I was following along perfectly fine until I hit this speed bump. How do you get a fraction of a liter? Do you chop it up into little inch-sized pieces, spilling tablespoons of flammable liquid all over your feet?
"For example, my former landlady had empysema and she was pretty sure that it was caused by second-hand smoke. She had spent 60 years married to a heavy smoker and had worked for the phone company as an operator (back in the days when people smoked in the office). Her emphysema wasn't debilitating or anything, but at 86 years old she had some problems in smokey environments (and, thus, didn't allow smoking in the apartments)."
Now, plot your data on a graph. What do you have? A dot!
"Secondhand smoke in small doses is probably not going to cause lung cancer. Living in it is another matter."
This is true of everything. Anything in small doses is all right. Anything in arbitrarily large doses is not alright. In other words, you haven't said anything.
Now, if only they could find a way to get the food through the computer, and stuff it right into my face, I wouldn't have to do all that damn walking...
"They don't care about some misty future, they care that despite the Wikipedia's credo (failures fixed fast, articles completed soon) - the reality is that errors and incomplete articles can linger for months."
No, I understand that fine. It's just that I don't care.
I was talking about a quiz administered at the polling stations. If you pass, you can vote; if not, you can't. Spewing the same old garbage about "one man, one vote" is just going to keep the population dumb and out of control.
"while in office and while GWB is alive i think it is obvious why his profile will be protected, i hope in a few years time history will look more objectively towards the nations leaders (including GWB), displaying thier blunders and mistakes as vividly as their success..."
Don't give them all the blame. Our laws and general apathy about important issues have made all of this possible, or even probable. Imagine what could be accomplished if campaigns were publicly financed, rather than by people begging for favors... as for our general apathy, maybe we could require people to take a short quiz about their knowledge of the issues (simple facts, not opinions), and if they clearly have no clue what is going on, then ask them to go read up on the world around them before they decide to voice their uninformed opinions.
"1) Reminding users to cite sources every time they make an edit (perhaps require it for non-grammatical edits)"
It used to say that, but some foolish admin decided to remove that notice. I've put it back.
"2) Being able to ban IP addresses and ranges from editing wikipedia"
That's already possible. What's your IP address? You can see for yourself.
"3) Allowing banned users, or users under certain IP ranges to request unbans for their accounts"
Also currently possible.
"4) Have two versions of articles: 'newest' and an 'approved'"
This, of course, is where the gold is at. This idea has been in the works for months now. I'm not sure when the developers will actually release it, but it should definitely improve the site, and bring us closer to stable content and civil discussions among editors.
Seriously, the majority of edits are perfectly fine, though often misguided. If you focus on fighting vandalism, you'll find vandals everywhere (I know from experience). The only thing Wikipedia has to worry about is to keep the funds coming in.
Bush's article has been pretty much semi-protected since semi-protection was created, and it is unlikely to change until after he's out of office--probably longer. That article has more edits than any others, and most of those were vandalism/reversions. Sometimes it seems like every single newbie who comes along and discovers "OMG I H4X WIKIPEDIA" tests their abilities by blanking the article or adding some random obscenity. What the public and John Siegenthaler don't understand is that it's not the current state of an article that is important to Wikipedia's editors--only the future state, and what it has the potential to become... well, except for all the editors hung up on reverting vandals and temporarily blocking one of the billions of IP addresses that exist.
All we have to do is start sucking up all the carbon dioxide out of the air, and convert it into little waste cubes that can be dumped in landfills or baby seal breeding grounds. It's foolproof!
"If Criminal orgs are purchasing exploits, why doesn't Microsoft? (it's not like the don't have the money!)"
Microsoft lets these exploits run free to keep the cattle in line. They need to keep people upgrading and buying the latest versions of their products to keep the cash flowing. If they released a well-written, stable, secure piece of software, what reason would people have to upgrade?
"...suggest that well-organized criminals are conducting corporate espionage using critical flaws purchased from underground hackers."
Are you implying that hackers don't have the wherewithal to pull off corporate espionage? Can they do nothing more than crack the latest version of VirtuaGirl?
I worked at Sandia Natl Labs the last 3 summers, and heard lots of weird stories about people from Los Alamos. There was the guy who wore a cape everywhere, of course. There was also an individual who transferred from Los Alamos to Sandia (rarely do people transfer the other way), who could not get along with anyone, and did not last long. One of the researchers even initially worked at Sandia, transferred to Los Alamos, and then transferred back, saying the whole environment is just... off. Los Alamos is basically surviving on their history now. Their museum hasn't had much to add this last half a century; they mainly focus on the history of designing and testing the atomic bomb.
There's much more drama at these national labs than the general public might think...
A water clock is not a computer. See this page, for example, where they even cite the water clock as a possible power source for the Antikythera mechanism.
With something that big, you'd think it would come with a handle, and maybe some headlights and deer whistles. The sidewalks and campuses of the world are no longer safe.
Slashdot Mirror
*Whoosh*
That is the sound of a joke going over your head.
"(0.074 liters/100 km)"
I was following along perfectly fine until I hit this speed bump. How do you get a fraction of a liter? Do you chop it up into little inch-sized pieces, spilling tablespoons of flammable liquid all over your feet?
This summary makes no sense whatsoever.
"For example, my former landlady had empysema and she was pretty sure that it was caused by second-hand smoke. She had spent 60 years married to a heavy smoker and had worked for the phone company as an operator (back in the days when people smoked in the office). Her emphysema wasn't debilitating or anything, but at 86 years old she had some problems in smokey environments (and, thus, didn't allow smoking in the apartments)."
Now, plot your data on a graph. What do you have? A dot!
"Secondhand smoke in small doses is probably not going to cause lung cancer. Living in it is another matter."
This is true of everything. Anything in small doses is all right. Anything in arbitrarily large doses is not alright. In other words, you haven't said anything.
Now, if only they could find a way to get the food through the computer, and stuff it right into my face, I wouldn't have to do all that damn walking...
"They don't care about some misty future, they care that despite the Wikipedia's credo (failures fixed fast, articles completed soon) - the reality is that errors and incomplete articles can linger for months."
No, I understand that fine. It's just that I don't care.
"yeah, that worked so well in the South circa 1920."
We have text-to-speech now; shouldn't be a problem for the illiterate.
I usually block after the first vandalism if it's to a main page article; 24 hours per vandal edit.
I was talking about a quiz administered at the polling stations. If you pass, you can vote; if not, you can't. Spewing the same old garbage about "one man, one vote" is just going to keep the population dumb and out of control.
"while in office and while GWB is alive i think it is obvious why his profile will be protected, i hope in a few years time history will look more objectively towards the nations leaders (including GWB), displaying thier blunders and mistakes as vividly as their success..."
Don't give them all the blame. Our laws and general apathy about important issues have made all of this possible, or even probable. Imagine what could be accomplished if campaigns were publicly financed, rather than by people begging for favors... as for our general apathy, maybe we could require people to take a short quiz about their knowledge of the issues (simple facts, not opinions), and if they clearly have no clue what is going on, then ask them to go read up on the world around them before they decide to voice their uninformed opinions.
"1) Reminding users to cite sources every time they make an edit (perhaps require it for non-grammatical edits)"
It used to say that, but some foolish admin decided to remove that notice. I've put it back.
"2) Being able to ban IP addresses and ranges from editing wikipedia"
That's already possible. What's your IP address? You can see for yourself.
"3) Allowing banned users, or users under certain IP ranges to request unbans for their accounts"
Also currently possible.
"4) Have two versions of articles: 'newest' and an 'approved'"
This, of course, is where the gold is at. This idea has been in the works for months now. I'm not sure when the developers will actually release it, but it should definitely improve the site, and bring us closer to stable content and civil discussions among editors.
You forgot to add:
Seriously, the majority of edits are perfectly fine, though often misguided. If you focus on fighting vandalism, you'll find vandals everywhere (I know from experience). The only thing Wikipedia has to worry about is to keep the funds coming in.
Bush's article has been pretty much semi-protected since semi-protection was created, and it is unlikely to change until after he's out of office--probably longer. That article has more edits than any others, and most of those were vandalism/reversions. Sometimes it seems like every single newbie who comes along and discovers "OMG I H4X WIKIPEDIA" tests their abilities by blanking the article or adding some random obscenity. What the public and John Siegenthaler don't understand is that it's not the current state of an article that is important to Wikipedia's editors--only the future state, and what it has the potential to become... well, except for all the editors hung up on reverting vandals and temporarily blocking one of the billions of IP addresses that exist.
All we have to do is start sucking up all the carbon dioxide out of the air, and convert it into little waste cubes that can be dumped in landfills or baby seal breeding grounds. It's foolproof!
"Zeno is too close to Zenu."
But, how close is it to Xenu?
"If Criminal orgs are purchasing exploits, why doesn't Microsoft? (it's not like the don't have the money!)"
Microsoft lets these exploits run free to keep the cattle in line. They need to keep people upgrading and buying the latest versions of their products to keep the cash flowing. If they released a well-written, stable, secure piece of software, what reason would people have to upgrade?
"...suggest that well-organized criminals are conducting corporate espionage using critical flaws purchased from underground hackers."
Are you implying that hackers don't have the wherewithal to pull off corporate espionage? Can they do nothing more than crack the latest version of VirtuaGirl?
I worked at Sandia Natl Labs the last 3 summers, and heard lots of weird stories about people from Los Alamos. There was the guy who wore a cape everywhere, of course. There was also an individual who transferred from Los Alamos to Sandia (rarely do people transfer the other way), who could not get along with anyone, and did not last long. One of the researchers even initially worked at Sandia, transferred to Los Alamos, and then transferred back, saying the whole environment is just... off. Los Alamos is basically surviving on their history now. Their museum hasn't had much to add this last half a century; they mainly focus on the history of designing and testing the atomic bomb.
There's much more drama at these national labs than the general public might think...
"Look, ma! I'm esoteric!"
A water clock is not a computer. See this page, for example, where they even cite the water clock as a possible power source for the Antikythera mechanism.
It's also one of the earliest, if not the earliest, -known example of an analog computer.
"You may already be familiar with ultrawideband"
I'm sure the folks of slashdot are all too familiar with ultra-wide waist bands...
With something that big, you'd think it would come with a handle, and maybe some headlights and deer whistles. The sidewalks and campuses of the world are no longer safe.
Inflatable ISS, coming to a McDonald's Playplace near you!
I've seen that episode too many times not to have that quote tattooed into my brain.
THE GOGGLES DO NOTHING!!