People protesting FN crashed the server containing the FN land with all their scripts. From TFA:
Since Porcupine is not a damage-enabled area, weapons there have about as much stopping power as pointing one's finger at the computer screen and saying Bang Bang. But get enough projectiles flying, and server lag is bound to ground anyone's use of the area to a halt. (Or in my case, cause the Second Life viewer to crash.)
We won't merely be discovered if aliens exist - we'll be colonized.
If it weren't for the DNA raining down on us, we'd still be a "dead" planet. We have already been 'colonized'. See the wikpd entry for Panspermia.
The existence of amino acids in interstellar space has already been established. See the article.
"Indeed," noted Dr. Scott Sandford of Ames, "these findings are particularly intriguing because the amino acids found in meteorites do show some signatures that suggest an interstellar connection. This connection, combined with our finding that amino acids can be made in interstellar clouds suggests that the Earth may have been seeded with amino acids from space in its earliest days."
"The infall of these materials on the early Earth may have facilitated the origin of life on our planet," said Dr. Jason Dworkin of the SETI Institute and Ames. "Furthermore, since new stars and planets are formed within the same clouds in which new amino acids are being created, this probably increases the odds that life has evolved elsewhere."
Also note Terence McKenna's theory of the "magic mushrooms from outer space" that colonized Earth. See this article. The relevant quote:
HT: From your writings I have gleaned that you subscribe to the notion that psilocybin mushrooms are a species of high intelligence -- that they arrived on this planet as spores that migrated through outer space, and are attempting to establish a symbiotic relationship with human beings. In a more holistic perspective, how do you see this notion fitting into the context of Francis Crick's theory of directed panspermia, the hypothesis that all life on this planet and its directed evolution has been seeded, or perhaps fertilized, by spores designed by a higher intelligence?
TM: As I understand the Crick theory of panspermia, it's a theory of how life spread through the universe...
My point is merely that the universe is an open system and we may have already been "colonized", not once but several times. What would be a more logical way of colonizing the galaxy than to seed it with items that self-assemble into 'life' under the correct conditions? We simply don't recognize the fact with our tiny monkey brains yet -- we are still stuck in the 'projection of uniqueness' -- (i.e the theory that such a wonderful thing as the emergence of self-aware consciousness can only happen once) -- state. Little do we know.
Not only is the universe stranger than we imagine, it is stranger than we can imagine.
Uh-oh. The most accurate description that I ever read of Second Life's building style was "a fifth-grader on shrooms". Can't wait to see this in RL. =8^D
I'll consider Wal-Mart as a source when they commit to taking back -- and actually recycling -- the old CFL bulbs. Otherwise the bulbs just end up in a landfill somewhere leaking mercury into the environment -- and Wal-Mart will come across as a typical corporate greenwasher, benefitting from appearing "socially conscious" while externalizing the nasty end result. In Europe, they have laws mandating that 'waste electrical and electronic equipment' mustbe recyclable in this way. Here's the wikpd link.
Why not create a project that takes the Google search results, and then creates a collaborative layer on top of that?
I just posted this the other day on the Wisdom of Crowds article; here is the link:
What's the next logical step?
Search engines. Google's PageRank algorithm may point to highly rated *websites*, but searches themselves can be rated. Since most queries are less than 3 words, track where all less-than-3-word-queries go to, and rate *those* sites higher. Since humans are doing the searching, they will automatically tend to NOT go to splogs (based on their evaluations of the snippets that Google returns), thus dropping splog ratings while raising the ratings of legitimate sites: this is the very definition of "the wisdom of crowds". Google has the infrastructure to do this -- if they only would.
Added for the 'collaborative layer' thread: Here is a link to Yahoo's list of the top 10 web searches for 2006; as you can see, the average length of those searches was only *2* words. That makes it even easier. Three word queries, would, of course, give a deeper (and more accurate) metric.
Here is the link for Google's Zeitgeist, but, as you can see, it is not very useful for our purposes, since it just shows top 10 queries for a few subjects. However, it does support the 3-words-or-less theory.
We're thinking in the same direction. Do you know of any open-source search engines so that we could trace queries and their responses and test this theory? (All we need is one more person commenting in this thread and *we're* a crowd.) 8^D
The decision to make the Web an open system was necessary for it to be universal. You can't propose that something be a universal space and at the same time keep control of it.
---http://www.w3.org/People/Berners-Lee/FAQfrom General Questions, 1998
When Tim Berners-Lee *invented* the Web, he deliberately deigned not to pin down a look and feel for it. Each browser would render it in their own way. He merely wanted a way to deliver Internet data in such a way that it *could be* perceived in an organized fashion.
From this perspective, Google's design patent, while making perfect *corporate sense*, is like a spike in the heart of Tim's vision. It is a perfect example of the Tragedy of the Commons. They have fenced out a little area for themselves, and are smugly defending it against all comers, using the monopoly power of the State to do so. I suppose that it is perfectly legal -- but that doesn't make it right.
Q: What do you think of the commercial turf wars going on the Web?
A: There has always been a huge competition to come out with the best Web technology. This has followed from the fact that the standards, being open, allow anyone to experiment with new extensions. This produces the threat of fragmentation into many Webs...and we [need to] think very carefully about both the technology and the laws we make or change around it.
---http://www.w3.org/People/Berners-Lee/FAQfrom General Questions, 1998
Well, it's not like he didn't see it coming. It's still a pity.
I completely disagree with the idea that game theory is about trying to see what your opponent thinks you're going to do.
If you play your games merely based on a mathematical strategy (even one as elegant as von Neumann's minimax strategy), you can be beaten. This is why Nash was so important, because he was able to say something meaningful about all strategies. Wikipedia says it somewhat better than I; here's the key phrase: If each player has chosen a strategy and no player can benefit by changing his or her strategy while the other players keep theirs unchanged, then the current set of strategy choices and the corresponding payoffs constitute a Nash equilibrium.
Minimax only works if the payoff is linear. If it is nonlinear, all bets are off (so to speak). Example: you are playing chess against someone using a minimax strategy. They will be playing a very conservative, defensive game: being very careful to avoid having any of their pieces being captured. If you *also* play using a minimax strategy, the outcome is likely to be a draw. However, Nash's idea points out that you can beat them by adopting a different strategy: an offensive NONminimax strategy. From their perspective, making *any* sacrifice is "crazy"! Throw some pins, forks and pawn sacrifices into the mix, and you'll start beating them. It works because chess is a nonlinear game. A lower-ranked piece can capture a higher-ranked piece or a pawn sacrifice can lead to a knight taking a queen: the payoff can be nonlinear.
Or look at poker: a well-played bluff can cause a good hand to be worth nothing. Again: nonlinear payoff. Remember the movie "Rounders"? [spoiler warning!] At one point, John Malkovich's character screws with Matt Damon's character by throwing a fake tell into the mix, catching him off-guard. Poker, in fact, is the classic case where playing only a straightforward minimax strategy is the *worst* thing you can do, because of all the non-mathematical face-to-face data going on. Again, there is no Nash equilibrium *unless* all of the players are playing the same strategy -- which happens to be NONminimax (or, more accurately, a mixture of minimax -- knowing your mathematical chances -- and NONminimax -- playing the tells).
Overall, though, I agree with the poster's main point: playing a crazy, irrational strategy is a very low-level approach. The only "crazy" strategy that works is "crazy like a fox": a surface irrationality that covers a hidden, well-thought-out strategy. The best masters *always* operate on both levels at once: psychology plus mathematics.
The best solution I see is to designate bandwidth providers as common carriers, so that it will be illegal for them to discriminate between packets. Then again, that's government interference, so I'm sure a lot of the libertarians and anarchists here will disagree...
Anarchists may disagree ("all government is bad"]. but principled libertarians won't ["government acting as the Invisible Hand by promoting equality: equal access to the marketplace of ideas"].
It's certainly an unusual role for government to fill, but it fits correctly, according to the Declaration of Independence: "...certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed..."
I would argue that Equal Access to the Freedom of Expression (especially for the purpose of engaging in Self-government) falls under Jefferson's elucidations of both Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.
Search engines. Google's PageRank algorithm may point to highly rated *websites*, but searches themselves can be rated. Since most queries are less than 3 words, track where all less-than-3-word-queries go to, and rate *those* sites higher. Since humans are doing the searching, they will automatically tend to NOT go to splogs (based on their evaluations of the snippets that Google returns), thus dropping splog ratings while raising the ratings of legitimate sites: this is the very definition of "the wisdom of crowds". Google has the infrastructure to do this -- if they only would.
Step 1: if it's not a physical object, a working model of which can be presented at the time of filing, don't grant a patent. Period. End of story. No software algorithms, no "business methods," no DNA sequences, etc. -- software can go copyright; the other two examples shouldn't get IP protection at all -- and no speculative ideas for something that someone might want to make someday, either.
Er...a software algorithm is, by definition, the "working model" of itself. ( I agree with you about the other two, though.)
And you think patenting software is bad, it's only 17 years -- copyright is "the life of the copyright holder" plus 75 years. Don't you think that's a bit worse?
Since Second Life is hosted in California, presumably no *actual* income is generated until Lindens are converted into $AU and downloaded into an account *in Australia* (or an account under the control of a citizen of Australia.)
This has interesting implications for citizens of America too. Every state has a reciprocal state tax arrangement with every other state: you earn income in only one state or another, so you cannot be doubly taxed by both states. Now, does this mean that any income earned in Second Life is subject to California state tax when it is converted from $L to $USD? Or is it only income when it is downloaded to a bank account in *your* state, thus bypassing California's tax system completely?
I have faith that the geeks of the world will find a way!
Here's what I have on my phone:
"Hello? (3 second pause) Oh, he's not here right now, so please leave a message when you hear the beep. Thanks![BEEP]"
This completely confuses telemarketers. Some start their spiel anyway, some start going "Hello? Hello? ". One guy was so upset by it that he snarled "A******!", before hanging up. It takes up their valuable time anyway. At the very worst, the appearance of an answered call causes automated calls to start rolling, so, by the time the machine starts recording, I miss most of the message 8^D.
It works because it hooks into social expectations. If they hear "Hello?" and then a pause, they assume they have reached a real human being and so they start into their routine; then cognitive dissonance sets in as they belatedly realize their error. (I leave just enough time for them to ask for me by name -- if they do so, my script then responds with what sounds like a reasonable response.) My friends, on the other hand, are used to it by now. It only works once -- but once is enough for telemarketers!
My next project is to set up a program that can listen for the string "... [#] to be removed..." and generate the appropriate tone; that'll take care of the automated calls!
If I convert my lindens to US currency, and Linden Labs is in California, am I actually *earning income* in California before I transfer the dollars to my actual bank account in another state? It seems that I would have CA income tax liability (and thus have to file CA state tax) as well as Federal income tax. The article is confusing in this particular, as it refers to "or the tax authority where [you] live in the real world" as well as Federal tax liability.
There's no particular end to achieve, yet it is play and it uses a computer. It's *like* a simulation, in that it does *simulate* reality (or a form of it), but it is open-ended, unlike, say, SimCity, which is a closed-end simulation.
Other than that, this is a pretty comprehensive list.
The thing is, you claim this approach is better, but I don't think having editors who are promoted purely for supporting the status quo is necessarily a good thing.
You make a good point here. It will quickly become clear to the editors *which kinds of stories get read a lot*, and so you get competition between editors to get those kinds of stories up there. Certain editors (let's call them "rolands") will always get large numbers of eyeballs for their stories. However, there might still be niches for *unusual* editors -- ones who post rarely and from obscure sources, but the *quality* of whose contributions always get noticed. It might make sense, then, to base the moderation of editors not *solely* upon numerical scores, but allow people to create a *whitelist* of editors whose work they want to see *regardless* of their scores: "cult" editors, if you will. Perhaps this mechanism would constitute a form of the "directing influence of some sort" that you reference.
I agree, with your criticism of the *content* moderation system; there is quite a lot of groupthink and "me-too"ism, and, of course, as you point out, ostracism of insightful but anti-consensus comments. But I think that that is a side effect of human nature, and will be found in *any* moderation system. That is why, I think, that you have to ultimately push the "power to decide" all the way down to the grassroots: to, in this case, individual whitelists (and, of course, blacklists too).
There are two different trends going on here, both being driven by global warming.
One trend, which the article refers to, is the fact that global warming is making spring come earlier in Europe. However, the other trend is that the melting of the glaciers of Greenland, with a subsequent release of billions of tons of fresh water into the North Atlantic, will eventually choke off the current of warm salt water that streams, from the Gulf of Mexico, up the east coast of America, then down the west coast of Europe. It is this constant stream of warm water which has contributed to a livable environment in Europe over the past 10,000 years. Without it, Europe may very well return to an average temperature considerably colder than today. The "gains" it is now enjoying from a global-warming early spring may become irrelevant as the oceanic patterns of warm-water circulation shift. This shift may also affect the warm-water hurricane forming conditions which now consistently exist off the west coast of Africa.
Thus we come to what we see in this article: we may see a new role becoming established, for "content middlemen" who know enough about about a field to select plausible content for linking, and refer it up to the high-ranking editors who run big name sites for approval.
There are two ways to go about this. One -- yours -- is to *increase* heirarchalization by, in essence, creating a level of 'middle management'. That is last century thinking.
A better way is to *increase* the number of potential editors and ensure that moderation and meta-moderation extend *all the way up*, so to speak. Good editors -- ones whose selections get large numbers of eyeballs, thus indicating that they are in tune with the Zeitgeist -- are taken more seriously, while bad editors fall by the wayside. Editor moderation is based not on "quality of content" (like comment moderation), but "quality of form" -- as indicated by the correlative effect of 'number of eyeballs'. This way of looking at the situation leverages decentralization and participation -- the networking "value" of the Web -- for a higher-quality experience all around.
If this gene leads to over-expression of dendrites, it could, as a side effect, lead to the accidental linkage of parts of the brain that don't normally "touch". For example, some cases of synthesia might be explained in this way. Crinkling of the brain in Wernicke's area could lead to the development and expression of novel metaphorical images. Over-expression of dendrites could lead as well to a generalized explosion of cranial capacity, as the brain attempts to make room for all the new dendrital connections. Associative awareness in particular would benefit; the neural networks that make up our brains would "focus" faster.
Unique combinations of abilities arising in this way could lead to selective breeding adavantages and thus be conserved in the population.
The quality of Chinese games is fast-improving, and there may be something to the idea that multiple-participant online gaming appeals to the collectivist spirit of mainlanders. "Players have interactive relations and they work together to accomplish missions," says Shanda spokesman Zhuge Hui. "This ensures the demand of online games" in China, he says.
I can't wait for Counter-Revolution: The MMORG. Can your cadre become the knife-edge of the Counter-Revolution? You'll need both good fighting skills and clever thinking to keep on top!
What this article shows is that probablistic topic-based modeling in text analysis -- an NP-hard area -- works better than the old ways. This is not surprising: the probablistic "ant" model developed by the Italians turned out to be a clever way to solve the Traveling Salesman problem. What these both show is the applicability of probabilistic modeling to NP-hard problems.
I'd like to see someone apply this technique to the articles and comments making up the Slashdot corpus. CmdrTaco might be able to find a more focused set of topics. It might even be possible to tease out who on/. are the most interesting and/or informative posters, whether over the entire corpus or within any given topic.
Slashdot Mirror
Since Porcupine is not a damage-enabled area, weapons there have about as much stopping power as pointing one's finger at the computer screen and saying Bang Bang. But get enough projectiles flying, and server lag is bound to ground anyone's use of the area to a halt. (Or in my case, cause the Second Life viewer to crash.)
If it weren't for the DNA raining down on us, we'd still be a "dead" planet. We have already been 'colonized'. See the wikpd entry for Panspermia.
The existence of amino acids in interstellar space has already been established. See the article.
Also note Terence McKenna's theory of the "magic mushrooms from outer space" that colonized Earth. See this article. The relevant quote:
My point is merely that the universe is an open system and we may have already been "colonized", not once but several times. What would be a more logical way of colonizing the galaxy than to seed it with items that self-assemble into 'life' under the correct conditions? We simply don't recognize the fact with our tiny monkey brains yet -- we are still stuck in the 'projection of uniqueness' -- (i.e the theory that such a wonderful thing as the emergence of self-aware consciousness can only happen once) -- state. Little do we know.Uh-oh. The most accurate description that I ever read of Second Life's building style was "a fifth-grader on shrooms". Can't wait to see this in RL. =8^D
This has a name. It is called the Peter Principle.
I just posted this the other day on the Wisdom of Crowds article; here is the link:
What's the next logical step?
Search engines. Google's PageRank algorithm may point to highly rated *websites*, but searches themselves can be rated. Since most queries are less than 3 words, track where all less-than-3-word-queries go to, and rate *those* sites higher. Since humans are doing the searching, they will automatically tend to NOT go to splogs (based on their evaluations of the snippets that Google returns), thus dropping splog ratings while raising the ratings of legitimate sites: this is the very definition of "the wisdom of crowds". Google has the infrastructure to do this -- if they only would.
Added for the 'collaborative layer' thread: Here is a link to Yahoo's list of the top 10 web searches for 2006; as you can see, the average length of those searches was only *2* words. That makes it even easier. Three word queries, would, of course, give a deeper (and more accurate) metric.
Here is the link for Google's Zeitgeist, but, as you can see, it is not very useful for our purposes, since it just shows top 10 queries for a few subjects. However, it does support the 3-words-or-less theory.
We're thinking in the same direction. Do you know of any open-source search engines so that we could trace queries and their responses and test this theory? (All we need is one more person commenting in this thread and *we're* a crowd.) 8^D
Me: Have you noticed whether the ads that appear on HotMail are targeted to your demographic?
Her: Oh, they don't register with me. I don't even notice them.
Well, there you go. True story. Sorry, M$.
---http://www.w3.org/People/Berners-Lee/FAQ from General Questions, 1998
When Tim Berners-Lee *invented* the Web, he deliberately deigned not to pin down a look and feel for it. Each browser would render it in their own way. He merely wanted a way to deliver Internet data in such a way that it *could be* perceived in an organized fashion.
From this perspective, Google's design patent, while making perfect *corporate sense*, is like a spike in the heart of Tim's vision. It is a perfect example of the Tragedy of the Commons. They have fenced out a little area for themselves, and are smugly defending it against all comers, using the monopoly power of the State to do so. I suppose that it is perfectly legal -- but that doesn't make it right.
Q: What do you think of the commercial turf wars going on the Web?
A: There has always been a huge competition to come out with the best Web technology. This has followed from the fact that the standards, being open, allow anyone to experiment with new extensions. This produces the threat of fragmentation into many Webs...and we [need to] think very carefully about both the technology and the laws we make or change around it.
---http://www.w3.org/People/Berners-Lee/FAQ from General Questions, 1998
Well, it's not like he didn't see it coming. It's still a pity.
If you play your games merely based on a mathematical strategy (even one as elegant as von Neumann's minimax strategy), you can be beaten. This is why Nash was so important, because he was able to say something meaningful about all strategies. Wikipedia says it somewhat better than I; here's the key phrase: If each player has chosen a strategy and no player can benefit by changing his or her strategy while the other players keep theirs unchanged, then the current set of strategy choices and the corresponding payoffs constitute a Nash equilibrium.
Minimax only works if the payoff is linear. If it is nonlinear, all bets are off (so to speak). Example: you are playing chess against someone using a minimax strategy. They will be playing a very conservative, defensive game: being very careful to avoid having any of their pieces being captured. If you *also* play using a minimax strategy, the outcome is likely to be a draw. However, Nash's idea points out that you can beat them by adopting a different strategy: an offensive NONminimax strategy. From their perspective, making *any* sacrifice is "crazy"! Throw some pins, forks and pawn sacrifices into the mix, and you'll start beating them. It works because chess is a nonlinear game. A lower-ranked piece can capture a higher-ranked piece or a pawn sacrifice can lead to a knight taking a queen: the payoff can be nonlinear.
Or look at poker: a well-played bluff can cause a good hand to be worth nothing. Again: nonlinear payoff. Remember the movie "Rounders"? [spoiler warning!] At one point, John Malkovich's character screws with Matt Damon's character by throwing a fake tell into the mix, catching him off-guard. Poker, in fact, is the classic case where playing only a straightforward minimax strategy is the *worst* thing you can do, because of all the non-mathematical face-to-face data going on. Again, there is no Nash equilibrium *unless* all of the players are playing the same strategy -- which happens to be NONminimax (or, more accurately, a mixture of minimax -- knowing your mathematical chances -- and NONminimax -- playing the tells).
Overall, though, I agree with the poster's main point: playing a crazy, irrational strategy is a very low-level approach. The only "crazy" strategy that works is "crazy like a fox": a surface irrationality that covers a hidden, well-thought-out strategy. The best masters *always* operate on both levels at once: psychology plus mathematics.
Anarchists may disagree ("all government is bad"]. but principled libertarians won't ["government acting as the Invisible Hand by promoting equality: equal access to the marketplace of ideas"].
It's certainly an unusual role for government to fill, but it fits correctly, according to the Declaration of Independence: "...certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed..."
I would argue that Equal Access to the Freedom of Expression (especially for the purpose of engaging in Self-government) falls under Jefferson's elucidations of both Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.
Search engines. Google's PageRank algorithm may point to highly rated *websites*, but searches themselves can be rated. Since most queries are less than 3 words, track where all less-than-3-word-queries go to, and rate *those* sites higher. Since humans are doing the searching, they will automatically tend to NOT go to splogs (based on their evaluations of the snippets that Google returns), thus dropping splog ratings while raising the ratings of legitimate sites: this is the very definition of "the wisdom of crowds". Google has the infrastructure to do this -- if they only would.
When a robot can *spontaneously* come up with that, then we can start having this discussion for real.
Even if choice is guided by unconscious instinct, that instinct will usually have been honed by natural selection to do the right thing.
Oh.
Er...a software algorithm is, by definition, the "working model" of itself. ( I agree with you about the other two, though.)
And you think patenting software is bad, it's only 17 years -- copyright is "the life of the copyright holder" plus 75 years. Don't you think that's a bit worse?
This has interesting implications for citizens of America too. Every state has a reciprocal state tax arrangement with every other state: you earn income in only one state or another, so you cannot be doubly taxed by both states. Now, does this mean that any income earned in Second Life is subject to California state tax when it is converted from $L to $USD? Or is it only income when it is downloaded to a bank account in *your* state, thus bypassing California's tax system completely?
Here's what I have on my phone:
"Hello? (3 second pause) Oh, he's not here right now, so please leave a message when you hear the beep. Thanks![BEEP]"
This completely confuses telemarketers. Some start their spiel anyway, some start going "Hello? Hello? ". One guy was so upset by it that he snarled "A******!", before hanging up. It takes up their valuable time anyway. At the very worst, the appearance of an answered call causes automated calls to start rolling, so, by the time the machine starts recording, I miss most of the message 8^D.
It works because it hooks into social expectations. If they hear "Hello?" and then a pause, they assume they have reached a real human being and so they start into their routine; then cognitive dissonance sets in as they belatedly realize their error. (I leave just enough time for them to ask for me by name -- if they do so, my script then responds with what sounds like a reasonable response.) My friends, on the other hand, are used to it by now. It only works once -- but once is enough for telemarketers!
My next project is to set up a program that can listen for the string "... [#] to be removed..." and generate the appropriate tone; that'll take care of the automated calls!
There's no particular end to achieve, yet it is play and it uses a computer. It's *like* a simulation, in that it does *simulate* reality (or a form of it), but it is open-ended, unlike, say, SimCity, which is a closed-end simulation.
Other than that, this is a pretty comprehensive list.
You make a good point here. It will quickly become clear to the editors *which kinds of stories get read a lot*, and so you get competition between editors to get those kinds of stories up there. Certain editors (let's call them "rolands") will always get large numbers of eyeballs for their stories. However, there might still be niches for *unusual* editors -- ones who post rarely and from obscure sources, but the *quality* of whose contributions always get noticed. It might make sense, then, to base the moderation of editors not *solely* upon numerical scores, but allow people to create a *whitelist* of editors whose work they want to see *regardless* of their scores: "cult" editors, if you will. Perhaps this mechanism would constitute a form of the "directing influence of some sort" that you reference.
I agree, with your criticism of the *content* moderation system; there is quite a lot of groupthink and "me-too"ism, and, of course, as you point out, ostracism of insightful but anti-consensus comments. But I think that that is a side effect of human nature, and will be found in *any* moderation system. That is why, I think, that you have to ultimately push the "power to decide" all the way down to the grassroots: to, in this case, individual whitelists (and, of course, blacklists too).
One trend, which the article refers to, is the fact that global warming is making spring come earlier in Europe. However, the other trend is that the melting of the glaciers of Greenland, with a subsequent release of billions of tons of fresh water into the North Atlantic, will eventually choke off the current of warm salt water that streams, from the Gulf of Mexico, up the east coast of America, then down the west coast of Europe. It is this constant stream of warm water which has contributed to a livable environment in Europe over the past 10,000 years. Without it, Europe may very well return to an average temperature considerably colder than today. The "gains" it is now enjoying from a global-warming early spring may become irrelevant as the oceanic patterns of warm-water circulation shift. This shift may also affect the warm-water hurricane forming conditions which now consistently exist off the west coast of Africa.
There are two ways to go about this. One -- yours -- is to *increase* heirarchalization by, in essence, creating a level of 'middle management'. That is last century thinking.
A better way is to *increase* the number of potential editors and ensure that moderation and meta-moderation extend *all the way up*, so to speak. Good editors -- ones whose selections get large numbers of eyeballs, thus indicating that they are in tune with the Zeitgeist -- are taken more seriously, while bad editors fall by the wayside. Editor moderation is based not on "quality of content" (like comment moderation), but "quality of form" -- as indicated by the correlative effect of 'number of eyeballs'. This way of looking at the situation leverages decentralization and participation -- the networking "value" of the Web -- for a higher-quality experience all around.
Unique combinations of abilities arising in this way could lead to selective breeding adavantages and thus be conserved in the population.
I can't wait for Counter-Revolution: The MMORG. Can your cadre become the knife-edge of the Counter-Revolution? You'll need both good fighting skills and clever thinking to keep on top!
I'd like to see someone apply this technique to the articles and comments making up the Slashdot corpus. CmdrTaco might be able to find a more focused set of topics. It might even be possible to tease out who on /. are the most interesting and/or informative posters, whether over the entire corpus or within any given topic.