When someone ignores the predictions of some branch of science because they think they aren't important, that's not an example of being anti-science. It is an example of employing subjective values that extend beyond those of science. The science may simply be considered unimportant.
When politicians ignore scientific data because it does not fit their political agenda, the populous suffers, and this is not an issue of the bias of UCS. When scientific reports indicate low lead levels harm children, and the government raises acceptable lead levels, this harms the populous. This is not some wishy-washy subjective business. Scientific data is being suppressed. This data relates to our health, or environment, and our future. Selectively ignoring this data translates directly into lower quality of life.
"Subjective values that extend beyond those of science"? What the hell is this? It's okay to pollute, increase asthma rates, increase cancer rates, cause brain damage in children, because your "subjective values" are better than science?
This is obviously a political organization that happens to include scientists.
This is driving me nuts! WHY is there a tacit assumption that before accepting facts one must evaluate the political bias of the messenger? These are scientific issues being presented by scientists. Why should their political bias matter? If there is a question on fact that is disagreed upon, say so! If any of the things in this report did not happen, say so! But don't call people liars because they belong to the "wrong" side of the political fence!
This business of evaluating everyone as "good guy" or "bad guy" before listening to what they have to say is stupid. Both liberals and conservatives have intelligent things to say, and should be listened to by everyone. In the US "liberal" and "conservative" have been elevated to slurs.
For the record, I am a signatory. Based on reading their original report (yes I RTFA, both of them), the errors and mischaracterizations are egregious, and should not be tolerated in a democracy, and the public needs to know about this. Now, am I a liberal or a conservative, or perhaps just a scientist?
I have seen no credible rebuttal to the issues raised in this report. (Marburger's vauge hand-waving do not count) If any exist, please, enlighten us.
It is in the public interest to have as much health and drug-related information in the public domain as possible. Compare this to the human genome project: do you want your own genes patented by some other company? If growing replacement organs from stem cells were made viable, it's in the public interest for it to be in the public domain or licensed as widely as possible. More people get treatments faster that way.
If public research were licensed to any comer, no company could charge $100 per dose because they would be quickly undercut. Such patents should be held in a public trust, or by a university which licenses them to industry for manufacture under some compulsory licensing arrangement because they received federal funds. Personally, I think all publicly funded research should end up in the public domain. I know the scenario I describe is not exactly how it always works with taxpayer-funded research.
When the original article came out the conservative media tried to paint the Union of Concerned Scientists as a partisan organization, you seem to have fallen into that trap hook, line, and sinker.
Do you honestly think that statements from a scientific body are more partisan than those from a political body? We scientists strive to present the government and public with the best data we can and allow the politics to occur elsewhere. There is no room for politics in science. In science one can make a big name for oneself by proving that the accepted dogma is wrong. Ideology cannot survive in such an environment, unless facts are suppressed.
Read the article(s). Most points are not about ethics. This is about ignoring scientific evidince that disagrees with the administration's ideology, placing industry representatives in positions that are a clear conflict of interest, and suppressing and editing scientific reports after the fact. (My favorite is increasing the amount of lead allowed in drinking water, placing a lead industry representative on the committee responsible, and suppressing the report indicating that low levels of lead are more harmful to children than previously thought)
This is not about ethics. It is about misleading the american people. We ignore this warning at our own peril.
If the reviewer can't get past your l33t wr171ng ski11z to figure out what the hell you're trying to say, that is a legitimate gripe, and in principle should be cleared up in the text without requiring communication with the authors. So your article gets rejected, you reword it, and resubmit it. Sounds like the review process is working fine to me. Sounds like you got burned. Pay an english major to read your stuff.
Of course, the process could be faster, don't we all know. It can be upwards of 6 months to years to get an article published, depending on the journal and diligence of reviewers. But who has time to review? It's an unpaid, thankless job!
Electronic journals, open, double blind review processes. Open archive (arxiv.org) for everything. That is the way this should go.
Keep in mind that Emperor Linux purchases name-brand laptops with windows and removes the windows. You're paying for windows you're not using. For a list of companies that sell linux laptops and do not do this check here.
-- Bob
We are the first linux distribution to offer a 64-bit top-to-bottom solution which is not a toy environment.
I would point out that above statement is incorrect. Redhat released several versions for the Alpha. Debian has support for both the Alpha and Sparc64. These are true 64-bit top-to-bottom solutions.
Firmware is not (necessarily) OS specific, but installation utilities and distribution is. For example, with separated firmware, the vendor can provide an rpm/deb package that contains only the firmware, and would work with any kernel version. As things stand, the vendor has to submit a kernel patch, which may or may not get incorporated, and various incarnations of the kernel in the wild will or will not support their device properly, a nightmare for a vendor trying to provide linux support.
It allows vendors to be kernel and distribution-neutral in their firmware support.
In my experience, firmwares are usually taken from the windows installation CD that comes with the product, and firmware updates simply don't happen for linux.
This could be a very good thing for linux. It could encourage vendors to provide updated firmware that can be installed from userspace, without requiring a kernel patch. It could encourage vendors to provide firmware at all designed for linux. For some other vendors it will surely encourage them to release the source, which will only lead to a massive hack-fest and fast improvement in capabilities of the firmware, which the company can negotiate to include in their windoze product. It seems to me separating firmware is win/win for both vendors and users, even if it is rocky while the separation is taking place.
This is why health "insurance" is a joke. In the normal operation of the system, the natural drives are for the insurance company (employer, workman's comp insurer, etc) to give as few benefits as possible, while collecting as much money as possible.
The system is not designed to give you easy access to health care. On the contrary, it is designed to make it as difficult as possible.
I maintain a list of vendors that sell linux-preinstalled laptops. There are many still alive, and I encourage everyone who is going to use linux on their laptop to buy one from one of these vendors, rather than sending money to Microsoft just so you can remove their crap.
most geniuses are obvious within a few minutes of meeting them, just from the way they interact with other people.
Speaking as someone who hangs out with a lot of theoretical physicists, I can say definitively that you're dead wrong. Either that, or I don't hang around enough dumb people to know.
But right on about joining Mensa, and props for using "frell".
Re:It's another case against OS monoculture
on
More MyDoom Gloom
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· Score: 1
Fallacy by misdirection.
That article merely demonstrates that viruses still spread quickly when there is diversity. But who cares how quickly they spread? The point of diversity is that the probability of any individual machine being infected is smaller (a prime concern for admins and companies).
No, i'm arguing that government must protect its citizens. Perhaps you might call that mercantilism, but the free market still exists, it's just a regulated free market. It's not pure mercantilism.
None of the extremes {capitalism, communism, mercantilism, socialism} are very desirable, but all have desirable qualities that must be used in moderation.
So why should business be forced to pay a higher price for the same commodity item - labor?
It is the responsibility of government to protect its native industries. This is the purpose of tarriffs, export and import taxes. It is irresponsible of governments to let the free market reign over the interests of its citizens. Then you get mexico, central and south america, where corporations keep people in poverty by paying low wages and preventing the formation of labor unions. "Free Trade" (or free labor) only benefits the most powerful, US in the former case and India in the latter. Why should we give such a gigantic economic handout to India?
It's good to know we aren't giving up on fundamental principles of our republic, like, oh say "guilty until proven innocent". Doesn't apply to foreigners, I guess.
So what if one were to emigrate legally to the US. Could you then sue the government to remove such records from its databases? After all, you would be a US citizen not charged of any crime.
Of course there are substantial similarities between UNIX and Linux in the header files, because Linux is a UNIX work-alike. It must have the same or substantially similar interfaces in order to "work-alike". This is nothing other than the old user-interface lawsuits from previous decades.
A bunch of lawyers or PHB's heard that errno.h was similar but don't understand the concept of interface and implementation.
I suspect the OSS side will have to prove to a court what an interface is and that having substantially similar interfaces does not mean copyright violation. I think this actually may be rather difficult. It also places in jeaopardy any work-alike application (Samba, Apache, NFS, Wine etc) because somewhere, somebody has a copyright on some substantially similar interface code. In fact for most of these multiple companies have copyrights on substantially similar interface code.
Makes a good case for all interface code to actually be in the public domain.
Reverse engineering case law (clean-room) is probably also applicable, as reverse engineering is a legal activity.
The real prize is not the 10M purse, but the tourists that will follow. Some estimates are that the global market is in the billions. Several studies have been done indicating that people would spend 10k-100k for a trip, among people financially able to pay that.
I look forward to the day when a flight to space is a mundane vacation activity for rich people, right there next to hang-gliding rides and zorbing. Of course orbital is much harder, but the X-prize lays the first brick on that path.
An int on a 64-bit CPU is 32-bits. A long int is 64 bits and an int* is 64 bits.
Thus most C code is highly compatible. The fatal flaw being when programmers assume sizeof(int)=sizeof(int*) which fails.
The other posts in this thread indicating otherwise are wrong. An int is 32 bits on 64-bit archs under linux and gcc. (I know, I have 2 alphas and a sparc)
Technically, you should get *better* range across water than straight vertical because the water acts a conductor and reflects the radio waves, doubling the number of waves that reach you compared to straight vertical. This is a common grad-level physics problem in electrodynamics.
Of course, how many people put their WAP on their deck facing the beach?
Of course I agree with the "kill the tumor" strategy. If you have a tumor, you gotta get rid of it... But it is a reactive rather than proactive strategy. There are many more promising therapies (see other replies to my post).
Yes, I'm looking for genetic engineering, targetted viruses, and various ways of convincing the body's own immune system to attack cancer cells. We're getting there.
It is "stone age" because it is akin to amputation. i.e. we don't know what's wrong, we can't fix it, so we're going to cut it off (limb or tumor...) These days we don't do many amputations because things like gangrene can be entirely prevented. Someday the same will be true for cancer.
Well when a viable nanotechnolical device is created, I'll formulate an opinion about it. One can always argue that many biological treatments are a form of nanotechnology. i.e. targeted, genetically engineered viruses and such. But there are major hurdles to overcome before we can contemplate putting a mechanical nanotech device in a living organism. (i.e. silicon is toxic, entropy is a bitch, and 3D structure formation is only a pipe dream at the moment)
Slashdot Mirror
"Subjective values that extend beyond those of science"? What the hell is this? It's okay to pollute, increase asthma rates, increase cancer rates, cause brain damage in children, because your "subjective values" are better than science?
-- Bob
Very insightful point. Kudos.
This business of evaluating everyone as "good guy" or "bad guy" before listening to what they have to say is stupid. Both liberals and conservatives have intelligent things to say, and should be listened to by everyone. In the US "liberal" and "conservative" have been elevated to slurs.
For the record, I am a signatory. Based on reading their original report (yes I RTFA, both of them), the errors and mischaracterizations are egregious, and should not be tolerated in a democracy, and the public needs to know about this. Now, am I a liberal or a conservative, or perhaps just a scientist?
I have seen no credible rebuttal to the issues raised in this report. (Marburger's vauge hand-waving do not count) If any exist, please, enlighten us.
-- Bob
If public research were licensed to any comer, no company could charge $100 per dose because they would be quickly undercut. Such patents should be held in a public trust, or by a university which licenses them to industry for manufacture under some compulsory licensing arrangement because they received federal funds. Personally, I think all publicly funded research should end up in the public domain. I know the scenario I describe is not exactly how it always works with taxpayer-funded research.
-- Bob
Do you honestly think that statements from a scientific body are more partisan than those from a political body? We scientists strive to present the government and public with the best data we can and allow the politics to occur elsewhere. There is no room for politics in science. In science one can make a big name for oneself by proving that the accepted dogma is wrong. Ideology cannot survive in such an environment, unless facts are suppressed.
Read the article(s). Most points are not about ethics. This is about ignoring scientific evidince that disagrees with the administration's ideology, placing industry representatives in positions that are a clear conflict of interest, and suppressing and editing scientific reports after the fact. (My favorite is increasing the amount of lead allowed in drinking water, placing a lead industry representative on the committee responsible, and suppressing the report indicating that low levels of lead are more harmful to children than previously thought)
This is not about ethics. It is about misleading the american people. We ignore this warning at our own peril.
-- Bob
Of course, the process could be faster, don't we all know. It can be upwards of 6 months to years to get an article published, depending on the journal and diligence of reviewers. But who has time to review? It's an unpaid, thankless job!
Electronic journals, open, double blind review processes. Open archive (arxiv.org) for everything. That is the way this should go.
-- Bob
Keep in mind that Emperor Linux purchases name-brand laptops with windows and removes the windows. You're paying for windows you're not using . For a list of companies that sell linux laptops and do not do this check here. -- Bob
-- Bob
It allows vendors to be kernel and distribution-neutral in their firmware support.
In my experience, firmwares are usually taken from the windows installation CD that comes with the product, and firmware updates simply don't happen for linux.
-- Bob
This could be a very good thing for linux. It could encourage vendors to provide updated firmware that can be installed from userspace, without requiring a kernel patch. It could encourage vendors to provide firmware at all designed for linux. For some other vendors it will surely encourage them to release the source, which will only lead to a massive hack-fest and fast improvement in capabilities of the firmware, which the company can negotiate to include in their windoze product. It seems to me separating firmware is win/win for both vendors and users, even if it is rocky while the separation is taking place.
-- Bob
The system is not designed to give you easy access to health care. On the contrary, it is designed to make it as difficult as possible.
-- Bob
-- Bob
-- Bob
But right on about joining Mensa, and props for using "frell".
That article merely demonstrates that viruses still spread quickly when there is diversity. But who cares how quickly they spread? The point of diversity is that the probability of any individual machine being infected is smaller (a prime concern for admins and companies).
-- Bob
None of the extremes {capitalism, communism, mercantilism, socialism} are very desirable, but all have desirable qualities that must be used in moderation.
-- Bob
right on brother.
-- Bob
So what if one were to emigrate legally to the US. Could you then sue the government to remove such records from its databases? After all, you would be a US citizen not charged of any crime.
-- Bob
Of course there are substantial similarities between UNIX and Linux in the header files, because Linux is a UNIX work-alike. It must have the same or substantially similar interfaces in order to "work-alike". This is nothing other than the old user-interface lawsuits from previous decades.
A bunch of lawyers or PHB's heard that errno.h was similar but don't understand the concept of interface and implementation.
I suspect the OSS side will have to prove to a court what an interface is and that having substantially similar interfaces does not mean copyright violation. I think this actually may be rather difficult. It also places in jeaopardy any work-alike application (Samba, Apache, NFS, Wine etc) because somewhere, somebody has a copyright on some substantially similar interface code. In fact for most of these multiple companies have copyrights on substantially similar interface code.
Makes a good case for all interface code to actually be in the public domain.
Reverse engineering case law (clean-room) is probably also applicable, as reverse engineering is a legal activity.
-- Bob
The real prize is not the 10M purse, but the tourists that will follow. Some estimates are that the global market is in the billions. Several studies have been done indicating that people would spend 10k-100k for a trip, among people financially able to pay that.
I look forward to the day when a flight to space is a mundane vacation activity for rich people, right there next to hang-gliding rides and zorbing. Of course orbital is much harder, but the X-prize lays the first brick on that path.
-- Bob
The other posts in this thread indicating otherwise are wrong. An int is 32 bits on 64-bit archs under linux and gcc. (I know, I have 2 alphas and a sparc)
-- Bob
Technically, you should get *better* range across water than straight vertical because the water acts a conductor and reflects the radio waves, doubling the number of waves that reach you compared to straight vertical. This is a common grad-level physics problem in electrodynamics.
Of course, how many people put their WAP on their deck facing the beach?
-- Bob
Yes, I'm looking for genetic engineering, targetted viruses, and various ways of convincing the body's own immune system to attack cancer cells. We're getting there.
It is "stone age" because it is akin to amputation. i.e. we don't know what's wrong, we can't fix it, so we're going to cut it off (limb or tumor...) These days we don't do many amputations because things like gangrene can be entirely prevented. Someday the same will be true for cancer.
-- Bob
-- Bob