Perhaps we need to broaden our idea of what peer review is, and how it's best accomplished. Currently, a very small number of people recruited by the publisher are responsible for assuring that proper methods were used and that the conclusions drawn are at least reasonable. I don't see that exposing papers to much wider scrutiny would necessarily compromise that process, given some necessary procedures and safeguards.
I hesitate to suggest using something like the moderation system we're using here, but with a few restrictions (like assuring the qualifications and "karma" of moderators) it might fly.
You've obviously never talked with a biologist....
Almost every day, but I see your point. At least they have PLoS, though. It's the chemists I'm most worried about; the ACS and Elsevier have most of their stuff locked up. The physicists and astronomers, OTOH, will be leading the way out of the darkness...
I predict that this PR campaign will blow up in their faces, big-time. Their target audience this time isn't the unwashed masses camped in front of the tee-vee; it's people who know how to think (and even do so from time to time). Hilarity will ensue as the big smack-down gains momentum.
Military technology is only as good or as evil as the deciders who determine when and against whom it will be used. Many of us have become increasingly uncomfortable with that lately.
I think probably the whole mission of the FCC is more in iconic thing -- "don't worry, the government is in control!"
A more cynical and accurate view would be that the FCC is beholden to the industry it's supposed to be regulating, and like the rest of the executive branch has little or no concept of any public interest to be upheld. The commissioners and other top bureaucrats there know who's going to be buttering their bread when they leave government service in a couple of years.
Can't say I disagree with a word you said. I lament our two (one and a half?) party system almost every day, and if the Dems win the trifecta in 2008, I'll be on their case on a daily basis as well.
But that being said, I still don't think they hold a candle to the Repugnicans (I prefer that mispelling) when it comes to ruthlessness, corruption, and contempt for constitutional limits. They will at least pay lip service to the notion of a public interest, and while they'll surely have their own scandals w.r.t. lobbyists and such, I doubt that they'll set up the same kind of brazen one-stop-shopping monopoly on corruption that the GOP did with their K Street Project.
And don't even get me started about who's benefitting from our middle east entanglements and who's not, and how that might affect their willingness to (ever) get off the Gravy Train...
It's only hypocrisy if the GOP isn't genuinely a good deal more ruthless than the Dems. I'd argue that point with you, but unless your head is jammed permanently up your butt I suspect you already know it's true.
On the other hand, the Berlin Wall worked pretty well for East Germany for quite a while, and was a nice symbolic focal point when it was finally torn down. That could be more relevant than it appears, since East Germany seems to be the model for where the Republicans want to take us in security and political matters.
Someday the Bush Wall will be torn down as well, and to similar fanfare.
Sort of like natural selection, then? If the system is successful, eventually all planes will by flying with the successful system. Until the nature of the threat changes, of course...
There's nothing "free market" about the way patents work. A patent is the Government's way of granting you an artificial monopoly on something, and of helping you to defend it through the force of law. It's the opposite of a free market.
Yet, the free market conservatives and libertarians defend it as if it were something implicit in Natural Law or granted by God. Go figure.
And if any patentability (say on dosage levels) does show up the companies can always buy it then.
Maybe they can patent the sale of it when specifically labelled for treating cancer, but the chemical itself is cheap and has been around for a long time. In fact, my Merck Index (which I just happen to have in front of me here) lists one of its uses as a "topical astringent", and says it's also been used to treat lactic acidosis. Can it be prescribed off-label?
It'll be tough to force cancer patients to mortgage their houses for a few grams of this stuff when it's already being sold for other uses at a few dollars per kilogram!
The other problem is that dichloroacetic acid is a very cheap and easily produced chemical, on the order of things like aspirin and vitamin C. Nobody's going to be able to charge $10,000 for a month's supply (whatever that is) when you can go out and buy the raw compound for $30 a kilogram or so.
Maybe the best chance (though a dangerous one) for it is for people to just start using it as an unregulated "nutritional supplement"; then maybe the new NIH institute that tests "alternative" therapies (I forget its name) will have to conduct the safety and efficacy trials.
Excuse me? I've been perfectly happy with the lack of Flash content in my Linux-based web-browsing experience to this point.
Um, I've been looking at Flash content (behind Flashblock, of course) for a long time. Why all the talk about this being a new thing, as if it were impossible until now? Isn't it just a version update?
I procrastinate because I HAVE confidence that I can finish the task later, not because I'm afraid that I won' actually be able to complete a task.
The author of the article would probably argue that what you're doing doesn't meet the definition of procrastination, then. Procrastination isn't merely choosing to postpone a task that can just as easily be done later; it's putting something off that you know you need to start now.
You'd be surprised what conditions most people will endure out of fear of changing them. Emmigrating usually involves a big investment of time and money and a lot of risk, physical and otherwise. It may be a "no-brainer", as you say, but relatively few will ever undertake it (despite what it looks like on this side of the border).
If you consider that emmigrating from one country to another generally takes a lot of courage and initiative, these statistics are not really surprising. Talented and educated people who are motivated to make that leap are probably going to be motivated to do a lot more once they get here.
So, I guess the point I'm trying to make is that what seems easy and natural to Linux geeks is definitely not what regular people consider easy and natural. Hence, the preference towards Windows.
Which is pretty much fine with me. Having spent a long time in both camps, I do feel that the "Linux is too complicated" meme is way overdone. Many of things you cite that make Linux more "difficult" - like having to deal with file permissions, for example - are precisely the things that have made Windows a cesspool for viruses and malware. For those of us - and I realize it isn't everybody - who are not challenged by these little things, the freedom from manipulation and onerous licenses - to say nothing of cost - that Linux affords is well worth it. And yes, we do sometimes shake our heads a bit at the crap that our Windows friends willingly put up with everytime Microsoft and every other software vendor has a revenue itch to scratch. To me, the money they'll spend and the restrictions they'll endure are simply the price of ignorance and fear, but who am I to say it isn't worth it for them? The world outside the womb is a vast and scary place.
We don't look for "one size fits all" in any other domain, so why should we demand it in our operating systems? The same features that Aunt Millie finds comforting and reassuring may be excruciatingly annoying and condescending to a more experienced and knowledgable user. Why should they both use the same OS? It wouldn't bother me one bit if Linux tops out at 4 or 5% of the desktop market, because to go much further would require turning it into something I wouldn't want to use. Gnome has aruguably been going in that direction for several years now.
Prediction: Now that MS is fervently trying to get everyone on the Vista bandwagon, we will be seeing a big "grassroots" deluge of posts like this. Oestensibly from earnest users, they will complain about how impossibly complex and scary Linux is, and warn that any ordinary user who even considers touching Linux will surely go to Hell. As usual, the "experiences" that we read about will bear little resemblence to anything that I recognize as a long-time Linux user who wiped his last Windows install off of a dual-boot machine several years ago (and has never regretted it for a minute). YMMV, of course, but that's fine with me...
Like it or not, the Internet was built by the Federal Government- and it very much is the public domain.
You could say much the same thing about the Post Office. Letters you send are not only handled and delivered by the Federal Gov't, they actually spend a fair amount of time in government buildings. What, then, is the difference?
Slashdot Mirror
Perhaps we need to broaden our idea of what peer review is, and how it's best accomplished. Currently, a very small number of people recruited by the publisher are responsible for assuring that proper methods were used and that the conclusions drawn are at least reasonable. I don't see that exposing papers to much wider scrutiny would necessarily compromise that process, given some necessary procedures and safeguards.
I hesitate to suggest using something like the moderation system we're using here, but with a few restrictions (like assuring the qualifications and "karma" of moderators) it might fly.
You've obviously never talked with a biologist....
Almost every day, but I see your point. At least they have PLoS, though. It's the chemists I'm most worried about; the ACS and Elsevier have most of their stuff locked up. The physicists and astronomers, OTOH, will be leading the way out of the darkness...
I predict that this PR campaign will blow up in their faces, big-time. Their target audience this time isn't the unwashed masses camped in front of the tee-vee; it's people who know how to think (and even do so from time to time). Hilarity will ensue as the big smack-down gains momentum.
Military technology is only as good or as evil as the deciders who determine when and against whom it will be used. Many of us have become increasingly uncomfortable with that lately.
Composite Score: 482.8282568762099
Do you think they reported enough precision on those numbers? They lost me after 482.8...
I think probably the whole mission of the FCC is more in iconic thing -- "don't worry, the government is in control!"
A more cynical and accurate view would be that the FCC is beholden to the industry it's supposed to be regulating, and like the rest of the executive branch has little or no concept of any public interest to be upheld. The commissioners and other top bureaucrats there know who's going to be buttering their bread when they leave government service in a couple of years.
Can't say I disagree with a word you said. I lament our two (one and a half?) party system almost every day, and if the Dems win the trifecta in 2008, I'll be on their case on a daily basis as well.
But that being said, I still don't think they hold a candle to the Repugnicans (I prefer that mispelling) when it comes to ruthlessness, corruption, and contempt for constitutional limits. They will at least pay lip service to the notion of a public interest, and while they'll surely have their own scandals w.r.t. lobbyists and such, I doubt that they'll set up the same kind of brazen one-stop-shopping monopoly on corruption that the GOP did with their K Street Project.
And don't even get me started about who's benefitting from our middle east entanglements and who's not, and how that might affect their willingness to (ever) get off the Gravy Train...
It's only hypocrisy if the GOP isn't genuinely a good deal more ruthless than the Dems. I'd argue that point with you, but unless your head is jammed permanently up your butt I suspect you already know it's true.
Google has been around for many years now, they have more machines than any sane person would own
Well if that isn't the understatement of the day, I don't know what is...
Of course, it will earn some weapons manufacturers some cash
You say that as if it weren't reason enough to go ahead with this.
On the other hand, the Berlin Wall worked pretty well for East Germany for quite a while, and was a nice symbolic focal point when it was finally torn down. That could be more relevant than it appears, since East Germany seems to be the model for where the Republicans want to take us in security and political matters.
Someday the Bush Wall will be torn down as well, and to similar fanfare.
Yeah, because Timothy McVeigh was starving to death.
McVeigh? Almost forgot about him. Which Islamic country was he from, again?
Sort of like natural selection, then? If the system is successful, eventually all planes will by flying with the successful system. Until the nature of the threat changes, of course...
There's nothing "free market" about the way patents work. A patent is the Government's way of granting you an artificial monopoly on something, and of helping you to defend it through the force of law. It's the opposite of a free market.
Yet, the free market conservatives and libertarians defend it as if it were something implicit in Natural Law or granted by God. Go figure.
And if any patentability (say on dosage levels) does show up the companies can always buy it then.
Maybe they can patent the sale of it when specifically labelled for treating cancer, but the chemical itself is cheap and has been around for a long time. In fact, my Merck Index (which I just happen to have in front of me here) lists one of its uses as a "topical astringent", and says it's also been used to treat lactic acidosis. Can it be prescribed off-label?
It'll be tough to force cancer patients to mortgage their houses for a few grams of this stuff when it's already being sold for other uses at a few dollars per kilogram!
The other problem is that dichloroacetic acid is a very cheap and easily produced chemical, on the order of things like aspirin and vitamin C. Nobody's going to be able to charge $10,000 for a month's supply (whatever that is) when you can go out and buy the raw compound for $30 a kilogram or so.
Maybe the best chance (though a dangerous one) for it is for people to just start using it as an unregulated "nutritional supplement"; then maybe the new NIH institute that tests "alternative" therapies (I forget its name) will have to conduct the safety and efficacy trials.
Excuse me? I've been perfectly happy with the lack of Flash content in my Linux-based web-browsing experience to this point.
Um, I've been looking at Flash content (behind Flashblock, of course) for a long time. Why all the talk about this being a new thing, as if it were impossible until now? Isn't it just a version update?
I procrastinate because I HAVE confidence that I can finish the task later, not because I'm afraid that I won' actually be able to complete a task.
The author of the article would probably argue that what you're doing doesn't meet the definition of procrastination, then. Procrastination isn't merely choosing to postpone a task that can just as easily be done later; it's putting something off that you know you need to start now.
This has to rate as one of the more abrupt topic transitions that I've seen around here in a while...
You'd be surprised what conditions most people will endure out of fear of changing them. Emmigrating usually involves a big investment of time and money and a lot of risk, physical and otherwise. It may be a "no-brainer", as you say, but relatively few will ever undertake it (despite what it looks like on this side of the border).
If you consider that emmigrating from one country to another generally takes a lot of courage and initiative, these statistics are not really surprising. Talented and educated people who are motivated to make that leap are probably going to be motivated to do a lot more once they get here.
So, I guess the point I'm trying to make is that what seems easy and natural to Linux geeks is definitely not what regular people consider easy and natural. Hence, the preference towards Windows.
Which is pretty much fine with me. Having spent a long time in both camps, I do feel that the "Linux is too complicated" meme is way overdone. Many of things you cite that make Linux more "difficult" - like having to deal with file permissions, for example - are precisely the things that have made Windows a cesspool for viruses and malware. For those of us - and I realize it isn't everybody - who are not challenged by these little things, the freedom from manipulation and onerous licenses - to say nothing of cost - that Linux affords is well worth it. And yes, we do sometimes shake our heads a bit at the crap that our Windows friends willingly put up with everytime Microsoft and every other software vendor has a revenue itch to scratch. To me, the money they'll spend and the restrictions they'll endure are simply the price of ignorance and fear, but who am I to say it isn't worth it for them? The world outside the womb is a vast and scary place.
We don't look for "one size fits all" in any other domain, so why should we demand it in our operating systems? The same features that Aunt Millie finds comforting and reassuring may be excruciatingly annoying and condescending to a more experienced and knowledgable user. Why should they both use the same OS? It wouldn't bother me one bit if Linux tops out at 4 or 5% of the desktop market, because to go much further would require turning it into something I wouldn't want to use. Gnome has aruguably been going in that direction for several years now.
Prediction: Now that MS is fervently trying to get everyone on the Vista bandwagon, we will be seeing a big "grassroots" deluge of posts like this. Oestensibly from earnest users, they will complain about how impossibly complex and scary Linux is, and warn that any ordinary user who even considers touching Linux will surely go to Hell. As usual, the "experiences" that we read about will bear little resemblence to anything that I recognize as a long-time Linux user who wiped his last Windows install off of a dual-boot machine several years ago (and has never regretted it for a minute). YMMV, of course, but that's fine with me...
Like it or not, the Internet was built by the Federal Government- and it very much is the public domain.
You could say much the same thing about the Post Office. Letters you send are not only handled and delivered by the Federal Gov't, they actually spend a fair amount of time in government buildings. What, then, is the difference?
Ouch. In a thread about web development, too...
Let me guess, Xerox?
A subsidiary at the time, as I recall...