I don't know if this is just myth/urban legend or not and I haven't been able to find anything to support it either way. My brother told me that it is now actually cheaper to manufacture LCD flat panel screens than it is to make CRTs. Not that it really matters because the costs are more tied to supply & demand than actual cost of production but still, I'm curious if it's true or not. Personally the skeptic in me is torn--on one hand, if it's true, than there must be collusion and price fixing going on by the big evil companies. But on the other, if it were true, if I ran a company that made LCDs, I'd slash the prices and sell so many of them that the huge gross profits would make the smaller margins irrelevant, and since no one is doing this it must not be true.
They're good to read if you have a general interest in a topic but if you're doing serious research, you want to look to a real encyclopaedia -
If you're doing real research, you sure as hell shouldn't use an encyclopedia like Britannica or Encarthna or whatever either--you should use trade references that focus narrowly on the topic. But as a general reference for an unbelievably wide variety of topics, Wikipedia really is above and beyond the rest.
User-editable resources are far too easily vandalized or skewed.
This just gets old. Wikipedia has an excellent track record of catching and fixing these errors. There's no doubt that more errors are "published" than with a traditional encyclopedia. But there's also no doubt that more errors are found and fixed and much faster. While it's susceptible to the worse points of human nature, it also capitalizes heavily on the best points. Anyone who ignores either of these points is just plain wrong.
While a normal encyclopaedia might be wrong, they're written by genuine researchers and knowledgeable people
You really can't no that any more than you know that "experts" don't write most of the articles on Wikipedia. The whole fallacy of "experts" is tired anyway. Stupid is as stupid does. With Wikipedia, every article must stand up to scrutiny no matter what letters are after the author's name.
Nobody's claiming Wikipedia is perfect, but it's really good for a general reference. If nothing else, the fact that info is much more timely and the benefits of hyperlinks to other entries plus external resources and discussions IMO make it the best single place on the web to learn just about anything.
Thanks for the great link, but I don't think that it is enough to disprove questioning Disney's future. Being large and even having huge revenues does not necessarily corrolate with making profits. I don't feel like taking the time to dig through the financials but how much of Disney's profits come from licensing and merchandising of the company's characters? I"m guessing a lot. They've shown a tremendous ability to continue milking old characters but at some point, failure to create successful new franchises will catch up with them. Most especially because in the past, they could weather storms due to not having any real competition. Now there are other studios turning out quality work with Disney's only real source of creativity recently, Pixar set to join the list of competitors. Not to mention due to in large part to dreadful stock performance the last 5 years, there's still major power struggles for company leadership and Eisner leaving soon, who knows what will happen.
I've been a Photoshop user forever--all through school and for work the price is a business expense so I've always had the current version. Off & on I've used less than legal versions at home. Now that I'm starting to do contract work on the side, and will not think of using illegal software for that, I've moved to lots of open source stuff. I figured what the heck & gave Photoshop Elements a try. I was just freaking shocked. I found it more than capable of anything I've needed to do so far. I can't imagine very many people who really need CS when Elements can do almost everything for a fraction of the price. At first I wondered if Adobe is just nuts because I would think it would kill their sales of CS or whatever the next versions are. But my guess is the overwhelming majority of people who actually pay for Photoshop will turn their noses at Elements and never try it. I suppose anytime they want to, they can just stop selling Elements too if it starts to dip into the flagship cash cow. But as is, Photoshop Elements is a fantastic value--worth the price probably more than any other non-free software I can think of. And just to make myself feel better for sounding too much like an Adobe whore, I just tried their DVD authoring program, Encore and it was absolutely horrible.
More, I bet my hat the OSS implementation of anything standardized will be more compatible, more secure and less buggy than Microsoft one. Linux drivers included.
I think you didn't read all the way to the end of the article because Cringely makes essentiallly the exact same point in the final paragraph:
More likely the clever boys and girls of Open Source will hack the new USB, but Microsoft has a legion of lawyers ready to handle that exactly the same way that the Sun legal department once wrote the Java license solely with Microsoft in mind, and produced a $1.75 billion payday as a result. With serialized devices it should be possible to poll every compromised device on the Net just like using a traffic camera to catch drivers who run red lights. No, there needs to be another answer, perhaps one that transcends the original security problem, giving Linux yet another advantage over Windows. The clock is ticking.
Lots of politicians throughout history would disagree with you.
Maybe so, but lots of historians would agree with me
Looking at the historic record, one could easily infer that several American presidents have followed this advice.
Generally, the US presidents that have been too reliant on the polls and public opinion or were concerned with balance at all costs are looked upon as history's worst. Fillmore and Buchanan which are typically at the very bottom of historians rankings, were so concerned with appeasing both the north and the south in regard to slavery that they were generally responsible for the Civil War.
But I can't help but take you up on the quotes offer...
"I have no trouble with my enemies, but my damn friends, they're the ones that keep me walking the floor nights."
--Warren Harding, generally considered the worst President by historians. Perhaps given the fiasco with the forged National Guard documents, this may be something Kerry should take to heart.
And if you want to take leadership tips from Mao quotes, how about these wonderful insights:
"We shall support whatever our enemies oppose; and oppose whatever our enemies support"
"Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun."
-He listens to the will of the people and promises to do what is best for them
You cannot lead by following. You cannot be a successful President by letting the polls dictate policy.
Personally I have no problem if a policitian changes changes positions based on something that happens. For example if you don't want to get the country involved in military actions around the world, it is understandable to change that after terrorists kill thousands of people on US soil. I do have a problem with some one who will not tell me what his policy on something. Kerry is trying to be as ambiguous as possible to get votes. While it's normal for some movement to the middle, at some point, a candidate must tell us what he or she plans to do. A lot was made of Bush governing without a mandate from the people as a result of th election. If Kerry is elected, even by a huge majority, I submit he will have even less of a mandate because nobody really knew what his policies would be.
Not that I agree with a lot of what Bush says. Therein lies the difficulty for me--(Ignoring other candidates for the moment) Bush I agree with maybe 70% of the time. Kerry I honestly have no idea how much I agree with. While there are a few issues I'm absolutely pissed at Bush about (excessive spending, Constitutional Ammendment banning gay marriage), right now I'm leaning towards "Better the devil you know."
I don't know. Trivia for the most part is memorizing facts. I think to be a successful politician, especially one for the office of President, those guys are really good at memorizing facts. Some one asks a question, and they typically have a great recall for spouting canned answers very often with many statistics that prepared by their advisors. Now if the questions were beyond the realm of what they'd prepared for, I guess I'd agree.
Personally I don't care all that much if my President can spout off statistics or not. I would like to see them answer questions like, "on this particular issue, what person or people would you rely on most to help you make the right decision." I'd rather have a visionary, with integrity who has smart friends and knows where to go for help.
Originally, I was optimistic at Bush having very smart, experienced friends--his cabinet & advisors looked so good on paper. I've been more disappointed by them than him.
The thing you're missing was that that was your f#cking $300. You paid taxes. At the time, the federal government was set to spend less than what we all paid in. It's really irrelavent that the bubble had burst because sitting on/saving the money was not an option. Had they not given the $300 back, they would have just spend it in typical, incredibly inefficient and wasteful fashion. An out of my ear guess is maybe 5% of our tax dollars actually reach the people and programs that deserve it. Our country is much better off if I give $10 to the local food shelter than the thousands of dollars I 'm force to give to in federal taxes which gets stolen by leeches at a hundred steps along they way to actually giving a dollar or two to some one on welfare.
I tend to agree--if I buy a pay per view movie, it's because I don't think the movie is actually good enough to warrant "owning" the DVD. So limited time for pay per views doesn't bother me. BUT you do make a better point than I think you realize when you say, "you paid a certain price to watch a movie for a certain period of time." That's true and fair. But as of right now, that certain price is $3.95 or whatever and that certain period of time is indefinitely. If they want to take away the ability to record and watch it for a shorter period of time than indefinitely, then the price needs to come down. Granted I think the movie industry is a lot further along in terms of giving the comsumer a fair price than the music industry. Think about this:
A movie is the sum of the work of hundreds of people: actors, writers, directors, musicians, makeup, effects, stunts...I see about 400 people listed in http://imdb.com/ for one of my favorite movies, The Shawshank Redemption. You can buy the DVD for $16.38 at Amazon. The soundtrack of the movie is $14.99. Does the DVD really only offer $1.39 more entertainment value? Or cost roughly only 10% more to make? Of course not.
I see this scored funny but I don't know whether that is accurate or not. I think that while this may sound like hyperbole, the fact is this principle is very much in existence already. Ever read the back of tickets for sporting events? "All accounts, descriptions and images of this event are property of..." If enforced, not only could you not take photos, but they own any description you give of the event as well. You wanna tell your buddy about the game? Sorry.
Interesting theory, but no. On this issue, there are good guys and bad guys on both side of the aisle, and which position they take has more to do with who they represent and where they get their funding than how conservative or liberal they are.
Could you please list a few of these good guys on either side of the aisle?
At first I just thought that to be facetious, but now that I've actually said it, if anyone can name legislators who legitimately understand the intellectual concept of IP and how far we are from it, please do so.
Re:Thomas Jefferson's opinion
on
Is IP Property?
·
· Score: 1
Good catch but there are some very critical words:
Society
may give an exclusive right to the profits arising from them, as an encouragement to men to pursue ideas which may produce utility, but this may or may not be done, according to the will and convenience of the society, without claim or complaint from any body.
It was misleading to leave this off, but this paragraph does not contradict the earlier ideas. The natural state of things is that ideas are free and cannot be possessed. Knowledge spreads and a thing cannot be unlearned. Ideas do not become less because they are more widely known. This paragraph is a provision for experimentation: if society wants to try and encourage production of ideas, exclusive rights to the profits may be given. But this is not the natural state--IP is an artificial mechanism and emphasis needs to be on it's purpose--to encourage creation, not to make people rich. Extending copyrights on works already created is absolutely contrary to this principle as is the derivative works provisions added in 1976.
Personally I question whether the experiment hasn't failed. At the very least, our current IP policies have reached a point where they are highly ineffective at their goals. The retroactive extensions and derivative works provisions on top of near-perpetual terms rob the public domain of use of ideas and harms society as a whole more that it helps.
While I agree that it is wrong for "others" to change a work, I can't say that I agree about the creator. Ignoring for the moment the difficulty of ownership of a creative work especially with something as collaborative as a movie...if Picasso had wanted to change one of his paintings, why shouldn't he have been able to whatever he damn well pleased? All the more so with books, music and movies where the artist can change their creating without taking away the original. If you don't like Lucas's changes you don't have to watch or even acknowledge them, stick with the originals. I'm not saying that it's a wise decision for Lucas, only that an artist should be able to do what they want with their creation. Of course personally I find the "derivative works" additions to the copyright clause to be harmful to art, creativity and society in general, so I partially see the right of an artist to change their work as a good thing because they're the only one's that can even if in a specific case, I may believe they've ruined it.
And let's face it--he's a pretty bright guy generally speaking, and a software engineer. One would think he's more than capable of turning that money into a considerably larger chunk through business ventures if he so chooses.
The wasted time during sports really puts regular programming to shame. A few weeks ago, a preseason NFL game was on at the same time as some olympic gymnastics that my wife wanted to see. I recoreded them both, and we didn't start watching until about 20 minutes in. Fast forwarding through the commercials, watching one channel while the other was on commercial and fast forwarding the time between plays and when they were standing around, we managed to watch both completely without missing anything exciting during the time we could have only watched on without a DVR. And I still had time for some channel surfing at the end when we caught up ang both were on commercial.
That was football where by rule there's actually a relatively short amount of time in between plays. I can imagine savings for baseball would be even more.
The weird thing is, since getting the DVR and really getting used to it, my wife and I are finding ourselves reaching for a button to rewind something we didn't quite hear on the radio or fastforwarding commercials. Kinda spoils you,
I don't think the "Liberal Media" tag is a lie. It is a overexaggeration and gross generalization, but not a blatant lie. While it may have been true in the past that big business media companies sided more with the Republican party, the times have changed. Look at 2004 Presidential Sector Totals In the Communications/Electronics sector, Kerry has received $6,106,322 to Bush's $4,645,976. There isn't a full breakdown yet for the industries but if 2000 is an indication, the TV/Movie/Music industries will also contribute more to Kerry than Bush. The fact is both parties seem to be equally cozy pandering to big business and the media and the favor is returned.
And while the large corporations that "control" much of the media have been hedging their bets to both parties the last few elections, on an individual level, journalists as a group certainly slant more to the left. Do they try to be objective? I think on the whole they try their best to best. But spend time at a journalism school and tell me there aren't more journalists whose personal opinions are more aligned with the liberals vs. the conservatives.
How about the AP article that ran last week about the crowd in West Allis, WI where "thousands booed and Bush did nothing to stop them," when Bush wished Bill Clinton a speedy recovery from his heart surgery. Only thing is it never happened. And they never actually retracted their story, instead just reissuing two different updated ones. It was a blatant lie--I've heard from people who were actually there.
Way cant jounalist make documentaries without presenting them like a propaganda from the cold war...
Michael Moore is not a journalist. Has has at times been a documentary filmaker and a successful, if not good one. He has fairly explicitly stated that his whole purpose of his latest movie was to get Bush out of the White House. By definition, then, Farenheit 9/11 is propaganda--whether it is truthful (which is tenuous at best) doesn't really matter because his expressed purpose was not to inform or entertain but to serve his agenda. He most certainly has every right to make his opinion heard but it should not be called a documentary and most certainly should not air on television the night before the election. If we had any real sensible campaign rules they would address something like this. Oh wait that'll never happen.
I think you're missing the point. Politics has already reached Slashdot--and really always has. But by creating a subpage for politics, in particular for things related to the upcoming election, there's a home for that stuff so it doesn't necessarily need to be on the main page. I'm sure some politically related articles will still come up, but having a separate place for politics will make it easier to avoid if you're not interested.
And maybe that's why many of us have a great deal of contempt for some of academia. The fact that there is such snobbery as to what is an "accepted source" and what is not is tiresome. You can't on the one hand say that you're placing value on critical thinking and on the other categorically reject a certain source. If you're talking about factual information, the sort of things where an encyclopedia type of source applies, then the only issue is whether they're correct or not. If some one chooses to use Wikipedia as a reference, and the facts references are wrong, then that's the issue. If the facts referencing Wikipedia (or whatever) are indeed correct then the prof should not be able to downgrade on that portion of the paper. But to presuppose that either the student didn't verify with other sources as well (which may or may not be true) or that there are certain other references that are beyond reproach is just arrogant.
I was kind of annoyed at the number of times the article & research it referenced used the success rates of editing errors as a way to prove/disprove the theories. When you read something, it is very different than when you're editing it. If you're reading something you're just trying to learn what it says and process the information. Typically you do it as fast as possible unless it is very important. On the other hand, if you're editing, your purpose is to find errors. You do this at a much slower speed. I'd find it very hard to believe that our brain works in all that similary of ways for the two different tasks.
It seems to make a great deal of sense to me that both (and others) are going on in parallel--especially the idea of using shape to narrow down and parallel letter recognition from there. Personally as I try to be conscious of what I'm doing as I read, it really feels like it's mostly shape recognition though obviously there's more going on too. Apparently the shape recognition approach has been discounted by research though it sure seems to fit my personal observations.
I think that there's a huge assumption that the article and pretty much everyone here is making. There's bound to be a ton of variation - we very clearly don't all read in the same way. 5-15% of the population is dyslexic. Some people are more visual, some are more auditory. Think about how much different a child reads than an adult. Young children read letter by letter, sounding out each letter (for phonic, I won't get into whole language). The more they read, the less they focus on each letter and sound. Ultimately after reading for years, people process what they read in a very different manner than they once did. But to assume that we all end up doing it the same way is pretty foolish. Hell I can tell I don't even process written information the same way all the time. If I'm reading a long passage in a novel, looking at a table of data, reading an email or reading something like a dense reference book, they manner which the information goes from text to ideas in my head is very different.
Slashdot Mirror
I don't know if this is just myth/urban legend or not and I haven't been able to find anything to support it either way. My brother told me that it is now actually cheaper to manufacture LCD flat panel screens than it is to make CRTs. Not that it really matters because the costs are more tied to supply & demand than actual cost of production but still, I'm curious if it's true or not. Personally the skeptic in me is torn--on one hand, if it's true, than there must be collusion and price fixing going on by the big evil companies. But on the other, if it were true, if I ran a company that made LCDs, I'd slash the prices and sell so many of them that the huge gross profits would make the smaller margins irrelevant, and since no one is doing this it must not be true.
I'm still amused & suprised the poster left off the quotes as in "upgrade" from Unix to Windows.
Umm, you do realize that there's a tab called "history" for every article right?
If you're doing real research, you sure as hell shouldn't use an encyclopedia like Britannica or Encarthna or whatever either--you should use trade references that focus narrowly on the topic. But as a general reference for an unbelievably wide variety of topics, Wikipedia really is above and beyond the rest.
User-editable resources are far too easily vandalized or skewed.
This just gets old. Wikipedia has an excellent track record of catching and fixing these errors. There's no doubt that more errors are "published" than with a traditional encyclopedia. But there's also no doubt that more errors are found and fixed and much faster. While it's susceptible to the worse points of human nature, it also capitalizes heavily on the best points. Anyone who ignores either of these points is just plain wrong.
While a normal encyclopaedia might be wrong, they're written by genuine researchers and knowledgeable people
You really can't no that any more than you know that "experts" don't write most of the articles on Wikipedia. The whole fallacy of "experts" is tired anyway. Stupid is as stupid does. With Wikipedia, every article must stand up to scrutiny no matter what letters are after the author's name.
Nobody's claiming Wikipedia is perfect, but it's really good for a general reference. If nothing else, the fact that info is much more timely and the benefits of hyperlinks to other entries plus external resources and discussions IMO make it the best single place on the web to learn just about anything.
I've been a Photoshop user forever--all through school and for work the price is a business expense so I've always had the current version. Off & on I've used less than legal versions at home. Now that I'm starting to do contract work on the side, and will not think of using illegal software for that, I've moved to lots of open source stuff. I figured what the heck & gave Photoshop Elements a try. I was just freaking shocked. I found it more than capable of anything I've needed to do so far. I can't imagine very many people who really need CS when Elements can do almost everything for a fraction of the price. At first I wondered if Adobe is just nuts because I would think it would kill their sales of CS or whatever the next versions are. But my guess is the overwhelming majority of people who actually pay for Photoshop will turn their noses at Elements and never try it. I suppose anytime they want to, they can just stop selling Elements too if it starts to dip into the flagship cash cow. But as is, Photoshop Elements is a fantastic value--worth the price probably more than any other non-free software I can think of. And just to make myself feel better for sounding too much like an Adobe whore, I just tried their DVD authoring program, Encore and it was absolutely horrible.
I think you didn't read all the way to the end of the article because Cringely makes essentiallly the exact same point in the final paragraph:
How about Wireless Firewire?
Maybe so, but lots of historians would agree with me
Looking at the historic record, one could easily infer that several American presidents have followed this advice.
Generally, the US presidents that have been too reliant on the polls and public opinion or were concerned with balance at all costs are looked upon as history's worst. Fillmore and Buchanan which are typically at the very bottom of historians rankings, were so concerned with appeasing both the north and the south in regard to slavery that they were generally responsible for the Civil War.
But I can't help but take you up on the quotes offer...
--Warren Harding, generally considered the worst President by historians. Perhaps given the fiasco with the forged National Guard documents, this may be something Kerry should take to heart.
And if you want to take leadership tips from Mao quotes, how about these wonderful insights:
You cannot lead by following. You cannot be a successful President by letting the polls dictate policy.
Personally I have no problem if a policitian changes changes positions based on something that happens. For example if you don't want to get the country involved in military actions around the world, it is understandable to change that after terrorists kill thousands of people on US soil. I do have a problem with some one who will not tell me what his policy on something. Kerry is trying to be as ambiguous as possible to get votes. While it's normal for some movement to the middle, at some point, a candidate must tell us what he or she plans to do. A lot was made of Bush governing without a mandate from the people as a result of th election. If Kerry is elected, even by a huge majority, I submit he will have even less of a mandate because nobody really knew what his policies would be.
Not that I agree with a lot of what Bush says. Therein lies the difficulty for me--(Ignoring other candidates for the moment) Bush I agree with maybe 70% of the time. Kerry I honestly have no idea how much I agree with. While there are a few issues I'm absolutely pissed at Bush about (excessive spending, Constitutional Ammendment banning gay marriage), right now I'm leaning towards "Better the devil you know."
Personally I don't care all that much if my President can spout off statistics or not. I would like to see them answer questions like, "on this particular issue, what person or people would you rely on most to help you make the right decision." I'd rather have a visionary, with integrity who has smart friends and knows where to go for help.
Originally, I was optimistic at Bush having very smart, experienced friends--his cabinet & advisors looked so good on paper. I've been more disappointed by them than him.
A movie is the sum of the work of hundreds of people: actors, writers, directors, musicians, makeup, effects, stunts...I see about 400 people listed in http://imdb.com/ for one of my favorite movies, The Shawshank Redemption. You can buy the DVD for $16.38 at Amazon. The soundtrack of the movie is $14.99. Does the DVD really only offer $1.39 more entertainment value? Or cost roughly only 10% more to make? Of course not.
I see this scored funny but I don't know whether that is accurate or not. I think that while this may sound like hyperbole, the fact is this principle is very much in existence already. Ever read the back of tickets for sporting events? "All accounts, descriptions and images of this event are property of..." If enforced, not only could you not take photos, but they own any description you give of the event as well. You wanna tell your buddy about the game? Sorry.
Could you please list a few of these good guys on either side of the aisle?
At first I just thought that to be facetious, but now that I've actually said it, if anyone can name legislators who legitimately understand the intellectual concept of IP and how far we are from it, please do so.
It was misleading to leave this off, but this paragraph does not contradict the earlier ideas. The natural state of things is that ideas are free and cannot be possessed. Knowledge spreads and a thing cannot be unlearned. Ideas do not become less because they are more widely known. This paragraph is a provision for experimentation: if society wants to try and encourage production of ideas, exclusive rights to the profits may be given. But this is not the natural state--IP is an artificial mechanism and emphasis needs to be on it's purpose--to encourage creation, not to make people rich. Extending copyrights on works already created is absolutely contrary to this principle as is the derivative works provisions added in 1976.
Personally I question whether the experiment hasn't failed. At the very least, our current IP policies have reached a point where they are highly ineffective at their goals. The retroactive extensions and derivative works provisions on top of near-perpetual terms rob the public domain of use of ideas and harms society as a whole more that it helps.
While I agree that it is wrong for "others" to change a work, I can't say that I agree about the creator. Ignoring for the moment the difficulty of ownership of a creative work especially with something as collaborative as a movie...if Picasso had wanted to change one of his paintings, why shouldn't he have been able to whatever he damn well pleased? All the more so with books, music and movies where the artist can change their creating without taking away the original. If you don't like Lucas's changes you don't have to watch or even acknowledge them, stick with the originals. I'm not saying that it's a wise decision for Lucas, only that an artist should be able to do what they want with their creation. Of course personally I find the "derivative works" additions to the copyright clause to be harmful to art, creativity and society in general, so I partially see the right of an artist to change their work as a good thing because they're the only one's that can even if in a specific case, I may believe they've ruined it.
And let's face it--he's a pretty bright guy generally speaking, and a software engineer. One would think he's more than capable of turning that money into a considerably larger chunk through business ventures if he so chooses.
That was football where by rule there's actually a relatively short amount of time in between plays. I can imagine savings for baseball would be even more.
The weird thing is, since getting the DVR and really getting used to it, my wife and I are finding ourselves reaching for a button to rewind something we didn't quite hear on the radio or fastforwarding commercials. Kinda spoils you,
And while the large corporations that "control" much of the media have been hedging their bets to both parties the last few elections, on an individual level, journalists as a group certainly slant more to the left. Do they try to be objective? I think on the whole they try their best to best. But spend time at a journalism school and tell me there aren't more journalists whose personal opinions are more aligned with the liberals vs. the conservatives.
How about the AP article that ran last week about the crowd in West Allis, WI where "thousands booed and Bush did nothing to stop them," when Bush wished Bill Clinton a speedy recovery from his heart surgery. Only thing is it never happened. And they never actually retracted their story, instead just reissuing two different updated ones. It was a blatant lie--I've heard from people who were actually there.
Michael Moore is not a journalist. Has has at times been a documentary filmaker and a successful, if not good one. He has fairly explicitly stated that his whole purpose of his latest movie was to get Bush out of the White House. By definition, then, Farenheit 9/11 is propaganda--whether it is truthful (which is tenuous at best) doesn't really matter because his expressed purpose was not to inform or entertain but to serve his agenda. He most certainly has every right to make his opinion heard but it should not be called a documentary and most certainly should not air on television the night before the election. If we had any real sensible campaign rules they would address something like this. Oh wait that'll never happen.
I think you're missing the point. Politics has already reached Slashdot--and really always has. But by creating a subpage for politics, in particular for things related to the upcoming election, there's a home for that stuff so it doesn't necessarily need to be on the main page. I'm sure some politically related articles will still come up, but having a separate place for politics will make it easier to avoid if you're not interested.
And maybe that's why many of us have a great deal of contempt for some of academia. The fact that there is such snobbery as to what is an "accepted source" and what is not is tiresome. You can't on the one hand say that you're placing value on critical thinking and on the other categorically reject a certain source. If you're talking about factual information, the sort of things where an encyclopedia type of source applies, then the only issue is whether they're correct or not. If some one chooses to use Wikipedia as a reference, and the facts references are wrong, then that's the issue. If the facts referencing Wikipedia (or whatever) are indeed correct then the prof should not be able to downgrade on that portion of the paper. But to presuppose that either the student didn't verify with other sources as well (which may or may not be true) or that there are certain other references that are beyond reproach is just arrogant.
I was kind of annoyed at the number of times the article & research it referenced used the success rates of editing errors as a way to prove/disprove the theories. When you read something, it is very different than when you're editing it. If you're reading something you're just trying to learn what it says and process the information. Typically you do it as fast as possible unless it is very important. On the other hand, if you're editing, your purpose is to find errors. You do this at a much slower speed. I'd find it very hard to believe that our brain works in all that similary of ways for the two different tasks.
I think that there's a huge assumption that the article and pretty much everyone here is making. There's bound to be a ton of variation - we very clearly don't all read in the same way. 5-15% of the population is dyslexic. Some people are more visual, some are more auditory. Think about how much different a child reads than an adult. Young children read letter by letter, sounding out each letter (for phonic, I won't get into whole language). The more they read, the less they focus on each letter and sound. Ultimately after reading for years, people process what they read in a very different manner than they once did. But to assume that we all end up doing it the same way is pretty foolish. Hell I can tell I don't even process written information the same way all the time. If I'm reading a long passage in a novel, looking at a table of data, reading an email or reading something like a dense reference book, they manner which the information goes from text to ideas in my head is very different.