There are two worlds of scientific publishing, the non-profit publishers and the for-profit ones. They have different motivations.
The non-profits' mandate is to further scientific knowledge by aiding dissemination. Many don't charge authors to publish their papers, some ask for covering of publication cost (usually covered in the research grant). If you opt not to pay you will be placed in a queue since there is a page budget for free articles and your paper may be delayed for quite awhile. In principle these journals see nothing wrong with online dissemination (after the paper is accepted for publication and reviewed).
Some disciplines like physics have pioneered in putting up preprints so that work can move forward more quickly. The journals don't regard this as prior publication. The non-profits don't charge much beyond printing and overhead costs to the libraries and much less to individuals.
The situation is a bit blurred for those journals that accept advertising, especially in the medical field.
The for-profit publishers charge thousands or even more for a year of a specialty journal. They don't charge authors but they overcharge libraries. They are, of course, reluctant to see their market undermined by online publication. These journals have gotten so expensive (and there are so many of them - especially in biological sciences) that libraries have formed consortiums to share copies. The for-profits are not doing a service to science, only their bottom line.
First you need to realize that there are two broad types of libertarians, the personal liberty type and the economic liberty type.
The personal liberty type (I can do whatever I want as long as I'm not harming others) are utopians who only look at those aspects of communal living (that is modern society) which they disapprove of. If they don't like drug laws then they claim there should be none. If they don't like seat belt laws than risk should be borne by the driver. The oversimplify and refuse to examine the fact that there are no consequence-free choices. Doing something that the majority in a democratic society has decided shouldn't be done has negative effects on others.
The economic liberty type (It's my property, or earnings or wealth) is actually a shill (or unwitting shill) for the super wealthy. This model only considers the rights of the possessor of property and ignores the social cost that was incurred when they obtained their property. They also claim to believe in personal liberty except that they want a strong police/military/legal system in place to protect their property rights.
This group would not have the presence that it does if it weren't supported by a small group of super weathy families which provide the money to the "think tanks" that give the intellectual veneer to what is, essentially, greed.
The best place to start is to study the actions of Charles Koch and his support of such places as the Cato Institute.
Many people think we are engaged in a battle over ideas, but the wealthy are just in it for the money. They buy the intellectuals they need (and the politicians too). Until people realize the real power of this small core of super wealthy conservatives they will continue to tilt at windmills.
As many have already pointed out trying to find unknown actors via data mining is not going to work very well.
If we assume that the people at the NSA and other spy agencies are smart enough to know this too, then one has to ask what are they really trying to do.
The answer is that monitoring known actors (such as political dissidents) who are members of known groups works well with these techniques.
If you are really interested in all things Walmart you might want to visit:
http://thewritingonthewall.net/
The site has lots of stories about Walmart and links to various activist sites as well.
The topic is much more complex than some might think. The simple questions of quality and labor rights are only part of issue.
Before you spout off (when has that ever stopped anyone) read up and then make informed comments...
The real debate will come with scientific and technical journal articles. Yearly subscriptions to these are now over $10,000 for some individual titles. The consolidation in the publishing industry has resulted in just a handful of big publishers owning most of the important titles.
Various schemes have been tried to allow digital access via subscription, but the real value of a university library is the journals for most academic research.
What happens when Google wants to start including these?
The telecommunications world only opened up after AT&T lost it monopoly. As a result lots of new services were created. Even the design of the telephone changed and millions were sold with new features.
Many industries are looking for broadband as a way to offer new information services. If history is any example a near- or shared-monopoly on access will stifle initiative. We will see how long it takes for the information providers to react when they can sell HD movies on demand in Japan but not here because of lack of hardware upgrades by the telcos.
Not only entertainment but other services may not be rolled out and put the US at a competitive disadvantage with the rest of the developed world.
The recent action by Telus in Canada to block the site of a union involved in a strike with the company points to another danger in non-competitive DSL service.
Once the phone company is the only one to provide service what is to prevent them from controlling what sites and services can be accessed?
Actions by the FBI and the like are also less likely to be resisted when there is only one provider that needs to keep on the good side of the government.
With excellent quality inkjet printers selling for $100-200 perhaps those affected should do it themselves.
The time it takes is not that great and there is lots of advise available for beginners online.
(I've even got a few tips on my web site - end plug)
During the Soviet era the media was controlled by the government (or intimidated by the government).
As a consequence there arose an undergound publishing network that used photocopiers and mimeograph machines to distribute writings not sanctioned, this was called samizdat.
It seems we are in a similar situation today. The major media decides what is newsworthy. The counter media is becoming the blogosphere. So to see Rep. Sensenbrunner's shutting of Patriot act debate in congress your best source is a blog that has captured the C-span broadcast.
Similarly, the Downing Street Memo was first available (in the US) online. And most of the followup clamor has been there as well.
This is both a good thing and an indication of how far the press has drifted from their role of shining a light into the dark recess of government and commerce.
What is lacking is a way for all the bits of information to be preserved and made available in a coherent fashion. For example, there is:
http://www.thememoryhole.org/
But, this seems to be basically a one person operation with limited funding.
A parallel concern can be illustrated by TPMcafe's request for a list of good history books. Such a list (especially annotated) can be a valuable resource for people trying to learn from the past. However, right now, it just a bunch or random comments in a blog. A formal bibliographic site would thus be much more useful.
I guess the multimillions of dollars required to set up such a large enterprise doesn't count in your definiton of "nothing"?
Not to mention the staffing, expertise and avoidance of patent restrictions.
What is possible in "theory" doesn't always match what is "practicable".
There is a serious issue with the fact that three search engines control almost all of the market.
Such concentration leads to limits on the availability of information. In addition the poor quality of the algorithms used means relevant information gets missed.
Read my short discussion of the issues involved here:
http://robertdfeinman.com/society/google_monopoly. html
Economics not quality will determine what happens
on
Can Microsoft Beat Google?
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
The motivation for entering the search market is
selling ads on the results page. Google has just
reported high income because of bidding wars on
ad words.
Other players would like to take some of this revenue. The inclusion of indexing of pages that
don't buy ads is just the necessary come-on to
entice viewers to use the search engine when doing
product-oriented lookups.
If Microsoft can undermine Google and Yahoo in the
ad word business it will cut off their "air supply" and they will no longer be able to afford to provide such extensive free indexing services.
I wonder how hard it would be to create a little
applicaton which does a GET on all the paid ads
in a search results page and causes the click-through payment model to fail?
The new ad blocking features in Firefox have already altered the interest in banner and popup
ads.
Since my web site is mostly photographs I have
spent a lot of time on this issue.
All the search engines do a poor job of non-text
material.
I've attempted to give them some help by including
meta-data in the image, but as far as I can tell
they don't use it.
MSN spider has been through my site many times over
the past year. They don't seem to just crawl parts of it.
For an extended essay on this topic you can visit
this page on my site: http://robertdfeinman.com/society/search_technique s.html
It's part of an overall concern on the gatekeeper
effect that having only a few search engines creates.
It's not really that bad with 8 bits. If you use adjustment layers then all the changes are applied at once and the quantization problems are minimized. If you do what you suggest as successive changes than your are certainly correct.
I'm still wondering what benefits gimp might have over photoshop.
Most of the comments seem to be about interface issues. I'm wondering are there any functions that
gimp has that are better than photoshop in terms of what happens to the actual image?
Assuming one learns to live with the program quirks it's the result that finally counts.
Certainly the lack of 16bit support is an issue for large changes in values in photographs. You can see examples in the tips section of my web site. Even so , many people maintain that the results are not meaningful since the final output is all to 8 bit devices.
The indexing of information is being controlled by just a few search sites. This is a serious problem for the free flow of information. Not only is there a censorhip issue, but there is the issue that if a search engine chooses not to index you, you effectively are invisible.
Read my two essays on the issue on my web site at this link: http://robertdfeinman.com/society/google_mo nopoly. html
Slashdot Mirror
The non-profits' mandate is to further scientific knowledge by aiding dissemination. Many don't charge authors to publish their papers, some ask for covering of publication cost (usually covered in the research grant). If you opt not to pay you will be placed in a queue since there is a page budget for free articles and your paper may be delayed for quite awhile. In principle these journals see nothing wrong with online dissemination (after the paper is accepted for publication and reviewed).
Some disciplines like physics have pioneered in putting up preprints so that work can move forward more quickly. The journals don't regard this as prior publication. The non-profits don't charge much beyond printing and overhead costs to the libraries and much less to individuals.
The situation is a bit blurred for those journals that accept advertising, especially in the medical field.
The for-profit publishers charge thousands or even more for a year of a specialty journal. They don't charge authors but they overcharge libraries. They are, of course, reluctant to see their market undermined by online publication. These journals have gotten so expensive (and there are so many of them - especially in biological sciences) that libraries have formed consortiums to share copies. The for-profits are not doing a service to science, only their bottom line.
First you need to realize that there are two broad types of libertarians, the personal liberty type and the economic liberty type.
The personal liberty type (I can do whatever I want as long as I'm not harming others) are utopians who only look at those aspects of communal living (that is modern society) which they disapprove of. If they don't like drug laws then they claim there should be none. If they don't like seat belt laws than risk should be borne by the driver. The oversimplify and refuse to examine the fact that there are no consequence-free choices. Doing something that the majority in a democratic society has decided shouldn't be done has negative effects on others.
The economic liberty type (It's my property, or earnings or wealth) is actually a shill (or unwitting shill) for the super wealthy. This model only considers the rights of the possessor of property and ignores the social cost that was incurred when they obtained their property. They also claim to believe in personal liberty except that they want a strong police/military/legal system in place to protect their property rights.
This group would not have the presence that it does if it weren't supported by a small group of super weathy families which provide the money to the "think tanks" that give the intellectual veneer to what is, essentially, greed.
The best place to start is to study the actions of Charles Koch and his support of such places as the Cato Institute.
Here's a good link to begin with.
Media Transparency
Many people think we are engaged in a battle over ideas, but the wealthy are just in it for the money. They buy the intellectuals they need (and the politicians too). Until people realize the real power of this small core of super wealthy conservatives they will continue to tilt at windmills.
If we assume that the people at the NSA and other spy agencies are smart enough to know this too, then one has to ask what are they really trying to do.
The answer is that monitoring known actors (such as political dissidents) who are members of known groups works well with these techniques.
Here's my little essay on the subject (with some historical examples thrown in): http://robertdfeinman.com/society/surveillance_vs_ liberty.html
The bottom line is that secret police functions rapidly become tools for suppression of domestic dissent.
If you are really interested in all things Walmart you might want to visit: http://thewritingonthewall.net/ The site has lots of stories about Walmart and links to various activist sites as well. The topic is much more complex than some might think. The simple questions of quality and labor rights are only part of issue. Before you spout off (when has that ever stopped anyone) read up and then make informed comments...
Various schemes have been tried to allow digital access via subscription, but the real value of a university library is the journals for most academic research.
What happens when Google wants to start including these?
Many industries are looking for broadband as a way to offer new information services. If history is any example a near- or shared-monopoly on access will stifle initiative. We will see how long it takes for the information providers to react when they can sell HD movies on demand in Japan but not here because of lack of hardware upgrades by the telcos.
Not only entertainment but other services may not be rolled out and put the US at a competitive disadvantage with the rest of the developed world.
Once the phone company is the only one to provide service what is to prevent them from controlling what sites and services can be accessed?
Actions by the FBI and the like are also less likely to be resisted when there is only one provider that needs to keep on the good side of the government.
With excellent quality inkjet printers selling for $100-200 perhaps those affected should do it themselves. The time it takes is not that great and there is lots of advise available for beginners online. (I've even got a few tips on my web site - end plug)
As a consequence there arose an undergound publishing network that used photocopiers and mimeograph machines to distribute writings not sanctioned, this was called samizdat.
It seems we are in a similar situation today. The major media decides what is newsworthy. The counter media is becoming the blogosphere. So to see Rep. Sensenbrunner's shutting of Patriot act debate in congress your best source is a blog that has captured the C-span broadcast.
Similarly, the Downing Street Memo was first available (in the US) online. And most of the followup clamor has been there as well.
This is both a good thing and an indication of how far the press has drifted from their role of shining a light into the dark recess of government and commerce.
What is lacking is a way for all the bits of information to be preserved and made available in a coherent fashion. For example, there is:
http://www.thememoryhole.org/
But, this seems to be basically a one person operation with limited funding.
A parallel concern can be illustrated by TPMcafe's request for a list of good history books. Such a list (especially annotated) can be a valuable resource for people trying to learn from the past. However, right now, it just a bunch or random comments in a blog. A formal bibliographic site would thus be much more useful.
I guess the multimillions of dollars required to set up such a large enterprise doesn't count in your definiton of "nothing"? Not to mention the staffing, expertise and avoidance of patent restrictions. What is possible in "theory" doesn't always match what is "practicable".
There is a serious issue with the fact that three search engines control almost all of the market. Such concentration leads to limits on the availability of information. In addition the poor quality of the algorithms used means relevant information gets missed. Read my short discussion of the issues involved here: http://robertdfeinman.com/society/google_monopoly. html
Other players would like to take some of this revenue. The inclusion of indexing of pages that don't buy ads is just the necessary come-on to entice viewers to use the search engine when doing product-oriented lookups.
If Microsoft can undermine Google and Yahoo in the ad word business it will cut off their "air supply" and they will no longer be able to afford to provide such extensive free indexing services.
I wonder how hard it would be to create a little applicaton which does a GET on all the paid ads in a search results page and causes the click-through payment model to fail?
The new ad blocking features in Firefox have already altered the interest in banner and popup ads.
Since my web site is mostly photographs I have spent a lot of time on this issue. All the search engines do a poor job of non-text material. I've attempted to give them some help by including meta-data in the image, but as far as I can tell they don't use it. MSN spider has been through my site many times over the past year. They don't seem to just crawl parts of it. For an extended essay on this topic you can visit this page on my site:e s.html
http://robertdfeinman.com/society/search_techniqu
It's part of an overall concern on the gatekeeper effect that having only a few search engines creates.
It's not really that bad with 8 bits. If you use adjustment layers then all the changes are applied at once and the quantization problems are minimized.
If you do what you suggest as successive changes than your are certainly correct.
I'm still wondering what benefits gimp might have over photoshop.
Most of the comments seem to be about interface issues. I'm wondering are there any functions that gimp has that are better than photoshop in terms of what happens to the actual image? Assuming one learns to live with the program quirks it's the result that finally counts. Certainly the lack of 16bit support is an issue for large changes in values in photographs. You can see examples in the tips section of my web site. Even so , many people maintain that the results are not meaningful since the final output is all to 8 bit devices.
The indexing of information is being controlled
o nopoly. html
by just a few search sites. This is a serious problem for the free flow of information. Not only is there
a censorhip issue, but there is the issue that if
a search engine chooses not to index you, you effectively are invisible.
Read my two essays on the issue on my web site at this link:
http://robertdfeinman.com/society/google_m