Slashdot Mirror
A Plasmonic Revolution for Computer Chips?
Roland Piquepaille writes "Today, we're using basically two ways to move data in our computers: transistors carry small amounts of data and are extremely small, while fiber optic cables can carry huge amounts of data, but are much bigger in size. Now, imagine a single technology combining the advantages of photonics and electronics. This Stanford University report says a new technology can do it: plasmonics. (For more about plasmons, read this Wikipedia article.) Theoretically, it is possible to design plasmonic components with the same materials used today by chipmakers, but with frequencies 100,000 times greater than the ones of current microprocessors. There is still a challenge to solve before getting plasmonic chips. Today, plasmons can only travel a few millimeters before dying, while today's chips are typically about a centimeter across. Read this overview for more details and references about plasmonics, and to discover why it's one possible future for chips' circuitry."
Why would we hide his posts? They're interesting, and cost me the same to read as any other (non-reg) Slashdot linked stories: nothing. That said, I would like a feature that lets us block stories by submitter on our own Slashdot pages.
--
make install -not war
Roland Piquepaille and Slashdot: Is there a connection?
I think most of you are aware of the controversy surrounding regular Slashdot article submitter Roland Piquepaille. For those of you who don't know, please allow me to bring forth all the facts. Roland Piquepaille has an online journal (I refuse to use the word "blog") located at http://www.primidi.com/. It is titled "Roland Piquepaille's Technology Trends". It consists almost entirely of content, both text and pictures, taken from reputable news websites and online technical journals. He does give credit to the other websites, but it wasn't always so. Only after many complaints were raised by the Slashdot readership did he start giving credit where credit was due. However, this is not what the controversy is about.
Roland Piquepaille's Technology Trends serves online advertisements through a service called Blogads, located at www.blogads.com. Blogads is not your traditional online advertiser; rather than base payments on click-throughs, Blogads pays a flat fee based on the level of traffic your online journal generates. This way Blogads can guarantee that an advertisement on a particular online journal will reach a particular number of users. So advertisements on high traffic online journals are appropriately more expensive to buy, but the advertisement is guaranteed to be seen by a large amount of people. This, in turn, encourages people like Roland Piquepaille to try their best to increase traffic to their journals in order to increase the going rates for advertisements on their web pages. But advertisers do have some flexibility. Blogads serves two classes of advertisements. The premium ad space that is seen at the top of the web page by all viewers is reserved for "Special Advertisers"; it holds only one advertisement. The secondary ad space is located near the bottom half of the page, so that the user must scroll down the window to see it. This space can contain up to four advertisements and is reserved for regular advertisers, or just "Advertisers".
Before we talk about money, let's talk about the service that Roland Piquepaille provides in his journal. He goes out and looks for interesting articles about new and emerging technologies. He provides a very brief overview of the articles, then copies a few choice paragraphs and the occasional picture from each article and puts them up on his web page. Finally, he adds a minimal amount of original content between the copied-and-pasted text in an effort to make the journal entry coherent and appear to add value to the original articles. Nothing more, nothing less.
Now let's talk about money. Visit BlogAds to check the following facts for yourself. As of today, December XX 2004, the going rate for the premium advertisement space on Roland Piquepaille's Technology Trends is $375 for one month. One of the four standard advertisements costs $150 for one month. So, the maximum advertising space brings in $375 x 1 + $150 x 4 = $975 for one month. Obviously not all $975 will go directly to Roland Piquepaille, as Blogads gets a portion of that as a service fee, but he will receive the majority of it. According to the FAQ, Blogads takes 20%. So Roland Piquepaille gets 80% of $975, a maximum of $780 each month. www.primidi.com is hosted by clara.net (look it up at Network Solutions ). Browsing clara.net's hosting solutions, the most expensive hosting service is their Clarahost Advanced priced at £69.99 GBP. This is roughly, at the time of this writing, $130 USD. Assuming Roland Piquepaille pays for the Clarahost Advanced hosting service, he is out $130 leaving him with a maximum net profit of $650 each month. Keeping your website registered with Network Solutions cost $34.99 per year, or about $3 per month. This leaves Roland Piquepaille with $647 each month. He may pay for additional services related to his online journal, but I was unable to find any evidence of this.
All of the above are cold, hard, verifiable facts, except where st
In the mean time we can spread the word about what he's doing, not visit his site (I blocked it at our school) and say, "Thank you for the information, it's neat now I'm going to google the topic and find out about it".
Why would we hide his posts?
Because, the articles come from Roland as if he was just another Slashdot user, which then gives more credibility to the submission [1].
In reality, it's quite clear that there is some sort of business connection between Roland and Slashdot. There is no other reason to accept 100% of Roland's submissions.
It's a desceptive relationship.
[1] Except that the credibility is undermined by the constant complaining of the Slashdot readers.
94% of Repubs and 21% of Dems voted to renew the Patriot Act
What are the chances that the Slashdot editors accept 100% of Roland's submissions, when they reject the majority of submissions from other people.
Who cares?
The real question is whether or not the articles he submits are worth the time of Slashdotters to read and reply to them. I'm not entirely sure what the conspiracy theory is--that he has some arrangement with the editors to accept the stories is one thing I've heard--but I frankly don't care WHO submits a story or WHERE they link it to as long as it is worth reading.
Now, whether or not they are indeed worth reading is up for debate, but that criticism would at least be on the right track.
"Wiki is silly. Not scalalble." - CmdrTaco on IRC, June 2003.
So, did he really misspell 'scalable'? The ironing is delicious.
Here's the IRC log:h tml
http://www.slashnet.org/forums/Slashdot-20030612.
I stand corrected. Thank you for the clarification.
94% of Repubs and 21% of Dems voted to renew the Patriot Act
I like how that typo is followed by:
:)
" Wiki's make me want to guage my eyes out."
He obviously never heard the old saying, "Better to keep your mouth shut and be thought of as a complete asshole, then open it a remove all doubt." What an ass.
Slashdot
News for nerds who frequent Roland Piquepaille's blog.
The AC is offering a technique for viewing Roland Piquapaille's site without supporting him through ads. Hardly a troll. If it hurts him that much, he can stop submitting stories to Slashdot.
Oh, you took the husband's word for it even though a court said there was a dispute.
There are always disputes. The courts sided with Terry Schiavo's husband in numerous court cases for 15 years, and each time they agreed with him.
The dispute was brought forth by Terry's parents, who do NOT have the same legal rights as a Husband. Terry's parents did not want their daughter to die, and that is understandable. However, an individual's rights are more important then the feeling of the parents.
However, they do NOT have the right to prolong Terry's suffering when it goes against her known wishes.