That is why Nature posted the article on their website before it had been reviewed or published-- it truly is an amazing and potentially revolutionary discovery.
Probably so. But Pons and Fleischman also had an amazing and potentially revolutionary discovery...but because they went public before being reviewed, they caused great embarassment to the scientific community and cold fusion research in particular. In fact, by jumping the gun, they effectively killed cold fusion research in the US (maybe a good thing...). This situation is--I think--worse, because it is a respected publication (not the authors) jumping the gun to get the word out. Probably everything will be OK, but there is a slight chance that the researchers screwed up (perhaps subtly), and by being published without sufficient review, could cause lots of harm to superconductivity research.
Researcher: Please could I have some more money to develop and improve high-Tc metallic superconductors? Congressman: Hey, weren't we promised great results on that a year ago?! You guys are just trying to milk the taxpayers! No moolah for you!
sent to 2 referees: 31 January
Both referees report: 1 February
So did the referees spend any time reviewing the paper, or did they just read the title, glance at the figures and think "This seems interesting..." and accept it for pub?
Although Gould is known as a defender of Darwinism, his writings show he is clearly uncomfortable with the notion of evolution by natural selection alone. He has several times come up with "revolutionary" theories showing, e.g., that evolution occurs in sudden jumps, rather than slow, geologic-timescale variations. The neo-Darwinists have shown (see Dennett's book, Darwin's Dangerous Idea) that this is not really different from mainstream evolution.
Gould seems to want to show that evolution by natural selection is not really all there is to it (religion notwithstanding), and this article is more of his wishful thinking that there is more to humans than just the product of eons of evolution. His line of thinking seems to be: "We require "emergent" properties, so we humans are more special than all the other animals and plants that are 'simply' the product of evolution by natural selection."
Alternatively, Gould just wants to make a big splash and get some fame. He is a good writer after all, so maybe he is addicted to fame?
From the article: Those and other NEAR pictures should keep astronomers busy for awhile. Some suggest unknown forces breaking up boulders, moving debris into flat crater pool and creating unidentifiable depressions the size of hand and footprints.
Gee, maybe people were there millions of years ago! You know...our ancestors!
Why are Nubus powerMacs (i.e., PM6100, 7100 and 8100) not supported by LinuxPPC?
I know that MkLinux supports them...but if MkLinux can, then theoretically so could LinuxPPC. Is the problem a technical problem or a resource problem (no one wants to do it...) or something else?
"In Germany, the Nazis came for the Communists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist. Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn't speak up because I was a Protestant. Then they came for me, and by that time there was no one left to speak for me."
attributed to Martin Niemoller
The music industry blindly believes that as long as you can't make a perfect digital copy, their investment of millions into a protection scheme is a good one.
The music industry is wrong..Nobody seems to mind all the fairly crappy (compared to 'perfect digital copies') MP3 rips on Napster. Nobody will mind a protected song going to over high quality analog and being redigitized back into an unsecured format (Ogg or MP3).
Hey, this is a good point. So why doesn't it apply also to DVDs? --> Copy a DVD to VHS or BETA or Hi8, etc., and then re-encode it and burn new DVDs? The DVDs you burn need not be encrypted (DVDs need not be encrypted to play on a DVD player, but a licensed DVD player is required to play encrypted DVDs).
MS may be portrayed as the evil empire, but they have nothing on Sony or Nintendo.
WHAT?! People can actually use Word/Excel/Access/etc. to get productive work done. In fact, the licensing of MS programs can affect some peoples productivity.
Sony may be an evil empire, but NOT because of any game licensing issues. Please pay attention to your last sentence: Reality check, guys.
I see some strange tradeoffs being made in the PC/Windows area that don't make sense to me: write crappy, inefficient software and throw hardware at the resulting mess in order to get it to run.
I think it is fairly clear why this happens. To whit: hardware design and evolution is fairly straightforward engineering. It costs money, yes, but the path to higher performance is mostly clear.
Software engineering, done right, requires an enormous investment of time and people. And by the time a particular piece of software is "well-made", a competitor has already made version 2 of their software that does the same thing. Of course, their version 1 was crappy and required high-end hardware to run, but so what? People were able to use it to get work done, and even though they spent more on hardware, they saved money by having a tool available early.
The tradeoff of having buggy, bloated, incomplete software early--but that is still a useable tool, versus having perfect software sometime later, is a tradeoff many would--and do--make. Microsoft clearly operates in this mode, and while they have some dirty business practices, they have made and continue to make useful software tools that help people to get work done.
With this question, I would like insight into the kind of benevolent dictator you are (if you do indeed follow the Linux method of development) in terms of personality and "managing" your developers (like a project manager). I would also like to know how much direction you give to the project at this point (actively deciding to pursue new features for NEdit, rather than just building on ideas that others bring up).
Exactly. Full impartiality means no (zip, zero, zilch, past, present or future) relationship with any of the parties.
What a ridiculous concept. What if his brother had a relationship with any of the parties? What if a friend of his had a relationship with any of the parties? How about a friend of a friend?
Rockwell (best known for building the space shuttle) also is developing high end CMOS imaging sensors. For some interesting technical details, check out Rockwell Science Center
I think this is actually a good thing. The problem that KMart is addressing is that young children had easy access to buy these games. Excuse me for espousing an unpopular view, but young children should not have access to them--without parental consent!
Anyway, as you said, Any determined 16-yr-old is going to be able to get his hands on DOOM 2000, regardless of its content rating or controlled distribution at a couple of major retail outlets. So KMart is not really restricting a minor from getting something (s)he really wants.
I don't see this suit discouraging many companies from this business model. Licensing patents is a bit like playing the stock market--it is risky and you could lose your shirt, but there are big potential payoffs.
Unlike individual investing in the stock market, though, a company with no real costs (just lawyers to track the licenses) does not have much to lose.
Forgive me--I was only thinking of tools used by commercial developers. Yes, gcc is popular among university students--but real-world developers tend to get hired to real with more complex issues. When you're building distributed apps that scale to thousands of users and beyond you need more than just a compiler. How would you write a component (such as a COM or CORBA component) with gcc? And how would you manage a pool of those components? And how would you distribute those components across a variety of servers, or even across multiple domains?
Seems reasonable. But how does splitting Microsoft prevent them from providing these tools?
3) GPL is NOT upheld. Then what? Does RMS have a contingency plan? Does all released GPL'd code revert to the public domain? To the BSD license? Does the FSF write a new GPL (GNGPL "GPL2 is Not GPL")?
I don't know why this is such a hard concept to understand. Copyright law still holds. The GPL gives you more freedom than copyright law does (BSD gives you more still, but that is a separate issue). If you do not agree to the license (GPL or BSD) or if the license is invalidated, copyright law still holds.
What does this mean? It means you aren't allowed to make copies, sell, modify and distribute the source code without permission from the author. End of story.
If an institution of higher learning is beholden to _any_ interest, corporate or otherwise, they can longer freely pursue their academic interests in _all_ avenues, if [sic] a free, unfettered way.
It has always been thus. Exactly how can you avoid being beholden? If the government gives you money, you have to follow their rules. If you want a rich alumnus to give you money (e.g., Phil Knight), you have to be doing things that, at a minimum, do not displease that alumnus. If you want money from rich corporations, you have to provide some quid pro quo.
No, there is no evidence. In fact, high energy theorists are much closer to philosophers than physicists (even though they are regarded as "mainstream" physicists!). Mathematically competent philosophers, but philosophers nonetheless.
Slashdot Mirror
Probably so. But Pons and Fleischman also had an amazing and potentially revolutionary discovery...but because they went public before being reviewed, they caused great embarassment to the scientific community and cold fusion research in particular. In fact, by jumping the gun, they effectively killed cold fusion research in the US (maybe a good thing...). This situation is--I think--worse, because it is a respected publication (not the authors) jumping the gun to get the word out. Probably everything will be OK, but there is a slight chance that the researchers screwed up (perhaps subtly), and by being published without sufficient review, could cause lots of harm to superconductivity research.
Researcher: Please could I have some more money to develop and improve high-Tc metallic superconductors?
Congressman: Hey, weren't we promised great results on that a year ago?! You guys are just trying to milk the taxpayers! No moolah for you!
Both referees report: 1 February
So did the referees spend any time reviewing the paper, or did they just read the title, glance at the figures and think "This seems interesting..." and accept it for pub?
So is the Mona Lisa art or not? If you can't define it, it becomes really difficult to talk about!
Good description of mathematics I think (especially higher math, with applications only in string physics
Gould seems to want to show that evolution by natural selection is not really all there is to it (religion notwithstanding), and this article is more of his wishful thinking that there is more to humans than just the product of eons of evolution. His line of thinking seems to be: "We require "emergent" properties, so we humans are more special than all the other animals and plants that are 'simply' the product of evolution by natural selection."
Alternatively, Gould just wants to make a big splash and get some fame. He is a good writer after all, so maybe he is addicted to fame?
A movie is not legally required to have a rating. But (most) movie theaters won't show it unless it has one. Sort of a catch-22...
Gee, maybe people were there millions of years ago! You know...our ancestors!
Ah, the media flexing its power of persuasion....
Wait! This is an interesting comment. Please explain!
I know that MkLinux supports them...but if MkLinux can, then theoretically so could LinuxPPC. Is the problem a technical problem or a resource problem (no one wants to do it...) or something else?
Quick, buy some games to prop up Loki!
"In Germany, the Nazis came for the Communists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist. Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn't speak up because I was a Protestant. Then they came for me, and by that time there was no one left to speak for me."
attributed to Martin Niemoller
The music industry is wrong..Nobody seems to mind all the fairly crappy (compared to 'perfect digital copies') MP3 rips on Napster. Nobody will mind a protected song going to over high quality analog and being redigitized back into an unsecured format (Ogg or MP3).
Hey, this is a good point. So why doesn't it apply also to DVDs? --> Copy a DVD to VHS or BETA or Hi8, etc., and then re-encode it and burn new DVDs? The DVDs you burn need not be encrypted (DVDs need not be encrypted to play on a DVD player, but a licensed DVD player is required to play encrypted DVDs).
Some reason this couldn't work?
WHAT?! People can actually use Word/Excel/Access/etc. to get productive work done. In fact, the licensing of MS programs can affect some peoples productivity.
Sony may be an evil empire, but NOT because of any game licensing issues. Please pay attention to your last sentence: Reality check, guys.
I think it is fairly clear why this happens. To whit: hardware design and evolution is fairly straightforward engineering. It costs money, yes, but the path to higher performance is mostly clear.
Software engineering, done right, requires an enormous investment of time and people. And by the time a particular piece of software is "well-made", a competitor has already made version 2 of their software that does the same thing. Of course, their version 1 was crappy and required high-end hardware to run, but so what? People were able to use it to get work done, and even though they spent more on hardware, they saved money by having a tool available early.
The tradeoff of having buggy, bloated, incomplete software early--but that is still a useable tool, versus having perfect software sometime later, is a tradeoff many would--and do--make. Microsoft clearly operates in this mode, and while they have some dirty business practices, they have made and continue to make useful software tools that help people to get work done.
With this question, I would like insight into the kind of benevolent dictator you are (if you do indeed follow the Linux method of development) in terms of personality and "managing" your developers (like a project manager). I would also like to know how much direction you give to the project at this point (actively deciding to pursue new features for NEdit, rather than just building on ideas that others bring up).
What a ridiculous concept. What if his brother had a relationship with any of the parties? What if a friend of his had a relationship with any of the parties? How about a friend of a friend?
There is no such thing as full impartiality.
Rockwell (best known for building the space shuttle) also is developing high end CMOS imaging sensors. For some interesting technical details, check out
Rockwell Science Center
I think this is actually a good thing. The problem that KMart is addressing is that young children had easy access to buy these games. Excuse me for espousing an unpopular view, but young children should not have access to them--without parental consent!
Anyway, as you said, Any determined 16-yr-old is going to be able to get his hands on DOOM 2000, regardless of its content rating or controlled distribution at a couple of major retail outlets. So KMart is not really restricting a minor from getting something (s)he really wants.
I don't see this suit discouraging many companies from this business model. Licensing patents is a bit like playing the stock market--it is risky and you could lose your shirt, but there are big potential payoffs.
Unlike individual investing in the stock market, though, a company with no real costs (just lawyers to track the licenses) does not have much to lose.
This just goes to show the need for new TLDs. Enough of them to please everyone, even if it dilutes the ease of searching the namespace.
Forgive me--I was only thinking of tools used by commercial developers. Yes, gcc is popular among university students--but real-world developers tend to get hired to real with more complex issues. When you're building distributed apps that scale to thousands of users and beyond you need more than just a compiler. How would you write a component (such as a COM or CORBA component) with gcc? And how would you manage a pool of those components? And how would you distribute those components across a variety of servers, or even across multiple domains?
Seems reasonable. But how does splitting Microsoft prevent them from providing these tools?
3) GPL is NOT upheld. Then what? Does RMS have a contingency plan? Does all released GPL'd code revert to the public domain? To the BSD license? Does the FSF write a new GPL (GNGPL "GPL2 is Not GPL")?
I don't know why this is such a hard concept to understand. Copyright law still holds. The GPL gives you more freedom than copyright law does (BSD gives you more still, but that is a separate issue). If you do not agree to the license (GPL or BSD) or if the license is invalidated, copyright law still holds.
What does this mean? It means you aren't allowed to make copies, sell, modify and distribute the source code without permission from the author. End of story.
If an institution of higher learning is beholden to _any_ interest, corporate or otherwise, they can longer freely pursue their academic interests in _all_ avenues, if [sic] a free, unfettered way.
It has always been thus. Exactly how can you avoid being beholden? If the government gives you money, you have to follow their rules. If you want a rich alumnus to give you money (e.g., Phil Knight), you have to be doing things that, at a minimum, do not displease that alumnus. If you want money from rich corporations, you have to provide some quid pro quo.
No, there is no evidence. In fact, high energy theorists are much closer to philosophers than physicists (even though they are regarded as "mainstream" physicists!). Mathematically competent philosophers, but philosophers nonetheless.
This is good...just let all these companies sue each other until there is no one left.
Patents really do work!