Do you have any handy links to articles on the furour surrounding cold fusion? I did some quick searching on google and found some information on the experiments themselves (see my reply to the other post below), a whole lot of "cold fusion is real! The Man is keeping it down!" stuff and nothing about what was going on with F&P, the University of Utah, etc. I remember reading a Time article a long time ago on it, but the memory isn't what it used to be...
a paper describing (in lots of geeky detail) the theory behind cold fusion
For all the noise and fury around CF, the one thing that seems really clear is that a) no one really understands what's supposedly going on, and b) the results are not reproducible in any kind of reliable fashion.
The problem with the cold fusion fiasco wasn't a credulous scientific establishment, it was that Fleischman and Pons went to the media instead of publishing for peer review first. There's a reason that major discoveries show up in Nature before the New York Times - the editors and readership of the former are equipped to examine claims critically. The general media is not.
Once other labs started trying to duplicate the cold fusion experiments of Fleischman and Pons, it quickly became evident that they hadn't discovered anything except poor experimental procedure. There was some brief noise about a couple of labs that said they had seen something that might, maybe, have been evidence of a cold fusion reaction, but that it wasn't reproducable and didn't produce statistically significant results. Again, the media broadcast this all over the place as collobarative evidence.
Now, I'm not saying that cold fusion shouldn't be researched further. I'm not qualified to make that judgement. What bothers me about this is how frequently I hear this particular incident cited as an example of why we shouldn't trust the scientific method. The damage that was done to public perception of the scientific establishment, and the methods of scientific inquiry, was inexcusable.
The ignorant are always looking for an excuse to remain so.
When I started learning perl, I figured a good way to do it would be to a) read the camel, b) look at lots of code. Matt's stuff is all over the place so I started reading it. It took me ages to weed out the bad habits I acquired.
Except as an excercise in correcting other people's mistakes, don't touch the stuff.
I hadn't heard of the sequel either - I made audible (though complete inarticulate sounds) when I read that. Can't wait to dig that up.
A personal favorite in the religion-examining science fiction category is James Morrow. Titles like Bible Stores for Adults, Towing Jehovah and Only Begotten Daughter only begin to hint at the delicate satire this man is capable of.
Actually, I do code pages that work in all browsers (lynx through IE5). Don't even ask how many I test in.
You're also right about me bitching about not being able to use more advanced features. Things like CSS and javascript to better tailor the browsing experience for the user. To help make my pages more accessible to disabled users. To help balance the the desire of the guy who's coughing up the cash for the webpage to have a spiffy looking piece of web real estate that is still useful and non-annoying for it's users.
So don't tell me to stop whining and code for old, obsolete standards. Those might be fine for your needs, but the rest of us have uses for something more. Like accessibility, usability, and yes, just cool looking shit.
As you point out, early NS didn't pay too much attention to standards. They didn't have to, they were the only game in town. And that's the best reason to have more than one browser around - if we ever have just one browser to work with, that company will gain default control of the standards, whether it be the Netscape of a few years ago, MS with IE in some murky future, or UltraBrowwer 15.1 of WorldDOM (lame pun, sorry).
As long as we have alternatives, there will be pressure to stick with real W3C standards so they'll all work with the minimum of dumbass workarounds.
Well put. And in that spirit Well done guys, keep up the good work!
I don't want to be saddled with buggy, non-compliant bloatware for the rest of my life as a web developer. I'm sick of coding for n browsers all the time. Remember the whole concept of platform-independent browsing? Yeah, some guy by the name of Berners-Lee thought the web should have one set of standards.The situation right now sucks. The Mozilla team has, in the truest open source spirit, decided to do the Right Thing, and I for one am very happy about that.
So you nay-sayers can go and browse in your bug-ridden, bloaty, crash prone OS, and wait for the next set of MS Web Standards to hit the streets. I hope you enjoy it. But stop getting the way of a worthwhile project.
I don't think we read that question the same way at all. The exam seemed to me to be worded in a way that indicated the prof. thought these devices would help.
Consider:
you have access to information that may help you diagnose and treat your daughter
you have the ability to communicate with others in the same plight
you have the means to organize
suddenly the army's actions are well known outside of your corner of the world
Sure, it's an open question if any of these things will actually help, but there is certainly the possibility that they might. Is there an underground you can communicate with? Is there a sympathetic doctor in the area? Is the army interested in looking like an ass in front of the world? If thousands of communication devices are being dropped, it's possible that a food drop will follow. Now you can at leat find out about it.
Consider the importance the fax machine has had in anti-government actions (think China, latter-day Soviet Union).
Can you immediately feed your daughter a bunch of silicon chips? No. It's a tool that gives you an advantage you didn't have. It may not solve your problem and save your daughter's life, but if it was me, I wouldn't chuck the thing.
I don't think this was about the uselessness of communications technology at all.
I live in Canada, and our power grid is just spiffy, thankyou very much. Tested and found compliant late last spring. So while you're all burnin' I'll be toasting you from the gentle glow of my CRT.
I can't speak for/. reviews, but I write occasional reviews for another site, and I find (so far) most of my reviews are positive. Why? Simply because I have a certain amount of discretion (I'm _not_ reading the new John Grisham without the threat of smoldering bamboo splinters) over what I review. So I tend to review books that I think I might actually like.
It bothered me when it first occurred to me, but I finally decided I'd rather recommend good books than waste time slagging bad ones.
The point being, if you have to use technical skill and cracking knowledge to get into a system, you can. If all that is being used is political weight to finance an intrusion campaign, then it's wrong, because no effort is spent on actually penetrating the system.
First, I have to agree that this philosophy does, pragmatically, lead to a form of anarchy. It works in well in small, contained environments where people basically have similar ethics (eg, the early MIT lab) and less well in large, morally heterogenious (sp? to early to spell) environments.
However, to a hacker (and I use this in the strict mucking-about-on-computers-'cause-it's-fun sense) the difference here is not so much the deed (getting into machines) as the reason (learning, challenge of the puzzle, etc). At one time, there was no money/notoriety/teenage testosterone boy ego type of advantage to hacking on systems. It was done for other reasons. It was assumed that if you had attained a high enough level of proficiency to get into things you weren't supposed to, you weren't motivated by these things because there were certainly better ways of attaining them.
Governments (and corp.s) obviously have other motivations. They are not interested in intellectual challenges. If they want into your system, it's not to see you did a cool hack. They want to know if you would think about blowing something up. They're actions are similar, they're motivations vastly different, and therefore their ethical stance very much at odds with the hacker ethos.
So, I wouldn't say that the hackers desire for total access is at odds (ethically) with the equally strong desire for privacy. It's just based on a (in my opinion) flawed assumption that increased ability is an indicator of higher ethical standards. When you inflate ability through artificial means (money, hiring someone else to do it, etc) you're committing a shady act before you even get anything.
It's really more of a technocratic elitism than anarchy. And just because I don't think it's necessarily a good basis for an ethical system, it's certainly debatable whether any other system is better.
You need proof, but all you're willing to offer is anecdotal evidence? Hell, your statements don't even qualify as that. They're mere personal, subjective observations (as so much of the argument going on around here on both sides is). And for the record, I've know people that certainly appeared to have had their brains fried by alcohol.
I'd like to know on what evidence you base your conclusion that those apathetic, listless people smoke pot are apathetic and listless because of pot. Sounds like a chicken and egg game.
And not even all new browsers support PNG. IE theoretically does, but both 4 & 5 explode if you try to feed one to it, even though they are supposed to support it. But when did you last believe a MS spec? Can't confirm that every one of the billions of versions of these can't handle it, but enough that you need to worry about it.
Sure, we should all be using lynx or mozilla, but until I can control the users desktop, that's not much of a solution.
when I first went to install Linux on a second computer, it dawned on me... I don't have to enter a unique CD code to make it work
I was already pretty philosophically jazzed about using linux when I finally got around to installing it - I wouldn't have been nearly as excited about unix, and even if I had the cash may not have bothered. But here was something that had been created in the spirit of the scientific process, and was being distributed with that same openness. After the grudgingly given permission to use an OS we aren't allowed to even think about, it was a grand liberation.
Slashdot Mirror
Do you have any handy links to articles on the furour surrounding cold fusion? I did some quick searching on google and found some information on the experiments themselves (see my reply to the other post below), a whole lot of "cold fusion is real! The Man is keeping it down!" stuff and nothing about what was going on with F&P, the University of Utah, etc. I remember reading a Time article a long time ago on it, but the memory isn't what it used to be...
I did some digging on google, and managed to find (amidst all the alt.science conspiracy theories) a few interesting things:
For all the noise and fury around CF, the one thing that seems really clear is that a) no one really understands what's supposedly going on, and b) the results are not reproducible in any kind of reliable fashion.
The problem with the cold fusion fiasco wasn't a credulous scientific establishment, it was that Fleischman and Pons went to the media instead of publishing for peer review first. There's a reason that major discoveries show up in Nature before the New York Times - the editors and readership of the former are equipped to examine claims critically. The general media is not.
Once other labs started trying to duplicate the cold fusion experiments of Fleischman and Pons, it quickly became evident that they hadn't discovered anything except poor experimental procedure. There was some brief noise about a couple of labs that said they had seen something that might, maybe, have been evidence of a cold fusion reaction, but that it wasn't reproducable and didn't produce statistically significant results. Again, the media broadcast this all over the place as collobarative evidence.
Now, I'm not saying that cold fusion shouldn't be researched further. I'm not qualified to make that judgement. What bothers me about this is how frequently I hear this particular incident cited as an example of why we shouldn't trust the scientific method. The damage that was done to public perception of the scientific establishment, and the methods of scientific inquiry, was inexcusable.
The ignorant are always looking for an excuse to remain so.
When I started learning perl, I figured a good way to do it would be to a) read the camel, b) look at lots of code. Matt's stuff is all over the place so I started reading it. It took me ages to weed out the bad habits I acquired.
Except as an excercise in correcting other people's mistakes, don't touch the stuff.
I hadn't heard of the sequel either - I made audible (though complete inarticulate sounds) when I read that. Can't wait to dig that up.
A personal favorite in the religion-examining science fiction category is James Morrow. Titles like Bible Stores for Adults, Towing Jehovah and Only Begotten Daughter only begin to hint at the delicate satire this man is capable of.
Actually, I do code pages that work in all browsers (lynx through IE5). Don't even ask how many I test in.
You're also right about me bitching about not being able to use more advanced features. Things like CSS and javascript to better tailor the browsing experience for the user. To help make my pages more accessible to disabled users. To help balance the the desire of the guy who's coughing up the cash for the webpage to have a spiffy looking piece of web real estate that is still useful and non-annoying for it's users.
So don't tell me to stop whining and code for old, obsolete standards. Those might be fine for your needs, but the rest of us have uses for something more. Like accessibility, usability, and yes, just cool looking shit.
As you point out, early NS didn't pay too much attention to standards. They didn't have to, they were the only game in town. And that's the best reason to have more than one browser around - if we ever have just one browser to work with, that company will gain default control of the standards, whether it be the Netscape of a few years ago, MS with IE in some murky future, or UltraBrowwer 15.1 of WorldDOM (lame pun, sorry).
As long as we have alternatives, there will be pressure to stick with real W3C standards so they'll all work with the minimum of dumbass workarounds.
Well put. And in that spirit Well done guys, keep up the good work!
I don't want to be saddled with buggy, non-compliant bloatware for the rest of my life as a web developer. I'm sick of coding for n browsers all the time. Remember the whole concept of platform-independent browsing? Yeah, some guy by the name of Berners-Lee thought the web should have one set of standards.The situation right now sucks. The Mozilla team has, in the truest open source spirit, decided to do the Right Thing, and I for one am very happy about that.
So you nay-sayers can go and browse in your bug-ridden, bloaty, crash prone OS, and wait for the next set of MS Web Standards to hit the streets. I hope you enjoy it. But stop getting the way of a worthwhile project.
I don't think we read that question the same way at all. The exam seemed to me to be worded in a way that indicated the prof. thought these devices would help.
Consider:
Sure, it's an open question if any of these things will actually help, but there is certainly the possibility that they might. Is there an underground you can communicate with? Is there a sympathetic doctor in the area? Is the army interested in looking like an ass in front of the world? If thousands of communication devices are being dropped, it's possible that a food drop will follow. Now you can at leat find out about it.
Consider the importance the fax machine has had in anti-government actions (think China, latter-day Soviet Union).
Can you immediately feed your daughter a bunch of silicon chips? No. It's a tool that gives you an advantage you didn't have. It may not solve your problem and save your daughter's life, but if it was me, I wouldn't chuck the thing.
I don't think this was about the uselessness of communications technology at all.
Ah, it's so true. I'm a web developer and have been asked by one of our clients to prepare a statement for their site that our HTML is Y2K compliant.
Seriously.
Cool. Now I know where to start lootin'!
Your best defense against Y2K problems? Keep everyone drunk. Really drunk. If they're passed out on your floor, they're not looting my place.
Take my advice: feed your nutty friends alcohol and lots of it.
I live in Canada, and our power grid is just spiffy, thankyou very much. Tested and found compliant late last spring. So while you're all burnin' I'll be toasting you from the gentle glow of my CRT.
Cheers!
I can't speak for /. reviews, but I write occasional reviews for another site, and I find (so far) most of my reviews are positive. Why? Simply because I have a certain amount of discretion (I'm _not_ reading the new John Grisham without the threat of smoldering bamboo splinters) over what I review. So I tend to review books that I think I might actually like.
It bothered me when it first occurred to me, but I finally decided I'd rather recommend good books than waste time slagging bad ones.
The point being, if you have to use technical skill and cracking knowledge to get into a system, you can. If all that is being used is political weight to finance an intrusion campaign, then it's wrong, because no effort is spent on actually penetrating the system.
First, I have to agree that this philosophy does, pragmatically, lead to a form of anarchy. It works in well in small, contained environments where people basically have similar ethics (eg, the early MIT lab) and less well in large, morally heterogenious (sp? to early to spell) environments.
However, to a hacker (and I use this in the strict mucking-about-on-computers-'cause-it's-fun sense) the difference here is not so much the deed (getting into machines) as the reason (learning, challenge of the puzzle, etc). At one time, there was no money/notoriety/teenage testosterone boy ego type of advantage to hacking on systems. It was done for other reasons. It was assumed that if you had attained a high enough level of proficiency to get into things you weren't supposed to, you weren't motivated by these things because there were certainly better ways of attaining them.
Governments (and corp.s) obviously have other motivations. They are not interested in intellectual challenges. If they want into your system, it's not to see you did a cool hack. They want to know if you would think about blowing something up. They're actions are similar, they're motivations vastly different, and therefore their ethical stance very much at odds with the hacker ethos.
So, I wouldn't say that the hackers desire for total access is at odds (ethically) with the equally strong desire for privacy. It's just based on a (in my opinion) flawed assumption that increased ability is an indicator of higher ethical standards. When you inflate ability through artificial means (money, hiring someone else to do it, etc) you're committing a shady act before you even get anything.
It's really more of a technocratic elitism than anarchy. And just because I don't think it's necessarily a good basis for an ethical system, it's certainly debatable whether any other system is better.
whew.You need proof, but all you're willing to offer is anecdotal evidence? Hell, your statements don't even qualify as that. They're mere personal, subjective observations (as so much of the argument going on around here on both sides is). And for the record, I've know people that certainly appeared to have had their brains fried by alcohol.
I'd like to know on what evidence you base your conclusion that those apathetic, listless people smoke pot are apathetic and listless because of pot. Sounds like a chicken and egg game.
And not even all new browsers support PNG. IE theoretically does, but both 4 & 5 explode if you try to feed one to it, even though they are supposed to support it. But when did you last believe a MS spec? Can't confirm that every one of the billions of versions of these can't handle it, but enough that you need to worry about it.
Sure, we should all be using lynx or mozilla, but until I can control the users desktop, that's not much of a solution.
when I first went to install Linux on a second computer, it dawned on me... I don't have to enter a unique CD code to make it work
I was already pretty philosophically jazzed about using linux when I finally got around to installing it - I wouldn't have been nearly as excited about unix, and even if I had the cash may not have bothered. But here was something that had been created in the spirit of the scientific process, and was being distributed with that same openness. After the grudgingly given permission to use an OS we aren't allowed to even think about, it was a grand liberation.