Part of doing business in the community is that you have to be a part of the community. If you can't provide a service for people there is no reason you should be aloud to operate. You don't have nor should you have a right to do business wherever you like.
Is a law bad because it requires businesses to accommodate ALL customers, regardless of whether or not they can see, hear or walk? Or are you a part of the group of pseudo-libertarians who think that government should butt out?
It's a bad law because it goes way overboard in forcing businesses to accomodate every single person on the planet and every single malady they could possibly have. If the government feels that strongly about it, it can pay for it. Then people can decide with their own wallets, at the polls, whether these sorts of things are worth it.
So it seems a bit ridiculous to you that Target was the target, and they want them to make the site accessible to the blind. It seems even more ridiculous to me that Target wouldn't do that in the first place (it may cost a bit more, but seeing as how they are a "good corporate citizen (compared to WalMart)", it would be befit their image.
Whether they want to is their own business. Where does it stop? Do they need to supply deaf/blind people with special tactile screens?
And big businesses are one thing, but this crap gets absolutely ridiculous when you talk about small businesses. So now we have to saddle every poor bastard who just wants a website with a bunch of ridiculous rules? No thanks.
I'm sure it really sucks being blind, but to me, as long as Target makes accomodations in some way, that should be enough. I'd make a blind-only site that redirects them to a page containing nothing but a phone number, and let an operator help them out.
Well that's just it! This evidence shows that, despite shifts, the magnetic field has always fallen into a more-or-less stable "dipole" arrangement that has remained the 'average' after a shift.
Yes, but for the field to flip, it has to go through a period of effectively no magnetic field, which while short, does persist for I think a couple thousand years each time. Considering that the field flips on average every few hundred thousand years, then on a rough average, somewhere around a percent of the volcanic rocks would have cooled during periods of no or extremely weak field. If that's the case, they may have simply found one of the many formations that solidified in non-equatorial climes during a time of no/weak field.
While this doesn't actually invalidate the snowball theory, it certainly offers a compelling, likely, and simpler alternative. Occam's razor suggests this would be the default conclusion unless better evidence is found for the "snowball."
That said, it's a decent site, and they have a variety of pieces of evidence beyond this. They also have a page with major criticisms of the theory, followed by their rebuttals, and they're honest in stating where the strength of their rebuttals is weak. As a scientist, I give a lot more credence to people who acknowledge weaknesses in their hypotheses.
I'd say this is an interesting if unproven theory.
I know ebaumsworld has no problem with that, since they just made their terms say "if you upload it, that means you must own it, therefore we now own it"
Yeah...just because they say it doesn't make it legal.
I suspect that Microsoft becoming friendly with a competing OS is actually in anticipation of the fact that the Democrats may gain control of Congress in a few days. Back in the 90's, it was a Democratic White House putting pressure on them for Anti-Trust violations. Once the Republicans gained power, that threat went away. Now that the pendulum is swinging back, perhaps Microsoft is making some preemptive moves so they don't get slammed again, like the EU is doing to them. I may disagree with the Democratic Party on most issues, but slapping MS is something I can agree with.
Problem: President has control over DOJ. 2008, we'll see. Even then, I'll wait to see who's appointed AG.
No it doesn't. Mudslinging is a pretty well-defined term. You have to wonder about the motivations of people who want to blur that meaning.
According to whom? I looked it up and found this: "An attempt to destroy someone's reputation"
The key thing is, it doesn't say it has to be *false*. Is Webb trying to destroy Allen's reputation with the mileage they've gotten from the macaca thing? You betcha. Thus, mudslinging.
Nope. Consumers can be idiots and the system will still work, because agents acting on their behalf can be informed and make decisions for them.
Except that never happens because those agents never have the consumer's best interest at heart. To me, the market doesn't work ideally if consumers make decisions that aren't in their best interests. Like, say, still using IE 5.5 or something.
Regulated capitalism is more robust than you give it credit for.
On many things, yes. Like for example, consumers are pretty good at deciding what food tastes good, what car they like driving, etc. But when it comes down to things they don't know crap about, the system has problems. Worse yet, they don't even *know* that they don't know crap about these things. That's when you have problems.
How is that 'mudslinging?' The definition of mudslinger is "one that uses offensive epithets and abuse/insult especially against a political opponent." I mean, if you show a video (without doctoring it) of your opponent saying "macaca" and it really happened, how are you mudslinging? I'd sure like to know if the guy I'm voting for is willing to call a group of people something offensive.
I think mudslinging generally refers to the practice of negative campaigning, which the "macaca" video definitely was. Using that was tactical, but it didn't refute Allen's ideas or voting record. Sure, I don't want to vote for a racist, and it's relevant, but I'd rather hear Webb tell me why Allen's politics don't work. But he hasn't.
Not that it's one-sided, Allen's nailed Webb too. In fact, that entire campaign has been nothing BUT mudslinging, really. I haven't heard either one of those guys say what he's really going to be about when he gets/stays in Washington (besides the usual family values crap).
For reference, yeah, I live in Virginia. And I plan on voting for the most obscure independent candidate I can find in that race, because I can't stand either one of those clowns.
With no Google, you know that there's an absence, but with a filtered Google, who's to say that the filter is taking effect? And isn't doing good all about standing up for one's principles?
Good for you or good for them? Standing up for one's principles can be a very selfish thing if it hurts others. Principles in and of themselves don't often accomplish anything.
In a classic capitalist system, this would not matter. Like evolution, capitalism lets money talk and the market moves towards the best solution since decisions are made by informed customers or by agents trying to win customers by choosing for them.
The true free market is up there with the ideal gas, frictionless surface, undamped oscillator, the unbiased random sample, and bigfoot. Something always gets in the way. In this case, it's the fact that the average consumer is an idiot.
To defend Google, it's not clear that making a principled stand ("We're leaving China because you're fascist commie pigs!) actually benefits the citizens of the country in question. Namely, wouldn't it be worse to have no google than a filtered google?
So and So. enterprise customers include ISVs and microsoft partners, etc. Vista will probably come with some MSDN subscriptions, dev copies, etc. Its still not actual -users-, but a lot of people will be using it by then. Just not the average joe (at the office or not), so your point still stand, I'll admit.
Most of those people are probably already beta testers. This Nov 30. release should be called a "gamma" or something, because it doesn't sound like a real relase, that's for sure.
Wow, this guy has far too much time on his hands. I can understand the desire to sue annoying telemarketers and politicians of an opposing part, but your own candidate or... nonprofit organizations? "Sorry Mr. Smith, we can't provide your insulin shots this month because we've been sued while looking for contributions." This seems a little sick.
First, it's a lot crappier and less prinicpled to sue your own candidate but not others. Do it for all or none. Second, nonprofit doesn't mean charity necessarily. There are a lot of nonprofits out there that make a ton of money, with the stipulation that they spend it all (ie, funnel it all to a for-profit sister entity). Third, laws apply to everyone, and if the charity wants my time on the phone, the least they can do is provide a human of their own. This guy's mainly suing the clowns with the pre-recorded messages, as it's completely legal for charities to call you with a live voice, and the DNC list doesn't block that.
What do you care the reasons behind my wanting www.bankofameriva.com are? Just because your small mind can't think of anything more creative than "phishing scams", it doesn't mean that the world should be warped to fit your small-mindedness.
People who want to regulate the sale of "near miss" domain names are no better than fundamental christians or muslims who want to impose their version of Sharia law on the entire world.
Come on, man, I *know* you can troll better than that. I've seen you do better on here. You have to tone it down or it's too obvious and it defeats the purpose.
Get rid of the flames and replace it with a couple of paragraphs about the slippery slope of the erosion of personal freedoms and a person's 1st Amendment right to speech. Couple that with a little slightly anarchist rhetoric regarding the distributed nature and inherent inability to regulate the internet, and you'll have yourself a masterful troll. If you want some bonus points, link it with attacks on our freedoms from the oppressive capatalist banking infrastructure. Cross reference with info about banks recording our personal information for a straw man and the win.
If you want to push the envelope of detectability, do a little "First they came for the phishers, but I wasn't a phisher..." thing.
To continue the above quote: "A few savvy agents might complain about receiving nothing and get a token amount, but most will be unaware of what transpired.
Actually, even IF your market share is 95%. Heck, even if it's somehow 100% you still aren't required by Anti-Trust laws to hand over your core company secrets.
Secrets, no. Means of interoperation, in many cases, yes. ATT was forced to let other companies use their actual networks, so there's some serious precedent. In this case, we have MS using hidden APIs to let their AV products be better - or actually functional - compared to their competitors. That's pretty much textbook anticompetitive behavior.
To extend the analogy, if Coca-Cola somehow managed to totally out-market every other cola maker in the entire world and completely "OWNED" the Cola market, they still wouldn't be required to hand out the secret formula.
But that's not what we're talking about here. Imagine Coke had 100% market share, and now they enter the cup business. And let's say that put a chemical in coke that rots through competitors' cups, so that you can only use Coke's cups. Would that pass Sherman scrutiny? Not likely.
Just because MS is choosing to (Finally) secure thier OS doesn't mean that Symantec et al can't still offer thier products., They will simply have to rewrite them to work within the new Vista framework.
I think you need to look more carefully at what's going on here. It's not that MS is offering an AV product (fine), it's that it will use kernel hooks that are simply not available to other competitors. I think Symantec et al are clever enough to rewrite for Vista, assuming they're not literally locked out. That's what MS is apparantly doing, and that's a problem.
But then again Coca-Cola has a similar market share on cola drinks.
Not sure where you got that, a little company named Pepsi would have something to say about that. Worldwide, Coke's in the low 40's, Pepsi in the low 30's, and Schweppes (Dr. Pepper/7-Up) is in the teens. 40% isn't a monopoly, 95% is.
There's no magic about it. It's more like Coca-Cola not publishing their secret recipe, so that other people can't make their own Coke on the cheap. Which is fair enough, really.
Your argument is basically that encyclopedias (and room mates) are unreliable sources. No Sale. They may be poor sources. They may not. If they are, and they are depended on then a lousy product will result.
I'm not claiming that. You claimed that it's content that counts, and I'm saying that if you're writing a research paper, source reputation counts.
If you spend much time looking at the Wikipedia in areas that you have real expertise in, you'll probably find that much of it is quite good and is perfectly suitable as a reference.
Good, yes, actually. I have used Wiki quite a bit. However, it's extremely poor as a reference for two reasons: 1) it's ephemeral. I have no way to cite the location of information and have any notion that my readers will find it there. Note this is true of most web sources, not Wiki in general. 2) For scholarly research, it's not a primary source. Period. As such, using Wiki as a reference is equivalent to using Cliff's notes. It's a shortcut.
But Chang's work when it was published in 1977 was regarded by many as a stunning piece of scholarship and the last word on the subject -- surely an acceptable primary reference by your standards.
Come on, that's an absolutely lame argument. Work from 1977 would certainly not be considered the final word on *any* subject. However, what it *does* provide is what the feeling was in 1977 - which is, in fact, *why* you use primary sources.
Bottom line is, if you're writing a scholarly or research paper, encyclopedias are NOT to be used, because you don't learn anything about the research process. Note that I am not impugning the actual information in Wiki, as I've personally found it to be good for what it is - a quick reference. Not a source.
A few of my college professors use Wiki quite often. The subject, cell and molecular biological techniques in the lab. These types of articles have a much lower probability of being vandalized due to the knowledge required to even understand the article. Unless you're researching George Bush, Wiki should be fine for a few basic facts.
Oh, I'm not trashing Wiki - I use it a lot myself for high-level mathematical topics, for which it's fantastic - but I bet those profs don't cite it in their research publciations.
No offense, but that's just silly.
The proper criterion for judging a (non-plagiarized) paper is not "Where did the information come from?". The proper criteria are things like whether the material is complete, accurate, well reasoned, and clearly presented. With rare, and obvious, exceptions, the source is no more relevant than whether any conclusions in the paper coincide with your personal predjudices and biases.
Ah, but the information didn't come from Wiki (or any encyclopedia). Encyclopedias are summaries - in effect, a student who cites encyclopedias is allowing the encyclopedia to do his job of research. Research papers should cite primary sources, and encyclopedias aren't.
That's not to say that Wiki wouldn't be a good place to get started and find some good sources - but ultimately, the student should track down those sources, read them, evaluate them, use them, and cite them.
With rare, and obvious, exceptions, the source is no more relevant than whether any conclusions in the paper coincide with your personal predjudices and biases.
Not really. There's a quality and credibility argument to be made. It's the reason you don't cite your roommate - however persuasive, who the hell is he?
...and as such, should not be used as a reference in any research above the grade-school level. Period. If I were teaching a college class and anyone used encyclopedias in their paper, I wouldn't give them above a C.
I used to a bunch of online surveys to make a bit of cash
Wow, so there are people who fall for those "Make money taking surveys" scams!;)
Now, with that out of the way, I'd like to tell you about an amazing opportunity in my home country of Sierra Leone. The Prime Minister was assassinated in a coup, leaving behind no heirs and approximately $20M in assets. If we do not get his money out of the country, it will be seized by the state. If you provide me with your bank routing information, I will send you the money, and attempt to flee the country. When I make it to the US, we'll split the money 50/50. Would you like to benefit from this once in a lifetime opportunity?
It's a nice idea, but wireless is slow. Certainly slower than firewire anyway. And these havea lot of storage. Will people really want to spend several hours uploading their mp3 collection?
Well, 802.11g isn't all that slow. I don't think you'd want to fill your new 30GB iPod wirelessly, but it would be fine for syncing, buying music, and exchanging music if such a feature were enabled. Basically, use firewire/USB2 the first time, and wireless after that. I certainly wouldn't mind having such a feature.
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Part of doing business in the community is that you have to be a part of the community. If you can't provide a service for people there is no reason you should be aloud to operate. You don't have nor should you have a right to do business wherever you like.
Um, why? That's kind of a value judgement there.
Is a law bad because it requires businesses to accommodate ALL customers, regardless of whether or not they can see, hear or walk? Or are you a part of the group of pseudo-libertarians who think that government should butt out?
It's a bad law because it goes way overboard in forcing businesses to accomodate every single person on the planet and every single malady they could possibly have. If the government feels that strongly about it, it can pay for it. Then people can decide with their own wallets, at the polls, whether these sorts of things are worth it.
So it seems a bit ridiculous to you that Target was the target, and they want them to make the site accessible to the blind. It seems even more ridiculous to me that Target wouldn't do that in the first place (it may cost a bit more, but seeing as how they are a "good corporate citizen (compared to WalMart)", it would be befit their image.
Whether they want to is their own business. Where does it stop? Do they need to supply deaf/blind people with special tactile screens?
And big businesses are one thing, but this crap gets absolutely ridiculous when you talk about small businesses. So now we have to saddle every poor bastard who just wants a website with a bunch of ridiculous rules? No thanks.
I'm sure it really sucks being blind, but to me, as long as Target makes accomodations in some way, that should be enough. I'd make a blind-only site that redirects them to a page containing nothing but a phone number, and let an operator help them out.
Well that's just it! This evidence shows that, despite shifts, the magnetic field has always fallen into a more-or-less stable "dipole" arrangement that has remained the 'average' after a shift.
Yes, but for the field to flip, it has to go through a period of effectively no magnetic field, which while short, does persist for I think a couple thousand years each time. Considering that the field flips on average every few hundred thousand years, then on a rough average, somewhere around a percent of the volcanic rocks would have cooled during periods of no or extremely weak field. If that's the case, they may have simply found one of the many formations that solidified in non-equatorial climes during a time of no/weak field.
While this doesn't actually invalidate the snowball theory, it certainly offers a compelling, likely, and simpler alternative. Occam's razor suggests this would be the default conclusion unless better evidence is found for the "snowball."
That said, it's a decent site, and they have a variety of pieces of evidence beyond this. They also have a page with major criticisms of the theory, followed by their rebuttals, and they're honest in stating where the strength of their rebuttals is weak. As a scientist, I give a lot more credence to people who acknowledge weaknesses in their hypotheses.
I'd say this is an interesting if unproven theory.
I know ebaumsworld has no problem with that, since they just made their terms say "if you upload it, that means you must own it, therefore we now own it"
Yeah...just because they say it doesn't make it legal.
I suspect that Microsoft becoming friendly with a competing OS is actually in anticipation of the fact that the Democrats may gain control of Congress in a few days. Back in the 90's, it was a Democratic White House putting pressure on them for Anti-Trust violations. Once the Republicans gained power, that threat went away. Now that the pendulum is swinging back, perhaps Microsoft is making some preemptive moves so they don't get slammed again, like the EU is doing to them. I may disagree with the Democratic Party on most issues, but slapping MS is something I can agree with.
Problem: President has control over DOJ. 2008, we'll see. Even then, I'll wait to see who's appointed AG.
No it doesn't. Mudslinging is a pretty well-defined term. You have to wonder about the motivations of people who want to blur that meaning.
According to whom? I looked it up and found this: "An attempt to destroy someone's reputation"
The key thing is, it doesn't say it has to be *false*. Is Webb trying to destroy Allen's reputation with the mileage they've gotten from the macaca thing? You betcha. Thus, mudslinging.
Nope. Consumers can be idiots and the system will still work, because agents acting on their behalf can be informed and make decisions for them.
Except that never happens because those agents never have the consumer's best interest at heart. To me, the market doesn't work ideally if consumers make decisions that aren't in their best interests. Like, say, still using IE 5.5 or something.
Regulated capitalism is more robust than you give it credit for.
On many things, yes. Like for example, consumers are pretty good at deciding what food tastes good, what car they like driving, etc. But when it comes down to things they don't know crap about, the system has problems. Worse yet, they don't even *know* that they don't know crap about these things. That's when you have problems.
How is that 'mudslinging?' The definition of mudslinger is "one that uses offensive epithets and abuse/insult especially against a political opponent." I mean, if you show a video (without doctoring it) of your opponent saying "macaca" and it really happened, how are you mudslinging? I'd sure like to know if the guy I'm voting for is willing to call a group of people something offensive.
I think mudslinging generally refers to the practice of negative campaigning, which the "macaca" video definitely was. Using that was tactical, but it didn't refute Allen's ideas or voting record. Sure, I don't want to vote for a racist, and it's relevant, but I'd rather hear Webb tell me why Allen's politics don't work. But he hasn't.
Not that it's one-sided, Allen's nailed Webb too. In fact, that entire campaign has been nothing BUT mudslinging, really. I haven't heard either one of those guys say what he's really going to be about when he gets/stays in Washington (besides the usual family values crap).
For reference, yeah, I live in Virginia. And I plan on voting for the most obscure independent candidate I can find in that race, because I can't stand either one of those clowns.
With no Google, you know that there's an absence, but with a filtered Google, who's to say that the filter is taking effect? And isn't doing good all about standing up for one's principles?
Good for you or good for them? Standing up for one's principles can be a very selfish thing if it hurts others. Principles in and of themselves don't often accomplish anything.
In a classic capitalist system, this would not matter. Like evolution, capitalism lets money talk and the market moves towards the best solution since decisions are made by informed customers or by agents trying to win customers by choosing for them.
The true free market is up there with the ideal gas, frictionless surface, undamped oscillator, the unbiased random sample, and bigfoot. Something always gets in the way. In this case, it's the fact that the average consumer is an idiot.
To defend Google, it's not clear that making a principled stand ("We're leaving China because you're fascist commie pigs!) actually benefits the citizens of the country in question. Namely, wouldn't it be worse to have no google than a filtered google?
So and So. enterprise customers include ISVs and microsoft partners, etc. Vista will probably come with some MSDN subscriptions, dev copies, etc. Its still not actual -users-, but a lot of people will be using it by then. Just not the average joe (at the office or not), so your point still stand, I'll admit.
Most of those people are probably already beta testers. This Nov 30. release should be called a "gamma" or something, because it doesn't sound like a real relase, that's for sure.
Wow, this guy has far too much time on his hands. I can understand the desire to sue annoying telemarketers and politicians of an opposing part, but your own candidate or ... nonprofit organizations? "Sorry Mr. Smith, we can't provide your insulin shots this month because we've been sued while looking for contributions." This seems a little sick.
First, it's a lot crappier and less prinicpled to sue your own candidate but not others. Do it for all or none. Second, nonprofit doesn't mean charity necessarily. There are a lot of nonprofits out there that make a ton of money, with the stipulation that they spend it all (ie, funnel it all to a for-profit sister entity). Third, laws apply to everyone, and if the charity wants my time on the phone, the least they can do is provide a human of their own. This guy's mainly suing the clowns with the pre-recorded messages, as it's completely legal for charities to call you with a live voice, and the DNC list doesn't block that.
What do you care the reasons behind my wanting www.bankofameriva.com are? Just because your small mind can't think of anything more creative than "phishing scams", it doesn't mean that the world should be warped to fit your small-mindedness.
People who want to regulate the sale of "near miss" domain names are no better than fundamental christians or muslims who want to impose their version of Sharia law on the entire world.
Come on, man, I *know* you can troll better than that. I've seen you do better on here. You have to tone it down or it's too obvious and it defeats the purpose.
Get rid of the flames and replace it with a couple of paragraphs about the slippery slope of the erosion of personal freedoms and a person's 1st Amendment right to speech. Couple that with a little slightly anarchist rhetoric regarding the distributed nature and inherent inability to regulate the internet, and you'll have yourself a masterful troll. If you want some bonus points, link it with attacks on our freedoms from the oppressive capatalist banking infrastructure. Cross reference with info about banks recording our personal information for a straw man and the win.
If you want to push the envelope of detectability, do a little "First they came for the phishers, but I wasn't a phisher..." thing.
You can do it. I know you can!
To continue the above quote: "A few savvy agents might complain about receiving nothing and get a token amount, but most will be unaware of what transpired.
They'd do a class action if they have any sense.
Actually, even IF your market share is 95%. Heck, even if it's somehow 100% you still aren't required by Anti-Trust laws to hand over your core company secrets.
Secrets, no. Means of interoperation, in many cases, yes. ATT was forced to let other companies use their actual networks, so there's some serious precedent. In this case, we have MS using hidden APIs to let their AV products be better - or actually functional - compared to their competitors. That's pretty much textbook anticompetitive behavior.
To extend the analogy, if Coca-Cola somehow managed to totally out-market every other cola maker in the entire world and completely "OWNED" the Cola market, they still wouldn't be required to hand out the secret formula.
But that's not what we're talking about here. Imagine Coke had 100% market share, and now they enter the cup business. And let's say that put a chemical in coke that rots through competitors' cups, so that you can only use Coke's cups. Would that pass Sherman scrutiny? Not likely.
Just because MS is choosing to (Finally) secure thier OS doesn't mean that Symantec et al can't still offer thier products., They will simply have to rewrite them to work within the new Vista framework.
I think you need to look more carefully at what's going on here. It's not that MS is offering an AV product (fine), it's that it will use kernel hooks that are simply not available to other competitors. I think Symantec et al are clever enough to rewrite for Vista, assuming they're not literally locked out. That's what MS is apparantly doing, and that's a problem.
But then again Coca-Cola has a similar market share on cola drinks.
Not sure where you got that, a little company named Pepsi would have something to say about that. Worldwide, Coke's in the low 40's, Pepsi in the low 30's, and Schweppes (Dr. Pepper/7-Up) is in the teens. 40% isn't a monopoly, 95% is.
http://money.cnn.com/2005/03/07/news/fortune500/ cokepepsi_sales/?cnn=yes
There's no magic about it. It's more like Coca-Cola not publishing their secret recipe, so that other people can't make their own Coke on the cheap. Which is fair enough, really.
As long as your market share isn't 95%, sure.
Your argument is basically that encyclopedias (and room mates) are unreliable sources. No Sale. They may be poor sources. They may not. If they are, and they are depended on then a lousy product will result.
I'm not claiming that. You claimed that it's content that counts, and I'm saying that if you're writing a research paper, source reputation counts.
If you spend much time looking at the Wikipedia in areas that you have real expertise in, you'll probably find that much of it is quite good and is perfectly suitable as a reference.
Good, yes, actually. I have used Wiki quite a bit. However, it's extremely poor as a reference for two reasons: 1) it's ephemeral. I have no way to cite the location of information and have any notion that my readers will find it there. Note this is true of most web sources, not Wiki in general. 2) For scholarly research, it's not a primary source. Period. As such, using Wiki as a reference is equivalent to using Cliff's notes. It's a shortcut.
But Chang's work when it was published in 1977 was regarded by many as a stunning piece of scholarship and the last word on the subject -- surely an acceptable primary reference by your standards.
Come on, that's an absolutely lame argument. Work from 1977 would certainly not be considered the final word on *any* subject. However, what it *does* provide is what the feeling was in 1977 - which is, in fact, *why* you use primary sources.
Bottom line is, if you're writing a scholarly or research paper, encyclopedias are NOT to be used, because you don't learn anything about the research process. Note that I am not impugning the actual information in Wiki, as I've personally found it to be good for what it is - a quick reference. Not a source.
A few of my college professors use Wiki quite often. The subject, cell and molecular biological techniques in the lab. These types of articles have a much lower probability of being vandalized due to the knowledge required to even understand the article. Unless you're researching George Bush, Wiki should be fine for a few basic facts.
Oh, I'm not trashing Wiki - I use it a lot myself for high-level mathematical topics, for which it's fantastic - but I bet those profs don't cite it in their research publciations.
No offense, but that's just silly. The proper criterion for judging a (non-plagiarized) paper is not "Where did the information come from?". The proper criteria are things like whether the material is complete, accurate, well reasoned, and clearly presented. With rare, and obvious, exceptions, the source is no more relevant than whether any conclusions in the paper coincide with your personal predjudices and biases.
Ah, but the information didn't come from Wiki (or any encyclopedia). Encyclopedias are summaries - in effect, a student who cites encyclopedias is allowing the encyclopedia to do his job of research. Research papers should cite primary sources, and encyclopedias aren't.
That's not to say that Wiki wouldn't be a good place to get started and find some good sources - but ultimately, the student should track down those sources, read them, evaluate them, use them, and cite them.
With rare, and obvious, exceptions, the source is no more relevant than whether any conclusions in the paper coincide with your personal predjudices and biases.
Not really. There's a quality and credibility argument to be made. It's the reason you don't cite your roommate - however persuasive, who the hell is he?
...and as such, should not be used as a reference in any research above the grade-school level. Period. If I were teaching a college class and anyone used encyclopedias in their paper, I wouldn't give them above a C.
I used to a bunch of online surveys to make a bit of cash
Wow, so there are people who fall for those "Make money taking surveys" scams! ;)
Now, with that out of the way, I'd like to tell you about an amazing opportunity in my home country of Sierra Leone. The Prime Minister was assassinated in a coup, leaving behind no heirs and approximately $20M in assets. If we do not get his money out of the country, it will be seized by the state. If you provide me with your bank routing information, I will send you the money, and attempt to flee the country. When I make it to the US, we'll split the money 50/50. Would you like to benefit from this once in a lifetime opportunity?
It's a nice idea, but wireless is slow. Certainly slower than firewire anyway. And these havea lot of storage. Will people really want to spend several hours uploading their mp3 collection?
Well, 802.11g isn't all that slow. I don't think you'd want to fill your new 30GB iPod wirelessly, but it would be fine for syncing, buying music, and exchanging music if such a feature were enabled. Basically, use firewire/USB2 the first time, and wireless after that. I certainly wouldn't mind having such a feature.
Now that I think of it, I think they *did* come out with something like that a couple of years ago...