IBM is a commercial enterprise. they exist to make money for shareholders. if their desktop hardware division is unprofitable or they want to shift their focus to a different market, then that's their prerogative. i don't see what's wrong with their making that decision or why that would make them irrelevant in regard to their ISO membership.
companies change their focus all the time. they enter new markets and pull out of old ones as the company evolves over time. unless you were somehow directly affected by Lenovo's buyout of IBM's PC division i don't see why you would hold a grudge against them for pursuing a pretty standard business strategy.
do you really miss IBM desktops or something? if it makes any difference, IBM owns 6.7% of Lenovo's stock.
personally, i think IBM should be applauded for standing up against this blatant debasement of the very principles ISO is supposed to represent.
that's an excellent point. but i wonder if DVDs aren't compressed for the same reason that audio CDs aren't compressed--because of the overhead it would incur for playback. set top DVD players are very low tech compared to computers, and i'm not sure how they would handle the decoding of MPEG-4 HD content.
i'm not really that knowledgeable when it comes to video compression/encoding, so i don't know how MPEG-2 decoding compares with MPEG-4 part 2 encoding methods like DivX, XviD, etc.
but i think your point still stands even if people have to upgrade to slightly more expensive set-top DVD players to play compressed MPEG-4 HD video. it would still be much cheaper than current BD players and it would be extending an existing technology rather than creating a new and unnecessary proprietary format.
the NIST public relations video actually calls it Nanosoccer too. it's meant to spur the development of nanorobotics and that's what the competition's been doing. i see nothing wrong with the name.
from Wikipedia:
Nanorobotics is the technology of creating machines or robots at or close to the microscopic scale of a nanometres (10-9 metres). More specifically, nanorobotics refers to the still largely hypothetical nanotechnology engineering discipline of designing and building nanorobots. Nanorobots (nanobots, nanoids or nanites) would be typically devices ranging in size from 0.1-10 micrometers and constructed of nanoscale or molecular components. As no artificial non-biological nanorobots have yet been created, they remain a hypothetical concept.
they seem to be made a lot of headway towards realizing true nanorobots at the ideal scale. just because they haven't achieve their goal yet doesn't mean that the research they're sponsoring isn't related nanorobotics. just like many so-called robot "soccer" leagues don't actually involve robots playing soccer yet. that is the end goal they want to achieve, but there is still a lot of work to be done before they reach that goal, and that's what these leagues are focusing on right now.
i know a lot of people think of the poor and unemployed as lazy freeloaders whereas the rich and "industrious" are the true producers of our society. however, in my experience most poor people are very hardworking whereas many of the richest and most highly-paid individuals are simply overprivileged social parasites.
of course, i'm not talking about skilled professionals like doctors, scientists, etc. but rather people who contribute nothing to society and are just good at making money or climbing the corporate ladder. these are usually MBAs and upper-management types whose main job is to push the real producers in a company to gain the maximum return for minimal compensation.
best case scenario is that they don't mismanage the company too badly and just allow the workforce to do their jobs unimpeded. if they can manage that then they're given credit for the work done by the people they manage. if they fuck up then they just blame their subordinates and lay off a bunch of workers so that they can continue to get paid for doing nothing.
i would say sales and marketing/advertising are similarly overvalued. but at least they're a necessary evil in a capitalist society. a sales team can make or break a company regardless of the product/service they're selling. but they are still given preferential status over workers that actually produce the company's core product. if a company starts losing money due to a lack of sales, then the engineering department is still the first to go while the sales team continue to receive posh salaries.
Blu-Ray really seems like a technology invented for profit rather than for utility. when CD-ROMs and DVDs came out, they not only offered a significant technological advancement, but they also met a real need for better storage media. CD-ROM was really a technology created for public benefit.
however, with BD technology, it seems like it was something thought up at a board meeting that Sony had their R&D department develop just so that they could force a superfluous technology onto consumers. it's created and custom tailored for sellers rather than buyers.
i mean, if you look at the features of BDs, they all seem to primarily benefit the film industry and BD producers at the cost of consumer interests. so why would consumers want to pay extra for what is basically a downgrade?
if it's going to be a single elevator platform it'll probably just be a large cargo bay in which they can fit spacecraft, satellites, etc. being the very first space elevator, it probably won't be open to the public or used for space tourism. there may be platforms at set intervals for maintenance use or in case of emergencies, but they won't likely be used for the elevator's normal operations.
so in a single trip it should just be straight up (to the desired orbital altitude) and then straight down. and it probably won't be controlled by a column of buttons lined up right next to the elevator doorway. since it'll be primarily used for moving cargo and getting launch vehicles to geostationary orbit, the controls may even be stationed just at the base of the cable.
so you have your satellite or spacecraft shipped to the space elevator just as you would to the Sea Launch platform, but instead of strapping your cargo to a rocket you just transfer it into the elevator, and up it goes. rather than having "floors" where the elevator stops, operators would probably just program the climber to stop at a specified altitude between LEO and the counterweight (just beyond GSO) where the cargo is to be released.
there may be a platform attached to the counterweight that the climber can dock to for interplanetary launches, but it would be just as easy to simply release the cargo from a hatch on the roof of the climber once it reaches the end of the cable, sending the cargo hurtling into space at escape velocity.
i guess the thing to do nowadays is just to google the topic of your choice and find a web forum/community that matches your interests. and if you're interested in a niche topic that there isn't a preexisting online community for then you just start one yourself since it's relatively easy and cheap to set up an online message board.
it's not so centralized, and you may have to jump between many different sites on the same topic, but the internet has become much more mainstream so it's capable of supporting multiple co-existing online communities that are all centered around the same topic. so even though online discussions may be dispersed over a great number of sites, the volume of posts on each site is probably the same as the original usenet groups.
It is never "free speech" to accuse someone of a crime; especially, as is now the case in our society, a crime where society consistently considers the accused to be guilty until proven innocent.
so you're saying because our right to a fair trial has been tossed out that we should also limit our right to free speech?
the offending site may be disrespectful, immature, bigoted, and distasteful, but it does not warrant censorship or punitive actions since it doesn't encroach on anyone's rights or pose a threat to the principle, the school, or the community.
at every school there are rumors that certain teachers, or other staff members, hit on students. sometimes these are just rumors, but other times they are legitimate accusations. regardless of which one it is, students have the right to express these accusations. if it's considered slander/libel, then those charges may be filed against the student and an investigation should be launched to determine whether the staff member has in fact hit on students. but the principle has no right to discipline students simply for making fun of him through a parody profile.
heck, anyone who's been through junior high as been called "fag" or "gay" or any number of other juvenile insults involving accusations of homosexuality. but if this takes place outside of school there's really no legal basis for punishing a student for making these remarks. these claims may not be true, but that doesn't give the school authority to encroach on a student's freedom of expression.
honestly, if you can't handle a little heckling or being made fun of by students, then you shouldn't be working at a high school. the principle has clearly abused his position of authority in retaliation for being made the butt of a joke. i think this case sets a bad precedent on the issue of students' rights.
well, i was referring to Wikipedia's collaborative editing policies, not basic organizational behavior. obviously problems of orthodoxy and group behavior are inherent in any organization, but that's clearly not why Wikipedia is being singled out here for attack. why bring up Wikipedia at all if you want to complain about something that isn't unique to wiki communities?
i think Wikipedia's open nature invites unorthodox opinions and tries to establish a community orthodoxy through public discussion. this is a far more democratic way of establishing orthodoxy than simply having a strictly hierarchical organizational structure where the weight of one's opinions corresponds to their pay grade.
Wikipedia is really a social experiment that's going into uncharted territory. so the problems they're facing (traditional editorial issues compounded by a collaborative editing system that's open to thousands of people) haven't really been addressed before. but i believe that with time these issues will be gradually hammered out by establishing an ongoing dialog with the community.
and while i agree that collaborative editing is uniquely suited to creating a cultural repository, i think that the Wikipedia administrators do have a right to cultivate the site in the direction of their original vision. i mean, you're absolutely right that it shouldn't just be another online Britannica, but i think that Wikipedia is important as an alternative model to traditional encyclopedia. so it still serves largely the same role, but accomplishes it by a very different (and revolutionary) means.
besides, i think what you're describing already exists. Everything2 pioneered the concept of collaborative online communities long before Wikipedia was created. E2 lacks the open/collaborative editing policy of Wikipedia, but it does allow anyone to submit write-ups on almost any subject matter they wish. they also employ a very effective (albeit strict) peer moderation system which maintains the quality of the site's content.
perhaps Wikipedia's collaborative editing model can be tried on another E2-like site, but i think the current Wikipedia serves a vastly different purpose from the cultural repository that E2 acts as. sure, it's nice to be able to look up random miscellaneous info on E2 that you wouldn't find in any encyclopedia, but i think there's also a vital need for a better encyclopedia, which is the niche that Wikipedia is trying to fill.
you can still find info on Wikipedia that you won't find in traditional encyclopedias, but the difference is that Wikipedia is still primarily a reference/knowledge repository--just a more thorough and all-encompassing one--and not a cultural repository. having an encyclopedia that is constantly undergoing peer-review and being edited, expanded, and updated with the latest information is a very lofty goal, and one that is worth pursuing regardless of the challenges that arise.
i actually find all this scorn for Wikipedia and its mods/admins quite amusing.
there are lots of accusations of personal biases, clique-mentality, elitism, and other very human traits. but i wonder if those making these complaints ever bothered to ask themselves whether these problems are endemic to the Wikipedia community or if they're problems which are inherent with any editorial process and that it's only because of Wikipedia's community-driven nature that these problems of objectivity are actually exposed and open to public scrutiny & debate.
i guess with any kind of progressive movement there will be rearguard reactions to oppose it. however, in this case i think that the complaints being leveled are actually quite valid. it's just that Wikipedia is being unfairly singled out simply because of its open/collaborative nature.
if you only have 20-30 person conventional editorial staff these problems would be a non-issue simply because the people who disagree with the company's official editorial opinion would simply be fired or probably just would not have been hired in the first place. all of the editorial politics are handled behind closed doors and any issues would be solved by a simple executive decision from the chief editor.
but once you involve the public in the editorial process then you're opening it to infinitely many viewpoints and a greater diversity of opinions. this invites open discussion and eliminates the risk of corporate politics influencing editorial decisions. but the same virtues that make Wikipedia a great alternative to the largely consolidated mainstream media also give rise to controversy as its open nature is more likely to draw public criticism.
the more people that take part in a debate, the more disagreements will arise, and the harder it will be to satisfy everyone involved. but i don't see this as a flaw with collaborative publishing. it reveals an often missed (or concealed) dimension to print publishing, particularly that of reference works.
one doesn't exclude the other. as narcberry already mentioned, you need lighter and more uplifting atmospheres in a game to contrast with the darker moments. variety is an important factor in creating an engaging game with long-lasting return value.
this is something that the game developers already mentioned when they ran the photoshop contest. since this is an RPG, players will be expected to put in a lot of hours playing the game--much of which spent level-grinding and doing generally the same repetitive actions. that's why it was important for them to put a lot of variation between different environments.
i don't think there's anything wrong with having a colorful game, but nor is it wrong to have a dark and ominous atmosphere. if all games were bright and cheerful it would become just as banal as all games being dark and brooding.
weaving an epic story is the same whether you're developing an RPG, writing a novel, or shooting a movie. whatever you can do to captivate the audience's attention and really immerse them in the fictional world of your epic is your prerogative. dark and malevolent environments naturally elicit a very visceral response from most people. it would be foolish to forgo such dramatic elements if it's appropriate to your story.
creating a dark in-game atmosphere just needs to be done tactfully. making the entire game dark and gloomy may not be the best choice. and there are many ways to convey an evil or foreboding atmosphere without rendering the game entirely in greys and blacks. a skilled game developer or cinematographer can create a bright and vibrant scene that still exudes an eerie feeling.
i think i saw this discussed in a TV program or documentary. if i remember correctly, there are already labs working on this problem. i think one university researcher has even successfully created such hydrophobic membranes using basic chemical reactions that could spontaneously occur under the right conditions.
obviously there are many different pieces of the puzzle that need to be solved, but the discovery of Naphthalene in space, like the lipid membrane problem, are just one more key element that we've gotten out of the way.
i mean, without the primordial soup, the hydrophobic membrane would not matter either. so it doesn't make sense to dismiss this just because there are still other important issues. otherwise we'd never learn anything unless all of the pieces suddenly materialized all at once.
familiarity may correlate with usability, but creating usable virtual interfaces has nothing to do with mimicking physical reality.
i mean, how does a fancy screen transition improve usability in any way? does it let you do what you want easier/faster? does it improve efficiency or make the software more intuitive?
would flipping through hundreds of virtual album covers be more usable than a simple searchable list that lets you immediately jump to the album or track you want? would having to flip virtual pages be more usable than an e-book that you could simply gradually scroll down as you read?
physical usability is completely different from software usability. software/virtual interface isn't limited by physical laws. you can't organize a physical item into multiple categories as you can by tagging virtual items. there are no drop-down menus in the physical world. you can't perform a boolean search on a cabinet full of documents the way you can with a computer database.
well, obviously security will be a major issue, and that's probably something this alliance ought to focus on.
and while i agree that some devices would probably be best left on a LAN, many others may be necessary to connect to the internet to be useful at all.
so you may not want WAN access to your home heating controls, but you may want your mountain cabin's thermostat to be viewable over the internet so that you can check to see when would be a good time to take that long needed vacation.
portable devices would also benefit much more from WAN access than just LAN access alone. i've always wished that my PSP could post its activity to my Last.fm account the same way Winamp and iTunes on my computer can. perhaps a similar online service could be designed for tracking what games you're playing so that no matter where you are your friends can join you for some internet multiplayer.
i can also see lots of potential applications for a WAN-connected GPS device. this may be quite some time away, but imagine if there were ubiquitous open wi-fi access across the U.S. and you were to travel across the country on a camping trip with a smart GPS device and a smart camera. your GPS device would automatically download detailed road/trail maps wherever you go and let you know where there are restaurants, public facilities, camp groups, landmarks, etc. and whenever you go to snap a picture the camera would post the picture to an online Google Maps Mashup with the coordinates communicated by your GPS device, letting your friends & family members see where you've been and follow you on your journey over the web.
WAN-connected cars could even broadcast road conditions to a central server that in turn is accessed by each vehicle to allow drivers to avoid congested routes, or message its owner if it's been broken into. the possibilities for smart internet devices are endless.
i think you're probably right, but maybe there's something along those lines that would be acceptable for academic networks/donated hardware.
this might not appeal to most students, but perhaps they could help members develop/host/manage free web services & applications. instead of just offering a straight-forward web hosting service where students can only upload static files, you could form an organization geared towards developing free online services for the campus community. members can then learn how to build & manage complex web applications while providing new useful online resources to the general school population.
for instance, you could build a site where students can find or create study groups for the classes they are taking and also schedule meeting times and share notes, etc. or create a site for students to sell/trade used books. these type of services would be very useful on a college campus but might not be within the purview of the university itself.
the student group can even ask for suggestions for new services/applications from the student body. this would encourage the development of useful and innovative web applications by providing a place for developers, designers, system administrators, etc. to get together and collaborate on projects to serve the campus community.
IP addresses are a virtual commodity. if we run out of IPv4/IPv6 addresses, we'll simply create new address spaces as needed. that's not really a problem. it's like complaining about p2p file-sharers using too much bandwidth--these are infrastructure problems that aren't limited by physical resources. instead, this type of technological infrastructure naturally grows to meet demand.
it's not like we're facing an IP address shortage. AFAIK we haven't hit any technological hard limit regarding the maximum number of devices the internet is capable of supporting. and using more IP addresses doesn't pose any detrimental effects, so why not give it a try? if people find this concept useful, then it will be adopted; if not, it won't.
personally, i think it's a great idea. with the growing availability of wi-fi access (and the ubiquity of internet access in general), there's no better method for smart devices to communicate with each other or to be managed remotely. the development of the Internet of Things could also spur the adoption of municipal wi-fi or other public wi-fi infrastructure.
lots of smart devices already have wi-fi/internet capabilities, but there's not really enough wide-spread adoption to make full use of these capabilities. having a cross-industry consortium of like-minded organizations facilitates collaboration on developmental strategy and helps establish a concerted effort to take the technology in an organized direction.
imagine having a portable media player that can access your media library anywhere with wi-fi access, or maybe it can automatically download new music from your favorite artists via the internet. or perhaps you can remotely program your PVR to record a show while you're at work or on vacation, or check your fridge contents to see if you need to pick up some eggs on the way home from work. you could even check your answering machine or faxes over the internet. there are millions of ways in which this concept could make life more convenient.
terrorists don't carry out attacks because they have open wi-fi access. they simply use open wi-fi because it's available and convenient--the same reason everyone else uses it.
if they can't access the internet via open wi-fi they'll just use other anonymous channels. what is the Indian government going to do, eliminate public computer terminals at schools and libraries? ban proxy servers? or simply outlaw anonymity altogether?
it would be just as easy to claim responsibility for a terrorist act by leaving an anonymous note or spraying graffiti onto the side of a public building at night. should all Indian citizens have to get GPS implants?
i'm not completely sure, but i believe that anti-virus makers often classify keygens and cracks as viruses. it's a way of posturing to scare the public away from using these programs despite their innocuous nature.
problem is, there are some warez downloads that genuinely do contain trojans/viruses, so if your AV program is set off by a download it's difficult to know if it's a legitimate threat or simply the AV makers trying to manipulate the public.
i imagine a lot of security analysis tools (which can be used for both white hat and black hat purposes) probably set off AV programs as well.
i can see how AV software detecting warez programs might be a useful feature to businesses who want to protect themselves from lawsuits, but it should at least make a distinction between viruses/trojans/malware and warez/hacking programs which aren't harmful to the user's computer. it's not really the place of AV makers to tell users that they can't use a keygen, crack, or security tool. that's not why most people run AV programs.
a woman posts a link to a municipal government website, so the mayor sends her a cease-and-desist letter and then launches a police investigation on her to intimidate the woman and coerce her into removing the link. and you see nothing wrong here?
it doesn't matter that the city withdrew its demand after the lawsuit was filed (or possibly after the media broke the story). the point is that government officials should not be bullying political dissidents like this--especially not in concert with the police department.
the woman in this story was smart enough to contact a lawyer and fight back, but most people would probably be intimidated and just back down. this story should be reported if only so others know that such demands have no legal basis.
i would also add that teaching others is one of the best ways to teach yourself.
while i'm not a math wiz by any means (got a C in AP Calculus--though i did pass the AP test with a 5), i was involved in an after-school library tutoring program my junior and senior year. this was an excellent program, not only because it was a great resource for struggling students, but also because it was a great learning experience for the student tutors as well.
tutoring other students is a great way to review old knowledge, and sometimes you even learn alongside the students as you try to help them understand difficult concepts. there's no better way to gain a genuine grasp on challenging material than having to explain it to someone else. it really challenges you to look at, analyze, and break down difficult concepts in new ways in order to convey the concept to the person you're tutoring. and in this process, you yourself also become much more familiar with and gain a better understanding of the material.
so until you turned 18 you never read the news or took any interest in current affairs? no wonder our democracy is in such sad state.
politics covers social issues that affect us all, regardless of one's age. it isn't just an abstract academic exercise to be left to professional politicians. public policy affects our daily lives and touches on issues of morality and justice--concepts which don't just suddenly become relevant only once you're eligible to vote.
personally, i've never considered being politically informed as stressful. forming my own views & opinions about the world i live in isn't a chore; it's my democratic prerogative. i know it's become trendy to act/be apathetic, but that has never appealed to me, not even as a kid. i've always found intellectual pursuits to be very exhilarating, and i like challenging my own assumptions to improve my understanding of the world.
long before i turned 18 i was already involved in community service and social & political activism in my local community. you don't have to be able to vote to understand poverty and social injustice. raising money for charities or working at a soup kitchen aren't just activities for adults. and it's not at all stressful. if anything it's spiritually uplifting and gives one a sense of empowerment.
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IBM is a commercial enterprise. they exist to make money for shareholders. if their desktop hardware division is unprofitable or they want to shift their focus to a different market, then that's their prerogative. i don't see what's wrong with their making that decision or why that would make them irrelevant in regard to their ISO membership.
companies change their focus all the time. they enter new markets and pull out of old ones as the company evolves over time. unless you were somehow directly affected by Lenovo's buyout of IBM's PC division i don't see why you would hold a grudge against them for pursuing a pretty standard business strategy.
do you really miss IBM desktops or something? if it makes any difference, IBM owns 6.7% of Lenovo's stock.
personally, i think IBM should be applauded for standing up against this blatant debasement of the very principles ISO is supposed to represent.
that's an excellent point. but i wonder if DVDs aren't compressed for the same reason that audio CDs aren't compressed--because of the overhead it would incur for playback. set top DVD players are very low tech compared to computers, and i'm not sure how they would handle the decoding of MPEG-4 HD content.
i'm not really that knowledgeable when it comes to video compression/encoding, so i don't know how MPEG-2 decoding compares with MPEG-4 part 2 encoding methods like DivX, XviD, etc.
but i think your point still stands even if people have to upgrade to slightly more expensive set-top DVD players to play compressed MPEG-4 HD video. it would still be much cheaper than current BD players and it would be extending an existing technology rather than creating a new and unnecessary proprietary format.
the NIST public relations video actually calls it Nanosoccer too. it's meant to spur the development of nanorobotics and that's what the competition's been doing. i see nothing wrong with the name.
from Wikipedia:
they seem to be made a lot of headway towards realizing true nanorobots at the ideal scale. just because they haven't achieve their goal yet doesn't mean that the research they're sponsoring isn't related nanorobotics. just like many so-called robot "soccer" leagues don't actually involve robots playing soccer yet. that is the end goal they want to achieve, but there is still a lot of work to be done before they reach that goal, and that's what these leagues are focusing on right now.
oh, you mean the inability to start up in less than a minute? or the ability to act as a virus vector?
how many people still hold management positions?
i know a lot of people think of the poor and unemployed as lazy freeloaders whereas the rich and "industrious" are the true producers of our society. however, in my experience most poor people are very hardworking whereas many of the richest and most highly-paid individuals are simply overprivileged social parasites.
of course, i'm not talking about skilled professionals like doctors, scientists, etc. but rather people who contribute nothing to society and are just good at making money or climbing the corporate ladder. these are usually MBAs and upper-management types whose main job is to push the real producers in a company to gain the maximum return for minimal compensation.
best case scenario is that they don't mismanage the company too badly and just allow the workforce to do their jobs unimpeded. if they can manage that then they're given credit for the work done by the people they manage. if they fuck up then they just blame their subordinates and lay off a bunch of workers so that they can continue to get paid for doing nothing.
i would say sales and marketing/advertising are similarly overvalued. but at least they're a necessary evil in a capitalist society. a sales team can make or break a company regardless of the product/service they're selling. but they are still given preferential status over workers that actually produce the company's core product. if a company starts losing money due to a lack of sales, then the engineering department is still the first to go while the sales team continue to receive posh salaries.
Blu-Ray really seems like a technology invented for profit rather than for utility. when CD-ROMs and DVDs came out, they not only offered a significant technological advancement, but they also met a real need for better storage media. CD-ROM was really a technology created for public benefit.
however, with BD technology, it seems like it was something thought up at a board meeting that Sony had their R&D department develop just so that they could force a superfluous technology onto consumers. it's created and custom tailored for sellers rather than buyers.
i mean, if you look at the features of BDs, they all seem to primarily benefit the film industry and BD producers at the cost of consumer interests. so why would consumers want to pay extra for what is basically a downgrade?
because open source companies don't want to make money? if so somebody better tell MySQL AB and Trolltech. they're doing a horrible job of it.
if it's going to be a single elevator platform it'll probably just be a large cargo bay in which they can fit spacecraft, satellites, etc. being the very first space elevator, it probably won't be open to the public or used for space tourism. there may be platforms at set intervals for maintenance use or in case of emergencies, but they won't likely be used for the elevator's normal operations.
so in a single trip it should just be straight up (to the desired orbital altitude) and then straight down. and it probably won't be controlled by a column of buttons lined up right next to the elevator doorway. since it'll be primarily used for moving cargo and getting launch vehicles to geostationary orbit, the controls may even be stationed just at the base of the cable.
so you have your satellite or spacecraft shipped to the space elevator just as you would to the Sea Launch platform, but instead of strapping your cargo to a rocket you just transfer it into the elevator, and up it goes. rather than having "floors" where the elevator stops, operators would probably just program the climber to stop at a specified altitude between LEO and the counterweight (just beyond GSO) where the cargo is to be released.
there may be a platform attached to the counterweight that the climber can dock to for interplanetary launches, but it would be just as easy to simply release the cargo from a hatch on the roof of the climber once it reaches the end of the cable, sending the cargo hurtling into space at escape velocity.
i guess the thing to do nowadays is just to google the topic of your choice and find a web forum/community that matches your interests. and if you're interested in a niche topic that there isn't a preexisting online community for then you just start one yourself since it's relatively easy and cheap to set up an online message board.
it's not so centralized, and you may have to jump between many different sites on the same topic, but the internet has become much more mainstream so it's capable of supporting multiple co-existing online communities that are all centered around the same topic. so even though online discussions may be dispersed over a great number of sites, the volume of posts on each site is probably the same as the original usenet groups.
so you're saying because our right to a fair trial has been tossed out that we should also limit our right to free speech?
the offending site may be disrespectful, immature, bigoted, and distasteful, but it does not warrant censorship or punitive actions since it doesn't encroach on anyone's rights or pose a threat to the principle, the school, or the community.
at every school there are rumors that certain teachers, or other staff members, hit on students. sometimes these are just rumors, but other times they are legitimate accusations. regardless of which one it is, students have the right to express these accusations. if it's considered slander/libel, then those charges may be filed against the student and an investigation should be launched to determine whether the staff member has in fact hit on students. but the principle has no right to discipline students simply for making fun of him through a parody profile.
heck, anyone who's been through junior high as been called "fag" or "gay" or any number of other juvenile insults involving accusations of homosexuality. but if this takes place outside of school there's really no legal basis for punishing a student for making these remarks. these claims may not be true, but that doesn't give the school authority to encroach on a student's freedom of expression.
honestly, if you can't handle a little heckling or being made fun of by students, then you shouldn't be working at a high school. the principle has clearly abused his position of authority in retaliation for being made the butt of a joke. i think this case sets a bad precedent on the issue of students' rights.
well, i was referring to Wikipedia's collaborative editing policies, not basic organizational behavior. obviously problems of orthodoxy and group behavior are inherent in any organization, but that's clearly not why Wikipedia is being singled out here for attack. why bring up Wikipedia at all if you want to complain about something that isn't unique to wiki communities?
i think Wikipedia's open nature invites unorthodox opinions and tries to establish a community orthodoxy through public discussion. this is a far more democratic way of establishing orthodoxy than simply having a strictly hierarchical organizational structure where the weight of one's opinions corresponds to their pay grade.
Wikipedia is really a social experiment that's going into uncharted territory. so the problems they're facing (traditional editorial issues compounded by a collaborative editing system that's open to thousands of people) haven't really been addressed before. but i believe that with time these issues will be gradually hammered out by establishing an ongoing dialog with the community.
and while i agree that collaborative editing is uniquely suited to creating a cultural repository, i think that the Wikipedia administrators do have a right to cultivate the site in the direction of their original vision. i mean, you're absolutely right that it shouldn't just be another online Britannica, but i think that Wikipedia is important as an alternative model to traditional encyclopedia. so it still serves largely the same role, but accomplishes it by a very different (and revolutionary) means.
besides, i think what you're describing already exists. Everything2 pioneered the concept of collaborative online communities long before Wikipedia was created. E2 lacks the open/collaborative editing policy of Wikipedia, but it does allow anyone to submit write-ups on almost any subject matter they wish. they also employ a very effective (albeit strict) peer moderation system which maintains the quality of the site's content.
perhaps Wikipedia's collaborative editing model can be tried on another E2-like site, but i think the current Wikipedia serves a vastly different purpose from the cultural repository that E2 acts as. sure, it's nice to be able to look up random miscellaneous info on E2 that you wouldn't find in any encyclopedia, but i think there's also a vital need for a better encyclopedia, which is the niche that Wikipedia is trying to fill.
you can still find info on Wikipedia that you won't find in traditional encyclopedias, but the difference is that Wikipedia is still primarily a reference/knowledge repository--just a more thorough and all-encompassing one--and not a cultural repository. having an encyclopedia that is constantly undergoing peer-review and being edited, expanded, and updated with the latest information is a very lofty goal, and one that is worth pursuing regardless of the challenges that arise.
well, if they have a clean copy to compare with diff, then why wouldn't they have just used that disc image for the shipped discs?
obviously more stringent quality control is needed here, but i don't think running a simple diff command is the solution.
i actually find all this scorn for Wikipedia and its mods/admins quite amusing.
there are lots of accusations of personal biases, clique-mentality, elitism, and other very human traits. but i wonder if those making these complaints ever bothered to ask themselves whether these problems are endemic to the Wikipedia community or if they're problems which are inherent with any editorial process and that it's only because of Wikipedia's community-driven nature that these problems of objectivity are actually exposed and open to public scrutiny & debate.
i guess with any kind of progressive movement there will be rearguard reactions to oppose it. however, in this case i think that the complaints being leveled are actually quite valid. it's just that Wikipedia is being unfairly singled out simply because of its open/collaborative nature.
if you only have 20-30 person conventional editorial staff these problems would be a non-issue simply because the people who disagree with the company's official editorial opinion would simply be fired or probably just would not have been hired in the first place. all of the editorial politics are handled behind closed doors and any issues would be solved by a simple executive decision from the chief editor.
but once you involve the public in the editorial process then you're opening it to infinitely many viewpoints and a greater diversity of opinions. this invites open discussion and eliminates the risk of corporate politics influencing editorial decisions. but the same virtues that make Wikipedia a great alternative to the largely consolidated mainstream media also give rise to controversy as its open nature is more likely to draw public criticism.
the more people that take part in a debate, the more disagreements will arise, and the harder it will be to satisfy everyone involved. but i don't see this as a flaw with collaborative publishing. it reveals an often missed (or concealed) dimension to print publishing, particularly that of reference works.
one doesn't exclude the other. as narcberry already mentioned, you need lighter and more uplifting atmospheres in a game to contrast with the darker moments. variety is an important factor in creating an engaging game with long-lasting return value.
this is something that the game developers already mentioned when they ran the photoshop contest. since this is an RPG, players will be expected to put in a lot of hours playing the game--much of which spent level-grinding and doing generally the same repetitive actions. that's why it was important for them to put a lot of variation between different environments.
i don't think there's anything wrong with having a colorful game, but nor is it wrong to have a dark and ominous atmosphere. if all games were bright and cheerful it would become just as banal as all games being dark and brooding.
weaving an epic story is the same whether you're developing an RPG, writing a novel, or shooting a movie. whatever you can do to captivate the audience's attention and really immerse them in the fictional world of your epic is your prerogative. dark and malevolent environments naturally elicit a very visceral response from most people. it would be foolish to forgo such dramatic elements if it's appropriate to your story.
creating a dark in-game atmosphere just needs to be done tactfully. making the entire game dark and gloomy may not be the best choice. and there are many ways to convey an evil or foreboding atmosphere without rendering the game entirely in greys and blacks. a skilled game developer or cinematographer can create a bright and vibrant scene that still exudes an eerie feeling.
i think i saw this discussed in a TV program or documentary. if i remember correctly, there are already labs working on this problem. i think one university researcher has even successfully created such hydrophobic membranes using basic chemical reactions that could spontaneously occur under the right conditions.
obviously there are many different pieces of the puzzle that need to be solved, but the discovery of Naphthalene in space, like the lipid membrane problem, are just one more key element that we've gotten out of the way.
i mean, without the primordial soup, the hydrophobic membrane would not matter either. so it doesn't make sense to dismiss this just because there are still other important issues. otherwise we'd never learn anything unless all of the pieces suddenly materialized all at once.
familiarity may correlate with usability, but creating usable virtual interfaces has nothing to do with mimicking physical reality.
i mean, how does a fancy screen transition improve usability in any way? does it let you do what you want easier/faster? does it improve efficiency or make the software more intuitive?
would flipping through hundreds of virtual album covers be more usable than a simple searchable list that lets you immediately jump to the album or track you want? would having to flip virtual pages be more usable than an e-book that you could simply gradually scroll down as you read?
physical usability is completely different from software usability. software/virtual interface isn't limited by physical laws. you can't organize a physical item into multiple categories as you can by tagging virtual items. there are no drop-down menus in the physical world. you can't perform a boolean search on a cabinet full of documents the way you can with a computer database.
i think you're confusing usability with novelty.
well, obviously security will be a major issue, and that's probably something this alliance ought to focus on.
and while i agree that some devices would probably be best left on a LAN, many others may be necessary to connect to the internet to be useful at all.
so you may not want WAN access to your home heating controls, but you may want your mountain cabin's thermostat to be viewable over the internet so that you can check to see when would be a good time to take that long needed vacation.
portable devices would also benefit much more from WAN access than just LAN access alone. i've always wished that my PSP could post its activity to my Last.fm account the same way Winamp and iTunes on my computer can. perhaps a similar online service could be designed for tracking what games you're playing so that no matter where you are your friends can join you for some internet multiplayer.
i can also see lots of potential applications for a WAN-connected GPS device. this may be quite some time away, but imagine if there were ubiquitous open wi-fi access across the U.S. and you were to travel across the country on a camping trip with a smart GPS device and a smart camera. your GPS device would automatically download detailed road/trail maps wherever you go and let you know where there are restaurants, public facilities, camp groups, landmarks, etc. and whenever you go to snap a picture the camera would post the picture to an online Google Maps Mashup with the coordinates communicated by your GPS device, letting your friends & family members see where you've been and follow you on your journey over the web.
WAN-connected cars could even broadcast road conditions to a central server that in turn is accessed by each vehicle to allow drivers to avoid congested routes, or message its owner if it's been broken into. the possibilities for smart internet devices are endless.
i think you're probably right, but maybe there's something along those lines that would be acceptable for academic networks/donated hardware.
this might not appeal to most students, but perhaps they could help members develop/host/manage free web services & applications. instead of just offering a straight-forward web hosting service where students can only upload static files, you could form an organization geared towards developing free online services for the campus community. members can then learn how to build & manage complex web applications while providing new useful online resources to the general school population.
for instance, you could build a site where students can find or create study groups for the classes they are taking and also schedule meeting times and share notes, etc. or create a site for students to sell/trade used books. these type of services would be very useful on a college campus but might not be within the purview of the university itself.
the student group can even ask for suggestions for new services/applications from the student body. this would encourage the development of useful and innovative web applications by providing a place for developers, designers, system administrators, etc. to get together and collaborate on projects to serve the campus community.
IP addresses are a virtual commodity. if we run out of IPv4/IPv6 addresses, we'll simply create new address spaces as needed. that's not really a problem. it's like complaining about p2p file-sharers using too much bandwidth--these are infrastructure problems that aren't limited by physical resources. instead, this type of technological infrastructure naturally grows to meet demand.
it's not like we're facing an IP address shortage. AFAIK we haven't hit any technological hard limit regarding the maximum number of devices the internet is capable of supporting. and using more IP addresses doesn't pose any detrimental effects, so why not give it a try? if people find this concept useful, then it will be adopted; if not, it won't.
personally, i think it's a great idea. with the growing availability of wi-fi access (and the ubiquity of internet access in general), there's no better method for smart devices to communicate with each other or to be managed remotely. the development of the Internet of Things could also spur the adoption of municipal wi-fi or other public wi-fi infrastructure.
lots of smart devices already have wi-fi/internet capabilities, but there's not really enough wide-spread adoption to make full use of these capabilities. having a cross-industry consortium of like-minded organizations facilitates collaboration on developmental strategy and helps establish a concerted effort to take the technology in an organized direction.
imagine having a portable media player that can access your media library anywhere with wi-fi access, or maybe it can automatically download new music from your favorite artists via the internet. or perhaps you can remotely program your PVR to record a show while you're at work or on vacation, or check your fridge contents to see if you need to pick up some eggs on the way home from work. you could even check your answering machine or faxes over the internet. there are millions of ways in which this concept could make life more convenient.
yea, this is quite idiotic.
terrorists don't carry out attacks because they have open wi-fi access. they simply use open wi-fi because it's available and convenient--the same reason everyone else uses it.
if they can't access the internet via open wi-fi they'll just use other anonymous channels. what is the Indian government going to do, eliminate public computer terminals at schools and libraries? ban proxy servers? or simply outlaw anonymity altogether?
it would be just as easy to claim responsibility for a terrorist act by leaving an anonymous note or spraying graffiti onto the side of a public building at night. should all Indian citizens have to get GPS implants?
i'm not completely sure, but i believe that anti-virus makers often classify keygens and cracks as viruses. it's a way of posturing to scare the public away from using these programs despite their innocuous nature.
problem is, there are some warez downloads that genuinely do contain trojans/viruses, so if your AV program is set off by a download it's difficult to know if it's a legitimate threat or simply the AV makers trying to manipulate the public.
i imagine a lot of security analysis tools (which can be used for both white hat and black hat purposes) probably set off AV programs as well.
i can see how AV software detecting warez programs might be a useful feature to businesses who want to protect themselves from lawsuits, but it should at least make a distinction between viruses/trojans/malware and warez/hacking programs which aren't harmful to the user's computer. it's not really the place of AV makers to tell users that they can't use a keygen, crack, or security tool. that's not why most people run AV programs.
a woman posts a link to a municipal government website, so the mayor sends her a cease-and-desist letter and then launches a police investigation on her to intimidate the woman and coerce her into removing the link. and you see nothing wrong here?
it doesn't matter that the city withdrew its demand after the lawsuit was filed (or possibly after the media broke the story). the point is that government officials should not be bullying political dissidents like this--especially not in concert with the police department.
the woman in this story was smart enough to contact a lawyer and fight back, but most people would probably be intimidated and just back down. this story should be reported if only so others know that such demands have no legal basis.
i would also add that teaching others is one of the best ways to teach yourself.
while i'm not a math wiz by any means (got a C in AP Calculus--though i did pass the AP test with a 5), i was involved in an after-school library tutoring program my junior and senior year. this was an excellent program, not only because it was a great resource for struggling students, but also because it was a great learning experience for the student tutors as well.
tutoring other students is a great way to review old knowledge, and sometimes you even learn alongside the students as you try to help them understand difficult concepts. there's no better way to gain a genuine grasp on challenging material than having to explain it to someone else. it really challenges you to look at, analyze, and break down difficult concepts in new ways in order to convey the concept to the person you're tutoring. and in this process, you yourself also become much more familiar with and gain a better understanding of the material.
so until you turned 18 you never read the news or took any interest in current affairs? no wonder our democracy is in such sad state.
politics covers social issues that affect us all, regardless of one's age. it isn't just an abstract academic exercise to be left to professional politicians. public policy affects our daily lives and touches on issues of morality and justice--concepts which don't just suddenly become relevant only once you're eligible to vote.
personally, i've never considered being politically informed as stressful. forming my own views & opinions about the world i live in isn't a chore; it's my democratic prerogative. i know it's become trendy to act/be apathetic, but that has never appealed to me, not even as a kid. i've always found intellectual pursuits to be very exhilarating, and i like challenging my own assumptions to improve my understanding of the world.
long before i turned 18 i was already involved in community service and social & political activism in my local community. you don't have to be able to vote to understand poverty and social injustice. raising money for charities or working at a soup kitchen aren't just activities for adults. and it's not at all stressful. if anything it's spiritually uplifting and gives one a sense of empowerment.