Sir: Every physicist seems to have their own personal stance on social responsibility, ranging from "We have none or very little" (a shallow reading of Feynman) to "It is our duty to educate the (possibly uninterested) layperson about our discoveries, and their potential for good and evil".
Where do you place yourself on this continuum? Do you feel that science is inherently agnostic, and we should go ahead and use it in any way we can, since if we don't, someone else will? Or do you believe that scientists have a moral and ethical responsibility to think through the consequences of their research? What do you feel about the collision between public funding of science, the increasing apathy and ignorance of the general public, and the expectation of a return on investment in basic sciences?
Apologies if this is needlessly complicated, but it is just one question...
Well, this is going to start one more of those long whiny threads about "well why the hell does it matter?" that followed the Time POTMillennium article. (Or will it? After all, this is Linus himself...)
So let me get in my $0.02: it does matter. Your marketroids and PHBs will look at Fortune, and say, ooo, Linux! A new buzzword! And maybe, just maybe, they'll ask their sysadmin to try it out, instead of attempting to install it themselves on their ultra-new winmodem-equipped laptop. One can wish, right? Especially in this season?
As for AE on the cover of Time magazine, maybe they'll say, ooo, Einstein. Isn't he the E=mc^2 dude? and then take a few moments to learn about some of the radical and cool stuff physics / astronomy has accomplished in the last fifty years. (And let me assure the unconvinced - long after the Civil war, India's independence and even WWII have faded into obscurity as long-ago provincial conflicts, Einstein's accomplishments will be remembered and used on a daily basis!)
Or maybe the PHB's will pick up a few more unemployed physics grad students? That wouldn't be so bad either...:)
Well, much of the mumbo-jumbo is beneath us, and all the "classical quantum effects" I'm not qualified to comment on, but there's this one bit way down at the end of the article:
His theory predicted in clear language two recent astronomical discoveries-one, the universe is expanding at an accelerating rate, and, two, there are stars that measure as older than the expansion of the universe itself.
As an astronomy grad, I feel qualified to comment on this: (a) The accelerating (not just expanding!) universe result is based on two very preliminary studies of supernovae in distant galaxies, where they try to use supernovae as "standard candles". Given the incredible diversity of stars, this is a highly controversial and speculative result, though it might ultimately prove correct. (b) Stars older than the Universe? Bah! This was a silly thing related to the current expansion rate of the Universe, and it is clearly incorrect given our current understanding of the data.
I could go on and critique the rest of the article, but I'll leave it to someone more qualified: if its on par with the astronomy bits, its garbage. I'd take odds his "Mill's cells" are producing some purely chemical energy, and the product materials will turn out to be novel chemical compounds rather than "new forms of matter". If they ever exist outside his lab.
To repeat from the article: "It's the American story," says Dr. Robert Park of the American Physical Society. "But he's still wrong."
Well, none of the other replies seem to be saying this, so I'll have to say it myself: I think Priceline provides a very decent service, providing cheap fares to consumers and filling otherwise-empty airline seats. If you choose jet aircraft only, you'll be flown on major airlines: AA, USAir, Delta, TWA, et al. If the specific service or frequent-flyer miles matter to you, this is not for you - as a penniless (ahem) grad student, I'm glad to be flying round trip across the country for less than $100. Yes, I gave them a credit card number before I knew the airline, but I'm flying on United, which was (probably still is) offering the same flight for $200... Think of it as an analog to arbitrage in the commodities market. (Or am I waaaay off base here?) As for "is it patentable?", well, given the current climate at the PTO, whyever not? Yes, its stupid, but that's not stopping anyone else, apparently.
Sorry, but it could be made to work... imagine "LANCE" running downward, then "QUIXTAR" hangs off it horizontally and also gets you points for "LANCER" (no doubles or triples, of course).
Okay, so its a lame example, but that's the first example I can think of...
From Amazon's point of view, at least, its *not* a bad thing. Yes, the unwashed masses will have to consider one-click safe and easy before online shopping "takes off", but Amazon would much rather have companies pay them a penny each time someone used it!
Look at it from their POV - they own a patent on this. No matter how misguided, the law of the land says they should get royalties on it. And would companies walk away from one-click if they had to pay amazon $0.01 every transaction? I think not... its just too useful for those "unwashed masses" you speak of. So I think they're doing something sensible by enforcing their patent, rather like trademark protection. (Now if there were to be a net-wide backlash against them, that would be a different can of worms...)
Do I think this is a good thing? No, not at all - but the fault is in the broken US patent system. Amazon and B&N are just doing their bit to bring it to wide attention, and I for one will not be unhappy about the slugfest. (Though who gets rich from this? Amazon? Nah, not yet. B&N? Nope. The masses? Not really. Its a conspiracy by trial lawyers, of course... maybe they divvy up cases like this: You patent this, I use it, you sue me, we both get rich while the companies bleed...)
I'm cynical this morning! Must be the additives in the coffee...
I'd moderate that as Funny - was this tongue in cheek, or were you serious? I'm having trouble with nuances this late in the afternoon... must get sleep...
Very many replies to this article arguing that (a) space exploration is pointless, we should spend it on alleviating poverty, or (b) Of course we should invest in space, its the only way we will have any future.
As someone else put it, back in the earliest days, there were groups of people saying "Why do you want to explore the next valley? Stay here and help us dig roots" and people boldly going where no man had gone before...
I'd argue that there's a third point of view: maybe we should look at the mess we're making here on earth, and keep our hands off Mars. After all, we're demonstrating pretty well that we have no conception of sharing the planet with other species (I mean, what kind of sick planet has hog farm waste threatening North Carolina estuaries? Oil slicks in Alaska? Clear cuts of ancient redwoods for a few quick bucks? Elephants hunted down for overgrown teeth?). And our science is still incapable of deciding whether Mars had or might have life forms of its own some day - when our sun goes red giant, mars will be warm and toasty enough for its own life (maybe for its life forms to re-emerge, even).
So my position would be, leave Mars alone until we show that we can take care of a planet. I realize this echoes the position of the "Reds" in KSR's Red Mars, and that this post sounds like I'm a tree hugging green zealot neo-luddite, but I'm actually an astronomy grad student, and I'm strongly pro-exploration and pro-technology... I just have too little faith in human feet treading lightly.
Plus there's plenty of space to explore here - what happened to those deep-sea habitats? Mine pure metals on the sea floor, live in a closed community with minimal external inputs, you get the idea. Leave Mars to the robots, which won't start grabbing land and arguing independence just yet...
(This comment is probably worth 4 cents. Or maybe nothing. I can't decide)
Okay, this is late and will never float up to the +4 area, but I think this one's a neato:
During WWII, they had these Lancaster bombers fly low (60 ft) at night, and launch a spinning cylindrical bomb towards the base of German dams in the Ruhr valley. Thse bombs would bounce on the water (like skipping stones - Tiddlywinks, anyone?), skip over the nets and anti-torpedo lines, and finally sink down to the foot of the dam before exploding.
Ethical issues aside - we could argue the morality of busting dams to flood the Ruhr valley, but I won't - this is a supremely ingenious implementation of technology to get around an obstacle... I nominate the Dam Busters as one of the best hacks ever.
... and some have died, and some have come out stronger than ever. When CNN began 24 hour news coverage and a majority of consumers moved to TV as their prime source of news, people crowed over the impending death of newspapers.
Sure, some died.
But some others have remained essential reading - even on a site like/., there's about a story a day from the venerable New York Times. And I personally read Time and the New Yorker (and I'd buy The Economist if a grad student budget could accomodate that...)
The reason is simple - commentary. Yes, shit happens, but to tell us what that means - or to at least give us one interpretation of what it means - requires more than a CNN sound bite will ever provide.
Even when you disagree with the interpretation - I regularly disagree with The Economist's ultra-conservative ideas - it makes you think. I happen to believe that there's no substitute for that.
Drawing the analogy to computer publications is obvious enough to be left as an exercise to the reader...:-)
"We're not on Linux because we're gung ho for it or because we're revolutionaries," said Gary Calvin, systems integration specialist at Kenwood. "We chose it because it suits our business."
Exactly the right attitude - can World Domination (TM) be far behind?:-)
IANAL, but I'll give you a quick take on that one based on the NYT: the guys's right.
The "Findings of Fact" are entered into the record only with a final ruling - until then, M$ has a "clean" slate. So if M$ and the DOJ et al. were to settle this case tomorrow (okay, so hell would have to freeze over tonight), the FoF would not become part of the record (unless that was part of the settlement), and every two-bit company out to sue M$ would have to prove monopoly power before they could get damages.
Given the bleakness of the FoF, this might actually push Bill_G into settling the case and having his "right to innovate by trampling other companies" left mostly intact...
Re:YOU will like pokey the penguin!
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Focus Group Art
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· Score: 1
Reminds me of Mr. Gnu, an agressively idiotic strip that runs in the Cornell Daily Sun - a lot of toilet humor, rather weird, but hey, some people enjoy it and I can't object to that... Pokey seems like one of those dissonant strange things, at least from a quick glance at a couple of strips. But thanks for the link!
Re:The idea is not art by focus groups
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Focus Group Art
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· Score: 3
The point is that there are a lot of artists who are seriously out of touch with the kind of art that ordinary people want to have around them.
I'd have to disagree... artists might be out of touch with the kind of pretty pictures that people want on their walls, but that's not really the purpose of Art with a capital A... Art should challenge viewers, produce a reaction - if it also happens to be pretty enough to enjoy on a wall, so much the better, but that is not its primary purpose, I'd say...
And this exhibit tells you exactly why this is true: left to his/her own tastes, the mythical Average Person chooses remarkably similar things, as dictated by some atavistic primate brain's comfort level. This is exactly what Art should seek to challenge!
Unfortunately, this makes Art an elite pursuit, but its always been true that things like high art and pure science are luxuries available only after basic needs are met: people painted in caves only after they'd finished hunting that antelope.
Then again, I'm a scientist/engineer - so what do I know about art?
Well with username/password, at least you know what you're getting, unlike AmEx's stupid idea of a credit card swiper on your PC, or even a camera with a retinal scanner...
It sounds very fancy and secure, but the old saw about the chain being only as strong as its weakest link applies strongly here - if your retinal scan will be sent over open wires, you're still exposed to a packet sniffing / IP spoofing attack.
People will wait till it matures or is safe. And what planet are *you* living on?:-) People love to stick their necks out, and will do anything and everything they can to get something that might make their lives easier... Do you really think we'd have automobiles and airplanes in the numbers that we do now if everyone waited for technology to mature before they embraced it?
No, people will adopt any half-assed technology at all if it promises to reorder beer when supplies run low and defrost the turkey when the car lets the house now that you're at the right exit (and though you were yakking on your cellphone, it will cut in to remind you to turn off)...
Now that also opens people up to virtual hijacking (okay, maybe not) and truly intrusive snooping (hmmm, the beer's disappearing fast - and the fries - turn up his insurance rates and lock his car till his BAC comes back to legal...) and moronic software crashes (imagine warm flat beer after your fridge goes BSOD). Oh well.
I was going somewhere with all this, but I no longer remember: sigh. Oh, wait - people are stupid and willing to be led wherever Oprah tells them is a cool place to go. And wherever Bill thinks is a cool place to go today. Yeah, that's what I was going to say...
I see the story of "Trish" repeated over and over again - we use Solaris at work, and many (many) sites offer "features" which are simply unavailable for *nix users.
Back when I was still willing to try Barnes and Noble, I remember complaining to them about a broken shopping cart (this after I submitted a credit card number!) - their response at that time was, "well whaddya expect if you aren't using IE on Windows 95??? Go get a life, or at least a Mac!"
So much for Brenners-Lee and his vision of seamless information exchange... How long before there is a usable, portable Mozilla?
A penguin rampant, using a chalkboard eraser to wipe out the blue screen of death. That sums it up neatly, don't you think?
One to fetch, one to carry?
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VDSL Demoed
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· Score: 2
Woohoo! Even faster downloads on pr0n... some people will think that's a good thing, too.
I have this thought: how complex will it be to implement a cable/satellite + DSL system, so that downloads come over cable and uploads go out on DSL? And we get the phone line back when we'd much rather do the heavy breathing ear to ear instead of using chat boxes? (Flipness aside, I'm sure someone's worried about this already - pointers, anyone?)
The TeX merchandising project? You mean I get to put "Which part of $\frac{\del^2}{\del\phi^2}\Psi(\phi) + m^2\Psi(\phi) = 0$ don't you understand?" on my T-shirt, and it comes out looking perfect? Ahhh, exactly what I need...:-)
Wait, no, they want money for it. And given how slow the site is at 4 am in Europe, I pity its/.ing in the morning...
Let me play Devil's (okay, Gold's) Advocate here for a second (not meant as flamebait!):
There are fossils in coal. Plant leaves, animal shells. Yet you claim that the very same plant leaves and animal bits decomposed to form that coal in the first place. So - why is that leaf imprint preserved at all? Imagine a primeval bog, lots of rotting leaves, another leaf falls on it, then other stuff falls on that - it all turns to coal and the one leaf is preserved? How plausible is that?
Let me give you an alternative theory: this stuff is oozed up in layers, from some completely different source. then one leaf (shell, whatever) falls, then another layer oozes up - the one leaf is fossilized between layers of ooze. Doesn't that seem more plausible? Does it?:-)
Now, I'm not saying I believe or disbelieve the conventional wisdom, but some things are not quite as simple as they might appear...
Slashdot Mirror
Where do you place yourself on this continuum? Do you feel that science is inherently agnostic, and we should go ahead and use it in any way we can, since if we don't, someone else will? Or do you believe that scientists have a moral and ethical responsibility to think through the consequences of their research? What do you feel about the collision between public funding of science, the increasing apathy and ignorance of the general public, and the expectation of a return on investment in basic sciences?
Apologies if this is needlessly complicated, but it is just one question...
Error 403: Access Forbidden
The URL you requested:
http://www.eng.buffalo.edu/~clau/mozilla
is restricted, and cannot be accessed. Please do not repeat the request.
See? /. doesn't do H1 tags, but the extra emphasis on the "do not" makes such a difference... :)
So let me get in my $0.02: it does matter. Your marketroids and PHBs will look at Fortune, and say, ooo, Linux! A new buzzword! And maybe, just maybe, they'll ask their sysadmin to try it out, instead of attempting to install it themselves on their ultra-new winmodem-equipped laptop. One can wish, right? Especially in this season?
As for AE on the cover of Time magazine, maybe they'll say, ooo, Einstein. Isn't he the E=mc^2 dude? and then take a few moments to learn about some of the radical and cool stuff physics / astronomy has accomplished in the last fifty years. (And let me assure the unconvinced - long after the Civil war, India's independence and even WWII have faded into obscurity as long-ago provincial conflicts, Einstein's accomplishments will be remembered and used on a daily basis!)
Or maybe the PHB's will pick up a few more unemployed physics grad students? That wouldn't be so bad either... :)
His theory predicted in clear language two recent astronomical discoveries-one, the universe is expanding at an accelerating rate, and, two, there are stars that measure as older than the expansion of the universe itself.
As an astronomy grad, I feel qualified to comment on this: (a) The accelerating (not just expanding!) universe result is based on two very preliminary studies of supernovae in distant galaxies, where they try to use supernovae as "standard candles". Given the incredible diversity of stars, this is a highly controversial and speculative result, though it might ultimately prove correct. (b) Stars older than the Universe? Bah! This was a silly thing related to the current expansion rate of the Universe, and it is clearly incorrect given our current understanding of the data.
I could go on and critique the rest of the article, but I'll leave it to someone more qualified: if its on par with the astronomy bits, its garbage. I'd take odds his "Mill's cells" are producing some purely chemical energy, and the product materials will turn out to be novel chemical compounds rather than "new forms of matter". If they ever exist outside his lab.
To repeat from the article: "It's the American story," says Dr. Robert Park of the American Physical Society. "But he's still wrong."
I think Priceline provides a very decent service, providing cheap fares to consumers and filling otherwise-empty airline seats. If you choose jet aircraft only, you'll be flown on major airlines: AA, USAir, Delta, TWA, et al. If the specific service or frequent-flyer miles matter to you, this is not for you - as a penniless (ahem) grad student, I'm glad to be flying round trip across the country for less than $100. Yes, I gave them a credit card number before I knew the airline, but I'm flying on United, which was (probably still is) offering the same flight for $200...
Think of it as an analog to arbitrage in the commodities market. (Or am I waaaay off base here?) As for "is it patentable?", well, given the current climate at the PTO, whyever not? Yes, its stupid, but that's not stopping anyone else, apparently.
Okay, so its a lame example, but that's the first example I can think of...
Look at it from their POV - they own a patent on this. No matter how misguided, the law of the land says they should get royalties on it. And would companies walk away from one-click if they had to pay amazon $0.01 every transaction? I think not... its just too useful for those "unwashed masses" you speak of. So I think they're doing something sensible by enforcing their patent, rather like trademark protection. (Now if there were to be a net-wide backlash against them, that would be a different can of worms...)
Do I think this is a good thing? No, not at all - but the fault is in the broken US patent system. Amazon and B&N are just doing their bit to bring it to wide attention, and I for one will not be unhappy about the slugfest. (Though who gets rich from this? Amazon? Nah, not yet. B&N? Nope. The masses? Not really. Its a conspiracy by trial lawyers, of course... maybe they divvy up cases like this: You patent this, I use it, you sue me, we both get rich while the companies bleed...)
I'm cynical this morning! Must be the additives in the coffee...
I'd moderate that as Funny - was this tongue in cheek, or were you serious? I'm having trouble with nuances this late in the afternoon... must get sleep...
(a) space exploration is pointless, we should spend it on alleviating poverty, or
(b) Of course we should invest in space, its the only way we will have any future.
As someone else put it, back in the earliest days, there were groups of people saying "Why do you want to explore the next valley? Stay here and help us dig roots" and people boldly going where no man had gone before...
I'd argue that there's a third point of view: maybe we should look at the mess we're making here on earth, and keep our hands off Mars. After all, we're demonstrating pretty well that we have no conception of sharing the planet with other species (I mean, what kind of sick planet has hog farm waste threatening North Carolina estuaries? Oil slicks in Alaska? Clear cuts of ancient redwoods for a few quick bucks? Elephants hunted down for overgrown teeth?). And our science is still incapable of deciding whether Mars had or might have life forms of its own some day - when our sun goes red giant, mars will be warm and toasty enough for its own life (maybe for its life forms to re-emerge, even).
So my position would be, leave Mars alone until we show that we can take care of a planet. I realize this echoes the position of the "Reds" in KSR's Red Mars, and that this post sounds like I'm a tree hugging green zealot neo-luddite, but I'm actually an astronomy grad student, and I'm strongly pro-exploration and pro-technology... I just have too little faith in human feet treading lightly.
Plus there's plenty of space to explore here - what happened to those deep-sea habitats? Mine pure metals on the sea floor, live in a closed community with minimal external inputs, you get the idea. Leave Mars to the robots, which won't start grabbing land and arguing independence just yet...
(This comment is probably worth 4 cents. Or maybe nothing. I can't decide)
During WWII, they had these Lancaster bombers fly low (60 ft) at night, and launch a spinning cylindrical bomb towards the base of German dams in the Ruhr valley. Thse bombs would bounce on the water (like skipping stones - Tiddlywinks, anyone?), skip over the nets and anti-torpedo lines, and finally sink down to the foot of the dam before exploding.
Ethical issues aside - we could argue the morality of busting dams to flood the Ruhr valley, but I won't - this is a supremely ingenious implementation of technology to get around an obstacle... I nominate the Dam Busters as one of the best hacks ever.
Sure, some died.
But some others have remained essential reading - even on a site like /., there's about a story a day from the venerable New York Times. And I personally read Time and the New Yorker (and I'd buy The Economist if a grad student budget could accomodate that...)
The reason is simple - commentary. Yes, shit happens, but to tell us what that means - or to at least give us one interpretation of what it means - requires more than a CNN sound bite will ever provide.
Even when you disagree with the interpretation - I regularly disagree with The Economist's ultra-conservative ideas - it makes you think. I happen to believe that there's no substitute for that.
Drawing the analogy to computer publications is obvious enough to be left as an exercise to the reader... :-)
Exactly the right attitude - can World Domination (TM) be far behind? :-)
The "Findings of Fact" are entered into the record only with a final ruling - until then, M$ has a "clean" slate. So if M$ and the DOJ et al. were to settle this case tomorrow (okay, so hell would have to freeze over tonight), the FoF would not become part of the record (unless that was part of the settlement), and every two-bit company out to sue M$ would have to prove monopoly power before they could get damages.
Given the bleakness of the FoF, this might actually push Bill_G into settling the case and having his "right to innovate by trampling other companies" left mostly intact...
Reminds me of Mr. Gnu, an agressively idiotic strip that runs in the Cornell Daily Sun - a lot of toilet humor, rather weird, but hey, some people enjoy it and I can't object to that... Pokey seems like one of those dissonant strange things, at least from a quick glance at a couple of strips. But thanks for the link!
I'd have to disagree... artists might be out of touch with the kind of pretty pictures that people want on their walls, but that's not really the purpose of Art with a capital A... Art should challenge viewers, produce a reaction - if it also happens to be pretty enough to enjoy on a wall, so much the better, but that is not its primary purpose, I'd say...
And this exhibit tells you exactly why this is true: left to his/her own tastes, the mythical Average Person chooses remarkably similar things, as dictated by some atavistic primate brain's comfort level. This is exactly what Art should seek to challenge!
Unfortunately, this makes Art an elite pursuit, but its always been true that things like high art and pure science are luxuries available only after basic needs are met: people painted in caves only after they'd finished hunting that antelope.
Then again, I'm a scientist/engineer - so what do I know about art?
It sounds very fancy and secure, but the old saw about the chain being only as strong as its weakest link applies strongly here - if your retinal scan will be sent over open wires, you're still exposed to a packet sniffing / IP spoofing attack.
Just my $0.02...
And what planet are *you* living on?
No, people will adopt any half-assed technology at all if it promises to reorder beer when supplies run low and defrost the turkey when the car lets the house now that you're at the right exit (and though you were yakking on your cellphone, it will cut in to remind you to turn off)...
Now that also opens people up to virtual hijacking (okay, maybe not) and truly intrusive snooping (hmmm, the beer's disappearing fast - and the fries - turn up his insurance rates and lock his car till his BAC comes back to legal...) and moronic software crashes (imagine warm flat beer after your fridge goes BSOD). Oh well.
I was going somewhere with all this, but I no longer remember: sigh.
Oh, wait - people are stupid and willing to be led wherever Oprah tells them is a cool place to go. And wherever Bill thinks is a cool place to go today. Yeah, that's what I was going to say...
(Time to feed those squirrels in my brain.)
Back when I was still willing to try Barnes and Noble, I remember complaining to them about a broken shopping cart (this after I submitted a credit card number!) - their response at that time was, "well whaddya expect if you aren't using IE on Windows 95??? Go get a life, or at least a Mac!"
So much for Brenners-Lee and his vision of seamless information exchange... How long before there is a usable, portable Mozilla?
A penguin rampant, using a chalkboard eraser to wipe out the blue screen of death. That sums it up neatly, don't you think?
I have this thought: how complex will it be to implement a cable/satellite + DSL system, so that downloads come over cable and uploads go out on DSL? And we get the phone line back when we'd much rather do the heavy breathing ear to ear instead of using chat boxes? (Flipness aside, I'm sure someone's worried about this already - pointers, anyone?)
Wait, no, they want money for it. And given how slow the site is at 4 am in Europe, I pity its /.ing in the morning...
There are fossils in coal. Plant leaves, animal shells. Yet you claim that the very same plant leaves and animal bits decomposed to form that coal in the first place. So - why is that leaf imprint preserved at all? Imagine a primeval bog, lots of rotting leaves, another leaf falls on it, then other stuff falls on that - it all turns to coal and the one leaf is preserved? How plausible is that?
Let me give you an alternative theory: this stuff is oozed up in layers, from some completely different source. then one leaf (shell, whatever) falls, then another layer oozes up - the one leaf is fossilized between layers of ooze. Doesn't that seem more plausible? Does it? :-)
Now, I'm not saying I believe or disbelieve the conventional wisdom, but some things are not quite as simple as they might appear...