I should be more specific, as Weiss' sockpuppetry is a matter of public knowledge these days, and ask where are these mystery emails that prove Weiss' involvement in the stock-shifting conspiracy?
The only "nefarious agenda" on Weiss' part is that he disagrees with Byrne and didn't manage to get himself banned from editing in the process of their dispute. Likewise, I'm not sure that contributing to an article constitutes "sustained and concerted efforts to distort a subject". His continued presence does not imply conspiracy, only the as-yet-unrevealed "smoking gun" evidence from Byrne would show that.
Would you care to provide any examples? I keep hearing about this alleged manipulation, but I'm never actually shown anything beyond veiled references to the malevolent elite. (FWIW, I've got enough edits under my belt to probably qualify as one of those elites myself, it's actually a rather flattering notion).
TFA makes nice allusions to damning evidence but fails to provide any. Likewise TFS. Is it a bit much to ask that we don't just take it on faith that these things exist? I mean, it's Slashdot, for all 90% of commenters know there could be a picture of a robotic duck on the other side of the article link, such is our faith in the summary, but perhaps a little more critical thinking is called for, particularly in this Wikipedia context?
More to the point, where are these mystery emails that prove Weiss' involvement? What do they say? Who are they from, and who are they sent to? Where, indeed, is the evidence? Are we to take it for granted that it exists?
For those who've been following more than The Register's coverage, it seems the real question is, "does the ability to edit Wikipedia in a reasonable fashion give an unfair advantage?". I mean, the whole reason that Byrne and Judd are so pissed off is that their opening gambits were, essentially, to act like stereotypica Wikipedia trolls, and that resulted in them being cast out. Now, that's one thing, but when their side of the argument is cast out with them (they're the only people actually chasing this alleged story, it seems) you have to ask yourself whether Wikipedia's giving an unfair advantage to the sweet talkers.
Do you even know what ad hominem means? Since when was "What evidence does Byrne have of a connection here?" ad hominem? It sounds like asking someone to stand up for his argument to me.
Last time we saw about this, Mr. Overstock was claiming that Wikipedia was responsible for all kinds of financial destruction of his company, but not the ebb and flow of the whole economy. What next? Will Wikipedia be held responsible for McCain/Obama (delete as appropriate) not getting into office?
This implimentation is supposed to let you access your "calendar" and "contacts", so without them qualifying it with mentions of web apps, I'm assuming local access.
"In short you *could* use it for the Web/Mail tasks, but nothing else, unless you throw several programmers at the task of writing all the missing apps & drivers."
Well, that's pretty much all they're offering as it is. You could practically do it all as embedded software (which is what I was getting at with "something else entirely"), although as the reply above you suggests, that would cut you off from installing your own apps.
The average perfume contains dozens to hundreds of chemical compounds known to cause a variety of types of harm including birth defects
Sure, but as I say, the dose and exposure are the issues. Compounds which call for oxygen masks and glove boxes at the perfume bottling plant become an occupational hazard for the woman at the perfume stand and become harmless when you get down to the exposure experienced by the end consumer.
It sounds like it gives you access to your machine's own files, though. I suppose a more elegant alternative would be to design a CPU package with an ultra-low-voltage, ultra-low-performance mode and some sort of teeny onboard memory, rather than a whole other CPU for the stripped-back OS.
I'd probably opt for something else entirely. You hardly need a general-purpose OS for the functions they suggest, although that would stifle your ability to update the applications.
There are plenty of other OSes than Linux which they could've run off that CPU. Linux is arguably the best option these days, but it's an OS choice driven by the hardware, rather than the other way around.
Going out on a limb here, but I suspect the use of a mobile phone processor contributed a teeny bit more to the improved battery life than the Linux. (FWIW, I don't see any statistically significant battery life difference between Xubuntu and Vista Business on my own machine, but that's another story.)
That or it'll turn out that one guy happened to have a major allergic attack coincidentally the same day that he noticed his "new computer smell", and all the other reports about birds dying were just people taking the piss or resopnding in kind.
It's Greenpeace. Trying to get half-assed scare stories into the press by associating themselves with major brands is their whole purpose these days. Heaven forbid that they actually hook up with some real environmentalists and get themselves noticed on the basis of the science.
That's all. Soap-box science is fond of the "X contains Y, Y causes Z!" without considering the exposure, which is the absolute be-all and end-all of toxicology. As a rule of thumb, the air around you contains non-zero amounts of anything you claim to mention. Your computer mouse could quite possibly have a whole molecule of deadly hydrogen fluoride on it. This will not kill you.
100 spin points to Greenpeace for changing VOC from "volatile organic compound" to "volatile organic contaminant", by the way. It's nice to know that I can order in 99% pure bottles of "contaminant" from Sigma, or indeed that my air freshener is busily filling my surroundings with "contaminants".
Slashdot Mirror
I should be more specific, as Weiss' sockpuppetry is a matter of public knowledge these days, and ask where are these mystery emails that prove Weiss' involvement in the stock-shifting conspiracy?
The only "nefarious agenda" on Weiss' part is that he disagrees with Byrne and didn't manage to get himself banned from editing in the process of their dispute. Likewise, I'm not sure that contributing to an article constitutes "sustained and concerted efforts to distort a subject". His continued presence does not imply conspiracy, only the as-yet-unrevealed "smoking gun" evidence from Byrne would show that.
So, it's your standard Wikipedia edit war, except one of the participants could afford to turn it into a public war when he was banned from editing.
Would you care to provide any examples? I keep hearing about this alleged manipulation, but I'm never actually shown anything beyond veiled references to the malevolent elite. (FWIW, I've got enough edits under my belt to probably qualify as one of those elites myself, it's actually a rather flattering notion).
TFA makes nice allusions to damning evidence but fails to provide any. Likewise TFS. Is it a bit much to ask that we don't just take it on faith that these things exist? I mean, it's Slashdot, for all 90% of commenters know there could be a picture of a robotic duck on the other side of the article link, such is our faith in the summary, but perhaps a little more critical thinking is called for, particularly in this Wikipedia context?
It's called "humor". I wasn't actually saying that he should present himself as a NASA engineer working on a fictional starship.
More to the point, where are these mystery emails that prove Weiss' involvement? What do they say? Who are they from, and who are they sent to? Where, indeed, is the evidence? Are we to take it for granted that it exists?
Gary Weiss, Patrick M. Byrne. Showing the clear and overwhelming bias in favour of Weiss and against Byrne.
For those who've been following more than The Register's coverage, it seems the real question is, "does the ability to edit Wikipedia in a reasonable fashion give an unfair advantage?". I mean, the whole reason that Byrne and Judd are so pissed off is that their opening gambits were, essentially, to act like stereotypica Wikipedia trolls, and that resulted in them being cast out. Now, that's one thing, but when their side of the argument is cast out with them (they're the only people actually chasing this alleged story, it seems) you have to ask yourself whether Wikipedia's giving an unfair advantage to the sweet talkers.
Do you even know what ad hominem means? Since when was "What evidence does Byrne have of a connection here?" ad hominem? It sounds like asking someone to stand up for his argument to me.
Last time we saw about this, Mr. Overstock was claiming that Wikipedia was responsible for all kinds of financial destruction of his company, but not the ebb and flow of the whole economy. What next? Will Wikipedia be held responsible for McCain/Obama (delete as appropriate) not getting into office?
This implimentation is supposed to let you access your "calendar" and "contacts", so without them qualifying it with mentions of web apps, I'm assuming local access.
"enterprise NAS/SAN storage, working for an aerospace company"
At a certain degree of approximation (talking to 4th graders is hardly mission critical) this becomes:
"I work for an aerospace company (NASA) on the Starship Enterprise."
True, it would shove the setup way too far into the "pocket organiser" corner of the functionality-battery life continuum.
"In short you *could* use it for the Web/Mail tasks, but nothing else, unless you throw several programmers at the task of writing all the missing apps & drivers."
Well, that's pretty much all they're offering as it is. You could practically do it all as embedded software (which is what I was getting at with "something else entirely"), although as the reply above you suggests, that would cut you off from installing your own apps.
The average perfume contains dozens to hundreds of chemical compounds known to cause a variety of types of harm including birth defects
Sure, but as I say, the dose and exposure are the issues. Compounds which call for oxygen masks and glove boxes at the perfume bottling plant become an occupational hazard for the woman at the perfume stand and become harmless when you get down to the exposure experienced by the end consumer.
It sounds like it gives you access to your machine's own files, though. I suppose a more elegant alternative would be to design a CPU package with an ultra-low-voltage, ultra-low-performance mode and some sort of teeny onboard memory, rather than a whole other CPU for the stripped-back OS.
I'd probably opt for something else entirely. You hardly need a general-purpose OS for the functions they suggest, although that would stifle your ability to update the applications.
There are plenty of other OSes than Linux which they could've run off that CPU. Linux is arguably the best option these days, but it's an OS choice driven by the hardware, rather than the other way around.
Going out on a limb here, but I suspect the use of a mobile phone processor contributed a teeny bit more to the improved battery life than the Linux. (FWIW, I don't see any statistically significant battery life difference between Xubuntu and Vista Business on my own machine, but that's another story.)
That or it'll turn out that one guy happened to have a major allergic attack coincidentally the same day that he noticed his "new computer smell", and all the other reports about birds dying were just people taking the piss or resopnding in kind.
It has a game download service. They don't have to re-package the GBA games, just provide them online.
You can already do the SD->Wii copy manually. It seems that they've streamlined or automated the process somehow.
It's Greenpeace. Trying to get half-assed scare stories into the press by associating themselves with major brands is their whole purpose these days. Heaven forbid that they actually hook up with some real environmentalists and get themselves noticed on the basis of the science.
That's all. Soap-box science is fond of the "X contains Y, Y causes Z!" without considering the exposure, which is the absolute be-all and end-all of toxicology. As a rule of thumb, the air around you contains non-zero amounts of anything you claim to mention. Your computer mouse could quite possibly have a whole molecule of deadly hydrogen fluoride on it. This will not kill you.
100 spin points to Greenpeace for changing VOC from "volatile organic compound" to "volatile organic contaminant", by the way. It's nice to know that I can order in 99% pure bottles of "contaminant" from Sigma, or indeed that my air freshener is busily filling my surroundings with "contaminants".