In the old days (pre 1910's), no newspaper pretended to be unbiased. Every one pushed an agenda and pushed it strongly. The techniques used were the standard ones: selective omission of fact, vituperative language, slander, belittlement, extreme statements, and the total denial that any other point of view had any validity.
Yet I feel that the quality of news was higher then, and that quality was a direct result of this bias. How can that be? The enthusiasm each reporter brought to his job, doing his best to hunt up facts that validate his world-view, enabled him to ferret out facts that a more laid-back, unbiased reporter or paper would miss.
The fact that every paper was biased didn't pollute the public mind, since every town had a wide variety of papers,large and small, general-purpose or narrow focused, to choose from. It wasn't uncommon for the businessman to buy several papers on his way to work, and buy a few more on his way back home. Thus the interested reader, who wanted a true accounting of the facts, could easily discover what the truth was merely by reading differing accounts of events.
> For nearly 10 years, Ebbesen struggled with the > problem, waiting, in the closed-mouth habit of > corporate researchers, to make his findings > public until he could explain and control (and > patent) the phenomenon.
Sigh. The wonderful effects of closure in science. We could have had this 10 years ago if science was more open. As it is, if the discovering scientist can't solve the problem, then by damn no-one is going to be allowed to solve the problem.
This article is the clearest demonstration of why we need old fashioned OpenSource Science to return.
> At the moment, Linux development can be compared > with a cottage industry with all the charm of > custom design and individual craftmanship. Can > it evolve into the formal processes of mass > production for a consumer market?
There is nothing wrong with `cottage industries'. They clearly produce superior products in every catagory: in use, flexibility, tuned to individual user needs, and desire for craftsmanship and individual expression, in both craftsman and the contracting consumer.
The only area where cottage industry falls down is in making large quantities of products. Hence the need to replace superior cottage industry technologies with the forced conformity of mass production. However, this limitiation applies only to physical world products; software production is not so limited. It is the first technology to come along where mass quantities of a cottage industry can be produced and distributed, without the straightjacket of mass production techniques.
Slashdot Mirror
In the old days (pre 1910's), no newspaper pretended to be unbiased. Every one pushed an agenda and pushed it strongly. The techniques used were the standard ones: selective omission of fact, vituperative language, slander, belittlement, extreme statements, and the total denial that any other point of view had any validity.
Yet I feel that the quality of news was higher then, and that quality was a direct result of this bias. How can that be? The enthusiasm each reporter brought to his job, doing his best to hunt up facts that validate his world-view, enabled him to ferret out facts that a more laid-back, unbiased reporter or paper would miss.
The fact that every paper was biased didn't pollute the public mind, since every town had a wide variety of papers,large and small, general-purpose or narrow focused, to choose from. It wasn't uncommon for the businessman to buy several papers on his way to work, and buy a few more on his way back home. Thus the interested reader, who wanted a true accounting of the facts, could easily discover what the truth was merely by reading differing accounts of events.
Sort of like Slashdot.
Joe
> For nearly 10 years, Ebbesen struggled with the
> problem, waiting, in the closed-mouth habit of
> corporate researchers, to make his findings
> public until he could explain and control (and
> patent) the phenomenon.
Sigh. The wonderful effects of closure in science. We could have had this 10 years ago if science was more open. As it is, if the discovering scientist can't solve the problem, then by damn no-one is going to be allowed to solve the problem.
This article is the clearest demonstration of why we need old fashioned OpenSource Science to return.
> At the moment, Linux development can be compared
> with a cottage industry with all the charm of
> custom design and individual craftmanship. Can
> it evolve into the formal processes of mass
> production for a consumer market?
There is nothing wrong with `cottage industries'. They clearly produce superior products in every catagory: in use, flexibility, tuned to individual user needs, and desire for craftsmanship and individual expression, in both craftsman and the contracting consumer.
The only area where cottage industry falls down is in making large quantities of products. Hence the need to replace superior cottage industry technologies with the forced conformity of mass production. However, this limitiation applies only to physical world products; software production is not so limited. It is the first technology to come along where mass quantities of a cottage industry can be produced and distributed, without the straightjacket of mass production techniques.