Looked at the site. Unfortunately science is nowhere to be found. It looks like the standard political "debate" crap, focused mainly on vague pledges to handouts. Science is about specific solutions to specific questions/problems. Some of us who believe in it would like to see it applied in government. Otherwise it's just another special interest asking for a handout. Science is NOT a special interest, it's the sole means we have to elevate ourselves above the tired fear-mongering, chest-beating rhetoric we've been suffering under for the past 10,000 years. Initiatives like this only cement a sad reality where science lives as an industry, in a compartment where any discoveries it makes are sure never to change anything.
For an exercise, go to the official websites of all the candidates. Click on the "issues" links (easy to do since they apparently all use the same CMS). Now try to find any differences. Try long enough, and blood will start shootin' out your nose.
In 2012, let's insist these sections contain lists of papers (in economics, game theory, developmental psychology, nuclear engineering, materials science, etc.) the candidates endorse. Let's have the candidates name the PhDs working for their campaigns their too.
I think the most important thing would be to cultivate that indispensable part of leadership which exists outside of political formalism: discourse. I would use the position to speak to the American people. I'd reduce the dependence on speech writers, teleprompters, and statements incapable of offending anyone. I would declare war on sound bytes.
Another focus would be to make policy more scientific. I would surround myself, and fill the administration with, PhDs. Run the White House like Larry & Sergey run a business.
As far as issues go, my first would probably be to institute approval voting in as many elections as possible (and yes, this really is the best voting method). I would also fund pilot 'Logo' schools after Seymour Papert. And try to lift the drug prohibitions.
Microsoft was the first (and remains the only, according to Linus) company to profit from the sale of binaries. Before MS, software development was paid for by hardware sales (Apple and IBM still work this way). FOSS says it can be completely free. Google is saying it can be ad-supported. It's clear that Google's approach will be the next one to dominate. The immediacy of no-install coupled with no-pay is unstoppable, and Google is uniquely positioned to win at it. So there *is* a direct competition between Microsoft and Google, and it *is* the biggest thing in software today. Google doth even protest too much. Until 2007 MS had enough control over the browser to cause them serious pain. The failure of Vista in 2007 is symptomatic of all this, but clearly represents a turning point.
Google will need more control over hardware than Microsoft had. The PC was an office machine that could set its own rules. Computers today are part of people's lives, and to fit there they must be organic in function and form. The Open Handset Alliance is proof Google understands this. This change also made Apple's approach valid again.
Google loves FOSS because they know people will pay for it anyway. You can repair and even build a car yourself, but a very tiny (if colorful) fraction of people do. You can't pirate server-side software, and why would you want to?
Yeah, so I don't like the OLPC project because it implies that human problems are technological. I've heard that the OLPC was inspired by Papert's Logo work, and even comes with a version of Logo. Great. Send instructors trained in the 'Logo method', work with locals to build schools, and provide cheap computers with Logo installed, and you've won me over. Sending the computers alone is obnoxious.
It's also obnoxious because they initially weren't going to sell them here. They're only doing it now as a desperate measure, and they still force you to buy a donation. So what's not good enough for us is good enough for Africa? Boo.
It's obnoxious because it missed its $100 price by a factor of 2 -- they even had to change the name of the product.
But nothing takes the cake like *complaining* when the sales you thought were destiny don't materialize. Oh yeah, it's the competition's fault! Weak. Presumably Negroponte thinks the competition is evil because they're for-profit. That's like Microsoft complaining about Linux being free.
But there is something good about the OLPC: it's gotten much farther than any other Media Lab project to date. How to really help the Third World: take the millions blown at the Media Lab on barely-functioning undergrad art "installations" and put it towards some Logo schools. Or maybe even just -- gasp -- regular schools.
HP was the first to do this (also so they get EPEAT Gold). Not only is $1300 a bit much for an "accessory", the lead acid battery that's included just dwarfs the computer in terms of environmental impact. -Carl
It's got an interesting technique behind it, and is supposed to be better than bittorrent (though Bram strongly disagreed, without giving details, at a talk at Stanford a couple of years ago). Meanwhile, Bram hardly invented P2P -- he cut his chops at Mojonation, and gnutella existed two years before that. -Carl
Fluorescents don't actually have color temperature, since they aren't black body radiators. They have some assortment of peaks and there's a formula for getting an equivalent color temperature which they can be marketed under.
It's quite an assumption that in antiquity, people not living near the equator spent little or no time under artificial light. One could just as well argue that the light they did use was of an even lower color temperature than incandescent lighting.
By the way, the sun doesn't have a fixed 5000deg temperature. It varies depending on the location of the observer, the time of year, and the time of day. Afternoon sun in coastal california is famously warm in color (legend has it that sand in the Gobi desert is partially responsible for the epic sunsets we enjoy).
Dude, if this goes in to effect in California, I'm importing my Edisons from Guam or something. The color temperature and 60Hz. oscillations of fluorescents make me want to light fires. (literally)
The value of a commodity is always somewhat derived from its information content. As society evolves, commodities become more and more about information and less and less about raw materials. Software is at the forefront of this trend, perhaps, but pharmaceuticals aren't far behind. The cost of lab equipment is insignificant compared to the cost of labor. And chemists don't make more than computer programmers.
Pirated copies of Windows have been one of the biggest economic stimuli in the United States (at least up to version XP) in every industry, and especially they helped Microsoft tremendously, as Gates is well aware. While YouTube is currently facing bate-and-switch problems regarding the addition of adverts, a more devious plan would have been to include adverts from the beginning, but with a 'bug' that let users bypass them. Then later fix the bug. You could argue this was actually the case with MS Office, for example, where for years any reg. code (like 0123...) would activate the software. But legally/popularly MS left no precedent/expectation that copying the software from a friend was OK...
-Carl
When will we stop... before every square inch of readable surface is covered in advertisement?
Ads are a degenerate form of human discourse in my opinion.
Would Wikipedia have reached the heights it has if they had advertised from day one? I tend to doubt it. So adding ads now is bait-and-switch. Bad news.
As for putting my money where my mouth is, I have been donating to Wikipedia since they've accepted donations.
I would love it if ad-based services like Google were opt-out. I would happily pay to get rid of the ads. I'd even pay what Google makes on them on average, even though they make far less (like zero) from me.
Slashdot Mirror
"there too", sorry
Looked at the site. Unfortunately science is nowhere to be found. It looks like the standard political "debate" crap, focused mainly on vague pledges to handouts. Science is about specific solutions to specific questions/problems. Some of us who believe in it would like to see it applied in government. Otherwise it's just another special interest asking for a handout. Science is NOT a special interest, it's the sole means we have to elevate ourselves above the tired fear-mongering, chest-beating rhetoric we've been suffering under for the past 10,000 years. Initiatives like this only cement a sad reality where science lives as an industry, in a compartment where any discoveries it makes are sure never to change anything.
For an exercise, go to the official websites of all the candidates. Click on the "issues" links (easy to do since they apparently all use the same CMS). Now try to find any differences. Try long enough, and blood will start shootin' out your nose.
In 2012, let's insist these sections contain lists of papers (in economics, game theory, developmental psychology, nuclear engineering, materials science, etc.) the candidates endorse. Let's have the candidates name the PhDs working for their campaigns their too.
-Carl
Like they really have a choice. The shareholders will demand it. -Carl
I think the most important thing would be to cultivate that indispensable part of leadership which exists outside of political formalism: discourse. I would use the position to speak to the American people. I'd reduce the dependence on speech writers, teleprompters, and statements incapable of offending anyone. I would declare war on sound bytes.
Another focus would be to make policy more scientific. I would surround myself, and fill the administration with, PhDs. Run the White House like Larry & Sergey run a business.
As far as issues go, my first would probably be to institute approval voting in as many elections as possible (and yes, this really is the best voting method). I would also fund pilot 'Logo' schools after Seymour Papert. And try to lift the drug prohibitions.
-CarlOnly 0.01% of people care about suppressing ads (with one "d"). You're probably a victim of sample bias due to the clique you're in. -C.
Microsoft was the first (and remains the only, according to Linus) company to profit from the sale of binaries. Before MS, software development was paid for by hardware sales (Apple and IBM still work this way). FOSS says it can be completely free. Google is saying it can be ad-supported. It's clear that Google's approach will be the next one to dominate. The immediacy of no-install coupled with no-pay is unstoppable, and Google is uniquely positioned to win at it. So there *is* a direct competition between Microsoft and Google, and it *is* the biggest thing in software today. Google doth even protest too much. Until 2007 MS had enough control over the browser to cause them serious pain. The failure of Vista in 2007 is symptomatic of all this, but clearly represents a turning point.
Google will need more control over hardware than Microsoft had. The PC was an office machine that could set its own rules. Computers today are part of people's lives, and to fit there they must be organic in function and form. The Open Handset Alliance is proof Google understands this. This change also made Apple's approach valid again.
Google loves FOSS because they know people will pay for it anyway. You can repair and even build a car yourself, but a very tiny (if colorful) fraction of people do. You can't pirate server-side software, and why would you want to?
-Carl
It's a spit-tube. The DNA Ancestry Project is a swab...
-Carl
Yeah, so I don't like the OLPC project because it implies that human problems are technological. I've heard that the OLPC was inspired by Papert's Logo work, and even comes with a version of Logo. Great. Send instructors trained in the 'Logo method', work with locals to build schools, and provide cheap computers with Logo installed, and you've won me over. Sending the computers alone is obnoxious.
It's also obnoxious because they initially weren't going to sell them here. They're only doing it now as a desperate measure, and they still force you to buy a donation. So what's not good enough for us is good enough for Africa? Boo.
It's obnoxious because it missed its $100 price by a factor of 2 -- they even had to change the name of the product.
But nothing takes the cake like *complaining* when the sales you thought were destiny don't materialize. Oh yeah, it's the competition's fault! Weak. Presumably Negroponte thinks the competition is evil because they're for-profit. That's like Microsoft complaining about Linux being free.
But there is something good about the OLPC: it's gotten much farther than any other Media Lab project to date. How to really help the Third World: take the millions blown at the Media Lab on barely-functioning undergrad art "installations" and put it towards some Logo schools. Or maybe even just -- gasp -- regular schools.
-Carl
No, long URLs weaken web architecture. -Carl
HP was the first to do this (also so they get EPEAT Gold). Not only is $1300 a bit much for an "accessory", the lead acid battery that's included just dwarfs the computer in terms of environmental impact. -Carl
Bram got his start there:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mojonation
It's got an interesting technique behind it, and is supposed to be better than bittorrent (though Bram strongly disagreed, without giving details, at a talk at Stanford a couple of years ago). Meanwhile, Bram hardly invented P2P -- he cut his chops at Mojonation, and gnutella existed two years before that. -Carl
...olive pomade on the body *is* one way to prevent the spread of AIDS.
I'm not sure what to say, other than thanks
for your interest!
-Carl
http://lumma.org/microwave
...is the solution Citizendium? [reads more]
Why yes, the solution *is* Citizendium! How did I know?
-Carl
We need a new category icon for stories based on these vacuous, Jobs-deifying RoughlyDrafted articles.
Fluorescents don't actually have color temperature, since they aren't black body radiators. They have some assortment of peaks and there's a formula for getting an equivalent color temperature which they can be marketed under.
It's quite an assumption that in antiquity, people not living near the equator spent little or no time under artificial light. One could just as well argue that the light they did use was of an even lower color temperature than incandescent lighting.
By the way, the sun doesn't have a fixed 5000deg temperature. It varies depending on the location of the observer, the time of year, and the time of day. Afternoon sun in coastal california is famously warm in color (legend has it that sand in the Gobi desert is partially responsible for the epic sunsets we enjoy).
-Carl
Dude, if this goes in to effect in California, I'm importing my Edisons from Guam or something. The color temperature and 60Hz. oscillations of fluorescents make me want to light fires. (literally)
-Carl
From now on, every time I see one of these wacked front-page plugs for Citizendium on Slashdot, I'm going to give US$100 to Wikimedia.
-Carl
The value of a commodity is always somewhat derived from its information content. As society evolves, commodities become more and more about information and less and less about raw materials. Software is at the forefront of this trend, perhaps, but pharmaceuticals aren't far behind. The cost of lab equipment is insignificant compared to the cost of labor. And chemists don't make more than computer programmers.
Wiki predates blogs.
-Carl
Pirated copies of Windows have been one of the biggest economic stimuli in the United States (at least up to version XP) in every industry, and especially they helped Microsoft tremendously, as Gates is well aware. While YouTube is currently facing bate-and-switch problems regarding the addition of adverts, a more devious plan would have been to include adverts from the beginning, but with a 'bug' that let users bypass them. Then later fix the bug. You could argue this was actually the case with MS Office, for example, where for years any reg. code (like 0123...) would activate the software. But legally/popularly MS left no precedent/expectation that copying the software from a friend was OK... -Carl
When will we stop... before every square inch of readable surface is covered in advertisement?
Ads are a degenerate form of human discourse in my opinion.
Would Wikipedia have reached the heights it has if they had advertised from day one? I tend to doubt it. So adding ads now is bait-and-switch. Bad news.
As for putting my money where my mouth is, I have been donating to Wikipedia since they've accepted donations.
I would love it if ad-based services like Google were opt-out. I would happily pay to get rid of the ads. I'd even pay what Google makes on them on average, even though they make far less (like zero) from me.
-Carl
If they don't say who they are and don't give a return number, how do you identify them? I get calls like this all the time -- they block *69.
-Carl
Finally a slashdot reader who has a clue about how spam works.
-Carl
Dr. Fumito Ichinose? Nobody caught this?
-C.