Taking on the United States Secret Service is a pretty risky venture... But that’s exactly what the EFF did, shortly after it was founded in July 1990. The Secret Service had raided a small videogames book publisher, looking for a stolen technical document that might fall into the wrong hands.
If it's referring to the raid on Steve Jackson Games, SJG wasn't a 'videogames book publisher'.
Interview with Contiki's creator, Adam Dunkels
on
Contiki Turns Ten
·
· Score: 4, Informative
Shameless plug: I had a pretty extensive chat late last year with the guy who Contiki. You can read it here.
should be: The team measured the temperature at -267.92 degrees Celsius (5.08 Kelvin), which is warmer than today's universe (-270.27 degrees Celsius). I suck.
Hello, article author here. Part of the reason judge.me exists is because people doing contract work often deal with clients that live in other countries or other locations in the same country. Plus the turn around can be super quick.
On balance it's probably natural for geeks (many of whom are naturally inquisitive) to question ideas which insist on substantial changes to our lifestyles with tenuous evidence behind them
No scientific body of national or international standing has maintained a dissenting opinion; the last was the American Association of Petroleum Geologists, which in 2007 updated its 1999 statement rejecting the likelihood of human influence on recent climate with its current non-committal position.
And so all these organisations came to the conclusion that human activity is playing a key role in global warming without any "credible evidence" (to use your phrase)?
Yes this is a good point. But it's kind of bizarre. Another commenter made the point that evolution is also 'controversial' in the US (but obviously not so much among the Slashdot crowd). I guess I just feel down that when it comes to this issue so many people consider themselves 'experts' because they read an article or two once.
The trouble is, most questioning of the science related to global warming is politically motivated. It's not, "Hmm this new evidence has come to light, what are its implications?" That's not to say it might not happen from the other side on occasion. The difference is, however, that there is an overwhelming scientific consensus when it comes to global warming -- not on every specific detail, but on the fact that it is a real thing and that it's related to human activity and that it's consequences are awful. We have a ridiculous situation where in the interests of media "balance" (not to mention a number of media outlets that have denialism as an editorial policy) you have crackpots and talking heads with no relevant scientific credentials presented given equal weight to prestigious scientific organisations. So it makes it look like there's some kind of real debate about the fundamentals, when there's really not.
It always astonishes me that on a geeky site like Slashdot with an audience that in theory puts such a high value on science, you get so many global warming denialists.
Well they would already have had online revenue from the website, and I doubt this was a snap decision. Trust me, at the moment publishing is a really hard industry to be in, and really hard to be profitable in. It's not just as easy as saying "Whoo! Digital revenue instead of deadtree revenue!"
(Kind of disclaimer: I actually work for IDG's Australian subsidiary -- shameless plug: http://www.techworld.com.au/ -- but I don't know the ins and outs of this decision. It's pretty sad though, given the Gamepro brand is pretty venerable in its particular niche.)
That was a reference to Menuet, whose devs I interviewed a few years back. Sorry if it's unclear. I might edit when I get back into the office tomorrow.
"Looking back at it, Computerworld isn't the worst offender - but I did get a bloody great big javascripty overlay thing when I visited the site first."
Yeah those ads annoy me too...
"A link to the project site in the summary wouldn't have gone amiss though."
Yes that's totally true. I blame lack of sleep when I was posting it:-)
On the plus side, one of the things I like about my job is that I have the freedom to write about cool open source projects like Uzebox (and Alec is a really great guy). For example, how many people get paid to review Ubuntu Linux Satanic Edition.
I don't think it's an "advert farm". It's like most commercial sites -- it has ads. Disclaimer: I am terribly, terribly biased because I did the interview. I hoped you enjoyed reading it as much as I did conducting it!
Hello,
It's the guy who did the interview here (and the guy who submitted it to Slashdot). Uzebox has been round for quite a while, but I thought an interview with Alec would be kind of interesting, and it includes some stuff you might not find elsewhere (at least in one place). It's not like the article was devoid of content in my view... but then I have an obvious bias. And, yes, there's a bunch of ads on the page. Sadly it's the ads that pay my salary.
cheers,
Rohan
Slashdot Mirror
I remember the story from Bruce Sterling's book on Operation Sundevil. It's a great read and had a huge impact on me when I was young.
Taking on the United States Secret Service is a pretty risky venture... But that’s exactly what the EFF did, shortly after it was founded in July 1990. The Secret Service had raided a small videogames book publisher, looking for a stolen technical document that might fall into the wrong hands.
If it's referring to the raid on Steve Jackson Games, SJG wasn't a 'videogames book publisher'.
Shameless plug: I had a pretty extensive chat late last year with the guy who Contiki. You can read it here.
I dropped a "-" damn it.
should be: The team measured the temperature at -267.92 degrees Celsius (5.08 Kelvin), which is warmer than today's universe (-270.27 degrees Celsius). I suck.
I fucked up and dropped a "-" :(
Hello, article author here. Part of the reason judge.me exists is because people doing contract work often deal with clients that live in other countries or other locations in the same country. Plus the turn around can be super quick.
Hey, It's the author of the article here - thanks so much for your kind words. I was pretty happy with how it turned out!
So there's no evidence to back up global warming in your view?
On balance it's probably natural for geeks (many of whom are naturally inquisitive) to question ideas which insist on substantial changes to our lifestyles with tenuous evidence behind them
To quote Wikipedia:
No scientific body of national or international standing has maintained a dissenting opinion; the last was the American Association of Petroleum Geologists, which in 2007 updated its 1999 statement rejecting the likelihood of human influence on recent climate with its current non-committal position.
And so all these organisations came to the conclusion that human activity is playing a key role in global warming without any "credible evidence" (to use your phrase)?
Yes this is a good point. But it's kind of bizarre. Another commenter made the point that evolution is also 'controversial' in the US (but obviously not so much among the Slashdot crowd). I guess I just feel down that when it comes to this issue so many people consider themselves 'experts' because they read an article or two once.
The trouble is, most questioning of the science related to global warming is politically motivated. It's not, "Hmm this new evidence has come to light, what are its implications?" That's not to say it might not happen from the other side on occasion. The difference is, however, that there is an overwhelming scientific consensus when it comes to global warming -- not on every specific detail, but on the fact that it is a real thing and that it's related to human activity and that it's consequences are awful. We have a ridiculous situation where in the interests of media "balance" (not to mention a number of media outlets that have denialism as an editorial policy) you have crackpots and talking heads with no relevant scientific credentials presented given equal weight to prestigious scientific organisations. So it makes it look like there's some kind of real debate about the fundamentals, when there's really not.
It always astonishes me that on a geeky site like Slashdot with an audience that in theory puts such a high value on science, you get so many global warming denialists.
Surely it will depend on how it is run and moderated. And there is not a lot of public information about that yet...
(Kind of disclaimer: I actually work for IDG's Australian subsidiary -- shameless plug: http://www.techworld.com.au/ -- but I don't know the ins and outs of this decision. It's pretty sad though, given the Gamepro brand is pretty venerable in its particular niche.)
MIT has videos of lectures online. But unlike Stanford it's more a "work at your own pace" style thing instead of actually signing up for a course.
I wrote a short obituary for him.
Well I only posted the article online today... Plus I have osnews to thank for introducing me to Syllable in the first place!
Different kernel and architecture but still using gnu tools etc is what I was trying to convey...
That was a reference to Menuet, whose devs I interviewed a few years back. Sorry if it's unclear. I might edit when I get back into the office tomorrow.
Yeah those ads annoy me too...
"A link to the project site in the summary wouldn't have gone amiss though."
Yes that's totally true. I blame lack of sleep when I was posting it :-)
On the plus side, one of the things I like about my job is that I have the freedom to write about cool open source projects like Uzebox (and Alec is a really great guy). For example, how many people get paid to review Ubuntu Linux Satanic Edition.
I don't think it's an "advert farm". It's like most commercial sites -- it has ads. Disclaimer: I am terribly, terribly biased because I did the interview. I hoped you enjoyed reading it as much as I did conducting it!
Hello, It's the guy who did the interview here (and the guy who submitted it to Slashdot). Uzebox has been round for quite a while, but I thought an interview with Alec would be kind of interesting, and it includes some stuff you might not find elsewhere (at least in one place). It's not like the article was devoid of content in my view... but then I have an obvious bias. And, yes, there's a bunch of ads on the page. Sadly it's the ads that pay my salary. cheers, Rohan
This will enlighten you.
In Oz we're getting a national fibre network with 1Gbps :-) (though there is political argy-bargy about it)