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User: Egg+Sniper

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  1. Re:This is terrible on Indonesian Man Faces Five Years For Atheist Facebook Post · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It's one thing persecuting people for their religion but persecuting atheists is going too far.

    A small minority of 'different' people in your community often makes people uncomfortable when part of the culture is professing just how right and good it is to agree and identify with the majority. When that minority attempts to become vocal they are by definition wrong and therefore it is justifiable to punish them. If all you have to prove that you're living your life correctly is the assertion by yourself and those around you that it is so any argument against what you believe is dangerous. Certainly authority figures (from politicians to parents) won't allow dissenting opinions to spread, like some horrible disease.

    People aren't persecuted for their religion. They are persecuted because their religion (or ethnicity or social status or etc.) is different from the majority of those around them. Group-think and ignorance will attack what it doesn't understand or can't control in whatever form it takes.

    One could argue that, historically, atheism is the most persecuted belief system still in practice. It would explain the relatively small proportion of the population that atheism makes up, as well as why that small proportion is spread throughout the world with no great central region to call home.

  2. Re:Open versus pay journals on US Research Open Access In Peril · · Score: 1

    If there's money to be spent on publication I would use open journals exclusively. If there's money.

  3. Re:Open versus pay journals on US Research Open Access In Peril · · Score: 1

    There's definitely a continuum between the two extremes I mentioned. Fortunately there are some general purpose open journals, though one could argue a sacrifice of impact shying away from more focused journals. One can only hope that the more an author pays the less the subscribers pay (assuming the cost to edit, format, host/print etc. is comparable across journals).

  4. Open versus pay journals on US Research Open Access In Peril · · Score: 3, Informative

    Choosing to publish in a journal that charges subscription fees has the advantage that it doesn't cost you anything to publish your work and the disadvantage that a restricted audience has access to your work (with the usual excuse being that most in research/academic settings can use institutional subscriptions and who else would be interested anyway?).

    Choosing to publish in a journal that is free to all has the disadvantage that it can cost quite a bit (thousands of dollars for the last one I did) to publish your work and the advantage that anyone with a computer and internet access has access to your work.

    Having said that, any grant funded project likely has money marked specifically for publication (dissemination) costs (personally I think publication costs are a better investment then conference presentations but that's just me). If you know you want to have your work freely available AND you are funded by an NIH grant there's no good reason why it can't be done without publishing in a subscription based journal that's going to bitch about letting everyone see your article for free after a year.

    Leave the subscription journals for the poor SOBs that don't have grant money coming in (another problem).

  5. What about fMRI? on New Algorithm Could Substantially Speed Up MRI Scans · · Score: 1

    I'd be more interested to know whether this will speed up acquisition of BOLD (blood oxygen level dependent) signals during fMRI (functional magnetic resonance imaging). The temporal resolution (time between frames) of fMRI has been a huge limiting factor in research. Increasing the rate even by a modest factor of 3 would go a long way to towards making fMRI competitive with EEG (electroencephalogram) (which can collect data in real time but with very little spatial resolution). While you're wikiing, check out DTI (diffuse tensor imaging).

  6. Office Space on Realistic Portrayals of Software Programmers? · · Score: 1

    Other side of the spectrum anyway, if too far.

  7. Re:Can't beat the generalists on Why Alien Species Thrive · · Score: 1

    I can't remember the name of the place (something station I think), they've managed to let the little buggers in. Basically I'm saying they came along with (and live off) the humans, not on their own.

  8. Can't beat the generalists on Why Alien Species Thrive · · Score: 1

    Rats, cockroaches, and humans. (Some of, not sure if list is exclusive) the only species that exist on all 7 continents. If and when humans spread out far enough to interact with extraterrestrial species, chances are they'll not only have to cope with us, but those other two as well.