucinations -- it distorts things. You'll see the wood grain on your desk flowing, or the tree waving at you... but you won't see a pink unicorn in the room

That's because she's invisible!

(https link for the paranoid)

Yeah, that's what he's saying. Though with more motion, and less respect for gravity. Similarly, too much digitalis can make things look like this. Generalizations about exactly what LSD hallucinations look like are a bad idea, though -- it's highly variable, with strong dependence on the person, the dose, the setting, the person's mood...

note: this article seems to be about the middle east and the indian subcontinent. Traffic from europe to eastasia seems to go via the USA in my experiance.

acquire non-sea europe to asia internet backbone
And what route would you propose to take to get from india to europe over land?

looking at a map of the world ( http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d1/World_TLD_Map.jpg ) the routes I can come up with don't look very promising.

india->pakistan->iran->turkey->greece or bulgaria?
india->china->possibly kazakhstan->russia->ukraine or belarus?

going via the med to egypt and then through saudi-arabia and the UAE seems far more attractive to me. Afaict all those countries have pretty western friendly governments.

MIT Lecture Hall

Incidentially, thats me in the third row.

http://download.wikimedia.org/enwiki/

If you think you'll need it, get a recent static copy. Most things you will look up won't change much over a few months.

Are you hinting that FSM is a lie? Say it ain't so!

Nice. So using these figures in ten years we increase the carbon load in the atmosphere from 186 billion tons to 240 billion tons. You just proved every concerned person's point.

Your problem is that you think that the CO2 in the atmosphere just 'disappears'. It doesn't. It's reabsorbed into the system's cycle, which means that our 5% contribution from locked away deposits (from outside the system) is CUMULATIVE.

I've seen the chart on temperature & CO2 concentrations over 500 million years before. Two things here - 1) working out what conditions were like 500 million years ago is very difficult, and 2) that chart isn't very accurate. Try this one - http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f5/All_palaeotemps.png - and see that there is actually a collation between temp and CO2 concentrations (even over 500 million years...)

The rest of the article's writing about water vapour is junk - you can read in many places the scientific debunking of this.

https://secure.wikimedia.org/$PROJECT/$LOCALE/wiki/Main_Page

(Don't click on it. Expand the macros yourself :)

It works in China as I can confirm it.

https won't help you if the operators of the Firewall decide to proxy it.

https://secure.wikimedia.org/$PROJECT/$LOCALE/wiki/Main_Page

(Don't click on it. Expand the macros yourself :)

It works in China as I can confirm it.

Most of the replies so far show a glaring lack of knowledge of what USB3 really is. Honestly, it only bears a passing resemblance to its predecessors, and is a closer relative to PCIe. If you want more technical information, Denali has a good whitepaper (registration required):

And the real info can of course be found at https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Usb3#USB_3.0

weirdly, wikipedia doesn't seem to include any of that stuff about upgrade to our standard or your company will die - you might need to turn to an industry-funded news source for the full story ;)

The joke of an article simply refers to "terror mails" sent before the bombings. Are they saying that the bombings were planned via email through these open APs?

If so, then I feel that the police's actions give insight as to their real drives: get a conviction, secure that pay-rise and promotion. If an AP is open it gives a pretty good defence to the owner, but if it is secure then that defence may not fly. The police get a successful conviction, even though it might be totally the wrong person.

If you don't think that law enforcement will care more for conviction than solving a terrorist atrocity then just take a look at the Birmingham pub bombings.

It's a usual knee jerk reaction - the police have to be seen to be doing something, but I dunno how closing of open APs will stop terrorist actions. Generally, if you want to stop terrorism you need to stop pissing off the people bombing you.

Didn't know Clive Sinclair was still around and working for Asus ?
Maybe he does. The Keeeboard keys quite similar to old rubber keyboard of the original ZX Spectrum:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4d/Sinclair_ZX_Spectrum.jpg.

I have a merchant credit card account for V,MC,D, you know the telephone swipe box that sits on the store counter.

It's pretty easy for the merchant, BestBuy whoever, to get your name and address from it.

And this is one of the reasons I always use cash. I do have a debit card, but it'll only get used in an emergency. Even then I'll probably claim I don't know the PIN so that I can sign instead.

Samsung asked BestBuy to pass on the update to whoever purchased the SKU. It's a tremendous courtesy, actually.

Well, yes you could see it as a courtesy, but it won't be. A business never ever does anything unless it thinks it will be benefitting from the action. This includes charitable contributions - the cost there will be seen as buying good will, or some other BS.

There was probably some kind of contractual obligation to send out these disks, but why the keenness to make sure the user's players were up to date? I can't imagine that Bestbuy or Samsung want to add features to the players, as if the players are lacking the user might buy a new one instead. I am guessing that the update is DRM updates... something like the ability for the player to identify copied disks, or maybe blacklisted keys or something.

There is no privacy. Get over it.

Well, there are various laws in various countries that try and give people rights to privacy, but like all rights they have to be continually defended. It doesn't help that penises like you make statements like that.... you might not care about your privacy and are willing to give it away, but when you do that you are often giving away others' privacy too.

If you truly want to live in a country without government, please go and live in Somalia. Let us know how it goes. If you don't get shot.

Rich.

Haven't we already seen enough of the consequences of cross-contamination in the previous Phobos Grunt missions?

FINALLY. After reading the comments all the way down (just about to rtfa) somebody, namely theheadlessrabbit, finally said something that addresses something important.

Cities are _designed_ to pull your attention in a thousand ways. Capitalism causes that. If you pay attention to someone or something you're more likely to give that someone or something money, so cities, which are far more money-centric than less population dense areas, will always be more attention hungry than everything else. Even the wildest jungle (to follow the hyperbole). We spend billions on marketing (the art of getting and keeping people's attention), so naturally we're going to be good at it.

The jungle, on the other hand, doesn't give two shits what you pay attention to. Sure there's lots to choose from, but the choice is yours. And you get to focus on whatever you want for as long as you want (ie no commercial interruptions in every sense of the phrase).

Of course, the jungle hyperbole was just a /. invention, but I'll leave it to you to realize this applies even better in safer natural environments.

And since brains tend to get better at things they do often (no I'm not going to cite anything for this, but go ahead and find me someone who disagrees), you'd expect that in places where you get to choose and focus your attention people will be better at paying attention to things they care about than people in places where their attention is going like a speed-freaked superball. To say it more concisely, OF COURSE forcing people to hyperactively shift their attention will teach them to be ADHD. DUH.

Think about academia. Lots of good, focused, thinking goes on at colleges all over the world. Now think about the types of schools that generally produce the major thinkers within the group of thinkers. What is their layout like? I'll tell you that I've never seen a picture of a campus with a 3lane each way road, nor of a 10+ story building, nor a subway system...

Re: Ice. Yeah, so the melting isn't a perfectly smooth downward trend. In 2008, the minimum ice coverage for the melting season was 4.67M square kilometers, and the year before, it was 4.28M. That doesn't negate the overall trend. In actuality, the next lowest year wasn't 2006, but 2005. In 2006, there was a slight recovery as well.

It's pretty dishonest for sites like NewsBusters and FreeRepublic to be trumpeting a half-million km^2 gain, without pointing out the previous year saw a loss of about 1.2M km^2. They also forgot to mention that the ice-shrinking trend has been statistically significant over the past fifty years of fluctuating year-over-year levels. They also won't tell you that the people who produced the data think that ice volume (as opposed to ice area) is down from last year.

One. Year. Means. Jack.

That goes double for "global warming peaked in 1998." Look at the graph, and notice a couple of things. First, notice that 1998 was a really, really, really weird year. I defy you to find another year on the graph as far above the five year average (though a couple from the 1880s are in the running). 1998 was an El Nino-injected monster of a year, and it's utterly dishonest for anyone to use it as a baseline.

The next thing to note: the sheer amount of noise in the graph. Even the five year averages are full of dips and surges. The progression is anything but steady, yet the overall trend is clear. Individual years? They're all over the map. The record is littered with unusually low years that, in the end, didn't amount to anything significant.

The last thing to note: Even accounting for the fact that 1998 is pulling up the five year average towards the end of the blue line, every single year from 2001 on matched or exceeded that five year average. 2008 isn't on the chart yet, and when it is, it will be somewhat below the average for this decade. But climate scientists aren't sweating.*

Re: computer models. I don't know what you're talking about, and I'm starting to suspect that you don't either.

Watching climate contrarians spin is like watching a compulsive gambler. Sure, you made $1800 that last hand, but if you were thinking clearly you'd notice that you were still down twenty grand for the night. Don't let one offbeat year fool you. The averages are what matter.

* They mention that this year did include a La Nina event, which tends to drop temperatures.

The Jews still in Palestine. Every one of the groups you list have been around for DECADES and not one of them has come remotely close to getting what they claim to want.

The jews *were* the terrorist. They bombed the King David Hotel and then all of a sudden they have a zionist state. Spin it any way you want, but the jews achieved their goals through terrorism.

I guess none of us are safe or have any real protections... we just need to always make sure popular opinion is on our side. In your twisted view of how government works, I mean.

Yes, that is actually true, unfortunately. Government in any case is just an extension of the will of the people, even in the worst case of a monarchy, if the people collectively decided not to do what the King wanted, then the king would have no power (although often a brutal dictator doesn't need the direct support of more than 30% of the people).

United States history is full of instances of smaller groups of people being oppressed by larger groups. The civil war was the North trying to force its will on the South; we had full on SLAVERY for many years, we oppressed the Native Americans, we destroyed the Hawaiian culture and language (and are still forcing our will on the native Hawaiians, who feel underrepresented in their attempts at sovereignty), persecuted pacifists during WWI with the Espionage Act (EE Cummings was arrested for declaring he didn't actually have a hatred of the Germans), persecution of communists, even before McCarthy era, open mob violence against Jehovah's Witnesses (for reasons such as their refusal to say the pledge of allegiance), open mob violence against the Mormon's along with political persecution against both, discrimination against gays, discrimination against polygamists............... I'm sure if you look you can find many other cases.

More and more these days people are becoming of the opinion that persecuting others just because you don't like them is a bad idea, and, as you put it, protecting people from the tyranny of the majority, protecting fundamental civil rights is actually a good idea. These are things that can only happen if enough people support them. That ought to be the true American Way

To give you an idea of how things have been throughout history (paraphrased from Irving Stone) between Paul Revere and Abigail Adams, about a famous drawing he drew about the Boston Massacre:
Abigail: Why did you draw that picture? You know it is not what happened.
Paul: I know, but it helps people see the evils of monarchy.
Abigail: Those poor soldiers will be punished because of it, and it's not their fault! How would you feel if someone made such a picture of you, and you were punished because of it
Paul: That won't happen, I have too many friends.

John Adams apparently became very unpopular in Boston after his successful defense of those soldiers. But that is ok, he did what was right. Sometimes heros step up to the challenge, but it is not something we can depend on. Society only works when we agree to follow what makes it work.

I spent way too much time on this post. You better enjoy it. ;)

I find that it's easier to avoid taking other peoples' idiocy to heart when I can pay various non-profit organizations to deal with it on my behalf. Some recent favorites include:

The ever-present EFF
The Freedom from Religion Foundation
The American Library Association
The Wikimedia Foundation
The Nevada chapter of the ACLU (which is explicitly pro-Second Amendment, unlike the national body)

There are plenty of other worthy causes; those are just the ones on my list this year. Think about it this way: the God-botherers contribute a full 10% of their income, pre-tax, to try to drag civilization back into the Middle Ages. What's the best you can do?

I just wanted to say thanks for bringing my attention to the FFRF. This is my new favorite charity. We need more organizations protecting the constitution.

Nice try but one person isn't "some atheists", it's "one atheist". One atheist who doesn't represent anyone but himself.

Besides some think-tank in USA called Center for Global Development recently ranked rich countries in their "commitment to fostering prosperity in the developing world".http://www.economist.com/markets/indicators/displaystory.cfm?story_id=12777735&fsrc=rss The top 5 are Netherlands, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Ireland. If you take a look at this picture http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3e/Europe_belief_in_god.png you'll see that these have a very low number of people who believe in god. Compare this with USA which is ranked at 17 of 22 of the most commited countries. USA has a very high number (according to the statistics on the wikipedia article where I found that picture ~15% state they have no religion.

I find that it's easier to avoid taking other peoples' idiocy to heart when I can pay various non-profit organizations to deal with it on my behalf. Some recent favorites include:

The ever-present EFF
The Freedom from Religion Foundation
The American Library Association
The Wikimedia Foundation
The Nevada chapter of the ACLU (which is explicitly pro-Second Amendment, unlike the national body)

There are plenty of other worthy causes; those are just the ones on my list this year. Think about it this way: the God-botherers contribute a full 10% of their income, pre-tax, to try to drag civilization back into the Middle Ages. What's the best you can do?

Fascinating! Here's one of the images from the wiki article. http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/9/9a/Acapulco_AGU_carolina_bay_poster.jpg I don't see why there's any argument about it. There's no way to get overlapping raised crater rims other than impact events. And the craters are filled with material containing carbon spherules! So it wasn't one single large meteorite impact; it was a whole cloud of smaller meteorites that hit all along the eastern seaboard.

if a engine, or even a few, fail on the falcon 9, it can still complete its mission, the other engines just have to burn a bit longer.

The failure(s) on the N1 was in the complex pipework leading to the 30 engines. This caused the whole rocket to fail (3 or 4 times IIRC - the Wikipedia article has more details).

Also even if a engine itself fails, you have to remember that the failure is not necessarily a clean shutdown, but likely a large explosion, taking out adjacent engines.

Rich.

The E segment of the last digit of the year failed at exactly midnight !!

There's also the Trilogy system.

/F

Can we get link-speak added to that Lake Superior State University list of things that must die?

What a prick.

Possibly of interest is the appeal that Jimmy Wales wrote and has been featured on one of the banners. Apparently this particular site notice was particularly effective: http://blog.wikimedia.org/2008/12/30/fundraiser-jimmys-appeal/

When we got one of those damn wheel-less, round, mac "hockey puck" mice it was nearly impossible to determine the orientation after you finish typing a snippet and go back to mousing. You always had to look down and rotate it so the mouse cord was "up". What a horrible design.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/90/Apple_iMac_USB_mouse.jpg

Ugh. I can't imagine even trying Crossfire on the 800XL's keyboard. The flat panel keyboards on those were almost more for show than actual use. Not good for gaming at all. Even the overly complex joystick controls would have been an improvement over that keyboard.

I had the PCjr version, which had a much more satisfying keyboard. (Though not the chiclet keyboard everyone complains about. The "wireless" infrared one. Yeah, I suppose it wasn't that much better. :-/) I honestly can't stand the modal joystick controls for Crossfire. Not only do you have to hold the button to switch the joystick to fire mode, but the craft automatically stops at every intersection. I tried to get used to that, but I found that it just limited maneuverability rather than helping. And maneuverability was one thing you REALLY needed in that game. ;-)

So wait, its that annoying grouping thing from Windows XP?

Pretty much yes, with revamped UI. Here's the screenie of how it looks now (it may not be immediately obvious, but the guy just clicked on an IE icon on the taskbar). Though, as I understand, the flashy preview stuff can be turned off.

If they can't open on a typical machine...

Like these files? (all OGG)

now listen to this track while you read the above

This one is more appropriate in the USSA.

now listen to this track while you read the above

https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Scigen

Does this program pass the Turing Test?

Yep - those variable speed limits still exist in NZ (although they're in kph, not mph!), or at least did on my last visit back home (2 years ago). They are pretty uncommon though, to the point that people who don't drive around a LOT might never have seen them.

We've also got them here in Germany, although the "difference" in speed can be much greater, as there are parts of the autobahns that have no speed limit under "normal" conditions, but with a speed limit sign accompanies by another sign saying "bei nässe" (when wet) (example)

It can be a little disconcerting though when I've slowed down to the posted limit (generally around 80kph or so) and someone rockets past me at 200kph or higher (I drive around 180 in good conditions, but ALWAYS obey those "bei nässe" signs, even if it seems a lot of other people don't)

Much more complex molecules have been discovered in outer space. Indeed water isn't something fascinating compared with these ones. The cool thing here is about the sensitivity of the hardware, which is able to identify the faint signals from a very distant object.

Now that's air pirates! https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Porco_Rosso