Yeah, okay, but what if I'm a citizen of ancient Judea and I can't imagine any format superior to the scroll, with its elegant hand-formed letters and smooth hide feel? Who would prefer a bunch of itty-bitty printed characters on wood pulp? Ick!
So, modern day. Gee, I love it when a book is printed too small, or the lines are too close together, or a page gets ripped or stained. Not! I'd love the ability to resize pages, respace lines, not worry about damage to the text if my equipment was damaged... all kids of advantages to e-books.
Of course, this is devil's advocate to a great extent; i prefer "real" books now, too, especially because CRTs really hurt my eyes, but LCDs aren't the greatest either. We've got work to do. But it might seem like the scroll vs. print issue, eventually...
Okay, but what if ASCII becomes the next EBCDIC? What if HTML can only be read with "legacy" programs like Netscape and IE? Digitalizing books actually opens up a whole new can of worms, where preservation is concerned. As long as the language isn't dead, a print book is okay. But maintaining a digital book requires maintaining the reader program, and accordingly, the platform on which the reader program runs. Still sound easier than printing a new edition of a book?
Now, granted, one copy of a hardcopy book isn't enough to ensure that it's preserved. It could get burned, worm eaten, etc. The virtue of hard books is that so MANY are printed. And this is the kind of thing we need to do to digitized books to make sure they stick around: maintain a plurality of formats in a plurality of locations.
... just silly news. Lasers are used to hold atoms/molecules perfectly in place, reducing their movement and effectively "freezing" them almost to absolute zero. Obviously this wouldn't work with an entire chip or probably even a whole transistor; it's a different technology entirely.
My point exactly (except of course signail11 made it first:). Open Source programs already constitute a great portion of some very standard benchmarks, the SpecINT and SpecFP. The thing is, people can still put in weird optimizations to make execution seem unrealistically fast. Like if there's an empty loop designed to, I don't know, test instruction dispatch speed, you can just optimize your compiler to skip empty loops: bam! 50% speed increase.
What's really needed are some benchmarks which test realistic computer usage. The Spec's try to do this, or did, but it can be argued that a lot of those tasks aren't so common for today's users. How about a benchmark that tests how fast a PC can open Office98, access 3 menu options, type a bit, save, type some more, define a macro, and exit? I haven't seen one of those. But it really would help some folks out.
Hmm... pinkerton received "70,000 emails and a couple mail bombs"? Pinkerton good or bad, that line really bothers me. Doesn't it kind of defeat the whole point of saying "geeks aren't violent" if we try to blow these people up?
Unless I'm seriously misreading this. But it did say mailbomb, didn't it?
Ha! Yeah, ben and jerry's, er, I mean Unilever, Inc is one helluva socially responsible company! And they've got a robust business plan which will be able to resist a hostile takeover until at least April of this year!
Reading the article helped allay one of my concerns - the lack of people on the other end. According to the article, he wants to hire lecturers and guest lecturers to be videotaped and then offer the video online. Of course, that's still no better than watching a lecture on TV, because there's no Q&A session
Man oh man. For some reason, this just struck me as a really good idea. In a real lecture hall, the prof gives a talk and then takes maybe 10 questions from the audience, selected who-knows-why, maybe randomly, maybe because the girl/guy in the third row is cute... have you ever been really frustrated because a prof answered some stupid question instead of yours?
This is where moderation could come in handy. They show the video lecture, the lecturer agrees to either come to a studio or sit at a remote terminal. During the time she/he is there, the lecture is played, questions are taken on a moderated IRC channel, the moderators take the *most popular questions* and the most insightful ones, and have the lecturer answer those, like in a slashdot interview.
Then, the prof's time in "lecture" (actually, only a Q&A session) is well spent, and the most popular questions are answered, as well as the most interesting, expansive ones. Wow! That would be so cool! Moderation of lecture questions and comments. I wish we could do that at my college.
p.s. sorry if this posts twice; it said "unknown error" the first time.
First of all, I agree with you wholeheartedly that primary education needs the most work in this country, and improving it would go a long ways towards reducing the economic gap between more- and less-educated people.
However, I think what he's doing is conceptually different. One of the points they raise in the article is that "there's no reason that someone in a Columbian jungle couldn't get a high quality education on the web." This aims at reducing the education/money gap AROUND THE WORLD -- which is another huge problem. What if there was another group of philanthropists who were willing to set up "remote campuses" around the world, and train some local folks to maintain them? Then a labful of people at a time in thousands of disadvantaged places could all benefit from this, at a relatively low cost.
Improving the primary education in the USA would level the economic playing field here. Giving away high quality university education has the potential to level it across the world. Both are valid; just different.
Getting a degree requires that a person commit a lot of their time to it. Sure, the actual university fees may be free, but the actual cost to a person is a lot more than that.
I'm a bit skeptical about the awarding of degrees as well. But it seems like, since it's all online, you could just take from it what you need to. Like I might follow watch the Knuth (for example:) lectures on computer programming, follow a sequence on database theory. If you took a bit at a time, a reasonable option for a busy IT worker, I think you could fit it into your schedule at a minimal cost.
Of course, you'll probably have to download and register the latest-greatest RealPlayer to watch the online videos, and get a new 700 MHz Athlon and 512M of ram to get the thing to run correctly... nevermind, that could get expensive...
Please forgive me for using the word, but this could be part of a new education paradigm. Think about it: As someone was saying above, how could anyone hope to grade all the million or so essays that would be generated by students attending for free?
Instead, the parts of the class that are to be evaluated would have to be automated. Like multiple choice tests. Kinda skanky, but seems like a necessity. Also, the definition of "cheating" would probably have to change; since it's free, anyone who got "kicked out" for cheating could just come back under another nick. Anyone who stays would have to stay because they care, period. Encourage everything currently considered cheating: collaborative work (via instant messengers, internet phone, IRC, whatever), use of reference materials, everything. This is good real life training anyway: you always collaborate with people to get things done.
Also, it seems like they could learn alot from the slashdot moderation system. Only instead of moderators, you'd have online T.A.'s. T.A. "points" would have to be awarded on a different basis, though. Maybe you could take a little certification course (also free?) to help with certain online classes. Because individual feedback is also a vital part of education, and you can't have one prof do that for a million people! So distribute the work over 1000 T.A.s. Is this cheating too, or helping oneself and others to understand better?
Saylor himself said: "Done right, this will impact the lives of millions of people forever. Done wrong, it's just noise in a can." Whether it will be done right remains to be seen: As yet, there is no structure, no staff, no specific curriculum, no estimate of the final cost.
Once they said that it was going to be centered around video footage of "geniuses and leaders," I was skeptical. We're not at broadband just yet. Hopefully they'll put some effort into plain ol' text and/or ebooks, too. Seems like an important part of an online education would be following your own pace, not just watching videotaped lectures.
Okay, I did some more investigation into the Nation Online page, and it looks like they're just not redirecting the way they used to. I tracked down the new, REAL site if anyone was curious to check out an east African newspaper online.
Well, being a geek who spent some time in Kenya, I got kind of an accurate picture of how the internet is interpreted in 3rd world countries.
One important aspect to consider is the attitude towards western society and gadgets altogether. There is a simultaneous resentment and eager sense of curiosity, since 1st world countries have effectively all the power in the world market. Citizens of (for example) Kenya resist changes towards becoming "too western," but also realize that a degree of change is the way to economic (and therefore political) liberation.
Before the peace corps flames me: I realize this is a simplification. But it's mostly true.
Anyway, that's the basis of feelings towards the internet as well. Someone above asked "how can people in 3rd world countries even afford computers?" The answer is, overwhelmingly, they can't. Very few families, and virtually no individuals, have PCs. Computers are always a business and/or community resource. There are plenty of ISPs in Kenya, and they either have offices where you can come in to use a terminal, or local businesses get a single connection and rent it by the hour to make a little extra revenue.
So who can afford that, you ask? Well, admittedly, it's mostly the tourists, peace corps, and upper upper classes of natives. I paid around $10 per hour for internet service while I was there, and that's completely out of the question for a lot of people. So, it's still very much a priviledge or, depending on how you take it, a sign of the entrenched oligarchy, to be able to use the internet in the third world.
Because access is so limited, I wouldn't say that social change has been severe due to the internet. Not nearly so significant as TV, which often has a horrible effect on developing countries, Kenya not excepted. But that's another topic. It does help some businesses, however, particularly local media outlets. When they post on the web, the local papers can be taken more seriously in a global setting and help to keep the diaspora connected to their homeland. While this might not imply a huge economic upturn anytime soon, it's certainly having some small, positive effects.
Whew! I did both of those URLs from memory; now I'm off to preview and check 'em... Oops! Looks like the Nation Online (link #2) hasn't been updated in quite some time. That's weird. It was working quite well when I was there. That's another problem with internet in Kenya: the whole "hakuna matata" attitude pervades pretty much everything, including stuff like public utilities and, it looks like, updating one's website. Oh well; it's nice when it works!
Hrmph. The "Please post your responses here" link at the bottom of the article should have been a link to this Slashdot discussion, instead of the O'Reilly forum.
Actually, not. Or more precisely, who knows what the PTO will grant them, but it will be a trivial matter to beat it down with prior art.
See, no matter when they filed for the patent, whether it was 5 years ago even, soft links have existed under unix for WAY longer. Finding an example to invalidate their patent, should they apply for one, will be an absolute cakewalk.
Your latest Alertbox made a lot of sense out of the Stanford Internet use study. The most interesting part to me was the section on the digital divide, and especially the conclusion that age and education are much more significant predictors of Internet use than income, race, or gender.
Anyway, my question. Since the study showed -- and you seem to concur -- that older people and less-educated people are the least likely to be using the internet, these groups could be considered the biggest "growth markets" for e-commerce companies. However, it seems that the techniques necessary to appeal to these two groups would be significantly different. How do you see internet companies trying to appeal to these "new" demographics (if at all) to increase their market share in the next few years?
Okay. A few posts have been touching on this, but none address it directly: most "new media" aren't archived very well, if at all. Ever try to find what was on CNN (or even CNN.com, for that matter) over a month ago? It's damn difficult.
A similar comment was marked down as "Troll" earlier, and I can't honestly understand why -- do people find archival unimportant? Or are sites really doing a better job archiving than I thought? I'd rather have somebody post to correction than moderate down a legitimate concern...
The answer: I don't know. Or, what was on my local TV news (any of the 4 stations), or on CNN.com, or any other "new" media. On the other hand, I can find out, within an hour, what was in my local paper, the NYTimes, or the Washington Post on that date. I just have to run to the library (unfortunately, they don't have the papers indexed in the online catalog very well).
Most of the comments have dealt with convenience or how much the posters like reading the paper, but there's something more at stake: archival. I'm sure someone will point out that it's far from impossible to archive online media, and that's true. But it is difficult. Current optical media degrade after 20 years; most other alternatives are too expensive to consider.
Furthermore, even though it's not impossible, very few "new" media are being archived in this way. It's just not sexy to have a link to "yesterday's news" on the news homepage. It's bloody difficult find this kind of history for online media. Or sometimes, they are, somewhere besides here; CNN always seems to be able to rattle off a tape of what they broadcast a year ago. But I can't just run down to my library and get it. Call me a nut, but I don't feel comfortable leaving the sole responsiblity for news archival with corporate interests.
Until there are some better solutions for non-print media archival, I think papers must survive to fill that "archivable" position. It makes me sad that so many of them are moving into the digital age so poorly.
hey, that's a pretty well-thought analysis... hope you clean it up, put it RTF format and send it to 1201@loc.gov... This is the kind of thing they need to hear: analysis of what's wrong with section 1201 in detail. Thanks for posting!
And to make it worse, tonight FOX channel 17, the local channel in the Grand Rapids area, is running a terrible story about this.
I'm at work, so I won't get a chance to watch this myself (at 10:00 pm -- anyone else in the area try to catch it), but the teasers on earlier today began with, "Are your children SAFE from PORN on the internet??" in this boomy-doomy voice. It was so depressing; the main topic was the same old "we need filters to protect the kids" argument. No hint that filters don't work as promised, no acknowledgement that you have to look for porn online to see it.
This is getting to be a major nuisance, the major media misinterpretations of internet events. We should organize people to write knowledgable letters to the stations before this kind of thing goes out -- perhaps this is a pertinent thing for local LUGs to pursue. Anyone else want to help?
Okay, anyone here contribute to open source projects? Anyone here maybe even head one up? I would say "many thanks for sharing your hard work," but Metcalfe would have me go on to ask: do you have a day job? Do you have to do something besides your open source project in order to eat? Oh, bad you, guess you betrayed the movement and now I have to hate you.
From what I've heard so far, the potential for damage is almost limitless.
Maybe I'm being thick headed here, but why is the Crusoe more of a security problem then, say, any RISC processor? It basically just takes the RISC philosophy (move complexity off the chip, into software) to the next level: move the task of converting complex instructions out of the hardware, too.
Also, the part that does the conversion (the "Morphing" unit) is in a ROM chip that can only be updated by flashing. It's not like you'd overwrite it on a buffer overrun;)
Or, again, is there something I'm missing? I've read the Transmeta "technology behind the Crusoe" document, but that's obviously pretty biased towards the positive aspects:)
but the majority of people are willing to sacrifice a few watts of power for another 150mhz in clockspeed
Yes, but at $89, you might as well just buy 2 or 3 crusoes and go SMP at the same wattage:)
The dangers are obvious. One of the Net's most significant contributions is to bring all sorts of people together. But the growing "freedom from speech" movement is spawning communities in which people will find only opinions they already agree with.
Yeah, okay, but you know what? No one's compelled to read anything on Slashdot anyway. The very point of it all -- for me, at least, and I suspect many others -- is that I do see so many different view points that I wouldn't otherwise see.
If someone is truly interested in finding "only opinions they already agree with," I think they can go to great lengths to do this with or without the voluntary mechanisms for narrowing one's horizons online. I mean, they don't have to use the internet at all: it seems like complete abdication is one of the narrowest responses, and certainly easy for anyone to exercise. Getting people on Slashdot at all is a good step, whether or not they choose to read absolutely EVERYTHING when they're here.
Slashdot Mirror
So, modern day. Gee, I love it when a book is printed too small, or the lines are too close together, or a page gets ripped or stained. Not! I'd love the ability to resize pages, respace lines, not worry about damage to the text if my equipment was damaged... all kids of advantages to e-books.
Of course, this is devil's advocate to a great extent; i prefer "real" books now, too, especially because CRTs really hurt my eyes, but LCDs aren't the greatest either. We've got work to do. But it might seem like the scroll vs. print issue, eventually...
Now, granted, one copy of a hardcopy book isn't enough to ensure that it's preserved. It could get burned, worm eaten, etc. The virtue of hard books is that so MANY are printed. And this is the kind of thing we need to do to digitized books to make sure they stick around: maintain a plurality of formats in a plurality of locations.
Copying all of a library's LPs onto CD doesn't alienate the vinyl crowd. It just lets in a whole other crowd.
oops.
What's really needed are some benchmarks which test realistic computer usage. The Spec's try to do this, or did, but it can be argued that a lot of those tasks aren't so common for today's users. How about a benchmark that tests how fast a PC can open Office98, access 3 menu options, type a bit, save, type some more, define a macro, and exit? I haven't seen one of those. But it really would help some folks out.
Unless I'm seriously misreading this. But it did say mailbomb, didn't it?
Ha! Yeah, ben and jerry's, er, I mean Unilever, Inc is one helluva socially responsible company! And they've got a robust business plan which will be able to resist a hostile takeover until at least April of this year!
hee hee...
Man oh man. For some reason, this just struck me as a really good idea. In a real lecture hall, the prof gives a talk and then takes maybe 10 questions from the audience, selected who-knows-why, maybe randomly, maybe because the girl/guy in the third row is cute... have you ever been really frustrated because a prof answered some stupid question instead of yours?
This is where moderation could come in handy. They show the video lecture, the lecturer agrees to either come to a studio or sit at a remote terminal. During the time she/he is there, the lecture is played, questions are taken on a moderated IRC channel, the moderators take the *most popular questions* and the most insightful ones, and have the lecturer answer those, like in a slashdot interview.
Then, the prof's time in "lecture" (actually, only a Q&A session) is well spent, and the most popular questions are answered, as well as the most interesting, expansive ones. Wow! That would be so cool! Moderation of lecture questions and comments. I wish we could do that at my college.
p.s. sorry if this posts twice; it said "unknown error" the first time.
However, I think what he's doing is conceptually different. One of the points they raise in the article is that "there's no reason that someone in a Columbian jungle couldn't get a high quality education on the web." This aims at reducing the education/money gap AROUND THE WORLD -- which is another huge problem. What if there was another group of philanthropists who were willing to set up "remote campuses" around the world, and train some local folks to maintain them? Then a labful of people at a time in thousands of disadvantaged places could all benefit from this, at a relatively low cost.
Improving the primary education in the USA would level the economic playing field here. Giving away high quality university education has the potential to level it across the world. Both are valid; just different.
I'm a bit skeptical about the awarding of degrees as well. But it seems like, since it's all online, you could just take from it what you need to. Like I might follow watch the Knuth (for example :) lectures on computer programming, follow a sequence on database theory. If you took a bit at a time, a reasonable option for a busy IT worker, I think you could fit it into your schedule at a minimal cost.
Of course, you'll probably have to download and register the latest-greatest RealPlayer to watch the online videos, and get a new 700 MHz Athlon and 512M of ram to get the thing to run correctly... nevermind, that could get expensive...
Instead, the parts of the class that are to be evaluated would have to be automated. Like multiple choice tests. Kinda skanky, but seems like a necessity. Also, the definition of "cheating" would probably have to change; since it's free, anyone who got "kicked out" for cheating could just come back under another nick. Anyone who stays would have to stay because they care, period. Encourage everything currently considered cheating: collaborative work (via instant messengers, internet phone, IRC, whatever), use of reference materials, everything. This is good real life training anyway: you always collaborate with people to get things done.
Also, it seems like they could learn alot from the slashdot moderation system. Only instead of moderators, you'd have online T.A.'s. T.A. "points" would have to be awarded on a different basis, though. Maybe you could take a little certification course (also free?) to help with certain online classes. Because individual feedback is also a vital part of education, and you can't have one prof do that for a million people! So distribute the work over 1000 T.A.s. Is this cheating too, or helping oneself and others to understand better?
Saylor himself said: "Done right, this will impact the lives of millions of people forever. Done wrong, it's just noise in a can." Whether it will be done right remains to be seen: As yet, there is no structure, no staff, no specific curriculum, no estimate of the final cost.
Once they said that it was going to be centered around video footage of "geniuses and leaders," I was skeptical. We're not at broadband just yet. Hopefully they'll put some effort into plain ol' text and/or ebooks, too. Seems like an important part of an online education would be following your own pace, not just watching videotaped lectures.
Okay, I did some more investigation into the Nation Online page, and it looks like they're just not redirecting the way they used to. I tracked down the new, REAL site if anyone was curious to check out an east African newspaper online.
One important aspect to consider is the attitude towards western society and gadgets altogether. There is a simultaneous resentment and eager sense of curiosity, since 1st world countries have effectively all the power in the world market. Citizens of (for example) Kenya resist changes towards becoming "too western," but also realize that a degree of change is the way to economic (and therefore political) liberation.
Before the peace corps flames me: I realize this is a simplification. But it's mostly true.
Anyway, that's the basis of feelings towards the internet as well. Someone above asked "how can people in 3rd world countries even afford computers?" The answer is, overwhelmingly, they can't. Very few families, and virtually no individuals, have PCs. Computers are always a business and/or community resource. There are plenty of ISPs in Kenya, and they either have offices where you can come in to use a terminal, or local businesses get a single connection and rent it by the hour to make a little extra revenue.
So who can afford that, you ask? Well, admittedly, it's mostly the tourists, peace corps, and upper upper classes of natives. I paid around $10 per hour for internet service while I was there, and that's completely out of the question for a lot of people. So, it's still very much a priviledge or, depending on how you take it, a sign of the entrenched oligarchy, to be able to use the internet in the third world.
Because access is so limited, I wouldn't say that social change has been severe due to the internet. Not nearly so significant as TV, which often has a horrible effect on developing countries, Kenya not excepted. But that's another topic. It does help some businesses, however, particularly local media outlets. When they post on the web, the local papers can be taken more seriously in a global setting and help to keep the diaspora connected to their homeland. While this might not imply a huge economic upturn anytime soon, it's certainly having some small, positive effects.
Whew! I did both of those URLs from memory; now I'm off to preview and check 'em... Oops! Looks like the Nation Online (link #2) hasn't been updated in quite some time. That's weird. It was working quite well when I was there. That's another problem with internet in Kenya: the whole "hakuna matata" attitude pervades pretty much everything, including stuff like public utilities and, it looks like, updating one's website. Oh well; it's nice when it works!
Here's another article on the Washington Post about the merger.
Hrmph. The "Please post your responses here" link at the bottom of the article should have been a link to this Slashdot discussion, instead of the O'Reilly forum.
See, no matter when they filed for the patent, whether it was 5 years ago even, soft links have existed under unix for WAY longer. Finding an example to invalidate their patent, should they apply for one, will be an absolute cakewalk.
Anyway, my question. Since the study showed -- and you seem to concur -- that older people and less-educated people are the least likely to be using the internet, these groups could be considered the biggest "growth markets" for e-commerce companies. However, it seems that the techniques necessary to appeal to these two groups would be significantly different. How do you see internet companies trying to appeal to these "new" demographics (if at all) to increase their market share in the next few years?
A similar comment was marked down as "Troll" earlier, and I can't honestly understand why -- do people find archival unimportant? Or are sites really doing a better job archiving than I thought? I'd rather have somebody post to correction than moderate down a legitimate concern...
Most of the comments have dealt with convenience or how much the posters like reading the paper, but there's something more at stake: archival. I'm sure someone will point out that it's far from impossible to archive online media, and that's true. But it is difficult. Current optical media degrade after 20 years; most other alternatives are too expensive to consider.
Furthermore, even though it's not impossible, very few "new" media are being archived in this way. It's just not sexy to have a link to "yesterday's news" on the news homepage. It's bloody difficult find this kind of history for online media. Or sometimes, they are, somewhere besides here; CNN always seems to be able to rattle off a tape of what they broadcast a year ago. But I can't just run down to my library and get it. Call me a nut, but I don't feel comfortable leaving the sole responsiblity for news archival with corporate interests.
Until there are some better solutions for non-print media archival, I think papers must survive to fill that "archivable" position. It makes me sad that so many of them are moving into the digital age so poorly.
hey, that's a pretty well-thought analysis... hope you clean it up, put it RTF format and send it to 1201@loc.gov ... This is the kind of thing they need to hear: analysis of what's wrong with section 1201 in detail. Thanks for posting!
And to make it worse, tonight FOX channel 17, the local channel in the Grand Rapids area, is running a terrible story about this.
I'm at work, so I won't get a chance to watch this myself (at 10:00 pm -- anyone else in the area try to catch it), but the teasers on earlier today began with, "Are your children SAFE from PORN on the internet??" in this boomy-doomy voice. It was so depressing; the main topic was the same old "we need filters to protect the kids" argument. No hint that filters don't work as promised, no acknowledgement that you have to look for porn online to see it.
This is getting to be a major nuisance, the major media misinterpretations of internet events. We should organize people to write knowledgable letters to the stations before this kind of thing goes out -- perhaps this is a pertinent thing for local LUGs to pursue. Anyone else want to help?
Okay, anyone here contribute to open source projects? Anyone here maybe even head one up? I would say "many thanks for sharing your hard work," but Metcalfe would have me go on to ask: do you have a day job? Do you have to do something besides your open source project in order to eat? Oh, bad you, guess you betrayed the movement and now I have to hate you.
Jeez. Anyone remember where I put my cluestick?
Maybe I'm being thick headed here, but why is the Crusoe more of a security problem then, say, any RISC processor? It basically just takes the RISC philosophy (move complexity off the chip, into software) to the next level: move the task of converting complex instructions out of the hardware, too.
Also, the part that does the conversion (the "Morphing" unit) is in a ROM chip that can only be updated by flashing. It's not like you'd overwrite it on a buffer overrun ;)
Or, again, is there something I'm missing? I've read the Transmeta "technology behind the Crusoe" document, but that's obviously pretty biased towards the positive aspects :)
but the majority of people are willing to sacrifice a few watts of power for another 150mhz in clockspeed
Yes, but at $89, you might as well just buy 2 or 3 crusoes and go SMP at the same wattage :)
Yeah, okay, but you know what? No one's compelled to read anything on Slashdot anyway. The very point of it all -- for me, at least, and I suspect many others -- is that I do see so many different view points that I wouldn't otherwise see.
If someone is truly interested in finding "only opinions they already agree with," I think they can go to great lengths to do this with or without the voluntary mechanisms for narrowing one's horizons online. I mean, they don't have to use the internet at all: it seems like complete abdication is one of the narrowest responses, and certainly easy for anyone to exercise. Getting people on Slashdot at all is a good step, whether or not they choose to read absolutely EVERYTHING when they're here.