I think that people are reacting badly to this because you seemed to have thought the study was evidence of Lamarckian evolution, with the anoles actively giving themselves shorter legs. Reading the blurb, that's certainly what I thought you thought.
Presumably if this paper is going to be in Science, evolutionary biologists think there's something especially novel to it, but I'm with the people who think it's obvious enough.
Incidentally, I know it's contrary to the way things are done here but the best way to address "controversial" issues isn't with exaggeration...
You've missed the other legal breakthrough here, which is that people with multiple sclerosis have joined "single mothers" in being exempt from copyright law...
*Most* people are terrible at critical reading. Just terrible.
And as with all of these "OMG everyone else is so teh stupid!!!" stories, it's not as if people here are especially inclined to critical thinking either when the day's swallowed-whole press release is congenial to their own snobberies.
For example, don't you think a statement like "52 percent correctly assessed the objectivity of the sites, 65 percent correctly judged for authority" is meaningless without a bit of added context? (If you've actually clicked through their Flash monstrosity of a test and formed an informed opinion, I'm not talking about you...)
I couldn't resist the urge to use Irritating Nerd Sarcasm, either, so I'm not in a position to chide you for it...
So they made 10 machines, sent out a press release, and then made another 190?!? I don't quite understand the logic. Oh, and these aren't the final design, so at the moment the total number of actual OLPCs produced is ten less than I had thought.
In any case, it's not obvious how this scales to 10 million in 13 months.
With the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) project [CC], that number is expected to exceed 10 million users in 2007.
1) Given that yesterday's news was that OLPC managed to produce a whole 10 computers, and that we're now halfway through November 2006 -- yeah, I can't see how they could possibly fail to hit 10 million in 2007!
2) Has Googlefawning now hit the point where it's no longer necessary for Google or the Slashdot story to explain exactly what it is that "Google sponsors" means? (Apparently they paid for a build system. Take that, Gates Foundation!)
Not that this project had any lack of vapor already, but it's worth noting that the Thai government that vaguely signed on to this project over the summer was overthrown in a military coup a few weeks later. We'll see how high a priority this is for the new guy.
Those of you who were hailing Khaddafi's deep commitment to freedom when he jumped aboard will be relieved to know that he's not going anywhere anytime soon, though...
When a minute-long video of the original vs. censored clips was posted on YouTube, a DMCA takedown removed it (the original poster plans to resubmit a shorter clip he hopes will qualify as fair use -- good luck, since the DMCA doesn't recognize fair use).
This all seemed unlikely to me, and reading the original letter:
1) The only mention of the DMCA is in the return address. They're not claiming any DMCA violation
2) DMCA or not, there's no fair-use right to be able to put content on YouTube. The guy isn't being sued.
2) He wasn't paying his Japanese-ASCAP-equivalent tab at all, not just violating some Beatles-specific issue.
The whole thing sounds like a straightforward copyright violation case with the added comedy value of "elderly Japanese man". (Apparently the equivalent of our "single mothers", who are also presumed to be above copyright law.)
The Ski Freak Radical was doing this for ski bums well over a decade ago. I'm sure there have been all sorts of similar niche and less-niche sites serving a similar function. (Admittedly not Web 2.0, though...)
...and the IT people don't get why adding more and more accounts with more complex, more frequently rotated passwords creates more problems than anything anyone in management does.
Well, one constant in this business is that the record for Biggest Judicial Outrage in the History of the World gets broken every three weeks.
Move over, Dred Scott, and make way for Subpoenaed Hard Drive Guy!
Incidentally, perhaps given Subpoenaed Hard Drive Guy's Buddy's vast knowledge of computing, perhaps he could have put this on a web page and submitted a link?
Obviously I'm not opposed to making voting technology better. (Which doesn't necessarily mean making it higher-tech.) My point was that you can't eliminate paranoids and cynics through technology, regardless of how good it gets.
You know, you don't have to fill out the whole damn ballot. If you're that tortured over this, go in, vote for an uncontested race where you like the candidate or write-in someone where you don't, read the referendums and initiatives and vote for anything that seems like an obviously good idea and against anything that doesn't.
And then thank the little old ladies for being such a crucial bit of democracy. Now you've accomplished pretty much exactly what I did by voting against Ted Kennedy and for wine this morning.
People trust technology when there is sufficient evidence that the technology is trustworthy, reliable, and sufficiently tested. When technology experts say "this is rock solid", people trust that.
See, I just don't believe that. The appeal of conspiracy theories or cheap-ass cynicism is a lot stronger for some people than the facts. It's a social issue, not technical.
On the other hand (and maybe this is your point), you do want to have technology that rational, fair people do fully trust. Plus you want it to work, period.
The bottom line is that regardless of technology, there's an absolute need for:
1) Sincere trust in the vote-counting process
2) Sufficient respect for the system to not make gratuitous accusations
To the degree that people rightly, wrongly or dishonestly don't buy into the system, there's no technology that can prevent that.
That said, that security researcher who is allways linked here, who argues for pencil and paper even though the blurbs always make him out to be a fellow source code-fetishist, is spot-on.
I was going to say the opposite -- don't they understand that in real life, you can't actually drop a fingernail cutting into a mass spec and have it instantly pop up a chemical structure and a list of suspects? Maybe, as you say, the key is leaving the lights off all the time.
Speaking of which, what's happened to Daily WTF? Did the whole world suddenly stop writing bad code three weeks ago, forcing them to switch to this new Dilbert-as-essay format?
I can't say I'm astonished that the guy behind this doesn't understand how humans actually do distribute their source code. But, yeah -- with the combination of the above line and the link to the FSF, I don't think this is a site I'll be following closely.
...so many were coming in that I was wondering if it was actually a ploy from the Democrates to get me annoyed and blame the Republicans. However, the only smearing was against the Democrats.
That's why this conspiracy theory makes no sense -- you get (supposedly, according to some guy) 17 calls that you think are from the candidate so you want to vote against him and then the 18th has a "smear" about him -- and then you still vote against him, despite the fact that you were going to vote against him because of something you now know was his opponent's action? That must be quite a "smear"!
The phrase "out of touch" comes to mind....
You, on the other hand, hit it on the nose. By the way, can we please file "pretexting" in the Did We Ever Really Say That? drawer, next to "metrosexual"?
Slashdot Mirror
Presumably if this paper is going to be in Science, evolutionary biologists think there's something especially novel to it, but I'm with the people who think it's obvious enough.
Incidentally, I know it's contrary to the way things are done here but the best way to address "controversial" issues isn't with exaggeration...
You've missed the other legal breakthrough here, which is that people with multiple sclerosis have joined "single mothers" in being exempt from copyright law...
On the one hand, they already married earlier this week. On the other hand, this story is a dupe from earlier this week so it all evens out.
And as with all of these "OMG everyone else is so teh stupid!!!" stories, it's not as if people here are especially inclined to critical thinking either when the day's swallowed-whole press release is congenial to their own snobberies.
For example, don't you think a statement like "52 percent correctly assessed the objectivity of the sites, 65 percent correctly judged for authority" is meaningless without a bit of added context? (If you've actually clicked through their Flash monstrosity of a test and formed an informed opinion, I'm not talking about you...)
I'd disagree on the K&R -- it's a beloved historical artifact, but long superceded as an introductory C text.
So they made 10 machines, sent out a press release, and then made another 190?!? I don't quite understand the logic. Oh, and these aren't the final design, so at the moment the total number of actual OLPCs produced is ten less than I had thought.
In any case, it's not obvious how this scales to 10 million in 13 months.
1) Given that yesterday's news was that OLPC managed to produce a whole 10 computers, and that we're now halfway through November 2006 -- yeah, I can't see how they could possibly fail to hit 10 million in 2007!
2) Has Googlefawning now hit the point where it's no longer necessary for Google or the Slashdot story to explain exactly what it is that "Google sponsors" means? (Apparently they paid for a build system. Take that, Gates Foundation!)
For that matter, what is this story except a regurgitated press release from one of "the country's biggest" political non-profits?
Those of you who were hailing Khaddafi's deep commitment to freedom when he jumped aboard will be relieved to know that he's not going anywhere anytime soon, though...
This all seemed unlikely to me, and reading the original letter:
1) The only mention of the DMCA is in the return address. They're not claiming any DMCA violation
2) DMCA or not, there's no fair-use right to be able to put content on YouTube. The guy isn't being sued.
By The Way #1: They seem to have found some atypically literate hax0rs. I see commas, apostrophes (used correctly!!!), mostly correct spelling.
By The Way #2: I'm looking forward to all the hello_world.pl'ists ranting about how the ACM doesn't know what "hacker" properly means.
My guess is:
1) The performer in this case is also the owner.
2) He wasn't paying his Japanese-ASCAP-equivalent tab at all, not just violating some Beatles-specific issue.
The whole thing sounds like a straightforward copyright violation case with the added comedy value of "elderly Japanese man". (Apparently the equivalent of our "single mothers", who are also presumed to be above copyright law.)
The Ski Freak Radical was doing this for ski bums well over a decade ago. I'm sure there have been all sorts of similar niche and less-niche sites serving a similar function. (Admittedly not Web 2.0, though...)
Yeah, Eric Schmidt makes some vague promise about what they're going to do and you guys start fawning over them like it's actually happened.
...and the IT people don't get why adding more and more accounts with more complex, more frequently rotated passwords creates more problems than anything anyone in management does.
Move over, Dred Scott, and make way for Subpoenaed Hard Drive Guy!
Incidentally, perhaps given Subpoenaed Hard Drive Guy's Buddy's vast knowledge of computing, perhaps he could have put this on a web page and submitted a link?
If Linux were introducing something like this, you'd be saying it's the bestestest thing ever...
Obviously I'm not opposed to making voting technology better. (Which doesn't necessarily mean making it higher-tech.) My point was that you can't eliminate paranoids and cynics through technology, regardless of how good it gets.
And then thank the little old ladies for being such a crucial bit of democracy. Now you've accomplished pretty much exactly what I did by voting against Ted Kennedy and for wine this morning.
See, I just don't believe that. The appeal of conspiracy theories or cheap-ass cynicism is a lot stronger for some people than the facts. It's a social issue, not technical.
On the other hand (and maybe this is your point), you do want to have technology that rational, fair people do fully trust. Plus you want it to work, period.
1) Sincere trust in the vote-counting process
2) Sufficient respect for the system to not make gratuitous accusations
To the degree that people rightly, wrongly or dishonestly don't buy into the system, there's no technology that can prevent that.
That said, that security researcher who is allways linked here, who argues for pencil and paper even though the blurbs always make him out to be a fellow source code-fetishist, is spot-on.
I was going to say the opposite -- don't they understand that in real life, you can't actually drop a fingernail cutting into a mass spec and have it instantly pop up a chemical structure and a list of suspects? Maybe, as you say, the key is leaving the lights off all the time.
Speaking of which, what's happened to Daily WTF? Did the whole world suddenly stop writing bad code three weeks ago, forcing them to switch to this new Dilbert-as-essay format?
I can't say I'm astonished that the guy behind this doesn't understand how humans actually do distribute their source code. But, yeah -- with the combination of the above line and the link to the FSF, I don't think this is a site I'll be following closely.
That's why this conspiracy theory makes no sense -- you get (supposedly, according to some guy) 17 calls that you think are from the candidate so you want to vote against him and then the 18th has a "smear" about him -- and then you still vote against him, despite the fact that you were going to vote against him because of something you now know was his opponent's action? That must be quite a "smear"!
The phrase "out of touch" comes to mind....
You, on the other hand, hit it on the nose. By the way, can we please file "pretexting" in the Did We Ever Really Say That? drawer, next to "metrosexual"?