I live down the street from Smith now, it has a quite adequate reference collection. I should point out that a great many full text journal databases aren't aggregatable due to license constraints & the best one can manage is some sort of metasearch with all the downfalls of that (least common denominator query syntax, search speed the speed of the slowest of the included search interfaces, no common record structure, etc., etc.), so as I said above, full of shit as he may be, he has a point about those quirky proprietary databases.
The libraries I use most regularly are the ones at Smith College & the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, the shortages of computers you describe simply don't exist, at least with respect to computers for research purposes. I suspect the improvement over the past five years has been quite dramatic actually, partly it's that more students have laptops, partly it's that libraries have bought a great many more computers as the importance of the Internet and electronic resources generally have increased. I don't know about the smaller UT schools, but the library at UT Austin is not at all like you describe at present. I'm not really sure when the shift happened as I had convenient online access to nice reference materials from the mid 90s till a couple of years ago, but it sure seems to have happened now. The last time I used a library like you describe was at Harvard in 1990 and they were busily getting everything into an online catalog then.
More than that though, I think you're lashing out at libraries for being the problem they're a partial solution to. That the vast majority of resources are print is a fact about the world, not about libraries, libraries do quite a lot to ameliorate that problem by collecting large quantities of those materials in one place, organizing them, cataloging them, providing helpful staff who will help you find them. Obviously it would be desirable to have electronic full texts of everything, we're not going to for a long time, maybe ever, for a variety of reasons, all basically political in nature, none of which have much to do with libraries.
Sure, here's why it's ignorant:
The resource limitations you describe are not at all typical of contemporary research libraries, I've been in lots of them, sometimes even doing research. The situation you describe with regard to catalogs & computer availability sounds like a typical research library about 15 years ago.
Which library are you talking about anyway?
Despite the comment you're replying to being largely an ignorant rant, bzipitidoo does have a point about those quirky proprietary search interfaces, they're an effect of the same problem this bill is trying to address.
Real librarians are indeed essential and wonderful and it would be great to see what they could do with full access to full electronic texts of all scientific publications not artificially segmented and wrapped in layers of proprietary garbage.
I was actually responding to the main thrust of your argument, which seemed to be that government not being obligated to present public information in an easily accessible form somehow implied that private citizens shouldn't be allowed to do so once they get their hands on it. As to the documents in question, honestly, I have no idea of their status and it seems that the city is very interested in my staying confused on this subject. That makes me strongly suspect either that these stubs being made publicly available was an ill-conceived effort to comply with a public records law and they're now scurrying to present an appearance of due diligence after a breach of confidentiality which was entirely down to their own incompetence so they'll have something to point to during the inevitable lawsuits against them by their employees or the higher ups are embarrassed to have had their inflated salaries and benefits packages exposed and are trying to hush it up/get revenge. But that's just me.
If it's public information & I'm a member of the public, that means once I get it I can do whatever I please with it. The government certainly isn't necessarily obligated to provide easy access to it, but I'm not sure why I shouldn't be allowed to do so. Now whether these stubs are in fact public information could, possibly, be a valid question. Bit suspicious of governments retroactively declaring information non-public after they've published it, myself.
Neat article, but I think that my assertions were a good deal more tentative than the version of Kuhn presented in it. Also ESR restricts his attention to counter-examples from 20th Century physics and biology, acknowledging that Kuhn appears to be on to something with regard to the "soft sciences." Now I don't know what counts as a "soft science" for him, but it seems to me that the AI field, for example, would probably benefit from some culling.
You know, this sort of life extension might actually significantly retard scientific progress. The dying off of the 'old guard' is often a precondition for the widespread propagation of genuinely new ideas.
In what sense is open source software 'complicated?' The beauty of an open source operating system in an educational context is that the workings of the entire environment are open to inspection and while 10 year olds are unlikely to delve too deeply into the workings of a kernel it's really easy to envision them poking around in shell scripts. Further, despite all the bitching about the quality of open source documentation, man pages are of infinitely greater educational value than anything to be found in the microsoft help system.
look here monkey...
I did a good deal of simple programming while in elementary school (at home not at school) and that was in the late 70s. Consider that the only formal training in logic most kids (and that means in the long term most people) get is in high school geometry class. Consider the value of simulations to schools that can't afford lab equipment. etc, etc. You lack all vision.
Bruno Latour has written a very detailed, book length treatment of a similar (point to point light rail) project called Aramis (also the name of the book) which was under development in France for quite a long time only to die ignominiously with its resulting technologies scattered into more conventional rail systems. Despite the book's irritating (to me, anyway) seminovelistic style, its attention to detail and thought-provoking treatment of the relations between social and technological factors in the project make it a very worthwhile read, if you care about that sort of thing.
peretzpup
Slashdot Mirror
I live down the street from Smith now, it has a quite adequate reference collection. I should point out that a great many full text journal databases aren't aggregatable due to license constraints & the best one can manage is some sort of metasearch with all the downfalls of that (least common denominator query syntax, search speed the speed of the slowest of the included search interfaces, no common record structure, etc., etc.), so as I said above, full of shit as he may be, he has a point about those quirky proprietary databases.
The libraries I use most regularly are the ones at Smith College & the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, the shortages of computers you describe simply don't exist, at least with respect to computers for research purposes. I suspect the improvement over the past five years has been quite dramatic actually, partly it's that more students have laptops, partly it's that libraries have bought a great many more computers as the importance of the Internet and electronic resources generally have increased. I don't know about the smaller UT schools, but the library at UT Austin is not at all like you describe at present. I'm not really sure when the shift happened as I had convenient online access to nice reference materials from the mid 90s till a couple of years ago, but it sure seems to have happened now. The last time I used a library like you describe was at Harvard in 1990 and they were busily getting everything into an online catalog then.
More than that though, I think you're lashing out at libraries for being the problem they're a partial solution to. That the vast majority of resources are print is a fact about the world, not about libraries, libraries do quite a lot to ameliorate that problem by collecting large quantities of those materials in one place, organizing them, cataloging them, providing helpful staff who will help you find them. Obviously it would be desirable to have electronic full texts of everything, we're not going to for a long time, maybe ever, for a variety of reasons, all basically political in nature, none of which have much to do with libraries.
Sure, here's why it's ignorant: The resource limitations you describe are not at all typical of contemporary research libraries, I've been in lots of them, sometimes even doing research. The situation you describe with regard to catalogs & computer availability sounds like a typical research library about 15 years ago. Which library are you talking about anyway?
Despite the comment you're replying to being largely an ignorant rant, bzipitidoo does have a point about those quirky proprietary search interfaces, they're an effect of the same problem this bill is trying to address. Real librarians are indeed essential and wonderful and it would be great to see what they could do with full access to full electronic texts of all scientific publications not artificially segmented and wrapped in layers of proprietary garbage.
I was actually responding to the main thrust of your argument, which seemed to be that government not being obligated to present public information in an easily accessible form somehow implied that private citizens shouldn't be allowed to do so once they get their hands on it. As to the documents in question, honestly, I have no idea of their status and it seems that the city is very interested in my staying confused on this subject. That makes me strongly suspect either that these stubs being made publicly available was an ill-conceived effort to comply with a public records law and they're now scurrying to present an appearance of due diligence after a breach of confidentiality which was entirely down to their own incompetence so they'll have something to point to during the inevitable lawsuits against them by their employees or the higher ups are embarrassed to have had their inflated salaries and benefits packages exposed and are trying to hush it up/get revenge. But that's just me.
If it's public information & I'm a member of the public, that means once I get it I can do whatever I please with it. The government certainly isn't necessarily obligated to provide easy access to it, but I'm not sure why I shouldn't be allowed to do so. Now whether these stubs are in fact public information could, possibly, be a valid question. Bit suspicious of governments retroactively declaring information non-public after they've published it, myself.
Apple has stopped distributing the X11 beta that runs on Jaguar and forbids others from distributing it. See their X11 faq.
broadcasts of leave it to beaver are just reaching pluto
So somebody was broadcasting Leave it to Beaver this morning then?
Wow! I bet if they had been smart like you suggest, they would be rivalling BeOS's market share today!
By "we" you presumably mean "you." Some of us actually care about future generations.
Neat article, but I think that my assertions were a good deal more tentative than the version of Kuhn presented in it. Also ESR restricts his attention to counter-examples from 20th Century physics and biology, acknowledging that Kuhn appears to be on to something with regard to the "soft sciences." Now I don't know what counts as a "soft science" for him, but it seems to me that the AI field, for example, would probably benefit from some culling.
You know, this sort of life extension might actually significantly retard scientific progress. The dying off of the 'old guard' is often a precondition for the widespread propagation of genuinely new ideas.
And guess what, if you tried to find it in a context menu, you would!
You know, if you'd actually ever used OS X, you might have noticed that when you start dragging a disk, the trash can becomes an eject symbol...
Wow, you're so right! Wasting valuable time considering cost cutting measures when there's a DEFICIT to be dealt with!
Uh, maybe somebody not from industry?
In what sense is open source software 'complicated?' The beauty of an open source operating system in an educational context is that the workings of the entire environment are open to inspection and while 10 year olds are unlikely to delve too deeply into the workings of a kernel it's really easy to envision them poking around in shell scripts. Further, despite all the bitching about the quality of open source documentation, man pages are of infinitely greater educational value than anything to be found in the microsoft help system.
look here monkey... I did a good deal of simple programming while in elementary school (at home not at school) and that was in the late 70s. Consider that the only formal training in logic most kids (and that means in the long term most people) get is in high school geometry class. Consider the value of simulations to schools that can't afford lab equipment. etc, etc. You lack all vision.
So, the TOS complaints cost you $$$? Thanks for the tip, I'll keep it up :)
What's informative about this exactly? It's no harder to log requests to a virtual host than a dedicated one.
Bruno Latour has written a very detailed, book length treatment of a similar (point to point light rail) project called Aramis (also the name of the book) which was under development in France for quite a long time only to die ignominiously with its resulting technologies scattered into more conventional rail systems. Despite the book's irritating (to me, anyway) seminovelistic style, its attention to detail and thought-provoking treatment of the relations between social and technological factors in the project make it a very worthwhile read, if you care about that sort of thing. peretzpup