You can know the name of a bird (or a planet) in all the languages of the world, but when you're finished, you'll know absolutely nothing whatever about the bird (or planet)... So let's look at the bird ( or planet) and see what it's doing -- that's what counts. I learned very early the difference between knowing the name of something and knowing something.
Wikipedia gives me 5 names in 4 languages for the Malachite Kingfisher:
English: Malachite Kingfisher
Latin: Alcedo cristata
Afrikaans: Kuifkopvisvanger
German: Hauben-Zwergfischer, Malachit-Eisvogel
From this I can tell
it has green (Malachite, Malachit),
it catches fish (fisher, visvanger, fischer),
it has a noteworthy tuft on its head (cristata, Kuifkop, Hauben),
it's small (zwerg), and
it's a bird (vogel).
I'm not sure where the "King" comes in, very good at fishing?
With great edits from Citizendium we can import it back to Wikipedia. Maybe the CZ system is better for certain types of articles, and WP will then always import it from CZ.
When Aristotle pointed out that the Earth wasn't flat, it pissed off a lot of people. When Darwin published The origin of species, it pissed off a lot of people. When climate scientists pointed out the dangers of anthropogenic climate change, it pissed off a lot of people. When they found that Pluto, like Ceres, was within a belt of similarly sized objects, it pissed off a lot of people.
I suspect the reason these people were pissed off is because they can't fathom that new observations means that what they were taught before was wrong, and that the new information gives a better approximation of reality.
remember that about 50% of people in Africa have AIDS
Incorrect, the 2005 HIV estimate for Sub-Saharan Africa is 6.2%. The highest HIV rate in Africa is in Swaziland, with a 2005 estimate of 33.4% (high estimate of 45.3%).
North Africa and the middle east:
Adult (15-49) rate 2003: 0.2% ±0.1
Adult (15-49) rate 2005: 0.2% -0.1 +0.2
The eminently better definitions: "any object in orbit round the
Sun whose shape is stable due to its own gravity" and/or "any object
in orbit round the Sun that is dominant in its immediate neighborbood"
received only 8 and 6 votes (approval voting) respectively. What I was
trying to say in my post is that this desicion seems to be based on
making school kids in the USA happy and crap about identifying with a
misfit planet, instead of, logical thinking (I think, option 3).
The "more information" I was talking about was about Ceres being a
planet, but loosing that status under option 3; being applied to
Pluto, the other KBOs being that more info. What is or isn't a planet
isn't as important as the fact that "tradition" is an idiotic reason
for defining what a planet is. I think tradition is fine for defining
what gods or souls are tho - for people who haven't figured out how
good the scientific method is.
As for "evolution, anthropogenic climate change", I was being
sarcastic and that in the same way that
flat-earthers/IDers/ACC-deniers think "theory" is just any old idea; "planet" for them could be
something that includes Pluto, but ignores new KBOs or Oort cloud
objects that are several times bigger, on the ecliptic, and in it's
own empty orbit. Because, well, Pluto has always been a planet, and
they don't wanna learn about no new planets.
When Pluto was discovered it was considered a planet. After several other Kuiper belt objects were discovered, making Pluto just one object in a belt of similar object, we get:
"I think we have done something that will make the Plutocrats and the children of the United States happy." - Gingerich
"People love Pluto, children identify with its smallness. Adults relate to its inadequacy, its marginal existence as a misfit." - Dava Sobel
How about we let historians keep making the children from the USA happy, let writers continue relating to Pluto's inadequacy; and let scientists call Pluto just another KBO until they have more information? Kinda like how a lay person would call an untestable idea "just a theory", while scientists keep faffing around with their theories of evolution, anthropogenic climate change, etc.?
Dude: A new laptop built by my company is switched on and the battery overheats. The system fan fails. The laptop explodes and burns with the hard disk trapped inside. Now, should we initiate a recall? Take the number of laptops in the field, A, multiply by the probable rate of explosions, B, multiply by the average out-of-court settlement, C. A times B times C equals X. If X is less than the cost of a recall, we don't do one.
Lady switching off her laptop: Are there a lot of these kinds of explosions?
Dude: You wouldn't believe.
Shocked lady: Which computer company do you work for?
Dude: A major one.
the global reach and authoritative bearing of an Internet encyclopedia - TFA
You step into Wikipedia, you understand what's up.
You know it's not a peer-reviewed encyclopedia. It's a WIKIpedia.
You know anyone, including you, can edit it. - mindstrm
Folk on Slashdot may know that anyone can edit it, but I doubt most people do (very few even who email the OTRS seem to realize this).
Most people probably find Wikipedia articles thru search engines, and go straight to the article, which says "From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia" under the article title. People think it's an encyclopedia that doesn't charge you anything to read it.
One tiny way we can educate people as to Wikipedia's nature is to change the tagline to something like "From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit".
The fact that this is happening or the fact that this does not surprise me anymore. Every election year I tell myself I'll vote with my conscious and vote Libertarian. Screw that, I just want these f***ers OUT now.
- Lobo (10944)
I can understand how people who agree with the Democratic/Republican platforms can vote for them - I fundamentally disagree with their platforms, but I know lots of folk think it's a-okay.
I can understand people who who've never even compared the platforms of the other parties voting Democrat/Republican:
"On its world, the people are people. The leaders are lizards. The people hate the lizards and the lizards rule the people."
"Odd," said Arthur, "I thought you said it was a democracy."
"I did," said ford. "It is."
"So," said Arthur, hoping he wasn't sounding ridiculously obtuse, "why don't the people get rid of the lizards?"
"It honestly doesn't occur to them," said Ford. "They've all got the vote, so they all pretty much assume that the government they've voted in more or less approximates to the government they want."
"You mean they actually vote for the lizards?"
"Oh yes," said Ford with a shrug, "of course."
"But," said Arthur, going for the big one again, "why?"
"Because if they didn't vote for a lizard," said Ford, "the wrong lizard might get in."
- So long, and thanks for all the fish - Douglas Adams
What I don't understand is how people can choose the lesser evil to try to just slow the downward spiral. It's still a downward spiral even if it's a bit slower - the result is the same. Sure, if you're old you might not have to deal with the end result, but even then, do you really not care about the people coming after you?
Don't you want to do the right thing? Even if the party you vote for looses, doing the right thing is surely better than actually voting for the Democrats/Republicans?:
It's better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don't want and get it.
- Eugene Victor Debs
>> Given that this seems to be a common misconception,
>> shouldn't they change the name of the publication?
>
> Their founder requested that Christian Science remain in the paper's name.
How about "Christian Science: the flesh can be healed by prayer. Here's the news"? Too long?
Any Slashdot readers willing to run for public office on the newly made-up 'Open Source Party' ticket?
"The Green Party in the European Parliament has invited Hartmut Pilch, head of the Foundation for Free Information Infrastructure, and Richard Stallman from the Free Software Foundation to speak at a hearing at the European Parliament entitled: "Is software patentability necessary?" The Greens hold only around 10 percent of the seats in the Parliament, but they can still influence the debate and propose amendments to the draft law." - Green Party to hear open source line on patents
"The Green Party [of the USA] opposes patenting or copyrighting lifeforms, algorithms, DNA, colors or commonly-used words and phrases. We support broad interpretation and ultimate expansion of the Fair Use of copyrighted works. We support open source and copyleft models in order to promote the public interest and the spirit of copyright." - http://www.gp.org/platform/2004/economics.html
> It wages a war that much of it's populace is against
> -- LordLucless (582312)
I'm not so sure. In 2004 about 56% of eligible voters voted for pro-war candidates, about 44% didn't even vote, and less than half a percent voted for candidates against the war.
If those who couldn't be bothered to even show up to vote, were against the war, they still have innocent blood on their hands. Those who were against the war but still voted for pro-war candidates because of some other reason - ditto.
>>> About 40 percent of the decline came from the U.S. -- andyring
>>
>> Come on, it's in the first sentence of the article. 40 percent of
>> the 23 billion dollars in total sales was in the US, not 40 percent
>> of the decline. -- Joe5678
>
> The sentence is not wrong. -- B3ryllium
The summary is wrong. You're going to the special hell for not RTFA:
"Hollywood movie ticket sales around the world dropped by 7.9 percent last year [...] Movie ticket receipts in North America dipped by six percent in 2005"
I think Carl Sagan's "The dragon in my garage" from his book The demon-haunted world: science as a candle in the dark shows the fundamental difference and incompatibility between what religious people think is real, vs that of skeptical people who value the scientific method:
"A fire-breathing dragon lives in my garage."
Suppose [...] I seriously make such an assertion to you. Surely you'd want to check it out, see for yourself. There have been innumerable stories of dragons over the centuries, but no real evidence. What an opportunity!
"Show me." you say. I lead you to my garage. You look inside and see a ladder, empty paint cans, an old tricycle — but no dragon.
"Where's the dragon?" you ask.
"Oh, she's right here." I reply, waving vaguely. "I neglected to mention that she's an invisible dragon."
You propose spreading flour on the floor of the garage to capture the dragon's footprints.
"Good idea," I say, "but this dragon floats in the air."
Then you'll use an infrared sensor to detect the invisible fire.
"Good idea, but the invisible fire is also heatless."
You'll spray-paint the dragon and make her visible.
"Good idea, but she's an incorporeal dragon and the paint won't stick."
And so on. I counter every physical test you propose with a special explanation of why it won't work.
Now, what's the difference between an invisible, incorporeal, floating dragon who spits heatless fire and no dragon at all? If there's no way to disprove my contention, no conceivable experiment that would count against it, what does it mean to say that my dragon exists? Your inability to invalidate my hypothesis is not at all the same thing as proving it true. Claims that cannot be tested, assertions immune to disproof are veridically worthless, whatever value they may have in inspiring us or in exciting our sense of wonder.
If you think that free markets work, you haven't had much experience with reality. People who think free markets solve everything honestly don't understand the ramifications of the non-exclusive nature of public and common goods nor do they understand the net negative effects of the extreme poverty of others on oneself. -- Valdrax
It works better than a room full of stuffy old coots deciding how the economy should work by making decisions on what to do with the fruits of my productivity. -- exi1ed0ne
So does that mean you think the shareholders and boards of directors of companies should stay out of economic decisions, and the laws that govern them? That how the economy should work should be up for a vote, where one poor person who does the actual work's vote is equal to the billionaire inheritor's vote?
"I think Wikipedia is extremely elitist. [...] But it's an elitism of productive work, it's an elitism of results. [...] We don't vet people on their credentials [before they can contribute], so maybe we're anti-credentialist." Instead, contributors earn reputations within Wikipedia based on the quality of their work, he says. "There's a real passion for getting it right."
While Wikipedia obviously welcomes academics, and it sometimes takes an academic with lots of background knowledge to write a good article, the important thing is verifiability, not degrees.
> Killing Wash in a way that many felt was pointless
It set up that any of the main characters might die, which upped the suspense. So when Kayle gets shot by the Reavers in the neck, you don't know if she's gonna make it. Same with Simon getting a gut shot and River taken by the reavers.
I don't like the movie nearly as much as episodes like Out of gas, War stories, Our Mrs Reynold... not because Wash was killed, but
because it was too James Bond/Pinky and the Brain/Bruce Willisey with people doing impossible things, instead of being the people history stepped on like in the series.
Slashdot Mirror
Wikipedia gives me 5 names in 4 languages for the Malachite Kingfisher:
English: Malachite Kingfisher
Latin: Alcedo cristata
Afrikaans: Kuifkopvisvanger
German: Hauben-Zwergfischer, Malachit-Eisvogel
From this I can tell
- it has green (Malachite, Malachit),
- it catches fish (fisher, visvanger, fischer),
- it has a noteworthy tuft on its head (cristata, Kuifkop, Hauben),
- it's small (zwerg), and
- it's a bird (vogel).
I'm not sure where the "King" comes in, very good at fishing?With great edits from Citizendium we can import it back to Wikipedia. Maybe the CZ system is better for certain types of articles, and WP will then always import it from CZ.
See the daily Amazon.com ranking since 2003-07-22 at fff. The market for new straight to DVD episodes would be huge.
When Aristotle pointed out that the Earth wasn't flat, it pissed off a lot of people. When Darwin published The origin of species, it pissed off a lot of people. When climate scientists pointed out the dangers of anthropogenic climate change, it pissed off a lot of people. When they found that Pluto, like Ceres, was within a belt of similarly sized objects, it pissed off a lot of people.
I suspect the reason these people were pissed off is because they can't fathom that new observations means that what they were taught before was wrong, and that the new information gives a better approximation of reality.
Incorrect, the 2005 HIV estimate for Sub-Saharan Africa is 6.2%. The highest HIV rate in Africa is in Swaziland, with a 2005 estimate of 33.4% (high estimate of 45.3%).
North Africa and the middle east:
Adult (15-49) rate 2003: 0.2% ±0.1
Adult (15-49) rate 2005: 0.2% -0.1 +0.2
Sub-Saharan Africa:
Adult (15-49) rate 2003: 6.2% -0.7 +0.8
Adult (15-49) rate 2005: 6.1% ±0.7
The worst African country is Swaziland: Adult (15-49) rate 2003: 32.4% ±11.7
Adult (15-49) rate 2005: 33.4% -12.2 +11.9
Global:
Adult (15-49) rate 2003: 1.0% ±0.2
Adult (15-49) rate 2005: 1.0% -0.1 +0.2
Source: 2006 report on the global aids epidemic, Annex 2: HIV and AIDS estimates and data, 2005 and 2003 , UNAIDS, 2006-05. Accessed on 2006-08-21.
Scarily, in 2005-10 "A narrow majority of 11 [of the IAU's working group] members favoured deeming anything larger than 2000 kilometres a planet.". Pretty arbitry, tho 2003 UB313 would be allowed to join Pluto.
The eminently better definitions: "any object in orbit round the Sun whose shape is stable due to its own gravity" and/or "any object in orbit round the Sun that is dominant in its immediate neighborbood" received only 8 and 6 votes (approval voting) respectively. What I was trying to say in my post is that this desicion seems to be based on making school kids in the USA happy and crap about identifying with a misfit planet, instead of, logical thinking (I think, option 3).
The "more information" I was talking about was about Ceres being a planet, but loosing that status under option 3; being applied to Pluto, the other KBOs being that more info. What is or isn't a planet isn't as important as the fact that "tradition" is an idiotic reason for defining what a planet is. I think tradition is fine for defining what gods or souls are tho - for people who haven't figured out how good the scientific method is.
As for "evolution, anthropogenic climate change", I was being sarcastic and that in the same way that flat-earthers/IDers/ACC-deniers think "theory" is just any old idea; "planet" for them could be something that includes Pluto, but ignores new KBOs or Oort cloud objects that are several times bigger, on the ecliptic, and in it's own empty orbit. Because, well, Pluto has always been a planet, and they don't wanna learn about no new planets.
When Pluto was discovered it was considered a planet. After several other Kuiper belt objects were discovered, making Pluto just one object in a belt of similar object, we get:
"I think we have done something that will make the Plutocrats and the children of the United States happy." - Gingerich
"People love Pluto, children identify with its smallness. Adults relate to its inadequacy, its marginal existence as a misfit." - Dava Sobel
How about we let historians keep making the children from the USA happy, let writers continue relating to Pluto's inadequacy; and let scientists call Pluto just another KBO until they have more information? Kinda like how a lay person would call an untestable idea "just a theory", while scientists keep faffing around with their theories of evolution, anthropogenic climate change, etc.?
Are there Jedi (70k last time) and Pastafarian tick boxes?
Dude: A new laptop built by my company is switched on and the battery overheats. The system fan fails. The laptop explodes and burns with the hard disk trapped inside. Now, should we initiate a recall? Take the number of laptops in the field, A, multiply by the probable rate of explosions, B, multiply by the average out-of-court settlement, C. A times B times C equals X. If X is less than the cost of a recall, we don't do one.
Lady switching off her laptop: Are there a lot of these kinds of explosions?
Dude: You wouldn't believe.
Shocked lady: Which computer company do you work for?
Dude: A major one.
Folk on Slashdot may know that anyone can edit it, but I doubt most people do (very few even who email the OTRS seem to realize this).
Most people probably find Wikipedia articles thru search engines, and go straight to the article, which says "From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia" under the article title. People think it's an encyclopedia that doesn't charge you anything to read it.
One tiny way we can educate people as to Wikipedia's nature is to change the tagline to something like "From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit".
I can understand how people who agree with the Democratic/Republican platforms can vote for them - I fundamentally disagree with their platforms, but I know lots of folk think it's a-okay.
I can understand people who who've never even compared the platforms of the other parties voting Democrat/Republican:
What I don't understand is how people can choose the lesser evil to try to just slow the downward spiral. It's still a downward spiral even if it's a bit slower - the result is the same. Sure, if you're old you might not have to deal with the end result, but even then, do you really not care about the people coming after you?
Don't you want to do the right thing? Even if the party you vote for looses, doing the right thing is surely better than actually voting for the Democrats/Republicans?:
Scientists have discovered that experimentation causes cancer in rats.
>> shouldn't they change the name of the publication?
>
> Their founder requested that Christian Science remain in the paper's name.
How about "Christian Science: the flesh can be healed by prayer. Here's the news"? Too long?
[Christian Science]
On RMS' page he links to a petition in favor of network neutrality.
I'm getting 504s on TFA and Google News' link to the ZDNet article covering it. Is it very different from what Reuters is repoting on what Zimbabwe's doing?
"The Green Party in the European Parliament has invited Hartmut Pilch, head of the Foundation for Free Information Infrastructure, and Richard Stallman from the Free Software Foundation to speak at a hearing at the European Parliament entitled: "Is software patentability necessary?" The Greens hold only around 10 percent of the seats in the Parliament, but they can still influence the debate and propose amendments to the draft law." - Green Party to hear open source line on patents
"The Green Party [of the USA] opposes patenting or copyrighting lifeforms, algorithms, DNA, colors or commonly-used words and phrases. We support broad interpretation and ultimate expansion of the Fair Use of copyrighted works. We support open source and copyleft models in order to promote the public interest and the spirit of copyright." - http://www.gp.org/platform/2004/economics.html
The Greens' core principles may be incompatible with most voting slashdotters tho.
As for Pluto, please see 4 Vesta's history.
> -- LordLucless (582312)
I'm not so sure. In 2004 about 56% of eligible voters voted for pro-war candidates, about 44% didn't even vote, and less than half a percent voted for candidates against the war.
If those who couldn't be bothered to even show up to vote, were against the war, they still have innocent blood on their hands. Those who were against the war but still voted for pro-war candidates because of some other reason - ditto.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._presidential_e lection%2C_2004 h p?year=2004 a rchives/facts_for_features_special_editions/002957 .html
http://uselectionatlas.org/USPRESIDENT/national.p
http://www.census.gov/Press-Release/www/releases/
>>
>> Come on, it's in the first sentence of the article. 40 percent of
>> the 23 billion dollars in total sales was in the US, not 40 percent
>> of the decline. -- Joe5678
>
> The sentence is not wrong. -- B3ryllium
The summary is wrong. You're going to the special hell for not RTFA:
"Hollywood movie ticket sales around the world dropped by 7.9 percent last year [...] Movie ticket receipts in North America dipped by six percent in 2005"
Wikipedia's strengths lie in the fact that it's editable by everyone.
> Killing Wash in a way that many felt was pointless
It set up that any of the main characters might die, which upped the suspense. So when Kayle gets shot by the Reavers in the neck, you don't know if she's gonna make it. Same with Simon getting a gut shot and River taken by the reavers.
I don't like the movie nearly as much as episodes like Out of gas, War stories, Our Mrs Reynold... not because Wash was killed, but because it was too James Bond/Pinky and the Brain/Bruce Willisey with people doing impossible things, instead of being the people history stepped on like in the series.
> fact DID have them last we knew. - AdderD (542165)
Ever heard about the largest coordinated worldwide protest in history?