There's a workaround - sit down and put both legs in at once:-) I've got that patent - so how about we split the royalties 50-50?
I'm also considering a patent on making a pair of trousers that split completely in the middle (i.e. having two unconnected legs). Put them on individually and provide a fastening to join them. There's the added bonus of mix & match, plus also not having to throw the whole pair out if you wear/tear a hole in one knee.
I admit I picked one I knew that was bad, Brazil has a growth of 1% pa - but thats only about 0.1% higher than US & Canada, and 4x more than the UK. Ireland is nice & high too at 1.16%. Oddly (or not), Afganistan is currently running at near 5% increase.
Wikipedia Signpost: Raul654 asks: "Recently, there were revelations about organized attempts by US Congressmen to whitewash their articles. What is your take on this, as well as earlier reports of Corporate astroturfing?"
Jimbo Wales: The question is invalid. There were no revelations of organized attempts by US Congressmen to whitewash their articles. Not any evidence of "corporate astroturfing" of which I am aware. There was evidence that some congressional staffers edited Wikipedia in inappropriate ways. But the internal evidence of the type and style of these edits do not suggest "organized attempts".
WS: Nichalp asks: "Budget permitting, are there any plans to increase the number of Wikipedia servers, specifically into the less developed countries?"
JW: We are always buying new servers. There are no specific plans to add servers in less developed countries, but we have looked into it as a possibility. We are particularly interested in doing so if it helps increase access and reduce costs for those users.
WS: An anonymous reader asks: "How much of a role do you feel the Wikipedia community (and the communities of its sister projects) should have in the running of the Wikimedia Foundation? Do you see an increasing separation of the organization from the projects? If so, do you regard that as beneficial or a potential problem?"
JW: The community has always been and will always be absolutely crucial to the running of the Wikimedia Foundation. We are increasing the community input and activity in the foundation through a new series of committees to delegate things to community members which have traditionally been handled by me or the Board. I do not see any increasing separation of the organization from the projects, quite the opposite. I consider the increasing integration of the community and the foundation as overwhelmingly beneficial.
WS: ALoan asks: "English Wikipedia is approaching 1 million articles, but less than 1 in a thousand are Featured articles. The list of featured articles English Wikipedia should have has few featured articles, and recent surveys of articles chosen at random show that many articles are poorly written. How can we get from here to an encyclopedia of well-written articles? Or should we not worry too much about coverage and content?"
JW: We should be tightly focused on the quality of our coverage and content. The goal of Wikipedia is to create and distribute a freely licensed high quality encyclopedia. The path to that goal will require us to be flexible and thoughtful. The first steps will come soon with the article review system, which will initially be used simply to gather data. After we have data, we can begin to work on how we will focus our attention to improve quality.
WS: GeorgeStepanek asks: "You've said that 'Wikimedia's mission is to give the world's knowledge to every single person on the planet in their own language.' But very few of the wikipedias in the languages of third-world countries are seeing as much activity as the first-world language wikipedias. Do you have any ideas on how this could be turned around?"
JW: I am a believer in outreach. I would like for the Foundation to raise money specifically to pay one or more minority language co-ordinators. The goal would be to reach out in a more organized way to professors and graduate students and expat communities who have good Internet access, to seed projects for languages where the majority of speakers have poor internet access.
WS: Jacoplane asks: "How do you feel we will be able to reach Wikipedia 1.0? The tools currently available for vetting our articles are crude at best. The Featured article process seems too slow, and the article validation feature seems to have died a quiet death. Are you planning a big push on this front?"
JW: Isn't that the same question as the quality question? The article validation feature has not died a quiet death at all.
WS: Quadell asks: "Most important decisions on Wikimedia projects are handled
The variety in quality depends a lot on how much effort you're prepared to go to. When I was at Uni they were selling "kits" that you just added hot water to and left for a while. They were dire.
Instead I nicked my dad's brewing kit, went to the local brewing-supply shop (was about 5 miles away, but I was energetic and cycled there). A big bag of good hops, a large tin of good malt, and a small sachet of yeast. Add to that a small mountain of normal sugar and a couple of hours work in the kitchen and I had a respectable brew at a respectable strength.
I think the largest problem I had was finding somewhere with the correct (and consistent) temperature to leave it ferment. Obviously, as a student, heating was low on the list when it came to expenditure, so my winter brews were a bit grim if the yeast died.
Check out USwitch.com and find the cheapest gas/electric suppliers in your area. Change to them. Then start switching things off a lot, enjoying the benefits of going vegetarian (soya is your meaty friend), or shop here. If you have a car, sell it and walk everywhere. If you need to go further than you can walk, then get a bike (buy a very cheap one and a good lock, as otherwise it'll get nicked).
Most importantly, brew your own beer. It costs around 10p a pint and can even taste nice if you get a good recipe. Checkout a brewing shop for what you'll need to get to start yourself off.
even more pedantic: go to Rubik's store and look at the listing for the cubes. You have:
Rubik's mini Cube at 2x2
Rubik's Cube at 3x3
Rubik's Revenge at 4x4
Rubik's Professor Cube at 5x5
Nowhere do they mention the last dimension of the cubes
Individuals in France who ignore copyright by downloading illegal music files will also be subject to a harsher "graduated" enforcement procedure, according to Agence France Presse.
If uploaders keep ignoring warnings, they can be put on trial. A new anti piracy bill that is being examined by French MPs would also allow record companies to include technical measures to stop users from directly making copies.
But it's part of the Open Source Energy Network - how could anyone here possibly have anything bad to say about it?
Seriously, I agree that it doesn't have many particularly scientific references at the bottom (merely 2 links to NASA docs), and I did label it as speculative.
Yes it is (both). This article goes into some speculative detail. Upshot is, possibly damaging a shed load of electrical devices, disruption to electrical grids, etc....
Could be interesting times (mental note: buy manual tin opener)
Eugene V. Debs: When great changes occur in history, when great principles are involved, as a rule the majority are wrong. The minority are right.
George Bernard Shaw: Democracy is a device that ensures we shall be governed no better than we deserve.
Jane Auer: Voting is one of the few things where boycotting in protest clearly makes the problem worse rather than better.
John Simon: Democracy encourages the majority to decide things about which the majority is ignorant.
Thomas Jefferson: A democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where fifty-one percent of the people may take away the rights of the other forty-nine.
Heinlein wrote something similar to to your quote - something along the lines of "democracy is the idea that one intelligent person has an equal weight as a million stupid people in deciding the future, where's the sense in that?"
I think the Thomas Jefferson quote is slowly being eroded thanks to Corporate America, sad.
I suspect they meant "on average" after having taken the 233 and 47 numbers (add them and divide by 2). Not as rigorous as the pedant/. crowd would like, but good enuff
Google it and there's lots of site who're convinced he did. Granted that some of the origins seem to stem from an unsubstantiated chain mail, but he did seem to come up with all sorts of soundbyte gems.
I'd been hoping to find some acknowledgement on the site to say it's a spoof, but was bitterly disappointed. Hopefully, it'll get laughed out of court, but I won't hold my breath as all sorts of gibberish gets passed into law in the US
Slashdot Mirror
I'm also considering a patent on making a pair of trousers that split completely in the middle (i.e. having two unconnected legs). Put them on individually and provide a fastening to join them. There's the added bonus of mix & match, plus also not having to throw the whole pair out if you wear/tear a hole in one knee.
I admit I picked one I knew that was bad, Brazil has a growth of 1% pa - but thats only about 0.1% higher than US & Canada, and 4x more than the UK. Ireland is nice & high too at 1.16%. Oddly (or not), Afganistan is currently running at near 5% increase.
The UK burns 50-60 million tonnes of coal every year. That 3ppm has to go somewhere.
Jimbo Wales: The question is invalid. There were no revelations of organized attempts by US Congressmen to whitewash their articles. Not any evidence of "corporate astroturfing" of which I am aware. There was evidence that some congressional staffers edited Wikipedia in inappropriate ways. But the internal evidence of the type and style of these edits do not suggest "organized attempts".
WS: Nichalp asks: "Budget permitting, are there any plans to increase the number of Wikipedia servers, specifically into the less developed countries?"
JW: We are always buying new servers. There are no specific plans to add servers in less developed countries, but we have looked into it as a possibility. We are particularly interested in doing so if it helps increase access and reduce costs for those users.
WS: An anonymous reader asks: "How much of a role do you feel the Wikipedia community (and the communities of its sister projects) should have in the running of the Wikimedia Foundation? Do you see an increasing separation of the organization from the projects? If so, do you regard that as beneficial or a potential problem?"
JW: The community has always been and will always be absolutely crucial to the running of the Wikimedia Foundation. We are increasing the community input and activity in the foundation through a new series of committees to delegate things to community members which have traditionally been handled by me or the Board. I do not see any increasing separation of the organization from the projects, quite the opposite. I consider the increasing integration of the community and the foundation as overwhelmingly beneficial.
WS: ALoan asks: "English Wikipedia is approaching 1 million articles, but less than 1 in a thousand are Featured articles. The list of featured articles English Wikipedia should have has few featured articles, and recent surveys of articles chosen at random show that many articles are poorly written. How can we get from here to an encyclopedia of well-written articles? Or should we not worry too much about coverage and content?"
JW: We should be tightly focused on the quality of our coverage and content. The goal of Wikipedia is to create and distribute a freely licensed high quality encyclopedia. The path to that goal will require us to be flexible and thoughtful. The first steps will come soon with the article review system, which will initially be used simply to gather data. After we have data, we can begin to work on how we will focus our attention to improve quality.
WS: GeorgeStepanek asks: "You've said that 'Wikimedia's mission is to give the world's knowledge to every single person on the planet in their own language.' But very few of the wikipedias in the languages of third-world countries are seeing as much activity as the first-world language wikipedias. Do you have any ideas on how this could be turned around?"
JW: I am a believer in outreach. I would like for the Foundation to raise money specifically to pay one or more minority language co-ordinators. The goal would be to reach out in a more organized way to professors and graduate students and expat communities who have good Internet access, to seed projects for languages where the majority of speakers have poor internet access.
WS: Jacoplane asks: "How do you feel we will be able to reach Wikipedia 1.0? The tools currently available for vetting our articles are crude at best. The Featured article process seems too slow, and the article validation feature seems to have died a quiet death. Are you planning a big push on this front?"
JW: Isn't that the same question as the quality question? The article validation feature has not died a quiet death at all.
WS: Quadell asks: "Most important decisions on Wikimedia projects are handled
Instead I nicked my dad's brewing kit, went to the local brewing-supply shop (was about 5 miles away, but I was energetic and cycled there). A big bag of good hops, a large tin of good malt, and a small sachet of yeast. Add to that a small mountain of normal sugar and a couple of hours work in the kitchen and I had a respectable brew at a respectable strength.
I think the largest problem I had was finding somewhere with the correct (and consistent) temperature to leave it ferment. Obviously, as a student, heating was low on the list when it came to expenditure, so my winter brews were a bit grim if the yeast died.
Most importantly, brew your own beer. It costs around 10p a pint and can even taste nice if you get a good recipe. Checkout a brewing shop for what you'll need to get to start yourself off.
Try here instead. Someone also got fed up with that error
Rubik's mini Cube at 2x2
Rubik's Cube at 3x3
Rubik's Revenge at 4x4
Rubik's Professor Cube at 5x5
Nowhere do they mention the last dimension of the cubes
Yup - go to Rubiks site and buy a 2x2x2, 3x3x3, 4x4x4 or even (The Professor) 5x5x5 (although they refer to them as nxn too!)
(yes, I know, not a common sight, but they're damn fun to drive)
# Moderately against Labour's anti-terrorism laws. votes, speeches
# Moderately against introducing ID cards. votes, speeches
Individuals in France who ignore copyright by downloading illegal music files will also be subject to a harsher "graduated" enforcement procedure, according to Agence France Presse.
If uploaders keep ignoring warnings, they can be put on trial. A new anti piracy bill that is being examined by French MPs would also allow record companies to include technical measures to stop users from directly making copies.
Get it here
Seriously, I agree that it doesn't have many particularly scientific references at the bottom (merely 2 links to NASA docs), and I did label it as speculative.
Could be interesting times (mental note: buy manual tin opener)
Eugene V. Debs: When great changes occur in history, when great principles are involved, as a rule the majority are wrong. The minority are right.
George Bernard Shaw: Democracy is a device that ensures we shall be governed no better than we deserve.
Jane Auer: Voting is one of the few things where boycotting in protest clearly makes the problem worse rather than better.
John Simon: Democracy encourages the majority to decide things about which the majority is ignorant.
Thomas Jefferson: A democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where fifty-one percent of the people may take away the rights of the other forty-nine.
Heinlein wrote something similar to to your quote - something along the lines of "democracy is the idea that one intelligent person has an equal weight as a million stupid people in deciding the future, where's the sense in that?"
I think the Thomas Jefferson quote is slowly being eroded thanks to Corporate America, sad.
Maybe someone could do some magic with Greasemonkey to alter these links (IANAGP - Greasmonkey Programmer)
Here is one such site.