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Public Library of Science Launches

Posted by Hemos on from the taking-flight dept.

limbicsystem writes "The first issue of the free journal Public Library of Science Biology hits the presses tonight. With Lawrence Lessig on the Board, the PLOS team are taking the Creative Commons to the world of science publishing and hope to compete with the big-name journals Science and Nature. The move towards freely-available scientific journals is supported by major funding bodies who are tired of seeing their grant money spent on subscriptions to commercial journals that can cost thousands of dollars a year. PLOS-Biology is available online at plos.org. The inagural issue has an essay by the executive director of the creative commons, Glen Otis Brown. Oh, and it's all running on Linux ;)"

4 of 101 comments (clear)

  1. Public Libraries are important by G3ckoG33k · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    Public Libraries are important. With some luck, education of the public may get rid off ignorance and superstition. Here is one of the worst cases I have ever read:

    BANJUL, Gambia (Reuters) -- A 28-year-old man accused of stealing a man's penis through sorcery was beaten to death in the West African country of Gambia on Thursday, police said.

    1. Re:Public Libraries are important by G3ckoG33k · · Score: 0, Offtopic

      It is with great sadness I note that my quote from CNN has rececived 50% Offtopic and 50% Overrated moderations, resulting in a "Score:-1, Offtopic". No, I'm not a "karma whore", but, and that is a bloody BIG BUT - giving in to superstition, metaphysics, and supernatural beliefs in general is in no way not part of me.

      How the [please insert any popular vulgarism] do people believe information is to spread rapidly through an impoverished polulation and, as from what the CNN article insinuates, an active mob infuriated from superstitious beliefs and with blatant disregard for human rights? No, they probably don't have internet access. Yet, this may be a first step towards a better, more educated world. Nothing more nothing less. There are, as far as I can see it, no fancy strings attached to it. Just a plain, public library.

      Please, read the entire article. It IS horrifying. This is from 9th October 2003, not 2003B.C. Please read the entire article in full, again. Please. Besides, how the whats can this be Offtopic?! Here again:

      BANJUL, Gambia (Reuters) -- A 28-year-old man accused of stealing a man's penis through sorcery was beaten to death in the West African country of Gambia on Thursday, police said.

      A police spokesman told Reuters that Baba Jallow was lynched by about 10 people in the town of Serekunda, some 15 km (nine miles) from the capital Banjul.

      Reports of penis snatching are not uncommon in West Africa, with purported victims claiming that alleged sorcerers simply touched them to make their genitals shrink or disappear in order to extort cash in the promise of a cure.

      The police spokesman said many men in Serekunda were now afraid to shake hands, and he urged people not to believe reports of "vanishing" genitals. Belief in sorcery is widespread in West Africa.

      Seven alleged penis snatchers were beaten to death by angry mobs in Ghana in 1997.

  2. Running on Linux? by Call+Me+Black+Cloud · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    Who cares? The important thing is the information is out there and available. The petty little remarks that show up in many submissions are tiresome and only serve to polarize people. When that happens, no one is willing to consider the other side's views.

    And since the submitter wants to bring netcraft into it, check this out. As of this writing (it's a report over the last day so it may change), the top ranked server is running Win2k, followed by Solaris, then Linux. Of the top 20, 6 are running Windows, 4 Solaris, 5 BSD, and 5 Linux. Longest uptimes? BSD takes the prize, holding all 50 spots on the chart. The headline story at Netcraft states that for the month of September, in the category of fewest failed requests, Windows held the top spot and 3 of the top 6 places, and 7 of the top 13 are running FreeBSD.

    So while you, submitter "limbicsystem", may be happy that the PLOS is running Linux on one of their web servers because you're a fan of Linux, maybe as a fan of science you should regret that and instead wish for a site on BSD or even Windows.

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