Well, the whole point of Wikipedia is that it's written from a neutral point of view. Actually, one of the administrators is a follower of Reverend Moon's Unification Church - but he doesn't write articles biased in their favor.
I happen to believe in evolution, and to be pro-choice. I don't let that influence my writing, or if I do, I attribute it ("Some people believe that abortion is acceptable in these circumstances because...").
It's under GNU licensing - to the point that some people download all the content onto their Linux boxes to run more efficient database queries through it. If it went private, one person could buy a membership, download everything, and redistribute it under the GFDL. Also, Wikipedia is run by a not-for-profit organization, and has been for most of a year.
Granted, theoretically one "copy" of wikipedia could start charging for memberships like Mandrake does (which I think would never happen) but, like with Mandrake, it would be quite legal to sell copies.
Well, there's a running joke that the amount of information available on Wikipedia is proportionate to the amount of contraversy over it. That's because people, generally, want to make sure "their side of the story" gets covered in detail, and the best way of doing that is to cover new material.
There's articles about obscure aspects of European history, or about specific current religions, that are REALLY long just because of that kind of process.
No. That's why I used separate sentences. I know Wik isn't involved in holocaust denail. But other people, on occasion, are (and generally are blatent enough about it that it takes about 2 seconds to reach the conclusion yep, troll, check user's talk page, warn, sip coffee, go on to next diff).
Server stability is a recurrent problem with wikipedia; honestly, at times, it has less than one nine of uptime. Given that the entire site was until recently run by a private individual, it's doing pretty well, though.
There's some idiots, to be sure (including one who actually uses the name Wik, which made my laugh).
However, they tend to get marginalized by other users (especially when they do blatent stuff like claiming the holocaust didn't happen) and end up leaving. Or, very occasionally, they get thrown off (which has happened to serious users only about five times).
Actually, Wikipedia tends to get even very subtle errors caught quite rapidly. On some math topics, in particular, we have some of the most complete articles anywhere on the web.
Also, we're able to keep up with current events (I believe the Colombia article had an article within a few hours, and 9/11 was reported almost in realtime). For something like Britannica, you have to wait for the next yearbook to come out, and even then you have obsolete information in your original set of volumes.
Electronic data generally doesn't have that problem is being brought up to date (imagine having a 2.4.1 linux kernel stored, along with patches to each minor version up to the present - sounds stupid, huh?)
It happens almost every day that people add deliberately false data, or just messed up data (like putting insults on the pages of other users).
We have one fellow who comes back several times a week specifically to add incorrect data to music articles. Generally he gets blocked by one to, sometimes, four people in less than a minute.
I for one choose my window manager because it allows me to switch windows more quickly; that's the limiting factor in how quickly I can find problem users on wikipedia. No kidding.
Yeah, that would make sense. There's a lot more printing cost for 30-40 volumes than for a CD, so you can be undersold quite easily by Encarta, even if they have a higher profit margin per copy.
Yep... I'd say at any given time there's 5-6 people looking out for vandalism. Also, people who do it regularly tend to get temporarily blocked from editing; this happens dozens of times a day, actually. Unlike slashdot, because anyone can edit anything, the junk seems to get cleaned up quite quickly.
I know that you know this, but I'm just clarifying for the benefit of the slashdot community...
Wish I knew... The big issue is that to deorbit something you don't move it to a low orbit - you move it to an eccentric orbit with about the same total energy, but that slices through the atmosphere at two points. The atmosphere does most of the velocity change from there.
And that takes a lot less energy than keeping a supposedly-obsolete intrument safe for decades.
Not that I'm against Hubble - it should be kept - but it's a point that has to be made.
Landing it intact would require shielding it from the heat of re-entry, which would mean a shuttle mission (and I'm not even sure if it would fit in the shuttle).
It takes energy to boost things into higher orbits - what's more, it takes fuel. And that, right now, means a shuttle needs to stop by and give the Hubble a little nudge every now and then (the same with the ISS). Communications satellites orbit much higher, so they face less drag, and they're generally considered disposable in any event, since any repair hardware would cost more to launch than a complete new satellite.
He had cited the risk to the astronauts on a Hubble mission and President Bush (news - web sites)'s plans to send humans to the moon, Mars and beyond as the reason for NASA's change of focus.
Attention Martians: If you see a gentleman in a suit with a texas accent, and slightly funny ears, landing, be sure to send him back - he wants your oil!
Re:It's another case against OS monoculture
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It's technically more difficult. Very, very few linux users run email clients that auto-execute macros, or read email with write access to all of their own executables. The closest equivalent would be reading email as root via some kind of command interpreter built into the client.
Almost all Win98 users do both of these things.
Also, if a virus was released for Linux taking advantage of some kind of known vulnerability, most users would fix the issue in question. Almost every distro allows you to set up an hourly cron job to update the entire system, often without rebooting. I'd like to see you do the equivalent of updating glibc without a reboot under Windows.
Yes, there have been worms for Unix - and I'm sure there will be in the future - but Unix is a much poorer "habitat" for a worm than MS Lookout.
Yeah - but most sane operating systems don't run attachments just by clicking on them. Nor do they download attachments with execute permissions, nor do they give most applications write access to their own executable.
Slashdot Mirror
Well, the whole point of Wikipedia is that it's written from a neutral point of view. Actually, one of the administrators is a follower of Reverend Moon's Unification Church - but he doesn't write articles biased in their favor.
I happen to believe in evolution, and to be pro-choice. I don't let that influence my writing, or if I do, I attribute it ("Some people believe that abortion is acceptable in these circumstances because...").
It's under GNU licensing - to the point that some people download all the content onto their Linux boxes to run more efficient database queries through it. If it went private, one person could buy a membership, download everything, and redistribute it under the GFDL. Also, Wikipedia is run by a not-for-profit organization, and has been for most of a year.
Granted, theoretically one "copy" of wikipedia could start charging for memberships like Mandrake does (which I think would never happen) but, like with Mandrake, it would be quite legal to sell copies.
Well, there's a running joke that the amount of information available on Wikipedia is proportionate to the amount of contraversy over it. That's because people, generally, want to make sure "their side of the story" gets covered in detail, and the best way of doing that is to cover new material.
There's articles about obscure aspects of European history, or about specific current religions, that are REALLY long just because of that kind of process.
Well, some of us were predicting getting slashdotted over this issue this past weekend... and it was inevitable that someone would submit it here :).
And yeah, if I said that it would be POV without reference :). You'll find a lot of that around here though...
No. That's why I used separate sentences. I know Wik isn't involved in holocaust denail. But other people, on occasion, are (and generally are blatent enough about it that it takes about 2 seconds to reach the conclusion yep, troll, check user's talk page, warn, sip coffee, go on to next diff).
Server stability is a recurrent problem with wikipedia; honestly, at times, it has less than one nine of uptime. Given that the entire site was until recently run by a private individual, it's doing pretty well, though.
There's some idiots, to be sure (including one who actually uses the name Wik, which made my laugh).
However, they tend to get marginalized by other users (especially when they do blatent stuff like claiming the holocaust didn't happen) and end up leaving. Or, very occasionally, they get thrown off (which has happened to serious users only about five times).
Actually, Wikipedia tends to get even very subtle errors caught quite rapidly. On some math topics, in particular, we have some of the most complete articles anywhere on the web.
Also, we're able to keep up with current events (I believe the Colombia article had an article within a few hours, and 9/11 was reported almost in realtime). For something like Britannica, you have to wait for the next yearbook to come out, and even then you have obsolete information in your original set of volumes.
Electronic data generally doesn't have that problem is being brought up to date (imagine having a 2.4.1 linux kernel stored, along with patches to each minor version up to the present - sounds stupid, huh?)
It happens almost every day that people add deliberately false data, or just messed up data (like putting insults on the pages of other users).
We have one fellow who comes back several times a week specifically to add incorrect data to music articles. Generally he gets blocked by one to, sometimes, four people in less than a minute.
I for one choose my window manager because it allows me to switch windows more quickly; that's the limiting factor in how quickly I can find problem users on wikipedia. No kidding.
Yeah, that would make sense. There's a lot more printing cost for 30-40 volumes than for a CD, so you can be undersold quite easily by Encarta, even if they have a higher profit margin per copy.
Yep... I'd say at any given time there's 5-6 people looking out for vandalism. Also, people who do it regularly tend to get temporarily blocked from editing; this happens dozens of times a day, actually. Unlike slashdot, because anyone can edit anything, the junk seems to get cleaned up quite quickly.
I know that you know this, but I'm just clarifying for the benefit of the slashdot community...
Wish I knew... The big issue is that to deorbit something you don't move it to a low orbit - you move it to an eccentric orbit with about the same total energy, but that slices through the atmosphere at two points. The atmosphere does most of the velocity change from there.
And that takes a lot less energy than keeping a supposedly-obsolete intrument safe for decades.
Not that I'm against Hubble - it should be kept - but it's a point that has to be made.
The problem here is that the license seems to have a BSD-like advertising clause.
this is better than IRC, it's standard is still marked experimental :)
Or they could just sell it to one of those nude celibrity porn sites, for similiar purposes...
Landing it intact would require shielding it from the heat of re-entry, which would mean a shuttle mission (and I'm not even sure if it would fit in the shuttle).
That would be expensive as hell.
It takes energy to boost things into higher orbits - what's more, it takes fuel. And that, right now, means a shuttle needs to stop by and give the Hubble a little nudge every now and then (the same with the ISS). Communications satellites orbit much higher, so they face less drag, and they're generally considered disposable in any event, since any repair hardware would cost more to launch than a complete new satellite.
Attention Martians: If you see a gentleman in a suit with a texas accent, and slightly funny ears, landing, be sure to send him back - he wants your oil!
It's technically more difficult. Very, very few linux users run email clients that auto-execute macros, or read email with write access to all of their own executables. The closest equivalent would be reading email as root via some kind of command interpreter built into the client.
Almost all Win98 users do both of these things.
Also, if a virus was released for Linux taking advantage of some kind of known vulnerability, most users would fix the issue in question. Almost every distro allows you to set up an hourly cron job to update the entire system, often without rebooting. I'd like to see you do the equivalent of updating glibc without a reboot under Windows.
Yes, there have been worms for Unix - and I'm sure there will be in the future - but Unix is a much poorer "habitat" for a worm than MS Lookout.
But that particular site has already been taken down. Apparently there was a gaping hole of some sort.
And here I thought the virus was being distributed in binary form only.
Does it contain pirated SCO Unix code? If it doesn't work properly, this is a possibility that we must consider.
Well obviously isn't that why you'd use a Frensel lens?
Yeah - but most sane operating systems don't run attachments just by clicking on them. Nor do they download attachments with execute permissions, nor do they give most applications write access to their own executable.
What's the point of installing just Linux? Don't you mean GNU/Linux?
One of the thing that peeves me about Gentoo is that they don't mention that they're actually GNU/Linux.