Based on that description, it sounds similar to this article I recently saw from the University of Southampton.
Nano surfaces could slash cost of solar energy
Nanotechnologies which can artificially change the optical properties of materials to allow light to be trapped in solar cells could greatly reduce the cost of solar energy.
Research being carried out by the School of Electronics and Computer Science (ECS) at the University of Southampton is focusing on nanopatterning as the way to design effective solar panels.
'By drawing features that are much smaller than the wavelength of light, photons can be confused into doing things they normally wouldn't do,' says Dr Darren Bagnall, of the School of Electronics and Computer Science. 'By creating diffractive nanostructured arrays on the surface of solar cells we ensure that optical asymmetries are created that prevent light from escaping the solar cells.'
According to Dr Bagnall the light-trapping technologies could reduce the thickness of semiconductor materials needed in solar panels, and this would directly reduce the cost. The first challenge is to prove that the technology works in practice, the second key challenge will be to develop cost effective ways to produce nanopatterned layers.
The ECS approach is being applied to the £4.5M 'Photovoltaic Materials for the 21st Century' project which is funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC). Other university partners in this project are Durham, Bangor, Northumbria, Bath and Loughborough. They have teamed up with industrial partners to develop solar cells which will make it possible for manufacturers to slash the cost of solar energy by half.
Dr Bagnall comments: 'We have already shown that we can use arrays of chiral nanostructures, such as swastikas, to change the polarisation of light, now we want to apply the same technology to photovoltaics.'
"Much as the W3C recommends the royalty and patent free image compression formats PNG and JPEG, Annodex.net recommends the use of royalty and patent free audio and video codecs."
Recommends. As in does not require. Unless I'm missing something. Even if it doesn't support other formats I'm sure it will be hacked to do so shortly, seeing as the source is available and it's under a BSD-style license.
Is there actually a soluble problem addressed in your post? Because aside from your banal jabs at Americans all I see is a confusing anecdote. Don't get me wrong, a lot of Americans are uncaring assholes and many don't understand the issues faced by third-world countries. OK. Bitching about it and making sweeping generalizations doesn't help.
You say that there was only 1 100Mhz PC available for searching for missing persons. How was it being used? What kind of equipment is needed? Would it help if, per parent's suggestion, we avoided simply dumping our old equipment into the ground where it will slowly decay and leak potentially toxic chemicals into the environment (AKA "keeping all that old shit out of our landfills") and instead donated it to third-world countries? You know, so they'd have more than 1 100Mhz PC to use. Or maybe they need more modern equipment, like mentioned in the article, or training or something else, but you never elucidate.
Since you apparently have been out of the country (Laos, Burma, etc.), I would hope you could use this exceptional experience, which few of us rich, fat, sedentary Americans can experience since we're too busy munching down pounds of caviar at the Country Club (or maybe we're poor and working class and can't afford it or get time off) to enlighten us. You appear to be in a position to offer special insight and instead just spew some trite anti-American sentiment. So maybe you could focus a little less on the problems that everybody else makes and focus more on what you could be doing to help.
This just in! (white | black | asian | hispanic | *) (female | male | *) (democrat | republican | *) (christians | muslims | buddhists | *) that (use drugs | are homosexual | are unemployed | have differing beliefs | *) are human, too!
Unfortunately, until those studies come out, we'll just have to keep assuming that they're evil and deserving of whatever persecution we deem necessary.
Assuming software is patented, there is a person that has a legal agreement to be the only person that can benefit from the sale of that software for a period of time. By not selling the software, you are not infringing on their right to benefit from it.
Do you see the difference? In one case, someone is paying to distribute copies of something at no cost and no benefit to themselves. In another case someone is making money off of something that someone else has the exclusive right to be making money off of.
To simplify: I can download 1,000,000 copies of MS Office and still have the same amount of money in my pocket, and the same ability to buy MS Office.
I don't think you fought the war on drugs as much as you fought the war on some asshole neighbours of yours. Like you said - you've done some drugs, but you apparently have had no problem not pissing off your neighbors, unlike these fools. They could have just as easily been constantly drunk, fighting, yelling and whatever.
And how did you win? Was it perhaps by arresting thousands of non-yelling, non-asshole people because they happened to do drugs as well? Was it by breaking apart families whose only disfunction was the addiction of one of it's members? Was it by confiscating the property of people and making them go to court to get it back? Did it even involve the police?
No. In the end, it came down to you calling them out, and them moving. All those oppressive laws did nothing to help you except give you something to threaten them with. I don't know why the cops wouldn't ticket them for noise, and I don't know why they wouldn't help you otherwise - that's shitty, and you should complain to someone about that, if you ask me.
I don't know why I'm bothering, because this is probably just going to get buried, but...
Has anyone stopped and considered the evolutionary consequences of this? He is proposing to constantly repair all types of molecular and cellular damage. The "damage" done to our DNA (aka mutation) is the source of change and new, potentially beneficial traits.
And in order to fix them, wouldn't that imply that we know how they are supposed to work? Do we? Isn't the way that all people work differently one of our strong points?
Of course, mutation/recombination would still happen through reproduction, and could even be performed while one is alive, but the fact remains, if you want to improve things, you'll have to change them, and if you want to change them, you introduce the risk that you will break them. If no one wants to take that risk, how will we improve, or will we be happy with extended stasis?
I think many are unhappy that they can't escape the commericalism that is everywhere.
Here's an idea that might help: TURN OFF YOUR FUCKING TV!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
*eh-hem* Let me clarify. I don't hate the idea of TV. I'm not saying this law isn't bullshit. I'm not saying you have to stop watching video.
What I am saying is that continuing to support the people that try to make laws you hate is not in your best interest. And sitting yourself down in front of a constant stream of information provided by them is not a good idea.
Me? I'd rather pay for my content and get it unedited and in a hard-copy, commercial-less form. I still watch TV, but it's gotten to the point where I can barely handle it. And I'm not joking; I usually watch for ~30 mins at most before I get fed up to the point where I turn it off.
Let me make a short summary before I rebut (I'm sure everyone's going to stop reading after this, anyway). It seems to me that this guy is honestly missing the point of wikipedia. It's not Britannica, it's not inerrant truth, it's a user-edited free encyclopedia, and it admits its own shortcomings. He makes some valid points and clarifies differences between wikipedia and a print encyclopedia, but he seems to be dismissing wikipedia altogether. I don't mean to imply that the Britannica is worthless; it has it's place, but wikipedia still excels at many things. For instance, all of the errors he mentions have already been corrected, it's way more up-to-date and it has articles on things you WILL NOT find anywhere else. Whether they're too current, too bizarre, or just too obscure to be included in "The Britannica", they make their way into wikipedia, and if they haven't yet, it won't take too long for you to change that. Maybe when Britannica gets a goatse.cx entry, I'll reconsider it's inherent superiority.
"Note the adjectives, and the order in which they appear"...
I must have missed the part where the linear order of adjectives in sentences predicts their level of importance... Notice that he classifies reliable under "and also". Also notice, however, that in the sentence it's "to become"..."reliable". The wikipedia project accepts its unreliability, and they are addressing the issue, but they haven't sufficiently resolved it, yet. Although he doesn't mention it they are hoping to develop a process to validate the information and release "versions".
He also mentions the frequency with which they use probabalistic adjectives (such as might, probably, could). This is seen less as a recognition of the state of the wikipedia - which is taken to be inconcrete, but rather as his clever discovery of their fallability.
"The basis for the assertion that [collaborative editing] is advantageous vis-à-vis the traditional method of editing an encyclopedia remains, however, unclear."
I feel he left out..."in this short description"; it's laid out more clearly elsewhere on the site.
"Does someone actually believe [that this quasi-darwinian system of editing will work]? Evidently so. Why? It's very hard to say."
Of course, it's effects on other devlopmental processes might influence that belief...
He then says that the process suggests "journaling" which refers to young students writing lots of unclear, nonspecific information that is judged in bulk by their teachers.
"So many pages are required per week or semester, but the writing on those pages need not be grammatical or even intelligible"
Of course, here is where the processes split. In one, nongrammatical and/or unintelligible information is overlooked, whereas in the other, it is (usually/eventually) noticed and corrected.
"Superimpose on this intellectual preparation the moist and modish notion of "community" and some vague notions about information "wanting" to be free, et voilà!"...speaking of unintelligible, I'm having a hard time understanding this moist notion of his... NOTE: after writing this, I looked up moist and found the definition of "Fresh, or new." in Webster's 1913 Dictionary. I would add a note to his article to help clear it up, but I CAN'T.
"But conceding for a moment that this exercise in encyclopedia making is enjoyed and even believed in fervently by many thousands of participants,"...
I don't think that's something that requires a concession, I think that's a fact.
"let us take note of someone who is absolutely central to the concept of an encyclopedia but who is hardly acknowledged at all by the Wikipedians. I mean, of course, the user. As in the reader."
Which goes to show a misunderstanding of the concept of the wikipedia. The user is not necessarily seperate from the writer. Far from being not acknowledged, their role is held in the highest significance. It is uphe
This is a little OT, but I still think it's relevant; I was reminded of it by your last statement. If you aren't familiar with SRL, you should really check them out. From the telerobotics section:
"In keeping with SRL's mission of re-directing the techniques, tools, and tenets of industry, science, and the military away from their typical manifestations, several experiments were performed resulting in SRL being the first civilians to use free software and the Internet to provide remote, anonymous controllers for lethal devices over the web."
Even if it's not your cup of tea as far as "art" goes, it's hard to deny that they've done some amazingly complex and technologically sophisticated things. I don't know; there's just something about putting that much effort into something so...non-functional that serves to showcase the technology itself moreso than it's purpose (or even to make a point about its "purpose"), which I think is a good thing. I'm not denying there's useful things that should be done with technology. I just think it's great that it can be balanced out by making giant robots that eat dead animal carcasses.
I felt compelled to check whether Land Of The Free (tm) was an actual trademark. It is, but I was surprised to see what for...
Word Mark LAND OF THE FREE Goods and Services IC 030. US 046. G & S: SOYA-BASED NONDAIRY FROZEN DESSERTS FOR CONSUMPTION ON OR OFF THE PREMISES. FIRST USE: 19850401. FIRST USE IN COMMERCE: 19850401 Owner (REGISTRANT) TOFU TIME INC.
(emphasis mine)
Those damn IP-holding, money-grubbing...tofu companies? And don't forget, kids, enjoy your Tofu-Time Soya-based non-dairy frozen desserts on OR off the premises. After all, this is The Land Of The Free (tm)
For more trademark fun, be sure to visit the USPTO.
After De La Sould was sued by The Turtles in 1989 all recognizable samples had to be cleared (ie rights to use them had to be obtained).
This year, Sept. 7, there was a new ruling regarding NWA's use of a two second Funkadelic clip in the song "100 Miles and Running".
A lower court said that the sampling "did not rise to the level of legally cognizable appropriation."
The federal appeals court, however, has this to say, "If you cannot pirate the whole sound recording, can you `lift' or `sample' something less than the whole? Our answer is negative,"..."Get a license or do not sample. We do not see this as stifling creativity in any significant way."
To help point out the extreme absurdity of the notion that this is not stifling creativity, someone put up a website and requested submissions of songs made entirely of the two-second sample. There are currently 177 examples. But of course, that's not creativity...
It's called the Vapir. The target market seems to be for *eh-hem* other smokable plant matter, but they market it for tobacco and I don't see why it wouldn't work. They have cordless and corded models and you can set the temperature. They're rather large, however, and only work for ~30mins/charge, but that's still 10 cigarettes' worth.
"With all the public smoking bans going up around the country, I came up with a great idea that would help non-smokers and smokers alike. Here's the idea:
1. Smoking areas must be walled off from non-smoking areas (perhaps even at a negative pressure to non-smoking areas)
2. One must be of legal age to enter a smoking area (no kids allowed, even with mom and dad)."
That's an absolutely amazing idea. I always wondered why people didn't legislate something like this instead of actually banning smoking. The added expense of installing a smoking room would additionally prevent all but the most smoker-friendly places from putting them in. The only downside is that workers would still be exposed to smoke, of course, they could choose to work at non-smoking establishments if that bothered them.
"I've always wondered if there are so many people that want non-smoking environments, why doesn't a business owner start non-smoking restaurants and bars? If there are that many people that want it, doesn't it seem like a good idea?"
It does seem like a good idea, and I've seen places like this. Where I live (Milwaukee) it's pretty smoker-friendly. Some places don't even have non-smoking sections and you can still smoke in some smaller retail stores like cigarette stores and gas stations (obviously not at the pumps). Even though it's accepted and legal, there's a lot of places that still ban smoking. Almost all of the fast-food resturants and many resturants and coffee shops have banned it. If you required a special smoking room, I'm sure even more would join in, and you'd get less complaints from smokers about not being able to smoke indoors while simultaneously resolving health issues.
Wow. You sound like you're pretty stressed...maybe a nice, relaxing cigarette would help.
Seriously, though, if you hate smokers so much, why do you still assosciate with them? If their houses are so nasty, why don't you meet them at your favorite non-smoking establishment? If you don't want to touch their computers, why do you?
I hate going to the store where people throw their stinking butts on the ground, the entrance at the stores stink, it's like walking through a gas chamber just trying to get into the store..
I'm going to have to assume you've got a super-sensitive nose or maybe it's just your inherent hatred of smoking you that predisposes you to be sensitive to anything tobacco-related, but I've never heard anyone complain about this before. That said, you should consider encouraging these establishment to perhaps move their ashtrays away from the door. Or maybe just deal with smelling a hint of tobacco smoke in the air for 6 seconds.
When they pull out some cigarettes I tell them "Oh, time for a suicide stink stick eh?"
My, what an endearing trait. I don't know your friends, but I somehow get the feeling they already know how you feel about their smoking, I can't imagine how this would help.
I think they should make tobacco totally illegal, the use, sale, growth, purchase, etc.. Get caught using tobacco, go to jail, felony, 1 year 1st offense.
Get caught selling tobacco, charge, attempted murder, penalty, DEATH. 1st offense..
This one is what got me to reply in the first place. I'm assuming you don't really feel this way, but I can't tell for sure. Do you really want your friends to be in jail? Do you really think the world would be better if, instead of merely causing health problems, using tobacco would end up putting you in jail, where you lose your freedom, can no longer support your family (if you have one), and become nothing more than a burden to society? And do you really think that growing and selling a plant, something that exists naturally should result in your death rather than perhaps a guilty conscience?
Like I said, I can only assume the answer to those questions is "no", but then again, I can think of another plant that people seem to think otherwise of.
There are some efforts, though most of them seem to be "virtual" and/or consist mainly of private collections. The one exception that I could find is Videotopia, a sort of traveling arcade museum.
There's quite a few virtual museums that I'm not too familiar with; google directory has a comprehensive list.
I think this would be a really cool idea, personally. If you set up a decent amount of older systems (that were still in good condition) and allowed people to play for free (after admission) you could probably pull in quite a decent number of people. I know I'd go to an arcade with a flat-rate admission price and cool old games even without the museum part. And if you could trick people into learning something while they're there, all the better.
That's just the tip of the iceberg, my friend. I mean, that's just generally the difference. Once you start considering different design paradigms, there's all kinds of other stuff to get into. The analog vs. digital debate, as far as I'm concerned, is moot; analog and digital can (and do) peacefully coexist. Some people like the way certain things sound, and maybe that thing is a radio from 1938 with tubes, maybe it's your solid-state computer speakers playing digital source. There is a lot of engineering that goes into making audio equipment and audiophiles aren't all rubbing bizarre cream over everything that enters their houses. Pick up an issue of Stereophile (although for actual reading, I'd suggest Listener) sometime. As much as you'll find it astounding what some do with their stereos, you'll also find it filled with graphs on everything from spectral decay to impedence to power to frequency response... There is a science to audio engineering; just because the results of that science may or may not appeal to you, doesn't mean they're not there.
If that's what they call a system, remind me not to call them; I prefer mine functional. There's no RAM, no expansion cards, and it doesn't look as if there's any CPU installed. If it's "already running Solaris" why don't they show a picture of it running Solaris? "Not for the expedience of a press release." Of course not...they just...didn't want to risk blowing everyone's minds with how amazing they are...yeah...that's the ticket. For as cocky as he is when he talks about IBM's advertising, he doesn't do much better.
Also, is it just me, or can that chip fit in the socket 4 different ways? As far as I can tell it's not keyed, unless that gold circle in the upper right is a pin. I guess they trust people to go by the corner that's shaved off.
Do you go around scolding spiders? If in insect lands on you and start sucking you blood, would you leave it?
For the record, I usually try to get the insects to go outside by putting them in some sort of container. If a mosquito starts sucking my blood, I usually let it finish - that's one mosquito that won't be biting me again. I mean, it already bit me otherwise I wouldn't have noticed it, so I'm basically trading ~30 seconds of it drinking my blood for no more bites from that mosquito. Now, OTOH, it's probably going to go feed some more mosquitos that may or may not come back and bite me, so it's a bit of a toss-up. In both circumstances, though, it depends on my patience and the cooperation of the insect. I'm not going to kill bugs if it's easy not to, but if they won't leave and they're being really annoying; squash.
Only solar would be a better option, and that isn't always viable.
Of course, they could also make a vegetarian robot. I don't know if that's feasible, but if it is, why not? I think they should go for the least disruptive technology available; if that's insects, then so be it. But that shouldn't stop them from researching other ways to power the robots that involve less killing.
Is it really hypocritical to be glad to see something like this happen?
It seems like making use of unjust laws is one of the best ways to bring to light their injustice. Think about the laws against blacks riding in the front of the bus. I'm sure many people were happy to hear about the first black person to get arrested for riding in the front a bus. They weren't happy because that person was in jail, but happy because it was a step in the direction of exposing the unjust law that jailed them.
I'm not "rooting for altnet" nor am I "on the side of the RIAA." Things just aren't that simple. But I'm happy that this happened, I hope the patent gets tossed out, and I hope (and I know this is stretching things) that maybe it's another step in the direction of industry (and the public) realizing that the patenting system as it is now is flawed.
And I'll consider any challenge to the RIAA's current behaviour a move in the right direction; even if I think that challenge is silly and hope that it gets tossed out. Maybe it'll inspire more, and more appropriate, challenges in the future.
Here's a 12-node cluster made of VIA EPIA V8000's with 800MHz C3 processors. Idle power consumption is ~140W.
"The machine runs FreeBSD 4.8, and MPICH 1.2.5.2. After working with his machine and running some basic tests, Glen's cluster looks to be equivalent to at least 4 (maybe 6) 2.4Ghz Pentium IV boxes in parallel on a similar network - achieving a performance of around 3.6 GFLP."
I don't have a negative view of people - you do. You equate self-interest with evil, whereas I think - as I said - that self-interest is a damned good thing. The more open people are about their motivations (e.g., self-interest) and what they're working for, the more likely it is that we can work in agreement or cooperation towards some mutually beneficial goal.
So, let me get this straight, Ayn...I mean, maxpublic...* The motivation for everything is self-interest? What about taking a bullet for someone? I guess even that could be interpreted as self-interest if it's done because you would be terribly sad for the rest of your life if you didn't do it. So, if everything is, in part, motivated by self-interest, what sense does it make to debate whether self-interest is a good or bad thing; I mean, if it's inescapable, why bother debating whether it should or should not be practiced? And if people's motivation is always self-interest and self-interest is a damned good thing, then are people's motivations always good?
If everything is motivated by self-interest, what is your definition of altruism? Or should the word be chucked from the dictionary? I think what the original poster had in mind when they spoke of doing things for other people was that they had an interest in doing something not only for themselves (which is apparently inescapable) but for the benefit of others as well. Like you say, they both come to the table interested in a mutually beneficial arrangement, with their own interests, both directly and by proxy of the other's interests, in mind. And accordingly, it's good when the interests of others (using free software) and the interests of yourself (making software for others to use for free) are both served. If you want to make the case that altruism (a devotion to the needs of others) is then, in some sense, a particular kind of selfishness, go for it, but I don't think you can say it doesn't exist or that it can't be beneficial.
*Sorry, I couldn't resist, I knew this objectivist zealot in high school and every time I hear anythig remotely objectivist it makes me want to start screaming AYN RAND IS LORD OF ALL!! HAIL THE FLOATING HEAD OF AYN RAND!! FYI he has later recanted his fanatacism. And I'm not trying to bash your viewpoint or even calling you an objectivist.
Slashdot Mirror
"it only supports Ogg Theora."
"Much as the W3C recommends the royalty and patent free image compression formats PNG and JPEG, Annodex.net recommends the use of royalty and patent free audio and video codecs."
Recommends. As in does not require. Unless I'm missing something. Even if it doesn't support other formats I'm sure it will be hacked to do so shortly, seeing as the source is available and it's under a BSD-style license.
Is there actually a soluble problem addressed in your post? Because aside from your banal jabs at Americans all I see is a confusing anecdote. Don't get me wrong, a lot of Americans are uncaring assholes and many don't understand the issues faced by third-world countries. OK. Bitching about it and making sweeping generalizations doesn't help.
You say that there was only 1 100Mhz PC available for searching for missing persons. How was it being used? What kind of equipment is needed? Would it help if, per parent's suggestion, we avoided simply dumping our old equipment into the ground where it will slowly decay and leak potentially toxic chemicals into the environment (AKA "keeping all that old shit out of our landfills") and instead donated it to third-world countries? You know, so they'd have more than 1 100Mhz PC to use. Or maybe they need more modern equipment, like mentioned in the article, or training or something else, but you never elucidate.
Since you apparently have been out of the country (Laos, Burma, etc.), I would hope you could use this exceptional experience, which few of us rich, fat, sedentary Americans can experience since we're too busy munching down pounds of caviar at the Country Club (or maybe we're poor and working class and can't afford it or get time off) to enlighten us. You appear to be in a position to offer special insight and instead just spew some trite anti-American sentiment. So maybe you could focus a little less on the problems that everybody else makes and focus more on what you could be doing to help.
This just in! (white | black | asian | hispanic | *) (female | male | *) (democrat | republican | *) (christians | muslims | buddhists | *) that (use drugs | are homosexual | are unemployed | have differing beliefs | *) are human, too!
Unfortunately, until those studies come out, we'll just have to keep assuming that they're evil and deserving of whatever persecution we deem necessary.
Assuming software is patented, there is a person that has a legal agreement to be the only person that can benefit from the sale of that software for a period of time. By not selling the software, you are not infringing on their right to benefit from it.
Do you see the difference? In one case, someone is paying to distribute copies of something at no cost and no benefit to themselves. In another case someone is making money off of something that someone else has the exclusive right to be making money off of.
To simplify: I can download 1,000,000 copies of MS Office and still have the same amount of money in my pocket, and the same ability to buy MS Office.
You need to get those huge old IBM keyboard with the big metal plate in them. I pound the crap out of mine constantly and it hasn't broken yet.
I did break one of the newer, lighter, mostly-plastic ones, but it took grabbing it by one end and repeatedly smashing it into my desk.
I don't think you fought the war on drugs as much as you fought the war on some asshole neighbours of yours. Like you said - you've done some drugs, but you apparently have had no problem not pissing off your neighbors, unlike these fools. They could have just as easily been constantly drunk, fighting, yelling and whatever.
And how did you win? Was it perhaps by arresting thousands of non-yelling, non-asshole people because they happened to do drugs as well? Was it by breaking apart families whose only disfunction was the addiction of one of it's members? Was it by confiscating the property of people and making them go to court to get it back? Did it even involve the police?
No. In the end, it came down to you calling them out, and them moving. All those oppressive laws did nothing to help you except give you something to threaten them with. I don't know why the cops wouldn't ticket them for noise, and I don't know why they wouldn't help you otherwise - that's shitty, and you should complain to someone about that, if you ask me.
I don't know why I'm bothering, because this is probably just going to get buried, but... Has anyone stopped and considered the evolutionary consequences of this? He is proposing to constantly repair all types of molecular and cellular damage. The "damage" done to our DNA (aka mutation) is the source of change and new, potentially beneficial traits. And in order to fix them, wouldn't that imply that we know how they are supposed to work? Do we? Isn't the way that all people work differently one of our strong points? Of course, mutation/recombination would still happen through reproduction, and could even be performed while one is alive, but the fact remains, if you want to improve things, you'll have to change them, and if you want to change them, you introduce the risk that you will break them. If no one wants to take that risk, how will we improve, or will we be happy with extended stasis?
I think many are unhappy that they can't escape the commericalism that is everywhere.
Here's an idea that might help: TURN OFF YOUR FUCKING TV!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
*eh-hem* Let me clarify. I don't hate the idea of TV. I'm not saying this law isn't bullshit. I'm not saying you have to stop watching video. What I am saying is that continuing to support the people that try to make laws you hate is not in your best interest. And sitting yourself down in front of a constant stream of information provided by them is not a good idea.
Me? I'd rather pay for my content and get it unedited and in a hard-copy, commercial-less form. I still watch TV, but it's gotten to the point where I can barely handle it. And I'm not joking; I usually watch for ~30 mins at most before I get fed up to the point where I turn it off.
Let me make a short summary before I rebut (I'm sure everyone's going to stop reading after this, anyway). It seems to me that this guy is honestly missing the point of wikipedia. It's not Britannica, it's not inerrant truth, it's a user-edited free encyclopedia, and it admits its own shortcomings.
..."in this short description"; it's laid out more clearly elsewhere on the site.
...speaking of unintelligible, I'm having a hard time understanding this moist notion of his...
He makes some valid points and clarifies differences between wikipedia and a print encyclopedia, but he seems to be dismissing wikipedia altogether. I don't mean to imply that the Britannica is worthless; it has it's place, but wikipedia still excels at many things. For instance, all of the errors he mentions have already been corrected, it's way more up-to-date and it has articles on things you WILL NOT find anywhere else. Whether they're too current, too bizarre, or just too obscure to be included in "The Britannica", they make their way into wikipedia, and if they haven't yet, it won't take too long for you to change that. Maybe when Britannica gets a goatse.cx entry, I'll reconsider it's inherent superiority.
"Note the adjectives, and the order in which they appear"...
I must have missed the part where the linear order of adjectives in sentences predicts their level of importance... Notice that he classifies reliable under "and also". Also notice, however, that in the sentence it's "to become"..."reliable". The wikipedia project accepts its unreliability, and they are addressing the issue, but they haven't sufficiently resolved it, yet. Although he doesn't mention it they are hoping to develop a process to validate the information and release "versions".
He also mentions the frequency with which they use probabalistic adjectives (such as might, probably, could). This is seen less as a recognition of the state of the wikipedia - which is taken to be inconcrete, but rather as his clever discovery of their fallability.
"The basis for the assertion that [collaborative editing] is advantageous vis-à-vis the traditional method of editing an encyclopedia remains, however, unclear."
I feel he left out
"Does someone actually believe [that this quasi-darwinian system of editing will work]? Evidently so. Why? It's very hard to say."
Of course, it's effects on other devlopmental processes might influence that belief...
He then says that the process suggests "journaling" which refers to young students writing lots of unclear, nonspecific information that is judged in bulk by their teachers.
"So many pages are required per week or semester, but the writing on those pages need not be grammatical or even intelligible"
Of course, here is where the processes split. In one, nongrammatical and/or unintelligible information is overlooked, whereas in the other, it is (usually/eventually) noticed and corrected.
"Superimpose on this intellectual preparation the moist and modish notion of "community" and some vague notions about information "wanting" to be free, et voilà!"
NOTE: after writing this, I looked up moist and found the definition of "Fresh, or new." in Webster's 1913 Dictionary. I would add a note to his article to help clear it up, but I CAN'T.
"But conceding for a moment that this exercise in encyclopedia making is enjoyed and even believed in fervently by many thousands of participants,"...
I don't think that's something that requires a concession, I think that's a fact.
"let us take note of someone who is absolutely central to the concept of an encyclopedia but who is hardly acknowledged at all by the Wikipedians. I mean, of course, the user. As in the reader."
Which goes to show a misunderstanding of the concept of the wikipedia. The user is not necessarily seperate from the writer. Far from being not acknowledged, their role is held in the highest significance. It is uphe
This is a little OT, but I still think it's relevant; I was reminded of it by your last statement. If you aren't familiar with SRL, you should really check them out. From the telerobotics section:
"In keeping with SRL's mission of re-directing the techniques, tools, and tenets of industry, science, and the military away from their typical manifestations, several experiments were performed resulting in SRL being the first civilians to use free software and the Internet to provide remote, anonymous controllers for lethal devices over the web."
Even if it's not your cup of tea as far as "art" goes, it's hard to deny that they've done some amazingly complex and technologically sophisticated things. I don't know; there's just something about putting that much effort into something so...non-functional that serves to showcase the technology itself moreso than it's purpose (or even to make a point about its "purpose"), which I think is a good thing. I'm not denying there's useful things that should be done with technology. I just think it's great that it can be balanced out by making giant robots that eat dead animal carcasses.
I felt compelled to check whether Land Of The Free (tm) was an actual trademark. It is, but I was surprised to see what for...
Word Mark LAND OF THE FREE
Goods and Services IC 030. US 046. G & S: SOYA-BASED NONDAIRY FROZEN DESSERTS FOR CONSUMPTION ON OR OFF THE PREMISES. FIRST USE: 19850401. FIRST USE IN COMMERCE: 19850401
Owner (REGISTRANT) TOFU TIME INC.
(emphasis mine)
Those damn IP-holding, money-grubbing...tofu companies?
And don't forget, kids, enjoy your Tofu-Time Soya-based non-dairy frozen desserts on OR off the premises. After all, this is The Land Of The Free (tm)
For more trademark fun, be sure to visit the USPTO.
You may not have caught this, but the courts have changed their opinion on the matter, at least as it relates to using the music in new commercial works.
After De La Sould was sued by The Turtles in 1989 all recognizable samples had to be cleared (ie rights to use them had to be obtained).
This year, Sept. 7, there was a new ruling regarding NWA's use of a two second Funkadelic clip in the song "100 Miles and Running".
A lower court said that the sampling "did not rise to the level of legally cognizable appropriation." The federal appeals court, however, has this to say, "If you cannot pirate the whole sound recording, can you `lift' or `sample' something less than the whole? Our answer is negative,"..."Get a license or do not sample. We do not see this as stifling creativity in any significant way."
To help point out the extreme absurdity of the notion that this is not stifling creativity, someone put up a website and requested submissions of songs made entirely of the two-second sample. There are currently 177 examples . But of course, that's not creativity...
It's called the Vapir. The target market seems to be for *eh-hem* other smokable plant matter, but they market it for tobacco and I don't see why it wouldn't work. They have cordless and corded models and you can set the temperature. They're rather large, however, and only work for ~30mins/charge, but that's still 10 cigarettes' worth.
"With all the public smoking bans going up around the country, I came up with a great idea that would help non-smokers and smokers alike. Here's the idea:
1. Smoking areas must be walled off from non-smoking areas (perhaps even at a negative pressure to non-smoking areas)
2. One must be of legal age to enter a smoking area (no kids allowed, even with mom and dad)."
That's an absolutely amazing idea. I always wondered why people didn't legislate something like this instead of actually banning smoking. The added expense of installing a smoking room would additionally prevent all but the most smoker-friendly places from putting them in. The only downside is that workers would still be exposed to smoke, of course, they could choose to work at non-smoking establishments if that bothered them.
"I've always wondered if there are so many people that want non-smoking environments, why doesn't a business owner start non-smoking restaurants and bars? If there are that many people that want it, doesn't it seem like a good idea?"
It does seem like a good idea, and I've seen places like this. Where I live (Milwaukee) it's pretty smoker-friendly. Some places don't even have non-smoking sections and you can still smoke in some smaller retail stores like cigarette stores and gas stations (obviously not at the pumps). Even though it's accepted and legal, there's a lot of places that still ban smoking. Almost all of the fast-food resturants and many resturants and coffee shops have banned it. If you required a special smoking room, I'm sure even more would join in, and you'd get less complaints from smokers about not being able to smoke indoors while simultaneously resolving health issues.
Wow. You sound like you're pretty stressed...maybe a nice, relaxing cigarette would help.
Seriously, though, if you hate smokers so much, why do you still assosciate with them?
If their houses are so nasty, why don't you meet them at your favorite non-smoking establishment?
If you don't want to touch their computers, why do you?
I hate going to the store where people throw their stinking butts on the ground, the entrance at the stores stink, it's like walking through a gas chamber just trying to get into the store..
I'm going to have to assume you've got a super-sensitive nose or maybe it's just your inherent hatred of smoking you that predisposes you to be sensitive to anything tobacco-related, but I've never heard anyone complain about this before. That said, you should consider encouraging these establishment to perhaps move their ashtrays away from the door. Or maybe just deal with smelling a hint of tobacco smoke in the air for 6 seconds.
When they pull out some cigarettes I tell them "Oh, time for a suicide stink stick eh?"
My, what an endearing trait. I don't know your friends, but I somehow get the feeling they already know how you feel about their smoking, I can't imagine how this would help.
I think they should make tobacco totally illegal, the use, sale, growth, purchase, etc.. Get caught using tobacco, go to jail, felony, 1 year 1st offense. Get caught selling tobacco, charge, attempted murder, penalty, DEATH. 1st offense..
This one is what got me to reply in the first place. I'm assuming you don't really feel this way, but I can't tell for sure. Do you really want your friends to be in jail? Do you really think the world would be better if, instead of merely causing health problems, using tobacco would end up putting you in jail, where you lose your freedom, can no longer support your family (if you have one), and become nothing more than a burden to society? And do you really think that growing and selling a plant, something that exists naturally should result in your death rather than perhaps a guilty conscience?
Like I said, I can only assume the answer to those questions is "no", but then again, I can think of another plant that people seem to think otherwise of.
What about those new-fangled fully-automated, self-replicating, carbon-sequestering, oxygen-producing food machines? By which I mean plants.
Maybe if we spent less time trying to engineer solutions from scratch and started improving the ones we already have we'd get somewhere faster?
There are some efforts, though most of them seem to be "virtual" and/or consist mainly of private collections. The one exception that I could find is Videotopia, a sort of traveling arcade museum.
There used to be a National coin-op and video game museum but it's closed now.
There's quite a few virtual museums that I'm not too familiar with; google directory has a comprehensive list.
I think this would be a really cool idea, personally. If you set up a decent amount of older systems (that were still in good condition) and allowed people to play for free (after admission) you could probably pull in quite a decent number of people. I know I'd go to an arcade with a flat-rate admission price and cool old games even without the museum part. And if you could trick people into learning something while they're there, all the better.
Is there such an analysis somewhere? Yes. In fact, there's about as many as you'd expect there to be. Here's a quick sampler:
Tubes vs. Transistors: Is There an Audible Difference? (From the Audio Engineering Society)
Tubes vs. Solid State
That's just the tip of the iceberg, my friend. I mean, that's just generally the difference. Once you start considering different design paradigms, there's all kinds of other stuff to get into. The analog vs. digital debate, as far as I'm concerned, is moot; analog and digital can (and do) peacefully coexist. Some people like the way certain things sound, and maybe that thing is a radio from 1938 with tubes, maybe it's your solid-state computer speakers playing digital source.
There is a lot of engineering that goes into making audio equipment and audiophiles aren't all rubbing bizarre cream over everything that enters their houses. Pick up an issue of Stereophile (although for actual reading, I'd suggest Listener) sometime. As much as you'll find it astounding what some do with their stereos, you'll also find it filled with graphs on everything from spectral decay to impedence to power to frequency response... There is a science to audio engineering; just because the results of that science may or may not appeal to you, doesn't mean they're not there.
If that's what they call a system, remind me not to call them; I prefer mine functional. There's no RAM, no expansion cards, and it doesn't look as if there's any CPU installed. If it's "already running Solaris" why don't they show a picture of it running Solaris? "Not for the expedience of a press release." Of course not...they just...didn't want to risk blowing everyone's minds with how amazing they are...yeah...that's the ticket. For as cocky as he is when he talks about IBM's advertising, he doesn't do much better.
Also, is it just me, or can that chip fit in the socket 4 different ways? As far as I can tell it's not keyed, unless that gold circle in the upper right is a pin. I guess they trust people to go by the corner that's shaved off.
Do you go around scolding spiders? If in insect lands on you and start sucking you blood, would you leave it?
For the record, I usually try to get the insects to go outside by putting them in some sort of container. If a mosquito starts sucking my blood, I usually let it finish - that's one mosquito that won't be biting me again. I mean, it already bit me otherwise I wouldn't have noticed it, so I'm basically trading ~30 seconds of it drinking my blood for no more bites from that mosquito. Now, OTOH, it's probably going to go feed some more mosquitos that may or may not come back and bite me, so it's a bit of a toss-up. In both circumstances, though, it depends on my patience and the cooperation of the insect. I'm not going to kill bugs if it's easy not to, but if they won't leave and they're being really annoying; squash.
Only solar would be a better option, and that isn't always viable.
Of course, they could also make a vegetarian robot. I don't know if that's feasible, but if it is, why not? I think they should go for the least disruptive technology available; if that's insects, then so be it. But that shouldn't stop them from researching other ways to power the robots that involve less killing.
Here's a PDF from the Biologically-Inspired Robots Symposium 2004 on the ECOBOT II.
Is it really hypocritical to be glad to see something like this happen?
It seems like making use of unjust laws is one of the best ways to bring to light their injustice. Think about the laws against blacks riding in the front of the bus. I'm sure many people were happy to hear about the first black person to get arrested for riding in the front a bus. They weren't happy because that person was in jail, but happy because it was a step in the direction of exposing the unjust law that jailed them.
I'm not "rooting for altnet" nor am I "on the side of the RIAA." Things just aren't that simple. But I'm happy that this happened, I hope the patent gets tossed out, and I hope (and I know this is stretching things) that maybe it's another step in the direction of industry (and the public) realizing that the patenting system as it is now is flawed.
And I'll consider any challenge to the RIAA's current behaviour a move in the right direction; even if I think that challenge is silly and hope that it gets tossed out. Maybe it'll inspire more, and more appropriate, challenges in the future.
Here's a 12-node cluster made of VIA EPIA V8000's with 800MHz C3 processors. Idle power consumption is ~140W.
"The machine runs FreeBSD 4.8, and MPICH 1.2.5.2. After working with his machine and running some basic tests, Glen's cluster looks to be equivalent to at least 4 (maybe 6) 2.4Ghz Pentium IV boxes in parallel on a similar network - achieving a performance of around 3.6 GFLP."
I don't have a negative view of people - you do. You equate self-interest with evil, whereas I think - as I said - that self-interest is a damned good thing. The more open people are about their motivations (e.g., self-interest) and what they're working for, the more likely it is that we can work in agreement or cooperation towards some mutually beneficial goal.
So, let me get this straight, Ayn...I mean, maxpublic...* The motivation for everything is self-interest? What about taking a bullet for someone? I guess even that could be interpreted as self-interest if it's done because you would be terribly sad for the rest of your life if you didn't do it. So, if everything is, in part, motivated by self-interest, what sense does it make to debate whether self-interest is a good or bad thing; I mean, if it's inescapable, why bother debating whether it should or should not be practiced? And if people's motivation is always self-interest and self-interest is a damned good thing, then are people's motivations always good? If everything is motivated by self-interest, what is your definition of altruism? Or should the word be chucked from the dictionary? I think what the original poster had in mind when they spoke of doing things for other people was that they had an interest in doing something not only for themselves (which is apparently inescapable) but for the benefit of others as well. Like you say, they both come to the table interested in a mutually beneficial arrangement, with their own interests, both directly and by proxy of the other's interests, in mind. And accordingly, it's good when the interests of others (using free software) and the interests of yourself (making software for others to use for free) are both served. If you want to make the case that altruism (a devotion to the needs of others) is then, in some sense, a particular kind of selfishness, go for it, but I don't think you can say it doesn't exist or that it can't be beneficial.
*Sorry, I couldn't resist, I knew this objectivist zealot in high school and every time I hear anythig remotely objectivist it makes me want to start screaming AYN RAND IS LORD OF ALL!! HAIL THE FLOATING HEAD OF AYN RAND!! FYI he has later recanted his fanatacism. And I'm not trying to bash your viewpoint or even calling you an objectivist.