The WIYN consortium "bought" and is operating the 0.9m telescope. The Yale students were using the WIYN operated 0.9m scope to make their observations.
They weren't using the original WIYN scope, the 3.5m scope.
Look at the WIYN homepage for the information:
http://www.noao.edu/wiyn/wiyn.html
or this press release
http://www.noao.edu/outreach/press/pr01/pr0107.h tm l
This is part of the whole range of applications that the Internet2 project was designed to support... GriPhyN needs to run on Internet2. The commercial net doesn't allow enough bandwidth to transfer the huge amounts of data around.
If the article had listed the partner sites for GriPhyN we would have seen that they are all Internet2 institutions...
If you want more information, here is the GryPhyN homepage
Besides the knee-jerk luddite reaction I think it's interesting that the Librarian knows that there are parallels between the introduction of the printing press and the internet but then ignores what many slashdotters would consider an obvious conclusion:
That the internet has the capability of providing almost free information to everyone.
I had to snicker at the statement that
Furthermore, in public libraries "there is an inherent adversity to censorship."
Public libraries invariably practice censorship of a sort, they can't afford to have every copy of every book available. The public librarian has to make decisions about the books that match their communities wants and needs. In a small public library this means that many books that should be considered essential reading for citizens in an informed democracy are unavailable. Books full of 'radical' notions are also frequently passed over. Instead there are racks of bad romance novels... I'm not blaming the librarians, or the public library system. This is just the reality of having a very limited budget and limited space.
The Librarian's perception of the internet is also dangerous:
So far, the Internet seems to be largely amplifying the worst features of television's preoccupation with sex and violence, semi-literate chatter, shortened attention spans, and near-total subservience to commercial marketing," said Billington.
If this is true, I would suggest that the reason is that people like the Librarian, who have the keys to huge amounts of 'good' information, aren't doing their jobs to bring this information to the internet.
If these statements accurately reflect the attitudes of our Librarian of Congress, I think we need someone with a better grasp of the abilities of technology in charge.
Slashdot Mirror
The WIYN consortium "bought" and is operating the 0.9m telescope. The Yale students were using the WIYN operated 0.9m scope to make their observations.
h tm l
They weren't using the original WIYN scope, the 3.5m scope.
Look at the WIYN homepage for the information:
http://www.noao.edu/wiyn/wiyn.html
or this press release
http://www.noao.edu/outreach/press/pr01/pr0107.
This is part of the whole range of applications that the Internet2 project was designed to support... GriPhyN needs to run on Internet2. The commercial net doesn't allow enough bandwidth to transfer the huge amounts of data around.
If the article had listed the partner sites for GriPhyN we would have seen that they are all Internet2 institutions...
If you want more information, here is the GryPhyN homepage
http://www.phys.ufl.edu/~avery/mre/
--Dan
Besides the knee-jerk luddite reaction I think it's interesting that the Librarian knows that there are parallels between the introduction of the printing press and the internet but then ignores what many slashdotters would consider an obvious conclusion:
That the internet has the capability of providing almost free information to everyone.
I had to snicker at the statement that
Furthermore, in public libraries "there is an inherent adversity to censorship."
Public libraries invariably practice censorship of a sort, they can't afford to have every copy of every book available. The public librarian has to make decisions about the books that match their communities wants and needs. In a small public library this means that many books that should be considered essential reading for citizens in an informed democracy are unavailable. Books full of 'radical' notions are also frequently passed over. Instead there are racks of bad romance novels... I'm not blaming the librarians, or the public library system. This is just the reality of having a very limited budget and limited space.
The Librarian's perception of the internet is also dangerous:
So far, the Internet seems to be largely amplifying the worst features of television's preoccupation with sex and violence, semi-literate
chatter, shortened attention spans, and near-total subservience to commercial marketing," said Billington.
If this is true, I would suggest that the reason is that people like the Librarian, who have the keys to huge amounts of 'good' information, aren't doing their jobs to bring this information to the internet.
If these statements accurately reflect the attitudes of our Librarian of Congress, I think we need someone with a better grasp of the abilities of technology in charge.
Dan