Looks like the link didn't work. The correct link should be here. Excellent points, by the way. If ID were actually analyzed by teachers and students, they would certainly have to consider these alternate explanations/implications... which would surely make them reconsider the whole ID proposition.
My main concern would be the percentage of Kansas teachers that will follow a critical route versus follow a pro-ID route. Considering that the school board is (apparently) mostly pro-ID, I see no reason to believe the teachers in the schools will be any different. It seems like the vast majority of Kansas teachers will use the ruling as an opportunity to present Intelligent Design in a way that makes it sound reasonable, and possibly even factual.
I mean no disrespect to the intelligence of high school students... but if the teachers spout illogical arguments, the majority of teenagers will simply not spend much time debating the points. Many will accept what they hear, and this will ultimately weaken their education in ways much worse than simply having incorect notions about evolution. In fact, I worry that this ruling opens the door to students being taught NOT to think critically.
Out of curiosity, what's the relationship between Mobility Email and Portable Thunderbird. From the description, the two sound identical. Are they actually the same thing (same code)? Do they share code? Are there any differences?
Btw, I use Portable Thunderbird on a network so that I can access my email client from any computer on the lan. The one thing missing from Portable Thunderbird (and it seems that Mobility Email is the same) is to be OS portable also. There are tricks that I've used to get my Thunderbird profile to load on both Windows and Linux, but the ideal would be if the application were designed to run seamlessly regardless of what OS you tried to run it on (Windows, Mac, Linux)...
Your post raises many interesting points, but I won't comment on all of them. One thing struck me however:
He may, in fact, consider the earlier work so dreadful, he intends to use copyright laws to their full extent to keep down his embarassment. And despite the squawks of some posting here, we have no legal right to get easy access to what someone else has published. A copyright bestows the right to say, "No more copies will be published." That's why, for instance, an author can prevent anyone from making a movie derivative.
I'm an (amateur) artist too. I understand the desire to deny the existence of earlier work out of embarrasement, but I do not think that there is any reason to have legal infrastructure in place to enable artists to do that. Copyright exists to encourage artists to create art, not to provide them with perfect control over their works. Once a work is publicized in some format, it becomes a part of the world. Copyright is a means to help artists get some compensation back, but should never be used as a weapon to utterly control the flow of informtion, to control the world's art.
In short, copyright can be used to prevent the creation of new copies, but the old copies can be used by the owners of said copies however they like. They can hang your painting upside down, they can write newspaper articles about your book, and yes, they can even index it and make it easy for people to find artwork you find embarrasing.
"This advertising model has emerged as a very important thing," Gates said.
Translation: "We really missed the boat on that one, and are desperately trying to catch up."
"The live phenomenon is not just about Microsoft. It's partners, it's competitors...the whole space is being transformed."
Translation: "I woke up one day and suddenly there was this technology company making alot of money... and to my surprise it wasn't Microsoft! I knew I had to take over that tech sector ASAP so I asked someone what all this 'online' stuff was about."
Absolutely right. When I first got started with linux, everything was very confusing. Webmin made it much easier to get things configured. The ability to do remote configuration hooked me on linux. Of course, now I always use ssh and do thing via CLI, but again I think it's important to introduce new users to these tools, since they help bridge between the "point and click" style of interfacing with the (more powerful) command-line administration. The fact that Webmin even gives you a CLI if you want it is great!
The owners of the copyrighted works cannot be forced into depending on the discretion of a third party to protect their works, regardless of Google's assurances, or whether the owner ever heard of the ability to opt-out or not.
Yes, owners of copyrighted works CAN be forced into depending on the discretion of a third party to protect their works. That's life. If copyright holders are really so scared of their works being copied, they can lock them all up in a vault and never sell them to anyone. Then they are really protected.
A library has a bunch of books. They protect those books. I can go to a library, steal the books, make copies, and sell the copies. This is illegal. I don't think any court would honestly hold the library responsible. In fact, I don't have to steal the books. I can borrow them, take them home, make copies and violate copyright and the library is STILL not responsible. In fact, I can use the photocopiers INSIDE the library to do my dirty work. That's life. I broke the law, the library did not.
Now I admit that the Google database is a little bit different. But as long as each copy they are making is fair use, then they are allowed to hold the database. Copyright holders can't say "but what if someone steals it and makes copies!!??" If that happens, you can sue the thief/copyright-violator, but not Google (barring any obvious negligence etc.).
Now, is it fair in the first place for Google to make those copies, and let people search (but not view) them? That's a separate issue that the courts are looking into. I personally find that it advances society without compromising the copyright-holder's monopoly. Therefore, I think it's legal. I also happen to think it's the "right" (ethical, etc.) thing to do, for society.
if Google loses control of the data that they do not own, they have very little legal basis to protect it.
Indeed, if Google loses control somehow, it will be up to the actual copyright holders to pursue legal action and so on. That's life. Libraries are not responsible (unless they willfully encourage people to break the law), and so neither should Google be responsible (unless they willfully encourage people to break the law).
All the stuff about exotic things like black holes are very loosely "verified".
Perhaps you're not aware of, for instance, the observation of stars in the center of the milky way orbiting a massive but non-radiant object? (i.e.: black hole.) This was observed via telescope, not indirectly or loosely.
As far as I am concerned, something is a science if you can do experiments, not just make observations.
Well unfortunately English-speaking people disagree with your definition of science. Science is about observing, rationalizing and predicting. As others have pointed out, observation and experimentation are not really different things.
You have to be able to first make a prediction, and then test it.
Such as: Prediction: there is a black hole at the center of the milky way; test: look at the center of the milky way; result: there is some massive object that does not radiate light at the center of the milky way... or perhaps prediction: the universe is expanding; test: check recession velocities of astronomical objects; result: all objects are moving away from one another, therefore the universe is expanding... and so on... and so on...
And there are parts of astronomy that is not science or math, like looking for extra solar planets. This is just whatever it is. We will never be able to test any of it!!!
Your definition of "test" is strange. If I predict that extra-solar planets exist, and then construct a "test" for my theory (that will involve using telescopes to look for said planets), somehow that isn't a "real test" it's "just observation" ??
How is this any different than postulating that the electron has mass, and then constructing a device to magnetically accelerate electrons, and then computing the mass of an electron. All of science is about observing something. These observations take many forms... some are more contrived than others, but all are valid observations/tests.
the only problems are those that just can't be fixed -- in other words, drivers for proprietary devices
(note: I'm no expert on the linux kernel) Yes and no. Much of what is left to be done in linux kernel has to do with proprietary devices. However, these things are not in the category "cannot be fixed." In fact, OSS developers constantly reverse-engineer new devices and standards, and get them working properly. It is hard, but can be done. For instance, this release includes enhanced support for Centrino, which is a standard for wireless connectivity (in laptops, etc.). Just because companies do not release specs does not mean that the linux kernel cannot include support for them. It is very very hard, but somehow they manage to do it!
And in a broader sense, the kernel is never "done" because computer hardware and software is constantly evolving, and thus the kernel must constantly evolve to meet modern demands. Yes, a 10-year old kernel will probably run your web server just fine, but the newer kernel versions integrate much better with newer hardware technology.
As someone who works in science and academic research, let me say the following. The computer-generated paper that was accepted to a conference was hilariously ridiculous. The whole thing makes no sense. It's obvious that the conference organizers were not even reading the submissions. They were lazy. I don't think that would work for most conferences (when I organize a conference section, I definately read the submitted abstracts!), and certainly not for journal article submissions!
The case of false data is much harder to detect. When I peer-review a paper, I can argue with their conclusions, but is is hard to argue with the data itself, unless it is obviously crazy or I can go and perform the experiment myself. Ultimately, however, I think data falsification in science falls into two categories: 1. Quickly detected and the fraudster punished. 2. Never detected, but ultimately pointless and not harmful to science.
Why do I say this? Well, if someone is creating false data, then presumably it is because they want a quick way to the fame that comes with "amazing results." The problem with amazing results is that many other labs around the world will try to replicate the experiments or build upon the ground-breaking work. If this foundational work is all BS, all these other scientists will quickly run into problems, and the fraud will become painfully obvious. This is what happened with Schon. No one else in the world had his "magic touch" and after awhile it became obvious that he was just inventing results.
In the second case, where the falsification is about smaller, less significant results... well typically the person won't get "ahead" due to their tampering... and if the result is not very significant, then it won't really affect the concensus in the field. It is surely a waste of time and money to fund someone who invents garbage, but science itself does not end up having "erroneous conclusions" slipped in.
Again, as soon as a result becomes important (even if only important to a handful of scientists worldwide) it will be double-checked (even if, during research, you don't try to double-check other's results... it usually becomes that their results are wrong if they don't agree with yours or anyone else's.
I'm honestly surprised by his skewed views of where technology is headed, and how influential MS will be. He says:
TV will be redefined so that the shows can be when you want them. They can be personalised; when you see the news it will on the topics you care about
He says "will be"... hmmm.. right now with my MythTV, I can watch shows when I want them, and I can record the news and skip through and watch only the stories that interest me. I can also load up RSS feeds and other news sources on my TV, or browse the web or whatever. There are many other commercial devices that will let you do this. And when it comes to customized news, Google News is pretty good. He's talking about all kinds of hypothetical technologies... but people are already doing this!
I'm reading the actual Nature article now (Vol 437|27 October 2005|doi: 10.1038/nature04204, refer here for those who have access). The structure they have built is a multilayer of Si and SiGe (10 nm Si and 16 nm SiGe, repeated ten times). You are correct that there are exciton peaks in the range of 1.3 microns to 1.5 microns. Specifically, there state:
Clear quantum confinement is seen, with strong
exciton peaks that we assign to electron-to-heavy-hole (e-hh;,0.88 eV at 0 V) and electron-to-light-hole (e-lh;,0.91 eV at 0 V)
transitions.
(0.88 eV = 1.41 microns, 0.91 eV = 1.6 microns) The impressive thing is that when they change to bias the, say, 4V, there is a huge change in absorbance across the 1.3 - 1.5 range. At 1.46 microns, the absorption goes from nearly zero to orders of magnitude larger. It's an impressive result.
Indeed. Getting back to Taco's actual discussion topic, what is the nature of an online nickname? I think what we have to take from this is that people cannot, and should not, place such an emphasis on their online nickname. I look back on my IRC days and realize that we placed way too much emphasis on recognizing people based on their nick... Even though we all realized that anyone could use that nick if the original person wasn't logged in at that moment. Did we check the person's IP? Sometimes, not always.
I think it is natural to think that your name identifies you, and to be upset when it is changed (or "stolen" by another!). But the point is that the internet is too large to use those kinds of rules. You can't be John, or even John Smith, because there are too many more John Smith's on Earth, and too many of them are on the net. Even with the vast variety of nicknames you could invent, sooner or later someone else will "steal" it. But, no one can "own" a name (much as IP-advocates may say otherwise!).
Again the only conclusion I can draw from this is that we must (sadly) not put so much emphasis on nicknames. Instead we must look one level deeper. On slashdot, I barely even look at people's nicknames. If the comment is insightful, I mod it as such. In a way it's nice to be able to judge people without using their reputation... we can do it based on actual merit (and in a case-by-case sense) instead.
Besides, most of us have at least three or four different online nicknames. People who know us well will recognize all of them. I guess it's too bad that CmdrTaco doesn't have any other nicknames that he likes. I guess he'll have to get used to using "Violated" in all those instances when someone else already took "CmdrTaco."
And if you're really that much of a target they'd bug the place before they resorted to using microwave to listen in.
Consider other applications, like a bunch of bad-guys have just created a hostage situation. You couldn't have known, and bugged the place, before-hand. But you bring in this device and can immediately start listening to what's going on inside. I think the fact that it is portable and easy to setup is what makes it so useful.
Not to mention that paranoid people will search (and maybe find) bugs... whereas they may have a harder time determining that this device is being used against them.
I'm not convinced. Satellite dishes and the lining in your microwave have a bunch of little holes in them as a matter of convenience. Having the holes allows:
1. To see through the material (to see inside a microwave).
2. Reduce costs (less material is used, the punched-out metal holes can be melted down and used again).
3. To let air or water pass through easily (so that water doesn't accumulate inside a satellite dish).
However, as far as I know, the holes in a faraday cage are not put there to boost performance. (Notice that newer, very small dishes don't have those holes.) Again it is a convenience. The rule of thumb (diffraction limit in optics/E&M) is that the holes must be smaller than the wavelength of EM radiation you are trying to affect. If the holes are that small, then the EM wave "sees" a continuous sheet of conducting material, and can't penetrate. But actually having a continuous sheet of metal would be equivalent, or even better. A sheet with holes in it will have a cut-off frequency where it no longer rejects/reflects EM radiation (when the wavelength reaches the size of the holes). A solid sheet won't have this cutoff. For instance, a solid sheet of metal even prevents visible light from penetrating (you can't see through it), whereas a sheet with holes... well you can (partially) see through it.
The site you quote is literally entitled " How to Block Microwave Mind-Programming Signals," and I seriously doubt it's credibility. A more lucid page explaining these effects is this one. The Wikipedia article also correctly states:
Practical Faraday cages can be made of a conducting mesh instead of a solid conductor. However, this reduces the cage's effectiveness as an RF shield.
For more information, pick up an Electricity & Magnetism textbook. AFAIK, as long as you create a uniform conducting shell, it will reflect all sorts of EM interference, and protect the interior.
As I said in another comment, an example of a problem I sometimes have is that I have some content that I would like to share with the world, but no decent way of doing it. Sometimes I can mesh it into Wikipedia or something... but other times there's no place to put it. Or maybe putting it somewhere else is complicated. Like I have a recipe or a cool trick to solve a problem in Linux. I could make an account with some recipe website or with Linuxforum.org or whatever, but that's a pain. I just want to make the information available to people. I could make my own mini-website and host it, but no one would ever find it.
But if GoogleBase exists, and I just upload content, and let Google index it for me, I'm done. I can refer friends to it (either via URL or even by describing it, and letting them just do a search for it). I can even upload (non-private) files that I often need to refer to... and then they are always accessible. In fact, since GoogleBase will probably have a private mode, I can use this as a network drive that is accessible anywhere in the world. Not only that, but it does automatic backups and is automatically indexed and searchable. So for semi-private documents that I always need access to, it's great. I post my CV and then I can casually refer somewhere to where it is located. I don't have to pay for webspace.
Many people use the GMail File System hack so that they can use their GMail account as if it were a hard drive. Google is formalizing it so that we can have access to data easily. I think this solves alot of problems for alot of users. The tradeoff is that I get free web-hosting and even free network storage, as long as I agree to have them index it. Many people are willing.
I can't claim to understand what they are trying to do... but here's what I think it might be (or perhaps it's just what I hope it will be):
Right now, it often occurs that I produce some document that I would like to share with the world but I don't know how. Usually I try to integrate it with Wikipedia or something like that. But often it doesn't really fit there. What are my options? I can put it up on webspace that I own, and create a webpage around it for context, and then hope that Google eventually crawls it so people can find it. But it would be easier to just upload it to a gigantic database that is constantly indexed and organized without any effort on my part. By lowering the barrier to publishing "stuff," we will have access to a wealth of information that previously was rotting on people's hard drives. Obviously alot of the stuff uploaded to GoogleBase will be crap (just as many blogs are crap), but ultimately enough of them will be good that it's worth it. With good enough search, eventually the important bits will become contextualized and found by people who need them.
People won't have to search for free (often crappy) web hosting when all they want to do is upload a few pictures for a friend to see, or make some of their recipes available to the world. All kinds of information could be released, and if Google does their job right, it will be available (in a useful way) to everyone.
Obviously all of this will be part of the "normal" internet. It's not another version of the internet... I think it's more akin to a massive, free, and self-indexing web hosting service.
Another use would be that you could upload alot of your files that you constantly refer to (but which are not private in any way). Then, anywhere in the world you could go into GoogleBase and do a quick search and find your document. If GoogleBase allows for private content, then a great deal of your semi-private documents could be online at all times, constantly available to you wherever you are. Instead of using the GMail File System hack, you could just have all your stuff on GoogleBase.
Good post, I agree with basically everything you say.
The "IR blaster" solution is inelegant at best
You are right, it is inelegant. And yet, it works. I have a MythTV with an IR blaster so that it can change channels on the set-top box whenever it needs to. At first, this was really annoying. If you're watching live TV and you want to change channels, there is a significant lag since your command is routed through the computer, then the IR blaster, then the set-top box changes channels, and finally there is the buffering delay inherent to the capture card.
But you know what? In the end it didn't matter. The whole point of a PVR or HTPC is that you stop watching TV in the old "channel-surfing" mode. Everytime you sit down to watch TV, you have a slew of programs that have been recorded... and they are all programs you (more or less) want to watch, since you recorded them. No more flipping around trying to find something to watch. And if the show sucks, you delete it. Nothing lost.
And if you really want to channel surf, you can just have the normal (unbuffered) cable going into your TV's second input. Treat your HTPC as a VCR, so that you sometimes watch live TV and sometimes watch recorded stuff. In practice, I have found that live TV is no longer a concern.
Math may not lie, but people can misrepresent what's going on.
Google didn't pay these people anything. Rather, it provided grants/scholarships to people interested in working on open source code. People (coders and/or organizations) submitted proposals for ideas they wanted to work on, and Google selected some worthy ones that they would give extra money to, so as to encourage students to spend time doing some open-source coding.
Google was not hiring these people to work on specific projects that get added to the portfolio of Google products. Everyone involved could have turned down the grant money if they had a better offer. But for these students, who would have likely worked on these (or other) open-source projects over the summer anyway (to bolster their CV and/or because it's fun), the grant was probably a welcome bonus.
Everyone benefits from the open-source software that has been produced by these (partially funded) volunteers. Remember that the people working on these projects were contributing to open-source projects that are, by and large, non-commercial. That is, the summer-of-code people got $4500, whereas everyone else working on the project got $0. They are doing it because they want to. It is not a (traditional) job.
No, it wasn't necessitated by the budget. I am expecting the revenue would be regarded as something additional to what is needed to keep the site running. For example, special projects like the distribution of content in Africa and so on.
Thus, this money isn't needed to cover servers and bandwidth. So far, donations have been enough for that, and they expect this to continue in the future. This extra money is... well... extra...
I'm not trying to be mean... I agree with the spirit of your post... but let me say:
I think that Wikipedia is a great service.
Wikimedia is not a "service" in the traditional (economic) sense. Wikimedia is a not-for-profit organization with a charitable charter to distribute information to everyone for free. They should uphold this charter.
The people behind it should be compensated for time...
The people behind it are people like me, who write articles and fix entries all the time. The money that Wikimedia gets (by donation or corporate alliance) never comes back to the people who do the work. In fact, we (the people who work on Wikipedia) don't want the money. We do this work because it's fun and/or we believe in the ideology of making information available to everyone.
I have no problem with advertisements to fund this.
An interesting fact about this debate is that the Wikimedia board has clearly stated that they do not need this ad money in order to run Wikimedia. The donations so far have always been enough to buy servers and buy bandwidth. This extra money would thus only be used for new Wikimedia projects. These would be additional (presumably charitable) projects for disseminating information freely to others. Neither the creators of Wikipedia nor the board stand to financially gain from this deal.
I mean, it is better than paying for a subscription!
I don't think Wikimedia could ever become a subscription service. Because all the content is GPL, anyone could take a snapshot of the entire database, fork it, and thereby create their own, open and free version of Wikipedia. They couldn't call it wikipedia, but the information is forever free for others to use as they see fit.
You may be interested to know that Wikimedia currently says that they don't need the money for servers or bandwidth. Currently, fundraising and donations of servers from companies are enough to keep Wikimedia running. Thus, this advertising deal would represent extra funds. The extra funds would (theoretically) be used to further Wikimedia's charitable mission to spread free information to all people on Earth.
It is clear that Wikimedia needs money to keep running. However, this ad deal is not needed in order for Wikimedia to run. It only represents extra money to fund new projects. So the question becomes, are these (as yet unspecified) extra projects sufficiently worthy that Wikimedia should endorse an advertising scheme?
(PS: Google is a for-profit publicly-traded company that needs to demonstrate a return for investors, Wikimedia is a not-for-profit organization that exists due to the efforts of a community of volunteers. Wikimedia has an ideological "mission" that most volunteers uphold.)
Good post. Let me say, however: "if the author says no, its NO."
Morally this is true, legally this is iffy.
(Emphasis added.) I disagree. I think authors have enough rights with copyright and fair use exclusions. Fair use lets me make copies for personal use, backup, etc. I think that's very fair. The author can yell and say "don't make copies!!" all he wants but it is perfectly fair for me to make a backup copy or even make a copy of a chapter for an interested friend. Morality, of course, is subject to personal opinion. I merely wanted to point out that I (and I suspect many others) would not think that it was morally true that authors have complete rule over their works.
The difficulty comes in because Google is planning on showing snippets to the searcher. The bigger the snippets, the more likely Google is to run into hot water.
Google isn't only planning, they already are doing! I refer you to Google print. The snippets are in fact partial pages, and the occasional full page. You get to see a bit more if you log in (which allows them to limit the amount of a book a single user account can see). In reality, there is NO WAY a person could get a reasonable amount of information from an online google print version of a book. Too many pages are cut out, it's too difficult to read the book properly. Although you get the see the occasional full page (which is a long snippet!) it is still nothing in comparison to the full book, which is why I think it's quite fair. The excerpts are small enough that they don't act as a meaningful substitute for the actual book.
You're right, and probably the copyright-holders know that they stand to make more money from google print. The question is, how much and when, and for how long? I think google print, in the short term, will increase sales of books. But as others have pointed out, the danger (as far as publishers see it), is that eventually google print will be viewed as THE WAY to find/get/buy books, and eventually the publishers will become unnecessary. Authors could sign directly with google (or just upload their book to google free of charge?), and they could start selling copies immediately, without needing a publisher.
In my opinion, cutting out middle-men in copyright-work fields (music, books, etc.) is often not a bad thing (proofreading and sound-engineering will always be needed, but will record labels and publishers?). I'm fully in favour of google print and all it represents. Google print is a good thing for authors and for readers. It is not such a great thing for (some) publishers.
From a business point of view, the publishers might be right that this is bad. They realize they are getting screwed in the long run. Of course, the very smart publishers will realize what is happening and modernize their systems. For instance, I use scientific journals alot, and most of them have realized that by putting the journals online, they offer a much more important service than the print version ever did. They are adapting and will continue to thrive. The publishers that can't get with the program will die off... and in my opinion they should.
Re:Is Indexing the Root Password to Infringement?
on
The Point of Google Print
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· Score: 2, Insightful
Okay, that satire is quite interesting. But let's be careful. Hopefully the law is not quite that blind. Google's database is used for searching and indexing. Now, if google employees start reading those books, then basically google is breaking the rules: they are allowing full copies to be distributed to some people. But if google only allows snippets to be available to the public, and internally there is no abuse, then this is fair.
In the satire, the guy who makes copies, what does he do with them? If he truly offers an indexing service, and doesn't redistribute the movies (or whatever) to others, then yes, indeed he is covered by fair use and should be protected (in my opinion) just as google should. If he watches those movies or even lets his friends watch those movies, that's still okay. Fair use says you can make small numbers of copies for personal use, show a movie to your friend, etc. What you cannot do is make a large number of copies or distribute entire copies in any way. As long as the guy in the satire doesn't do this (as long as google doesn't allow anyone to read full copies), then everything is fair and okay.
The point is that this satire ignores that ultimately a judge (who is a human, not a computer) will take a look at the case and make an informed decision. The question will be "what was the intent of the action?" and "what was the result of the action?" If the answers are "they intended to index data for a search engine" and "people found out about copyrighted works they could buy" then the judge should say "it's legal." If the answers are, instead, "the guy clearly wanted copies of movies for personal viewing" and "he let people watch these copies" then the judge should say "that's not legal."
What we should do is just accept that RedHat, Ubuntu, SuSE, Caldera, Debian, etc, are all different operating systems that happen to share a common source code -base-.
I feel like you're saying (and correct me if I'm wrong) that one of the strengths of Linux is that it has variety (hence it evolves, matches very specific needs, etc.). I agree that this is a good thing. Having different distros target different needs, different types of users, different types of usage environments... this is a good thing. A single standard may not be able to anticipate all the strange ways people want to use their OS... and sooner or later some distro would have to break the standard to do what they want.
Does that make the standard pointless? I would argue that it does not. Simply put, if a particular distro needs to break the standard to do what they want, then that's fair enough. They will meet a particular need and pay the price of reduced compatibility, interoperability, and ease-of-use. It probably won't be a big deal since the users of that niche distro will know what they are getting themselves into.
The place where the standard helps is all those things that don't have to be different from distro to distro. When someone is creating a new distro, they may not particularly care whether the cdrom gets mounted to/mnt/cdrom or/media/cdrom... it makes no difference to them but they have to pick something. Here's where the standard comes into play. When the choice doesn't impact the quality of the distro, then why not use the "standard" way of doing things. That way, it will be easiest to integrate applications not originally written for your distro. In the limit, if you followed the standard closely enough, then all kinds of software would run, without modification, on your particular distro. This is a good thing.
So again, my point is that it is good to have standards so that people have something to follow when they need to make (arbitrary) choices. Of course no one is forced to follow the standard. And of course, this by and large is happening in the linux community. The filesystem is remarkably standardized when you think about it. Still, there's nothing wrong with formalizing a new standard, and then seeing if people follow it. I wish them all the luck, since this will make my life (as a linux user) easier. Even though you may think of Mandriva and Kubuntu as different operating systems, I like the fact that I was able to move from one to the other without difficulty.
Slashdot Mirror
Looks like the link didn't work. The correct link should be here. Excellent points, by the way. If ID were actually analyzed by teachers and students, they would certainly have to consider these alternate explanations/implications... which would surely make them reconsider the whole ID proposition.
My main concern would be the percentage of Kansas teachers that will follow a critical route versus follow a pro-ID route. Considering that the school board is (apparently) mostly pro-ID, I see no reason to believe the teachers in the schools will be any different. It seems like the vast majority of Kansas teachers will use the ruling as an opportunity to present Intelligent Design in a way that makes it sound reasonable, and possibly even factual.
I mean no disrespect to the intelligence of high school students... but if the teachers spout illogical arguments, the majority of teenagers will simply not spend much time debating the points. Many will accept what they hear, and this will ultimately weaken their education in ways much worse than simply having incorect notions about evolution. In fact, I worry that this ruling opens the door to students being taught NOT to think critically.
Out of curiosity, what's the relationship between Mobility Email and Portable Thunderbird. From the description, the two sound identical. Are they actually the same thing (same code)? Do they share code? Are there any differences?
Btw, I use Portable Thunderbird on a network so that I can access my email client from any computer on the lan. The one thing missing from Portable Thunderbird (and it seems that Mobility Email is the same) is to be OS portable also. There are tricks that I've used to get my Thunderbird profile to load on both Windows and Linux, but the ideal would be if the application were designed to run seamlessly regardless of what OS you tried to run it on (Windows, Mac, Linux)...
Your post raises many interesting points, but I won't comment on all of them. One thing struck me however:
He may, in fact, consider the earlier work so dreadful, he intends to use copyright laws to their full extent to keep down his embarassment. And despite the squawks of some posting here, we have no legal right to get easy access to what someone else has published. A copyright bestows the right to say, "No more copies will be published." That's why, for instance, an author can prevent anyone from making a movie derivative.
I'm an (amateur) artist too. I understand the desire to deny the existence of earlier work out of embarrasement, but I do not think that there is any reason to have legal infrastructure in place to enable artists to do that. Copyright exists to encourage artists to create art, not to provide them with perfect control over their works. Once a work is publicized in some format, it becomes a part of the world. Copyright is a means to help artists get some compensation back, but should never be used as a weapon to utterly control the flow of informtion, to control the world's art.
In short, copyright can be used to prevent the creation of new copies, but the old copies can be used by the owners of said copies however they like. They can hang your painting upside down, they can write newspaper articles about your book, and yes, they can even index it and make it easy for people to find artwork you find embarrasing.
"This advertising model has emerged as a very important thing," Gates said.
Translation: "We really missed the boat on that one, and are desperately trying to catch up."
"The live phenomenon is not just about Microsoft. It's partners, it's competitors...the whole space is being transformed."
Translation: "I woke up one day and suddenly there was this technology company making alot of money... and to my surprise it wasn't Microsoft! I knew I had to take over that tech sector ASAP so I asked someone what all this 'online' stuff was about."
Absolutely right. When I first got started with linux, everything was very confusing. Webmin made it much easier to get things configured. The ability to do remote configuration hooked me on linux. Of course, now I always use ssh and do thing via CLI, but again I think it's important to introduce new users to these tools, since they help bridge between the "point and click" style of interfacing with the (more powerful) command-line administration. The fact that Webmin even gives you a CLI if you want it is great!
The owners of the copyrighted works cannot be forced into depending on the discretion of a third party to protect their works, regardless of Google's assurances, or whether the owner ever heard of the ability to opt-out or not.
Yes, owners of copyrighted works CAN be forced into depending on the discretion of a third party to protect their works. That's life. If copyright holders are really so scared of their works being copied, they can lock them all up in a vault and never sell them to anyone. Then they are really protected.
A library has a bunch of books. They protect those books. I can go to a library, steal the books, make copies, and sell the copies. This is illegal. I don't think any court would honestly hold the library responsible. In fact, I don't have to steal the books. I can borrow them, take them home, make copies and violate copyright and the library is STILL not responsible. In fact, I can use the photocopiers INSIDE the library to do my dirty work. That's life. I broke the law, the library did not.
Now I admit that the Google database is a little bit different. But as long as each copy they are making is fair use, then they are allowed to hold the database. Copyright holders can't say "but what if someone steals it and makes copies!!??" If that happens, you can sue the thief/copyright-violator, but not Google (barring any obvious negligence etc.).
Now, is it fair in the first place for Google to make those copies, and let people search (but not view) them? That's a separate issue that the courts are looking into. I personally find that it advances society without compromising the copyright-holder's monopoly. Therefore, I think it's legal. I also happen to think it's the "right" (ethical, etc.) thing to do, for society.
if Google loses control of the data that they do not own, they have very little legal basis to protect it.
Indeed, if Google loses control somehow, it will be up to the actual copyright holders to pursue legal action and so on. That's life. Libraries are not responsible (unless they willfully encourage people to break the law), and so neither should Google be responsible (unless they willfully encourage people to break the law).
All the stuff about exotic things like black holes are very loosely "verified".
Perhaps you're not aware of, for instance, the observation of stars in the center of the milky way orbiting a massive but non-radiant object? (i.e.: black hole.) This was observed via telescope, not indirectly or loosely.
As far as I am concerned, something is a science if you can do experiments, not just make observations.
Well unfortunately English-speaking people disagree with your definition of science. Science is about observing, rationalizing and predicting. As others have pointed out, observation and experimentation are not really different things.
You have to be able to first make a prediction, and then test it.
Such as: Prediction: there is a black hole at the center of the milky way; test: look at the center of the milky way; result: there is some massive object that does not radiate light at the center of the milky way... or perhaps prediction: the universe is expanding; test: check recession velocities of astronomical objects; result: all objects are moving away from one another, therefore the universe is expanding... and so on... and so on...
And there are parts of astronomy that is not science or math, like looking for extra solar planets. This is just whatever it is. We will never be able to test any of it!!!
Your definition of "test" is strange. If I predict that extra-solar planets exist, and then construct a "test" for my theory (that will involve using telescopes to look for said planets), somehow that isn't a "real test" it's "just observation" ??
How is this any different than postulating that the electron has mass, and then constructing a device to magnetically accelerate electrons, and then computing the mass of an electron. All of science is about observing something. These observations take many forms... some are more contrived than others, but all are valid observations/tests.
the only problems are those that just can't be fixed -- in other words, drivers for proprietary devices
(note: I'm no expert on the linux kernel) Yes and no. Much of what is left to be done in linux kernel has to do with proprietary devices. However, these things are not in the category "cannot be fixed." In fact, OSS developers constantly reverse-engineer new devices and standards, and get them working properly. It is hard, but can be done. For instance, this release includes enhanced support for Centrino, which is a standard for wireless connectivity (in laptops, etc.). Just because companies do not release specs does not mean that the linux kernel cannot include support for them. It is very very hard, but somehow they manage to do it!
And in a broader sense, the kernel is never "done" because computer hardware and software is constantly evolving, and thus the kernel must constantly evolve to meet modern demands. Yes, a 10-year old kernel will probably run your web server just fine, but the newer kernel versions integrate much better with newer hardware technology.
As someone who works in science and academic research, let me say the following. The computer-generated paper that was accepted to a conference was hilariously ridiculous. The whole thing makes no sense. It's obvious that the conference organizers were not even reading the submissions. They were lazy. I don't think that would work for most conferences (when I organize a conference section, I definately read the submitted abstracts!), and certainly not for journal article submissions!
The case of false data is much harder to detect. When I peer-review a paper, I can argue with their conclusions, but is is hard to argue with the data itself, unless it is obviously crazy or I can go and perform the experiment myself. Ultimately, however, I think data falsification in science falls into two categories:
1. Quickly detected and the fraudster punished.
2. Never detected, but ultimately pointless and not harmful to science.
Why do I say this? Well, if someone is creating false data, then presumably it is because they want a quick way to the fame that comes with "amazing results." The problem with amazing results is that many other labs around the world will try to replicate the experiments or build upon the ground-breaking work. If this foundational work is all BS, all these other scientists will quickly run into problems, and the fraud will become painfully obvious. This is what happened with Schon. No one else in the world had his "magic touch" and after awhile it became obvious that he was just inventing results.
In the second case, where the falsification is about smaller, less significant results... well typically the person won't get "ahead" due to their tampering... and if the result is not very significant, then it won't really affect the concensus in the field. It is surely a waste of time and money to fund someone who invents garbage, but science itself does not end up having "erroneous conclusions" slipped in.
Again, as soon as a result becomes important (even if only important to a handful of scientists worldwide) it will be double-checked (even if, during research, you don't try to double-check other's results... it usually becomes that their results are wrong if they don't agree with yours or anyone else's.
I'm honestly surprised by his skewed views of where technology is headed, and how influential MS will be. He says:
TV will be redefined so that the shows can be when you want them. They can be personalised; when you see the news it will on the topics you care about
He says "will be"... hmmm.. right now with my MythTV, I can watch shows when I want them, and I can record the news and skip through and watch only the stories that interest me. I can also load up RSS feeds and other news sources on my TV, or browse the web or whatever. There are many other commercial devices that will let you do this. And when it comes to customized news, Google News is pretty good. He's talking about all kinds of hypothetical technologies... but people are already doing this!
I'm reading the actual Nature article now (Vol 437|27 October 2005|doi: 10.1038/nature04204, refer here for those who have access). The structure they have built is a multilayer of Si and SiGe (10 nm Si and 16 nm SiGe, repeated ten times). You are correct that there are exciton peaks in the range of 1.3 microns to 1.5 microns. Specifically, there state:
,0.88 eV at 0 V) and electron-to-light-hole (e-lh; ,0.91 eV at 0 V)
transitions.
Clear quantum confinement is seen, with strong exciton peaks that we assign to electron-to-heavy-hole (e-hh;
(0.88 eV = 1.41 microns, 0.91 eV = 1.6 microns) The impressive thing is that when they change to bias the, say, 4V, there is a huge change in absorbance across the 1.3 - 1.5 range. At 1.46 microns, the absorption goes from nearly zero to orders of magnitude larger. It's an impressive result.
Indeed. Getting back to Taco's actual discussion topic, what is the nature of an online nickname? I think what we have to take from this is that people cannot, and should not, place such an emphasis on their online nickname. I look back on my IRC days and realize that we placed way too much emphasis on recognizing people based on their nick... Even though we all realized that anyone could use that nick if the original person wasn't logged in at that moment. Did we check the person's IP? Sometimes, not always.
I think it is natural to think that your name identifies you, and to be upset when it is changed (or "stolen" by another!). But the point is that the internet is too large to use those kinds of rules. You can't be John, or even John Smith, because there are too many more John Smith's on Earth, and too many of them are on the net. Even with the vast variety of nicknames you could invent, sooner or later someone else will "steal" it. But, no one can "own" a name (much as IP-advocates may say otherwise!).
Again the only conclusion I can draw from this is that we must (sadly) not put so much emphasis on nicknames. Instead we must look one level deeper. On slashdot, I barely even look at people's nicknames. If the comment is insightful, I mod it as such. In a way it's nice to be able to judge people without using their reputation... we can do it based on actual merit (and in a case-by-case sense) instead.
Besides, most of us have at least three or four different online nicknames. People who know us well will recognize all of them. I guess it's too bad that CmdrTaco doesn't have any other nicknames that he likes. I guess he'll have to get used to using "Violated" in all those instances when someone else already took "CmdrTaco."
And if you're really that much of a target they'd bug the place before they resorted to using microwave to listen in.
Consider other applications, like a bunch of bad-guys have just created a hostage situation. You couldn't have known, and bugged the place, before-hand. But you bring in this device and can immediately start listening to what's going on inside. I think the fact that it is portable and easy to setup is what makes it so useful.
Not to mention that paranoid people will search (and maybe find) bugs... whereas they may have a harder time determining that this device is being used against them.
I'm not convinced. Satellite dishes and the lining in your microwave have a bunch of little holes in them as a matter of convenience. Having the holes allows:
1. To see through the material (to see inside a microwave).
2. Reduce costs (less material is used, the punched-out metal holes can be melted down and used again).
3. To let air or water pass through easily (so that water doesn't accumulate inside a satellite dish).
However, as far as I know, the holes in a faraday cage are not put there to boost performance. (Notice that newer, very small dishes don't have those holes.) Again it is a convenience. The rule of thumb (diffraction limit in optics/E&M) is that the holes must be smaller than the wavelength of EM radiation you are trying to affect. If the holes are that small, then the EM wave "sees" a continuous sheet of conducting material, and can't penetrate. But actually having a continuous sheet of metal would be equivalent, or even better. A sheet with holes in it will have a cut-off frequency where it no longer rejects/reflects EM radiation (when the wavelength reaches the size of the holes). A solid sheet won't have this cutoff. For instance, a solid sheet of metal even prevents visible light from penetrating (you can't see through it), whereas a sheet with holes... well you can (partially) see through it.
The site you quote is literally entitled " How to Block Microwave Mind-Programming Signals," and I seriously doubt it's credibility. A more lucid page explaining these effects is this one. The Wikipedia article also correctly states:
Practical Faraday cages can be made of a conducting mesh instead of a solid conductor. However, this reduces the cage's effectiveness as an RF shield.
For more information, pick up an Electricity & Magnetism textbook. AFAIK, as long as you create a uniform conducting shell, it will reflect all sorts of EM interference, and protect the interior.
As I said in another comment, an example of a problem I sometimes have is that I have some content that I would like to share with the world, but no decent way of doing it. Sometimes I can mesh it into Wikipedia or something... but other times there's no place to put it. Or maybe putting it somewhere else is complicated. Like I have a recipe or a cool trick to solve a problem in Linux. I could make an account with some recipe website or with Linuxforum.org or whatever, but that's a pain. I just want to make the information available to people. I could make my own mini-website and host it, but no one would ever find it.
But if GoogleBase exists, and I just upload content, and let Google index it for me, I'm done. I can refer friends to it (either via URL or even by describing it, and letting them just do a search for it). I can even upload (non-private) files that I often need to refer to... and then they are always accessible. In fact, since GoogleBase will probably have a private mode, I can use this as a network drive that is accessible anywhere in the world. Not only that, but it does automatic backups and is automatically indexed and searchable. So for semi-private documents that I always need access to, it's great. I post my CV and then I can casually refer somewhere to where it is located. I don't have to pay for webspace.
Many people use the GMail File System hack so that they can use their GMail account as if it were a hard drive. Google is formalizing it so that we can have access to data easily. I think this solves alot of problems for alot of users. The tradeoff is that I get free web-hosting and even free network storage, as long as I agree to have them index it. Many people are willing.
I can't claim to understand what they are trying to do... but here's what I think it might be (or perhaps it's just what I hope it will be): Right now, it often occurs that I produce some document that I would like to share with the world but I don't know how. Usually I try to integrate it with Wikipedia or something like that. But often it doesn't really fit there. What are my options? I can put it up on webspace that I own, and create a webpage around it for context, and then hope that Google eventually crawls it so people can find it. But it would be easier to just upload it to a gigantic database that is constantly indexed and organized without any effort on my part. By lowering the barrier to publishing "stuff," we will have access to a wealth of information that previously was rotting on people's hard drives. Obviously alot of the stuff uploaded to GoogleBase will be crap (just as many blogs are crap), but ultimately enough of them will be good that it's worth it. With good enough search, eventually the important bits will become contextualized and found by people who need them. People won't have to search for free (often crappy) web hosting when all they want to do is upload a few pictures for a friend to see, or make some of their recipes available to the world. All kinds of information could be released, and if Google does their job right, it will be available (in a useful way) to everyone. Obviously all of this will be part of the "normal" internet. It's not another version of the internet... I think it's more akin to a massive, free, and self-indexing web hosting service. Another use would be that you could upload alot of your files that you constantly refer to (but which are not private in any way). Then, anywhere in the world you could go into GoogleBase and do a quick search and find your document. If GoogleBase allows for private content, then a great deal of your semi-private documents could be online at all times, constantly available to you wherever you are. Instead of using the GMail File System hack, you could just have all your stuff on GoogleBase.
Good post, I agree with basically everything you say.
The "IR blaster" solution is inelegant at best
You are right, it is inelegant. And yet, it works. I have a MythTV with an IR blaster so that it can change channels on the set-top box whenever it needs to. At first, this was really annoying. If you're watching live TV and you want to change channels, there is a significant lag since your command is routed through the computer, then the IR blaster, then the set-top box changes channels, and finally there is the buffering delay inherent to the capture card.
But you know what? In the end it didn't matter. The whole point of a PVR or HTPC is that you stop watching TV in the old "channel-surfing" mode. Everytime you sit down to watch TV, you have a slew of programs that have been recorded... and they are all programs you (more or less) want to watch, since you recorded them. No more flipping around trying to find something to watch. And if the show sucks, you delete it. Nothing lost.
And if you really want to channel surf, you can just have the normal (unbuffered) cable going into your TV's second input. Treat your HTPC as a VCR, so that you sometimes watch live TV and sometimes watch recorded stuff. In practice, I have found that live TV is no longer a concern.
This is just my experience. YMMV
Math may not lie, but people can misrepresent what's going on.
Google didn't pay these people anything. Rather, it provided grants/scholarships to people interested in working on open source code. People (coders and/or organizations) submitted proposals for ideas they wanted to work on, and Google selected some worthy ones that they would give extra money to, so as to encourage students to spend time doing some open-source coding.
Google was not hiring these people to work on specific projects that get added to the portfolio of Google products. Everyone involved could have turned down the grant money if they had a better offer. But for these students, who would have likely worked on these (or other) open-source projects over the summer anyway (to bolster their CV and/or because it's fun), the grant was probably a welcome bonus.
Everyone benefits from the open-source software that has been produced by these (partially funded) volunteers. Remember that the people working on these projects were contributing to open-source projects that are, by and large, non-commercial. That is, the summer-of-code people got $4500, whereas everyone else working on the project got $0. They are doing it because they want to. It is not a (traditional) job.
Despite the figures you quote, the Wikimedia talk page on this subject has a quote from Angela (who is on the Board of trustees). There, she specifically says:
... well... extra...
No, it wasn't necessitated by the budget. I am expecting the revenue would be regarded as something additional to what is needed to keep the site running. For example, special projects like the distribution of content in Africa and so on.
Thus, this money isn't needed to cover servers and bandwidth. So far, donations have been enough for that, and they expect this to continue in the future. This extra money is
I'm not trying to be mean... I agree with the spirit of your post... but let me say:
I think that Wikipedia is a great service.
Wikimedia is not a "service" in the traditional (economic) sense. Wikimedia is a not-for-profit organization with a charitable charter to distribute information to everyone for free. They should uphold this charter.
The people behind it should be compensated for time...
The people behind it are people like me, who write articles and fix entries all the time. The money that Wikimedia gets (by donation or corporate alliance) never comes back to the people who do the work. In fact, we (the people who work on Wikipedia) don't want the money. We do this work because it's fun and/or we believe in the ideology of making information available to everyone.
I have no problem with advertisements to fund this.
An interesting fact about this debate is that the Wikimedia board has clearly stated that they do not need this ad money in order to run Wikimedia. The donations so far have always been enough to buy servers and buy bandwidth. This extra money would thus only be used for new Wikimedia projects. These would be additional (presumably charitable) projects for disseminating information freely to others. Neither the creators of Wikipedia nor the board stand to financially gain from this deal.
I mean, it is better than paying for a subscription!
I don't think Wikimedia could ever become a subscription service. Because all the content is GPL, anyone could take a snapshot of the entire database, fork it, and thereby create their own, open and free version of Wikipedia. They couldn't call it wikipedia, but the information is forever free for others to use as they see fit.
You may be interested to know that Wikimedia currently says that they don't need the money for servers or bandwidth. Currently, fundraising and donations of servers from companies are enough to keep Wikimedia running. Thus, this advertising deal would represent extra funds. The extra funds would (theoretically) be used to further Wikimedia's charitable mission to spread free information to all people on Earth.
It is clear that Wikimedia needs money to keep running. However, this ad deal is not needed in order for Wikimedia to run. It only represents extra money to fund new projects. So the question becomes, are these (as yet unspecified) extra projects sufficiently worthy that Wikimedia should endorse an advertising scheme?
(PS: Google is a for-profit publicly-traded company that needs to demonstrate a return for investors, Wikimedia is a not-for-profit organization that exists due to the efforts of a community of volunteers. Wikimedia has an ideological "mission" that most volunteers uphold.)
Good post. Let me say, however:
"if the author says no, its NO." Morally this is true, legally this is iffy.
(Emphasis added.) I disagree. I think authors have enough rights with copyright and fair use exclusions. Fair use lets me make copies for personal use, backup, etc. I think that's very fair. The author can yell and say "don't make copies!!" all he wants but it is perfectly fair for me to make a backup copy or even make a copy of a chapter for an interested friend. Morality, of course, is subject to personal opinion. I merely wanted to point out that I (and I suspect many others) would not think that it was morally true that authors have complete rule over their works.
The difficulty comes in because Google is planning on showing snippets to the searcher. The bigger the snippets, the more likely Google is to run into hot water.
Google isn't only planning, they already are doing! I refer you to Google print. The snippets are in fact partial pages, and the occasional full page. You get to see a bit more if you log in (which allows them to limit the amount of a book a single user account can see). In reality, there is NO WAY a person could get a reasonable amount of information from an online google print version of a book. Too many pages are cut out, it's too difficult to read the book properly. Although you get the see the occasional full page (which is a long snippet!) it is still nothing in comparison to the full book, which is why I think it's quite fair. The excerpts are small enough that they don't act as a meaningful substitute for the actual book.
You're right, and probably the copyright-holders know that they stand to make more money from google print. The question is, how much and when, and for how long? I think google print, in the short term, will increase sales of books. But as others have pointed out, the danger (as far as publishers see it), is that eventually google print will be viewed as THE WAY to find/get/buy books, and eventually the publishers will become unnecessary. Authors could sign directly with google (or just upload their book to google free of charge?), and they could start selling copies immediately, without needing a publisher.
In my opinion, cutting out middle-men in copyright-work fields (music, books, etc.) is often not a bad thing (proofreading and sound-engineering will always be needed, but will record labels and publishers?). I'm fully in favour of google print and all it represents. Google print is a good thing for authors and for readers. It is not such a great thing for (some) publishers.
From a business point of view, the publishers might be right that this is bad. They realize they are getting screwed in the long run. Of course, the very smart publishers will realize what is happening and modernize their systems. For instance, I use scientific journals alot, and most of them have realized that by putting the journals online, they offer a much more important service than the print version ever did. They are adapting and will continue to thrive. The publishers that can't get with the program will die off... and in my opinion they should.
Okay, that satire is quite interesting. But let's be careful. Hopefully the law is not quite that blind. Google's database is used for searching and indexing. Now, if google employees start reading those books, then basically google is breaking the rules: they are allowing full copies to be distributed to some people. But if google only allows snippets to be available to the public, and internally there is no abuse, then this is fair.
In the satire, the guy who makes copies, what does he do with them? If he truly offers an indexing service, and doesn't redistribute the movies (or whatever) to others, then yes, indeed he is covered by fair use and should be protected (in my opinion) just as google should. If he watches those movies or even lets his friends watch those movies, that's still okay. Fair use says you can make small numbers of copies for personal use, show a movie to your friend, etc. What you cannot do is make a large number of copies or distribute entire copies in any way. As long as the guy in the satire doesn't do this (as long as google doesn't allow anyone to read full copies), then everything is fair and okay.
The point is that this satire ignores that ultimately a judge (who is a human, not a computer) will take a look at the case and make an informed decision. The question will be "what was the intent of the action?" and "what was the result of the action?" If the answers are "they intended to index data for a search engine" and "people found out about copyrighted works they could buy" then the judge should say "it's legal." If the answers are, instead, "the guy clearly wanted copies of movies for personal viewing" and "he let people watch these copies" then the judge should say "that's not legal."
What we should do is just accept that RedHat, Ubuntu, SuSE, Caldera, Debian, etc, are all different operating systems that happen to share a common source code -base-.
/mnt/cdrom or /media/cdrom ... it makes no difference to them but they have to pick something. Here's where the standard comes into play. When the choice doesn't impact the quality of the distro, then why not use the "standard" way of doing things. That way, it will be easiest to integrate applications not originally written for your distro. In the limit, if you followed the standard closely enough, then all kinds of software would run, without modification, on your particular distro. This is a good thing.
I feel like you're saying (and correct me if I'm wrong) that one of the strengths of Linux is that it has variety (hence it evolves, matches very specific needs, etc.). I agree that this is a good thing. Having different distros target different needs, different types of users, different types of usage environments... this is a good thing. A single standard may not be able to anticipate all the strange ways people want to use their OS... and sooner or later some distro would have to break the standard to do what they want.
Does that make the standard pointless? I would argue that it does not. Simply put, if a particular distro needs to break the standard to do what they want, then that's fair enough. They will meet a particular need and pay the price of reduced compatibility, interoperability, and ease-of-use. It probably won't be a big deal since the users of that niche distro will know what they are getting themselves into.
The place where the standard helps is all those things that don't have to be different from distro to distro. When someone is creating a new distro, they may not particularly care whether the cdrom gets mounted to
So again, my point is that it is good to have standards so that people have something to follow when they need to make (arbitrary) choices. Of course no one is forced to follow the standard. And of course, this by and large is happening in the linux community. The filesystem is remarkably standardized when you think about it. Still, there's nothing wrong with formalizing a new standard, and then seeing if people follow it. I wish them all the luck, since this will make my life (as a linux user) easier. Even though you may think of Mandriva and Kubuntu as different operating systems, I like the fact that I was able to move from one to the other without difficulty.