It doesn't take much radio signal power to power a fluorescent light bulb.
If you live in a city, you are constantly immersed in hundreds of powerful radio, television, cellphone (and dozens of other forms of) signals. Most of them operate on frequencies which, apparently, do you little if any harm. There are so many of them that it may, by now, be possible to light a small area by means of ambient EM radiation.
The use of alcohol in moderation is one of the "wise" parts of the bible.
"Paul instructed Timothy, 'Drink no longer water, but use a little wine [oinos] for your stomach's sake and your frequent infirmities' (1 Tim. 5:23)."
(It isn't all rules for meddlesome church-lady types to flog us with.) (Yes, the participle is dangling.)(Yes, that is my first and last bible quote on/.... just in case someone wanted a citation.)
Most of the articles about anything important were created before article 500,000. At 1.5 million, most of the articles are junk. It's bottom-feeder stuff now.
"Anything important"?? That's a completely subjective measure. The first 500, 000 entries were probably the most obvious ones. But much of what's "important" isn't obvious. (I'm sure you haven't scanned the next million articles to ascertain that they're "bottom-feeder" stuff. And equally sure that you're not qualified to make that judgement for all of those articles.)
My guess is that it wasn't until after the first 500,000 "popular" and easy subjects (including technical, non-controversial ones) were created that some of the most interesting articles — more likely to be "important" to people who already have some knowledge in an area — were created.
It's the job of WP editors to ascertain what's "important". They're developing criteria for that. Is an article on an obscure archeological site "important"? It might be "bottom-feed" to you, because you don't understand its significance. Likewise, an "obscure" band might have significant "importance" in the history of music.
Paper encyclopedias obviously can't bulge with highly specialist information. But what's highly specialist is up to specialists. There's no need for WP to constrain itself to what traditional 'pedias were constrained to. If John wants to write about something that only 20 people a year will read, where's the problem? Where WP might lack in depth, it might excel in breadth. I don't see the reasoning behind size constraints; notability, while still a very subjective criterion, seems a useful one at this point in WP's evolution. It's only had a few years to learn what the dead tree publishers had more than a century to learn.
NPOV is one of the funnier, more ironic things about Wikipedia. Is there or has there ever been a human being with a "neutral point-of-view"? If so, would they be passionate enough to write encyclopedia articles?
You're right that -for now- the mobs have too much power. And NPOV is WAY TOO SUBTLE for most mobsters to understand. But I like to think that the situation is much like what happened early on with the internet: when millions of newbies first hit the 'net, they were like vandals, they had TERRIBLE manners. Most were quickly subdued by the adults on the forums they wanted to hang out on, and learned to have some manners or get lost. The same thing needs to happen on WP.
Rather than leave forever (just until you forget the source of your pain), please come back when you can and help civilize.
For example, some people who've done a lot of work on pages think they own them; they're confused, and will need to be gently disabused of their confusion. Wait 6 months or a year, then quietly come back and make the necessary changes.
Old-fashioned encyclopedias were just as open to errors and lies, only they were concocted by experts.
I prefer transparent errors and lies to misinformation skillfully concocted to protect reputations and warp reality for the benefit of the "expert" class.
Punishing all teens for the idiocy of a few is an idiotic solution. Wikipedia is the sort of place that a SMART teen might WANT to hang out; that should be encouraged. Like copy-protection, your blanket solution punishes the innocent most.
I'd rather not have to sign in to fix a typo or clarify a phrase. IF anonymity encourages vandalism, it also encourages contributions that would not otherwise be made.
As for telephone verification... who's going to do the vetting? "BBS days" were a whole different world, and the number of social engineers is WAY up these days.
Let's suppose for a second that America is sometimes called a democracy for real reasons, not just to snow the untutored. We've never been a democracy, nor are all men (treated) equal, nor did the slaves enjoy life, liberty, pursuit.
And yet the ideal remains: it's a work in progress. In the same way, the founders and workers of Wikipedia would like to see it approach -pedia stature, if asymptotically. In some (more empirical) areas it already are one.
Those who sniffle about its lack of hi-bred values (like adequate citation) are probably the same people who snicker at the suckers who believed the democracy ploy. And yet, who knows, we may get there yet.
No offense meant, but *anything* can handle MIDI quickly. I keep seeing/hearing people talk about how their machines aren't fast enough for MIDI. A 6502 at 1MHz programmed in assembly (with the right vectored I/O) could handle more channels of MIDI than you could put together in a single room.
If what they mean by "MIDI" is software synths... that's not MIDI, just MIDI controlled.
When someone comes to my house to replace my roof, I "should" be able to make a copy of his/her "roofing performance," so that in 15 or 20 years I can have some shingles delivered and then just replay that "roofing performance".
When I buy a car, I "should" be buying a car design, from which I can extract a new car over and over again so long as I do not wish to rake up horse muck.
All kinds of things are possible once you get into "should" vis-a-vis the ways of the world.
But, in fact, you can only get what you can coax people into agreeing to. They create a product and offer it for sale under certain conditions. You are free to accept or reject the offer, or you can attempt to re-negotiate a better offer.
You'll notice there's no "should" in that last paragraph.
The airwaves "should" belong to the public. But, alas, they were stolen. What a world!
On the other hand — if I were lucky enough to write a book that became a classic after laboring through years of education and life experience and writing ten books that never sold — I might wish that the continued value of my prodigious (and often unremunerated) efforts to the human race be reflected in some returns to my children and grandchildren.
The question is whether everyone's greed to make a buck from my labors should take precedence over my dying wishes for my grandchildren. I certainly have to take into account that civilization provided me with an educational opportunity, and the canned beans I fed myself with before I scored. However, 10 percent inspiration had to be accompanied by 90 percent perspiration.
The issue is of course complicated by the fact that the fruits of my labors may be sold (or belong by virtue of my employment) to a corporation, which the US has allowed is an immortal personage.
"Like a true spinner" You could say that about anyone trying to make an argument.
Please. Don't demean the art of argument by suggesting that even its honorable practitioners resort to spin.
The term 'spin' implies a 'heavily biased portrayal in one's own favor'. Some people who make arguments actually take the other position into account in a way which recognizes its merits, without resorting to distortion, hyperbole, logical fallacies, or re-definition of words with established meanings.
There may actually be a few people left in the world who value honor over cunning.
Justin Long is a "sleazy hipster"??? But... but... the guys who started Apple were "sleazy hipsters". And Apple products remain much longer on cool (and higher in quality as they always were).
Who else would complain but PC owners concerned about the fact that they're driving Fnords?
If you happen to live in a place where voter pamphlets outline the options -- and you have the education to read and understand them -- you can use them to get up to speed on many issues in about an hour. Your vote will then reflect your informed preferences, even if they're not deeply held.
I think these things are wonderful, allowing me to vote on issues after a little contemplation, rather than just a reflex action at poll time.
Having heard these alarms going off in the early 1970s, and listened to people scoff about them -- it's finally becoming clear to even the deaf and blind that we -- all of us -- are headed for big trouble.
Melting icecaps... species in and out of the oceans disappearing...
I see a dysfunctional family living in a house with a basement full of water and a cupboard full of molding wheat to eat, arguing about what color the new wallpaper should be.
Nay-sayers and black-and-whiters: when we see an asteroid approaching the earth, it will be much easier to deflect it when it's far away. The longer we wait, the greater the risk, the great the cost, and the greater the loss of life.
In our grief, and in our ignorance of what's been done in our name, yes: we have lost sight of our ideals. Yes, America was never as perfect as its vision of where it wanted to go, and yes, it often sees and portrays itself as it wants to be, not as it is.
We began to act as if we had realized our aspirations. We had not. That become clear in the 1950s and 1960s -- the McCarthy hearings, the Civil Rights era -- and much clearer since the Internet has made us much more aware of the work cut out for us.
It's in all of our interests to do what we can to raise everyone
That says it all. And it should be everywhere. But we cannot hope to achieve elsewhere until we achieve it... really achieve it... here, first. For everyone, not a select feew. It should be obvious to most of us by now where all the cracks are.
since New York has no death penalty, a nice long term in Sing Sing in the same cellblock with the Aryan Brotherhood.
Sending people to jail to be murdered is a completely anti-American idea.
Sometimes I wonder where people get their ideas about what America is about. Justice is something meted out by a "jury of peers", not slyly, under-the-counter. And what constitutes justice is something decided by law, not by the law-of-the-jungle.
Legal justice was invented to eliminate just the kind of Hatfield-and-McCoy retribution you're suggesting, because, like war in the Middle East, it never ends. The law not only has to determine justice, but protect justice from the grief and pain of the victims' families.
The death penalty broadcasts the message that murder can sometimes be justified. Until we can get past that kind of thinking, the temptation (you're voicing) to revert to vigilante justice constantly invites us to abandon the vision of our founding fathers. That vision can never be realized until we choose once and for all to pay the price: never to subvert it for the sake of expedience.
The GOP has failed by any measures I've seen in my lifetime, except in the sense that they've contrived to bring disrepute and fiscal hardship on America.
Under pressure of fear, uncertainty, and doubt, many people went along with them for years... but are starting to realize that they have been and are being led in a direction they do not want to go.
How much wealth you want to have is basically a measure of how much you care to tolerate the circumstances of your life being dictated to you.
So... are you living in America then? And if so, how well are you tolerating how you're being dictated to?
The point of the questioner is that lesser wealth somewhere else may be preferable to living here. And while I agree with you that wealth will let you be more effective at some things, how does that make up for the time you lost gaining that wealth? Trickles wear down rock, not floods.
Bennet's article is amusingly dismissive of Jon's accomplishment.
"Trivial... You can record the analog sound". Yeah, and you can transfer an LP or cassette to CD too, so what? How often is anyone going to do that?
The important point of Jon's efforts is that they demonstrate the fact that "copy protection" 1. is, always was, and always will be ineffective; 2. punishes the legitimate customer more than the crackers.
That fact is "already trivial" to people who've been around since the founding of the Software Protection Agency, but it bears repeating over and over. Everyone screwed by the DCMA and the movie and record mafia needs to be made aware of that. And so, enter DVD Jon, or someone like him.
Slashdot Mirror
If only Tesla had said what I'd say.
It doesn't take much radio signal power to power a fluorescent light bulb.
If you live in a city, you are constantly immersed in hundreds of powerful radio, television, cellphone (and dozens of other forms of) signals. Most of them operate on frequencies which, apparently, do you little if any harm. There are so many of them that it may, by now, be possible to light a small area by means of ambient EM radiation.
The use of alcohol in moderation is one of the "wise" parts of the bible.
/. ... just in case someone wanted a citation.)
"Paul instructed Timothy, 'Drink no longer water, but use a little wine [oinos] for your stomach's sake and your frequent infirmities' (1 Tim. 5:23)."
(It isn't all rules for meddlesome church-lady types to flog us with.) (Yes, the participle is dangling.)(Yes, that is my first and last bible quote on
Most of the articles about anything important were created before article 500,000. At 1.5 million, most of the articles are junk. It's bottom-feeder stuff now.
"Anything important"?? That's a completely subjective measure. The first 500, 000 entries were probably the most obvious ones. But much of what's "important" isn't obvious. (I'm sure you haven't scanned the next million articles to ascertain that they're "bottom-feeder" stuff. And equally sure that you're not qualified to make that judgement for all of those articles.)
My guess is that it wasn't until after the first 500,000 "popular" and easy subjects (including technical, non-controversial ones) were created that some of the most interesting articles — more likely to be "important" to people who already have some knowledge in an area — were created.
It's the job of WP editors to ascertain what's "important". They're developing criteria for that. Is an article on an obscure archeological site "important"? It might be "bottom-feed" to you, because you don't understand its significance. Likewise, an "obscure" band might have significant "importance" in the history of music.
Paper encyclopedias obviously can't bulge with highly specialist information. But what's highly specialist is up to specialists. There's no need for WP to constrain itself to what traditional 'pedias were constrained to. If John wants to write about something that only 20 people a year will read, where's the problem? Where WP might lack in depth, it might excel in breadth. I don't see the reasoning behind size constraints; notability, while still a very subjective criterion, seems a useful one at this point in WP's evolution. It's only had a few years to learn what the dead tree publishers had more than a century to learn.
NPOV is one of the funnier, more ironic things about Wikipedia. Is there or has there ever been a human being with a "neutral point-of-view"? If so, would they be passionate enough to write encyclopedia articles?
You're right that -for now- the mobs have too much power. And NPOV is WAY TOO SUBTLE for most mobsters to understand. But I like to think that the situation is much like what happened early on with the internet: when millions of newbies first hit the 'net, they were like vandals, they had TERRIBLE manners. Most were quickly subdued by the adults on the forums they wanted to hang out on, and learned to have some manners or get lost. The same thing needs to happen on WP.
Rather than leave forever (just until you forget the source of your pain), please come back when you can and help civilize.
For example, some people who've done a lot of work on pages think they own them; they're confused, and will need to be gently disabused of their confusion. Wait 6 months or a year, then quietly come back and make the necessary changes.
But some things aren't "verifiable"... like well-informed opinions, and theories... that need to be in encyclopedias.
Who's going to decide what the "outright lies" are? That might take an expert. If the subject is obscure, there might not *be* any experts.
You're only substituting a worse problem.
Old-fashioned encyclopedias were just as open to errors and lies, only they were concocted by experts.
I prefer transparent errors and lies to misinformation skillfully concocted to protect reputations and warp reality for the benefit of the "expert" class.
Punishing all teens for the idiocy of a few is an idiotic solution. Wikipedia is the sort of place that a SMART teen might WANT to hang out; that should be encouraged. Like copy-protection, your blanket solution punishes the innocent most.
I'd rather not have to sign in to fix a typo or clarify a phrase. IF anonymity encourages vandalism, it also encourages contributions that would not otherwise be made.
... who's going to do the vetting? "BBS days" were a whole different world, and the number of social engineers is WAY up these days.
As for telephone verification
Re the (suffix) -pedia :
Let's suppose for a second that America is sometimes called a democracy for real reasons, not just to snow the untutored. We've never been a democracy, nor are all men (treated) equal, nor did the slaves enjoy life, liberty, pursuit.
And yet the ideal remains: it's a work in progress. In the same way, the founders and workers of Wikipedia would like to see it approach -pedia stature, if asymptotically. In some (more empirical) areas it already are one.
Those who sniffle about its lack of hi-bred values (like adequate citation) are probably the same people who snicker at the suckers who believed the democracy ploy. And yet, who knows, we may get there yet.
No offense meant, but *anything* can handle MIDI quickly. I keep seeing/hearing people talk about how their machines aren't fast enough for MIDI. A 6502 at 1MHz programmed in assembly (with the right vectored I/O) could handle more channels of MIDI than you could put together in a single room.
... that's not MIDI, just MIDI controlled.
If what they mean by "MIDI" is software synths
Go have a look around India and have a look at the statues from the past. Can you spell yoni? Lingam?
India only became repressed when they were shamed by superior-acting Western prudes. The same goes for China.
When it comes to sick attitudes toward sexuality, the Occident takes the diseased cake. As Modest Mouse put it, "The Lonesome, Crowded West".
I just finished throwing the last of my VHS tapes that aren't bagged for giveaway ... if that helps.
"Should"?
When someone comes to my house to replace my roof, I "should" be able to make a copy of his/her "roofing performance," so that in 15 or 20 years I can have some shingles delivered and then just replay that "roofing performance".
When I buy a car, I "should" be buying a car design, from which I can extract a new car over and over again so long as I do not wish to rake up horse muck.
All kinds of things are possible once you get into "should" vis-a-vis the ways of the world.
But, in fact, you can only get what you can coax people into agreeing to. They create a product and offer it for sale under certain conditions. You are free to accept or reject the offer, or you can attempt to re-negotiate a better offer.
You'll notice there's no "should" in that last paragraph.
The airwaves "should" belong to the public. But, alas, they were stolen. What a world!
On the other hand — if I were lucky enough to write a book that became a classic after laboring through years of education and life experience and writing ten books that never sold — I might wish that the continued value of my prodigious (and often unremunerated) efforts to the human race be reflected in some returns to my children and grandchildren.
The question is whether everyone's greed to make a buck from my labors should take precedence over my dying wishes for my grandchildren. I certainly have to take into account that civilization provided me with an educational opportunity, and the canned beans I fed myself with before I scored. However, 10 percent inspiration had to be accompanied by 90 percent perspiration.
The issue is of course complicated by the fact that the fruits of my labors may be sold (or belong by virtue of my employment) to a corporation, which the US has allowed is an immortal personage.
"Like a true spinner"
You could say that about anyone trying to make an argument.
Please. Don't demean the art of argument by suggesting that even its honorable practitioners resort to spin.
The term 'spin' implies a 'heavily biased portrayal in one's own favor'. Some people who make arguments actually take the other position into account in a way which recognizes its merits, without resorting to distortion, hyperbole, logical fallacies, or re-definition of words with established meanings.
There may actually be a few people left in the world who value honor over cunning.
Nice example of execution with indirect addressing.
Justin Long is a "sleazy hipster"??? But ... but ... the guys who started Apple were "sleazy hipsters". And Apple products remain much longer on cool (and higher in quality as they always were).
Who else would complain but PC owners concerned about the fact that they're driving Fnords?
If you happen to live in a place where voter pamphlets outline the options -- and you have the education to read and understand them -- you can use them to get up to speed on many issues in about an hour. Your vote will then reflect your informed preferences, even if they're not deeply held.
I think these things are wonderful, allowing me to vote on issues after a little contemplation, rather than just a reflex action at poll time.
Having heard these alarms going off in the early 1970s, and listened to people scoff about them -- it's finally becoming clear to even the deaf and blind that we -- all of us -- are headed for big trouble.
... species in and out of the oceans disappearing ...
Melting icecaps
I see a dysfunctional family living in a house with a basement full of water and a cupboard full of molding wheat to eat, arguing about what color the new wallpaper should be.
Nay-sayers and black-and-whiters: when we see an asteroid approaching the earth, it will be much easier to deflect it when it's far away. The longer we wait, the greater the risk, the great the cost, and the greater the loss of life.
They're YOUR grandchildren. Best luck.
Bhima,
... really achieve it ... here, first. For everyone, not a select feew. It should be obvious to most of us by now where all the cracks are.
In our grief, and in our ignorance of what's been done in our name, yes: we have lost sight of our ideals. Yes, America was never as perfect as its vision of where it wanted to go, and yes, it often sees and portrays itself as it wants to be, not as it is.
We began to act as if we had realized our aspirations. We had not. That become clear in the 1950s and 1960s -- the McCarthy hearings, the Civil Rights era -- and much clearer since the Internet has made us much more aware of the work cut out for us.
It's in all of our interests to do what we can to raise everyone
That says it all. And it should be everywhere. But we cannot hope to achieve elsewhere until we achieve it
since New York has no death penalty, a nice long term in Sing Sing in the same cellblock with the Aryan Brotherhood.
Sending people to jail to be murdered is a completely anti-American idea.
Sometimes I wonder where people get their ideas about what America is about. Justice is something meted out by a "jury of peers", not slyly, under-the-counter. And what constitutes justice is something decided by law, not by the law-of-the-jungle.
Legal justice was invented to eliminate just the kind of Hatfield-and-McCoy retribution you're suggesting, because, like war in the Middle East, it never ends. The law not only has to determine justice, but protect justice from the grief and pain of the victims' families.
The death penalty broadcasts the message that murder can sometimes be justified. Until we can get past that kind of thinking, the temptation (you're voicing) to revert to vigilante justice constantly invites us to abandon the vision of our founding fathers. That vision can never be realized until we choose once and for all to pay the price: never to subvert it for the sake of expedience.
The GOP has failed by any measures I've seen in my lifetime, except in the sense that they've contrived to bring disrepute and fiscal hardship on America.
... but are starting to realize that they have been and are being led in a direction they do not want to go.
Under pressure of fear, uncertainty, and doubt, many people went along with them for years
How much wealth you want to have is basically a measure of how much you care to tolerate the circumstances of your life being dictated to you.
... are you living in America then? And if so, how well are you tolerating how you're being dictated to?
So
The point of the questioner is that lesser wealth somewhere else may be preferable to living here. And while I agree with you that wealth will let you be more effective at some things, how does that make up for the time you lost gaining that wealth? Trickles wear down rock, not floods.
Bennet's article is amusingly dismissive of Jon's accomplishment.
... You can record the analog sound". Yeah, and you can transfer an LP or cassette to CD too, so what? How often is anyone going to do that?
"Trivial
The important point of Jon's efforts is that they demonstrate the fact that "copy protection"
1. is, always was, and always will be ineffective;
2. punishes the legitimate customer more than the crackers.
That fact is "already trivial" to people who've been around since the founding of the Software Protection Agency, but it bears repeating over and over. Everyone screwed by the DCMA and the movie and record mafia needs to be made aware of that. And so, enter DVD Jon, or someone like him.