I usually avoid commenting on how bad an article is, but TFA was frustratingly fluffy. I had to read halfway through before even having a vague idea what the company in question actually does. To save others the trouble, allow me to condense the article down into only the meaningful sentences:
Google [acquired] Jaiku, a small Finnish start-up active in the obscure field of microblogging... Petteri Koponen, one of the two founders of Jaiku, [said] "We extract... information automatically, especially from mobile phones"... In practical terms, Jaiku's mobile application allows users to broadcast not only their whereabouts, but how the phone is being used, even what kind of music it is playing.... a live diary, constantly updated so that we can see, on our cellphones, where our contacts are and what they are doing.
And the worry is, apparently, that this kind of live updating information (via mobile devices) will be an invasion of privacy. Of course it will be. But, people will learn what intrusions they are willing to tolerate, and take it from there. Take Facebook as an example: many people put all kinds of personal details on their profile. Others set their privacy settings quite high, so only their closest friends can see anything. Others don't use Facebook at all. At the end of the day, users will simply activate features to the extent that they find them useful. A close-knit group of friends might quite enjoy keeping track of each other so that they can meet up at a concert. Privacy-conscious people will disable all those features, of course. Most people will learn enough about the interface to activate/deactivate these features as desired.
I understand the danger of having a single company (Google in this case) having easy access to comprehensive data about your life (location, email records, search habits, etc.). And I firmly believe that people need to educate themselves about the dangers of releasing too much personal information. But I fail to see how this recent Google acquisition is cause for great concern. Mobile devices are increasingly useful. So are social networking tools. Merging the two is an obvious next step, and a step that Google is taking.
The beam is manipulated just like an electron beam: using "magnetic optics." Since an electron has a (negative) charge, you can deflect or accelerate it using electric or magnetic fields. Magnetic coils are used in electron microscopes to focus electrons onto the sample, and then to focus the transmitted electrons onto an imagine plate (very analogous to how a light microscope works).
Similarly, to manipulate positrons, which have a positive charge, you can use the exact same principles.
doesn't it cause an explosion if it touches normal particles? can it be used as a weapon?
Most experiments involving positrons do in fact rely upon the fact that the positrons will annihilate with any electrons they encounter (releasing an easy-to-detect gamma-ray flash). So positrons make for excellent probes of electron density, for instance. Positron beams used for science would be weak enough that their interaction wouldn't really lead to explosions: just a measurable amount of gamma-ray production. (By the way, positron-annihilation is used in medical PET scanners, where the low-level gamma ray bursts are used to determine where the tracer chemical went in the body.) A sufficiently intense positron beam would be highly destructive. However as weapons go it doesn't make much sense: the energy input required to generate a positron beam is so large that you would be better off putting that same amount of energy to more direct use.
as fuel? how is the beam created?
In principle one could generate a positron beam from a particle accelerator. The work described in the article is creating a beam from a small-scale nuclear reactor. Again the creation of positrons is so energy-intensive that it would be somewhat counter-productive to use it as a fuel (rather than just using the energy or nuclear material more directly as a fuel source).
Electron microscopes can already image at the atomic level, but a positron microscope has advantages because it can give complimentary information (e.g. about the positions of atomic vacancies). You can also use positron beams for PALS (Positron Annihilation Lifetime Spectroscopy), which is a powerful tool for determining the distribution of sizes in (nano-scale) voids in materials (difficult to measure by any other technique). It's also worth remembering that PET scans used in medicine involves a positron-emitting chemical injected into the patient.
There are probably a whole bunch of other experiments that positrons would be great for performing, but intense positron sources are not readily available. The development of more intense positron sources will certainly be welcomed by the scientific community, as it may allow previously unimagined types of measurements.
The free exchange of ideas (not entertainment for those of you who download your entire music libraries from Kazaa) will promote progress across the board.
It's interesting that you draw such a sharp difference between information and entertainment. I agree that there are differences between content intended to transfer knowledge, and content intended to amuse... but certainly there are strong similarities between the two.
In particular, if you accept that free exchange of ideas will promote intellectual progress, then is it not also reasonable to suggest that free exchange of artistic content will promote cultural progress? This is the central notion that Lawrence Lessig advocates: that overly restricting the distribution, reuse, and remixing of art and entertainment will inherently stifle culture. (Note that Lessig does not advocate wanton infringement nor abolition of copyright: merely a 'sane' balance between the rights of content creators and the rights of content users.)
With respect to this current initiative, it would appear that they intend to scan and index books that are oriented towards information, as well as those oriented towards entertainment. In my opinion, this is a good thing. There is much that people can learn and grow by having easier access to ideas, where "ideas" means both informational sources, as well as artistic sources.
The buzz generated by the band's pay-what-you-want publicity stunt may also boost sales. Radiohead's previous album sold only 300,000 copies in the first week--about one-sixth the number of copies of In Rainbows now in circulation.
Given that their current album, without label advertising, managed 1.2 million sales in a similar time period, it would seem that they are doing just fine. The fact that they get a much higher revenue-per-sale ($8 instead of perhaps $3 per sale) translates into much bigger profits from Radiohead's point of view. As another point of comparison, assuming that the "platinum" and "gold" ratings here are correct (and using this to translate into numbers), their albums seem to sell hundreds-of-thousands to millions of copies over the years. So, again, 1.2 million within weeks of launch seems pretty impressive.
I think the movie companies should be *glad* that Tv-links existed! it can help them to easly see where the materials are being distributed
True enough... but when it comes to copyright infringement, it is so widespread that the companies cannot ever hope to send Cease & Desist letters for each infringement. Nor are they really lacking for ways to find cases of infringement.
Trying to stop each case of infringement is impossible, since a large fraction of the population is willfully infringing. So they try to attack the "convenience websites" (like TV-links and torrent trackers) that help users quickly and easily locate the content they want. They hope by making it inconvenient to find the content, infringement will decrease (and legitimate purchases will increase?).
Their strategy is not really sustainable. If anything, it creates ever-greater pressure for the community to develop distributed and redundant solutions to these problems. It used to be that content was hosted on central FTP servers. Then that was decentralized so each person becomes a node (the Napster model). Then file distribution becomes fragmented, so the network is ephemeral (the BitTorrent model). Nowadays, torrent trackers (like The Pirate Bay) have learned to have redundant servers ready in different countries. Ultimately, we may end up with fully distributed trackers, too. (Or perhaps trackers that exist only in a TOR network, not addressed on the "normal" Internet...)
Re:Forbidding this is not part of a democracy
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eBay The Vote
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· Score: 1
In a democracy, you have the right to vote and the right to be heard. You also have the right to democratically select a dictatorship. If the citizens want to be bought voluntarily and sell their freedom, a democracy should let them do that. If not, it's not a true democracy.
You're right, assuming that the definition of "true democracy" is "the communal will of the people is enacted."
However an alternate definition of "true democracy" is "the people will always have the power to affect governance." The difference here being that under this definition, electing a dictator is not democratic, because even if it corresponds to the desires of the current populace, it removes the ability for future citizens (descendants, immigrants, or even the original voters if they change their mind) to select a new government/leader. (Unless, of course, the dictator continued to hold and honor the electoral process, in which case he wouldn't really be a dictator.)
I would argue that this consideration for "freedoms of future citizens" is in fact fundamental to democracy, and is in fact what most people intend when they say "democracy." The "communal will of the people" version of democracy is actually more extreme than most people intend when they discuss/support democracy, because it can be used to blindly eliminate freedoms, as your thought experiment demonstrates.
The web is more reliable? My ass! Between trying to track down the real sources and the fact that there is basically zero accountability with posting, I call BS.
The web is not reliable if you take an average of every page out there (nor is print media if you average respected newspapers with tabloids)... but on the web there is at least a greater diversity of opinion and sources. Real experts have blogs on the web (whereas they would get perhaps a few seconds of air time in a year of mainstream media), and the audience can then decide what they think is credible, and pay more attention to the worthwhile sources. With mainstream conventional media (radio, TV, newspapers), the distribution channels are owned by a small number of rich and powerful people with largely similar interests. It thus becomes very difficult to get real information from knowledgeable people.
With regard to tracking down sources: it has always been the case that this is necessary if you want to confidently know what's really going on. It is true for web stories and those from conventional sources. I would argue that tracking down sources online is much easier than it is in conventional sources. The web inherently has a cross-referencing system that print and TV do not. The good online sources will provide links to other sources that support their position, or to the original material in question, so that the audience can judge for themselves whether the author is correctly interpreting the facts.
Show me the last time someone got fired for posting lies on the web, not fired from the real job, but in a way that prevents them from posting anymore. It doesn't happen. Dan Rather got booted from CBS, show me the equivalent on the internet.
Journalists in mainstream media print routinely commit errors in their reporting. Sometimes their analysis is misleading, other times it is flat-out wrong. Your CBS example notwithstanding, they rarely suffer any serious consequence (nor even print a retraction). So the "do they get fired?" question is a red herring. The fact that bloggers don't "get fired" for mistakes they make is irrelevant. The accountability when it comes to reporting has always been reputation. Sources become respected and trusted if they consistently deliver quality analysis, and become ignored if they do not. Again the difference is the that plurality of sources on the web gives one the opportunity to seek out the best analyst on a given topic (rather than merely settle for the "least bad" source in mainstream channels).
I'm not suggesting that mainstream sources are useless, or that there are not many competent, trustworthy mainstream journalists. What I am suggesting is that the Internet provides access to more information, which can only be a good thing for an interested party who wishes to seek for true, balanced answers on a given topic.
You make a valid point. The installation of apps on OS X is very intuitive because everything is contained in a single file. On Linux, app installation is pretty easy when you use the package manager, but most installations spread files about all over the place. This makes it impossible to just copy an application directory to another machine and expect it to work.
I think this is largely because the Linux philosophy is to not duplicate code. So when an app requires a certain library, it puts those files in a generic library path. I believe that on OS X, each application bundles everything it needs to run internally, which means that large amounts of code might be duplicated all over the place. This is the tradeoff for keeping it simpler. With hard drives being cheap, I guess the duplication isn't much of a draw-back, although it does mean that updating a particular component (e.g. against a security flaw) doesn't mean the update is actually applied to other programs.
I should also note that the Portable Apps I referred to (which are all Windows apps) are portable in two senses: (1) they are designed to launch from any location, without prior installation (e.g. registry keys); and (2) they are modified to store all user preferences in a local file, rather than elsewhere.
As far as I know, Mac OS X applications automatically have property (1) but not property (2). In OS X, user preferences are stored apart from the application binary, just like in Linux. This has the advantage that when you delete/reinstall/upgrade the app, your preferences are maintained. But this means that the application is not "portable" in the sense that you can copy it elsewhere and expect your settings to persist.
Here's the problem: None of the computers I go to have support for ODF.
You may be interested in checking out Portable Apps. They have a bunch of open-source apps that have been tuned to work in a "portable" mode, so that you can launch them from a USB key for instance (or running off the network, etc.). For instance you can use a portable version of Firefox and Thunderbird so that your web-browsing preferences and all your email are accessible from any computer.
By carrying a copy of the portable suite, you can easily launch OpenOffice on any computer you happen to encounter.
Obviously this isn't a viable option in all cases (e.g. a corporate policy that disables USB ports), but it can be quite useful in many cases (faster than downloading and installing the app just to convert a file).
Who has like hours and hours to write really good articles all the time?
The nuts. The fanatics. The giving-geeks-a-bad-name mom's-basement-dwelling sociopaths
With all due respect, that is a rather narrow-minded view of the people who spend significant time contributing to Wikipedia. Do you similarly think of people who volunteer their time at soup kitchens as "Nuts. Fanatics. The giving-hard-working-people-a-bad-name social rejects." Or perhaps you think that open-source software coders are "Nuts. Fanatics. The giving-coders-a-bad-name time-wasters."
Luckily, not everyone views volunteering as a waste of time, or indicative of fanaticism. Many people contribute to Wikipedia because they value information and education. They enjoy challenging their mind. This is their hobby (instead of Sudoku and crossword puzzles), or perhaps even their passion. This is their way of contributing to a greater good.
We don't want to edit it because we are *adults* with lives and jobs and families and deadlines who want our encyclopedias to be encyclopedias and not some kind of bring-your-own-violin pick-up jazz concert.
You are more than welcome to ignore the free spread of information and impromptu musical gatherings, and focus on all the important things in your adult life. However it is rather unfortunate that you cannot see the value in what other communities achieve when they willingly devote time from their busy schedules to a communal project.
It turns out that these kind of materials are not water-soluble, even though both components are, and even though you can easily assemble them from water. It's certainly counter-intuitive, but the assemblies involve electrostatic (charge-charge) links and hydrogen-bonding (like in DNA) links. Even though those kinds of links are inherently water soluble, when you are layering "large" molecules (polymers and nano-platelets count as large in chemistry), then there are so many "sticker groups" that the overall binding is very strong. (There are other more subtle effects, like the entropy of assembly, also at play.) As a result, these materials don't readily dissolve in water.
In the actual scientific paper, they further explain how they "cross-link" the material to make it more stable. Cross-linking is basically chemistry that generates strong covalent bonds between the various molecules. (This is what happens when you make a strong rubber...) They do indeed indicate that the cross-linked materials are more stable against changes in humidity (the un-crosslinked materials swell a bit when exposed to a humid atmosphere; which might be bad for some applications).
If you're interested in the details (and have a subscription to Science), here's the actual paper:
Paul Podsiadlo, Amit K. Kaushik, Ellen M. Arruda, Anthony M. Waas, Bong Sup Shim, Jiadi Xu, Himabindu Nandivada, Benjamin G. Pumplin, Joerg Lahann, Ayyalusamy Ramamoorthy, and Nicholas A. Kotov "Ultrastrong and Stiff Layered Polymer Nanocomposites" Science 5 October 2007: 80-83. DOI: 10.1126/science.1143176.
Blurb:
Deposition of alternating nanoscale layers of clay particles and a polymer yields a transparent composite that is as stiff and strong as steel.
The abstract is:
Nanoscale building blocks are individually exceptionally strong because they are close to ideal, defect-free materials. It is, however, difficult to retain the ideal properties in macroscale composites. Bottom-up assembly of a clay/polymer nanocomposite allowed for the preparation of a homogeneous, optically transparent material with planar orientation of the alumosilicate nanosheets. The stiffness and tensile strength of these multilayer composites are one order of magnitude greater than those of analogous nanocomposites at a processing temperature that is much lower than those of ceramic or polymer materials with similar characteristics. A high level of ordering of the nanoscale building blocks, combined with dense covalent and hydrogen bonding and stiffening of the polymer chains, leads to highly effective load transfer between nanosheets and the polymer.
In response to your questions about actual material response, the paper discusses a variety of metrics for a variety of different preparation conditions. They report that the nano-composite material has an ultimate tensile strength 10 times greater than the pure PVA polymer, up to 480 MPa. They also state that the modulus, E, was 100 times greater than the pure polymer, up to 125 GPa, which they compare to Kevlar (E ~ 80 to 220 GPa).
In terms of energy absorption, they compare the uncrosslinked nano-composite to the crosslinked one. As you might imagine, the crosslinked one was more rigid (and gave rise to the modulus previously mentioned), having a low ultimate strain of 0.33 %. The uncrosslinked one deformed somewhat more (ultimate strain 0.7%), with higher energy absorption potential.
As you note, the comparison of "strong as steel" is not very helpful. But looking at the stress-strain curves, these materials look quite strong. Also, since you can adjust the material properties (optimizing for energy storage versus elastic modulus), they might be great for achieving desired performance for certain niche applications.
The dipping procedure is fairly easy to automate, but the technique only adds a very thin layer (think nanometers) for each dipping cycle. The usage of clay platelets in this present work does make the films thicker, but still their 300 layer film is only ~300 microns thick. So it takes awhile to build up enough layers for it to be macroscopically thick and strong. To speed it up, you can use a roll-to-roll process as long as you're trying to create large 'sheets' of material.
I imagine you could produce some pretty interesting seamless objects with this... just smash it on the ground when you're done and shake the broken glass out.
Indeed! You've hit upon one of the main "selling points" of this technique: unlike other coating techniques, it isn't limited to flat surfaces. In fact, you can even coat the insides of objects. For example you can coat the insides of thin capillaries by alternately flowing the two solutions through the capillary. Some companies were also checking whether you could prevent fouling/rusting of pipes by coating their insides with material: coating even huge lengths of pipes becomes easier when all you have to do is flow some solutions through them. (You can even 'fix' a pipe already installed by taking it offline and performing this operation every so once in awhile...)
The ability to coat strange shapes may indeed allow for some neat tricks. Also note that coating glass is easiest, but actually you can layer onto all kinds of surfaces (all that's needed is a bit of surface charge). So you can imagine a sacrificial mold (something that you can burn away at low temperature or dissolve with some other solvent) that you them multilayer to create, as you say, a seamless object of controllable properties.
This looks like something fun to try out.
It's a remarkly simple technique to use. All you need is some water-soluble polymers, a glass microscope slide, and a few beakers! Of course, unless you're really patient (or have a robot or auto-dipper) it takes awhile to get a really thick film!
(Disclosure: Part of my thesis work was on these layer-by-layer materials.)
The technique they are describing is called "Electrostatic Layer-by-Layer Deposition", and the resultant materials are called polyelectrolyte multilayers. Basically you dip a substrate alternately into baths of different polymers, with each step depositing a thin layer of polymer. These materials have been studied for the last decade or so. This group is investigating layering one polyelectrolyte with strong clay platelets (rather than using two polyelectrolytes). Thus they create a "brick and mortar" assembly, where strong (nano-sized) clay platelets are glued together with flexible polymer layers.
The process is good for creating very thin layers, but as you can imagine it's very slow for making thick materials. Each deposition step only adds on the order of a nanometer of material. Hundreds of steps are needed to create films thick enough to actually pick up, bend, and perform mechanical testing.
However some researchers have already investigated switching from the laborious "sequential dipping" technique to a "roll-to-roll" technique. So, instead of dipping a glass slide (or whatever) into vats of liquid one after the other (each time adding a very thin layer), the idea would be to use roll-to-roll technology (like in printing presses) to dip huge sheets of material through various vats at high speed. It's been shown to work (with some difficulties along the way, of course)... so in principle if these materials become sought, there are ways of making them in greater quantities, and thicker than this lab demonstration suggests.
Another unique thing about this "layer-by-layer" method of creating materials is that you can inherently control the composition of the material across the thickness. So you can actually have, for instance, the material's elastic modulus (or dielectric properties, or whatever), vary though the thickness of the material. Maybe you want a sheet of "plexiglass" that is super-strong at its core, but rather soft and rubberlike in its outer layer (so it doesn't hurt when you bang your head against it? Or maybe you want a liquid-like 'healing layer' on the outside to fill in scratches?). This depth-control of the material properties could be quite interesting for many applications where you want a mix of properties.
(Disclosure: Part of my Ph.D. thesis work involved related layer-by-layer materials.)
Do you like Slashdot discussions?
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Ask Rob Malda
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· Score: 5, Interesting
My question is simple: Do you like the discussions that appear on Slashdot stories? Do you read them?
My question originates from the fact that, apparently, you've only commented 368 times. Considering that you've been here "since the beginning," that's not a lot of comments. Avid Slashdotters make about that many comments per year.
So why don't you participate more in the discussions? Do you not like Slashdot discussions? Or is it just because you prefer reading? Is it because you're too busy? (Aren't we all?) Is it because you worry that any comment you make will be unduly scrutinized, because of your peculiar status within this community? (Do you sometimes post under a different name?)
And it seems a little strange not to release the results...
Not that I expect a corporation to be "nice" just for the heck of it, but it would be very useful for Internet security at large if they released a list of the "most often exploited" third-party Linux apps. TFA implies that the primary attack vector is third-party apps with known, unpatched vulnerabilities:
Although Linux has long been considered more secure than Windows, many of the programs that run on top of Linux have known security vulnerabilities, and if an attacker were to exploit an unpatched bug on a misconfigured system, he could seize control of the machine.
It seems like if they released the list of which apps, in particular, were most frequently used to exploit Linux boxes, the community could respond rapidly by putting effort into fixing those problems (where "fixing" might mean finding/patching vulnerabilities, or discouraging users from installing those apps, or even as simple as an awareness campaign to get users to keep their software up-to-date).
Having a more secure Internet is good for everyone... and in this case would seem to be a net positive for eBay, since they are a big target for the phishing scams that result from these exploited machines.
Very strange effect. It seems like lots of studies are done. The ones that show drastic environmental collapse are reported very widely. In this case the news seems good and there isn't an alternative study so we get the comment 'Although the hole is somewhat smaller than usual, we cannot conclude from this that the ozone layer is recovering already'.
I won't defend how the media portrays the issue. In my opinion, they frequently confuse and distort issues in their reporting. However if you look into the scientific literature on this subject (for instance, reviews of climatology in Science magazine or Nature magazine) the reason for this seeming disparity is simple:
Climate researchers are doing their due diligence, and the preponderance of evidence/trends is in a certain direction (currently the data mostly support anthropogenic climate change). So, when a single study points in the opposite direction, they quite rightly point out that this shouldn't be interpreted as a reversal of the previously identified climate change. It would take a large number of indicators reversing to draw that conclusion.
People like to paint climate researchers as being akin to religious zealots--discarding contrary evidence while only publicizing data that supports their worldview. This, however, doesn't match up with the scientists I've actually seen/heard. We would all like the Earth to be safe and sound... and I assure you that these climatologists would excitedly report that "the Earth was recovering" or "climate change is not occurring" if the data supported such assertions.
The fact of the matter is that currently the preponderance of data supports the notion of climate change, and moreover indicates that humans could reduce the amount of said climate change by modifying their behavior. A fluctuation in a particular measurement variable (in this case, ozone hole size) cannot alone disprove all the other indicators.
It's not a matter of "good news" vs. "bad news", or "desired data" vs. "undesired data"--it's a matter of "conclusion supported by evidence" vs. "conclusion not supported by evidence." That is how science is done.
educating themselves with all this online courseware stuff? Seems to me like most people would still need the oversight of having papers due, the classrooms discussions, and the 1-on-1 talks with professors to get the most out of a subject.
I agree... and I don't think anyone is claiming otherwise.
"Getting a degree" is so much more than just sitting in on lectures. Labwork, discussions with professors (and other students), libraries, and many other things act together to shape a person's education.
The posting of these lectures is important, however, in other ways. First of all it's a nice convenience for the students taking those courses: they can review lectures without worrying about making a personal audio recording. But it's also a great resource for interested hobbyists, professionals who need to refresh their memory, specialists in a particular fields who want to learn some of the basics of some other field, and so on. I can even imagine young interested students using such lectures to get a "head start" on subjects they are passionate about (e.g. if they find the curriculum in their high school lacking), or students who cannot afford a conventional education using those videos (along with some other resources and lots of hard work) to get up to speed on a subject matter.
You would think that YouTube would balk at being the distributor for a university.
Why? They don't mind being the distributor for thousands of independent creators... nor do they mind being the distributor for the numerous "web TV shows" that have official YouTube channels.
Will they try and make money with this?
Of course they will. They'll apply the same business model that they are applying to all content uploaded to YouTube... Which is, apparently, to generate a huge community of video-posters and video-watchers, and then to make money off of promoted videos and selective advertisements.
I fail to see how a university uploading videos that people want to watch is any different from anyone else uploading videos that people want to watch.
If you truly disagree with the ridiculous statements of the RIAA and its constituent labels (including Sony), then stop buying their music. Even buying it second-hand is encouraging those artists, and hence those labels.
There's no excuse (in my opinion) for buying music from the "big labels" in this day and age. Don't do it. Instead, get your music from Jamendo, Magnatune, directly from the artist, or other "reasonable" sources--where the majority of the profits go to the artists, and where none of the profits go to maintaining a cartel.
I'm serious, here. We need to all stop supporting the big labels... which may mean not buying music from groups that you otherwise enjoy. But, from my own experience, there is plenty of top-quality music available when you meander off the beaten track. Give it a try.
Sorry, but your flaimbait is hardly novel. This gets mentioned on just about every story that deals with copyright in some way. The counter-arguments have been exhaustively delineated in previous slashdot discussions. Briefly:
1. There is not a single "Slashdot mind." Despite the groupthink that moderation may encourage, varied and even dissenting views frequently arise. Thus the preponderance of highly-moderated "current copyright law is bad" posts and the preponderance of "pro-GPL" posts are not necessarily posted by the same people. Also note that moderators should (and probably frequently do) mod-up things they don't agree with. So even if the average opinion were that the GPL was bad, it's possible to see highly-modded "pro-GPL" posts.
2. It is not inconsistent to say "status quo copyright is bad" and "the GPL is good." It may be that the person's consistent viewpoint is that a scaled-back version of copyright would be best. Such a scaled-back version of copyright could be consistent with both the GPL and broad fair-use (e.g. non-commercial private copying of music).
3. Many posters may agree with the spirit of the GPL, and even the spirit of copyright law, but believe it is immoral to use great force in enforcement. Put otherwise, they do not see anything wrong with copyright per se, but they decry the abusive measures utilized by entrenched monopolies such as the RIAA and MPAA represent. Thus it is the tactics they are unhappy with. This stance is not hypocritical because, at present, the tactics used in GPL enforcement are rather more reasonable as compared to the tactics used in the widescale "fight against piracy."
4. Many slashdotters actually don't agree with the GPL. You'll notice many highly-moderated posts that describe why the BSD license is better (even "more free") since it imposes effectively no burdens on other's use of the code. Such a stance is entirely consistent with a similar stance with respect to music: that everyone should be able to freely use/modify/redistribute intellectual works.
5. People can have nuanced views or see a continuum of options. For instance, a person may believe that status-quo copyright is terrible, that a no-copyright world would be better (but not ideal), and that a medium-copyright world (with protection arising only in cases where source material is released: i.e. copyright applies to BSD, GPL, Creative Commons, but not to closed-source works) is best. If a person holds such a view, it is not inconsistent to say "the GPL is good and should be honored" but to also say "status-quo all-rights-reserved copyright is bad and should be ignored."
And so on... I'm not necessarily defending any of these particular viewpoints, by the way. I'm merely pointing out that it doesn't require much imagination to come up with a consistent viewpoint that matches the highly-modded rhetoric seen on Slashdot.
Basically it is a fallacy to believe that Slashdot is a single mind that you can argue with. If you are attempting to point out some hypocrisy, then find a particular user who you think is espousing contradictory viewpoints in different posts. Beyond that, any cry of hypocrisy is actually a failure on your part to understand the inherent variability among the Slashdot readership, and the subtlety in the opinions being expressed.
All I want is the URL so I can play it with mplayer. I have no intention of putting Flash on my machine. Is that so danged difficult??
Actually it would be much, much easier to design a system that just exposed the URL for a standard video file. The user/browser could then either download it, or have a plugin that buffers and displays it inside the browser. This eliminates all kinds of problems both for the web developers and the user.
But, of course, the real reason for using Flash-based players is that it acts as a weak form of DRM. The intention is to force the user to watch the video only at the site (with ads, etc.), and to not allow the user to take the video, transfer it elsewhere (e.g. iPod), edit out commercials, redistribute it, etc.
Of course, we all know that it is possible to write a script that extracts the video... but it becomes a tiresome arms race. This is just another example of the fundamental tradeoff between the notion of "convenience" (for the user) and "control" (for the distributor). The user wants freedom. The distributor wants DRM.
I see the same issue coming around the corner for Google/YouTube.... Provided videos.google is still around, I personally feel Google mad err there
The Google acquisition of YouTube makes much more sense than eBay/Skype. Google has a solid business model based on advertising, and YouTube fits with that. YouTube has a huge userbase, so the ads that are now running (selectively) on YouTube are undoubtedly generating income. Of course I don't know if the income is enough to offset the bandwidth (and legal!) costs, but I suspect Google is still confident that they can turn it into a profit center, since they are continually de-emphasizing Google Video in favor of YouTube (e.g. nowadays most of the "related" links in Google Video point to YouTube).
Skype's appeal is that it offers services free or very cheap.... once you start asking for cash, you can expect to see your user base taper off.
I think it's further worth noting that Skype has had some unfortunate technical issues. The business model behind Skype is something along the lines of "get people interested in the product by offering free Skype-to-Skype calls, but charge for calls to/from conventional phones." I think many users, including businesses, seriously considered using Skype for their international calling needs. It seemed like a good fit.
However Skype has certain stability problems. In my own usage, I've noticed that it can sometimes be a bit flaky. Moreover, the entire Skype network went offline for many days. As a result, businesses stopped thinking of Skype as a serious, reliable option.
My point is that things could have turned out differently if the Skype technology had become mature and stable enough to be a viable option for reliable international calling. They could certainly have gathered a large, paying customer base if the system was bullet-proof. But, as is, many people are (rightly) dubious of the reliability. I think Skype's business model has merit, and the program is very useful. But, eBay certainly overpaid in as much as they paid as if they were buying a mature technology/solution, when in reality there are still many growing pains left in that technology sector.
Slashdot Mirror
I understand the danger of having a single company (Google in this case) having easy access to comprehensive data about your life (location, email records, search habits, etc.). And I firmly believe that people need to educate themselves about the dangers of releasing too much personal information. But I fail to see how this recent Google acquisition is cause for great concern. Mobile devices are increasingly useful. So are social networking tools. Merging the two is an obvious next step, and a step that Google is taking.
Similarly, to manipulate positrons, which have a positive charge, you can use the exact same principles. Most experiments involving positrons do in fact rely upon the fact that the positrons will annihilate with any electrons they encounter (releasing an easy-to-detect gamma-ray flash). So positrons make for excellent probes of electron density, for instance. Positron beams used for science would be weak enough that their interaction wouldn't really lead to explosions: just a measurable amount of gamma-ray production. (By the way, positron-annihilation is used in medical PET scanners, where the low-level gamma ray bursts are used to determine where the tracer chemical went in the body.) A sufficiently intense positron beam would be highly destructive. However as weapons go it doesn't make much sense: the energy input required to generate a positron beam is so large that you would be better off putting that same amount of energy to more direct use. In principle one could generate a positron beam from a particle accelerator. The work described in the article is creating a beam from a small-scale nuclear reactor. Again the creation of positrons is so energy-intensive that it would be somewhat counter-productive to use it as a fuel (rather than just using the energy or nuclear material more directly as a fuel source).
Electron microscopes can already image at the atomic level, but a positron microscope has advantages because it can give complimentary information (e.g. about the positions of atomic vacancies). You can also use positron beams for PALS (Positron Annihilation Lifetime Spectroscopy), which is a powerful tool for determining the distribution of sizes in (nano-scale) voids in materials (difficult to measure by any other technique). It's also worth remembering that PET scans used in medicine involves a positron-emitting chemical injected into the patient.
There are probably a whole bunch of other experiments that positrons would be great for performing, but intense positron sources are not readily available. The development of more intense positron sources will certainly be welcomed by the scientific community, as it may allow previously unimagined types of measurements.
In particular, if you accept that free exchange of ideas will promote intellectual progress, then is it not also reasonable to suggest that free exchange of artistic content will promote cultural progress? This is the central notion that Lawrence Lessig advocates: that overly restricting the distribution, reuse, and remixing of art and entertainment will inherently stifle culture. (Note that Lessig does not advocate wanton infringement nor abolition of copyright: merely a 'sane' balance between the rights of content creators and the rights of content users.)
With respect to this current initiative, it would appear that they intend to scan and index books that are oriented towards information, as well as those oriented towards entertainment. In my opinion, this is a good thing. There is much that people can learn and grow by having easier access to ideas, where "ideas" means both informational sources, as well as artistic sources.
Trying to stop each case of infringement is impossible, since a large fraction of the population is willfully infringing. So they try to attack the "convenience websites" (like TV-links and torrent trackers) that help users quickly and easily locate the content they want. They hope by making it inconvenient to find the content, infringement will decrease (and legitimate purchases will increase?).
Their strategy is not really sustainable. If anything, it creates ever-greater pressure for the community to develop distributed and redundant solutions to these problems. It used to be that content was hosted on central FTP servers. Then that was decentralized so each person becomes a node (the Napster model). Then file distribution becomes fragmented, so the network is ephemeral (the BitTorrent model). Nowadays, torrent trackers (like The Pirate Bay) have learned to have redundant servers ready in different countries. Ultimately, we may end up with fully distributed trackers, too. (Or perhaps trackers that exist only in a TOR network, not addressed on the "normal" Internet...)
However an alternate definition of "true democracy" is "the people will always have the power to affect governance." The difference here being that under this definition, electing a dictator is not democratic, because even if it corresponds to the desires of the current populace, it removes the ability for future citizens (descendants, immigrants, or even the original voters if they change their mind) to select a new government/leader. (Unless, of course, the dictator continued to hold and honor the electoral process, in which case he wouldn't really be a dictator.)
I would argue that this consideration for "freedoms of future citizens" is in fact fundamental to democracy, and is in fact what most people intend when they say "democracy." The "communal will of the people" version of democracy is actually more extreme than most people intend when they discuss/support democracy, because it can be used to blindly eliminate freedoms, as your thought experiment demonstrates.
With regard to tracking down sources: it has always been the case that this is necessary if you want to confidently know what's really going on. It is true for web stories and those from conventional sources. I would argue that tracking down sources online is much easier than it is in conventional sources. The web inherently has a cross-referencing system that print and TV do not. The good online sources will provide links to other sources that support their position, or to the original material in question, so that the audience can judge for themselves whether the author is correctly interpreting the facts. Journalists in mainstream media print routinely commit errors in their reporting. Sometimes their analysis is misleading, other times it is flat-out wrong. Your CBS example notwithstanding, they rarely suffer any serious consequence (nor even print a retraction). So the "do they get fired?" question is a red herring. The fact that bloggers don't "get fired" for mistakes they make is irrelevant. The accountability when it comes to reporting has always been reputation. Sources become respected and trusted if they consistently deliver quality analysis, and become ignored if they do not. Again the difference is the that plurality of sources on the web gives one the opportunity to seek out the best analyst on a given topic (rather than merely settle for the "least bad" source in mainstream channels).
I'm not suggesting that mainstream sources are useless, or that there are not many competent, trustworthy mainstream journalists. What I am suggesting is that the Internet provides access to more information, which can only be a good thing for an interested party who wishes to seek for true, balanced answers on a given topic.
You make a valid point. The installation of apps on OS X is very intuitive because everything is contained in a single file. On Linux, app installation is pretty easy when you use the package manager, but most installations spread files about all over the place. This makes it impossible to just copy an application directory to another machine and expect it to work. I think this is largely because the Linux philosophy is to not duplicate code. So when an app requires a certain library, it puts those files in a generic library path. I believe that on OS X, each application bundles everything it needs to run internally, which means that large amounts of code might be duplicated all over the place. This is the tradeoff for keeping it simpler. With hard drives being cheap, I guess the duplication isn't much of a draw-back, although it does mean that updating a particular component (e.g. against a security flaw) doesn't mean the update is actually applied to other programs. I should also note that the Portable Apps I referred to (which are all Windows apps) are portable in two senses: (1) they are designed to launch from any location, without prior installation (e.g. registry keys); and (2) they are modified to store all user preferences in a local file, rather than elsewhere. As far as I know, Mac OS X applications automatically have property (1) but not property (2). In OS X, user preferences are stored apart from the application binary, just like in Linux. This has the advantage that when you delete/reinstall/upgrade the app, your preferences are maintained. But this means that the application is not "portable" in the sense that you can copy it elsewhere and expect your settings to persist.
By carrying a copy of the portable suite, you can easily launch OpenOffice on any computer you happen to encounter.
Obviously this isn't a viable option in all cases (e.g. a corporate policy that disables USB ports), but it can be quite useful in many cases (faster than downloading and installing the app just to convert a file).
Luckily, not everyone views volunteering as a waste of time, or indicative of fanaticism. Many people contribute to Wikipedia because they value information and education. They enjoy challenging their mind. This is their hobby (instead of Sudoku and crossword puzzles), or perhaps even their passion. This is their way of contributing to a greater good. You are more than welcome to ignore the free spread of information and impromptu musical gatherings, and focus on all the important things in your adult life. However it is rather unfortunate that you cannot see the value in what other communities achieve when they willingly devote time from their busy schedules to a communal project.
It turns out that these kind of materials are not water-soluble, even though both components are, and even though you can easily assemble them from water. It's certainly counter-intuitive, but the assemblies involve electrostatic (charge-charge) links and hydrogen-bonding (like in DNA) links. Even though those kinds of links are inherently water soluble, when you are layering "large" molecules (polymers and nano-platelets count as large in chemistry), then there are so many "sticker groups" that the overall binding is very strong. (There are other more subtle effects, like the entropy of assembly, also at play.) As a result, these materials don't readily dissolve in water.
In the actual scientific paper, they further explain how they "cross-link" the material to make it more stable. Cross-linking is basically chemistry that generates strong covalent bonds between the various molecules. (This is what happens when you make a strong rubber...) They do indeed indicate that the cross-linked materials are more stable against changes in humidity (the un-crosslinked materials swell a bit when exposed to a humid atmosphere; which might be bad for some applications).
Paul Podsiadlo, Amit K. Kaushik, Ellen M. Arruda, Anthony M. Waas, Bong Sup Shim, Jiadi Xu, Himabindu Nandivada, Benjamin G. Pumplin, Joerg Lahann, Ayyalusamy Ramamoorthy, and Nicholas A. Kotov "Ultrastrong and Stiff Layered Polymer Nanocomposites" Science 5 October 2007: 80-83. DOI: 10.1126/science.1143176.
Blurb: The abstract is: In response to your questions about actual material response, the paper discusses a variety of metrics for a variety of different preparation conditions. They report that the nano-composite material has an ultimate tensile strength 10 times greater than the pure PVA polymer, up to 480 MPa. They also state that the modulus, E, was 100 times greater than the pure polymer, up to 125 GPa, which they compare to Kevlar (E ~ 80 to 220 GPa).
In terms of energy absorption, they compare the uncrosslinked nano-composite to the crosslinked one. As you might imagine, the crosslinked one was more rigid (and gave rise to the modulus previously mentioned), having a low ultimate strain of 0.33 %. The uncrosslinked one deformed somewhat more (ultimate strain 0.7%), with higher energy absorption potential.
As you note, the comparison of "strong as steel" is not very helpful. But looking at the stress-strain curves, these materials look quite strong. Also, since you can adjust the material properties (optimizing for energy storage versus elastic modulus), they might be great for achieving desired performance for certain niche applications.
The ability to coat strange shapes may indeed allow for some neat tricks. Also note that coating glass is easiest, but actually you can layer onto all kinds of surfaces (all that's needed is a bit of surface charge). So you can imagine a sacrificial mold (something that you can burn away at low temperature or dissolve with some other solvent) that you them multilayer to create, as you say, a seamless object of controllable properties.
It's a remarkly simple technique to use. All you need is some water-soluble polymers, a glass microscope slide, and a few beakers! Of course, unless you're really patient (or have a robot or auto-dipper) it takes awhile to get a really thick film!
(Disclosure: Part of my thesis work was on these layer-by-layer materials.)
The technique they are describing is called "Electrostatic Layer-by-Layer Deposition", and the resultant materials are called polyelectrolyte multilayers. Basically you dip a substrate alternately into baths of different polymers, with each step depositing a thin layer of polymer. These materials have been studied for the last decade or so. This group is investigating layering one polyelectrolyte with strong clay platelets (rather than using two polyelectrolytes). Thus they create a "brick and mortar" assembly, where strong (nano-sized) clay platelets are glued together with flexible polymer layers.
The process is good for creating very thin layers, but as you can imagine it's very slow for making thick materials. Each deposition step only adds on the order of a nanometer of material. Hundreds of steps are needed to create films thick enough to actually pick up, bend, and perform mechanical testing.
However some researchers have already investigated switching from the laborious "sequential dipping" technique to a "roll-to-roll" technique. So, instead of dipping a glass slide (or whatever) into vats of liquid one after the other (each time adding a very thin layer), the idea would be to use roll-to-roll technology (like in printing presses) to dip huge sheets of material through various vats at high speed. It's been shown to work (with some difficulties along the way, of course)... so in principle if these materials become sought, there are ways of making them in greater quantities, and thicker than this lab demonstration suggests.
Another unique thing about this "layer-by-layer" method of creating materials is that you can inherently control the composition of the material across the thickness. So you can actually have, for instance, the material's elastic modulus (or dielectric properties, or whatever), vary though the thickness of the material. Maybe you want a sheet of "plexiglass" that is super-strong at its core, but rather soft and rubberlike in its outer layer (so it doesn't hurt when you bang your head against it? Or maybe you want a liquid-like 'healing layer' on the outside to fill in scratches?). This depth-control of the material properties could be quite interesting for many applications where you want a mix of properties.
(Disclosure: Part of my Ph.D. thesis work involved related layer-by-layer materials.)
My question is simple: Do you like the discussions that appear on Slashdot stories? Do you read them?
My question originates from the fact that, apparently, you've only commented 368 times. Considering that you've been here "since the beginning," that's not a lot of comments. Avid Slashdotters make about that many comments per year.
So why don't you participate more in the discussions? Do you not like Slashdot discussions? Or is it just because you prefer reading? Is it because you're too busy? (Aren't we all?) Is it because you worry that any comment you make will be unduly scrutinized, because of your peculiar status within this community? (Do you sometimes post under a different name?)
Having a more secure Internet is good for everyone... and in this case would seem to be a net positive for eBay, since they are a big target for the phishing scams that result from these exploited machines.
Climate researchers are doing their due diligence, and the preponderance of evidence/trends is in a certain direction (currently the data mostly support anthropogenic climate change). So, when a single study points in the opposite direction, they quite rightly point out that this shouldn't be interpreted as a reversal of the previously identified climate change. It would take a large number of indicators reversing to draw that conclusion.
People like to paint climate researchers as being akin to religious zealots--discarding contrary evidence while only publicizing data that supports their worldview. This, however, doesn't match up with the scientists I've actually seen/heard. We would all like the Earth to be safe and sound... and I assure you that these climatologists would excitedly report that "the Earth was recovering" or "climate change is not occurring" if the data supported such assertions.
The fact of the matter is that currently the preponderance of data supports the notion of climate change, and moreover indicates that humans could reduce the amount of said climate change by modifying their behavior. A fluctuation in a particular measurement variable (in this case, ozone hole size) cannot alone disprove all the other indicators.
It's not a matter of "good news" vs. "bad news", or "desired data" vs. "undesired data"--it's a matter of "conclusion supported by evidence" vs. "conclusion not supported by evidence." That is how science is done.
"Getting a degree" is so much more than just sitting in on lectures. Labwork, discussions with professors (and other students), libraries, and many other things act together to shape a person's education.
The posting of these lectures is important, however, in other ways. First of all it's a nice convenience for the students taking those courses: they can review lectures without worrying about making a personal audio recording. But it's also a great resource for interested hobbyists, professionals who need to refresh their memory, specialists in a particular fields who want to learn some of the basics of some other field, and so on. I can even imagine young interested students using such lectures to get a "head start" on subjects they are passionate about (e.g. if they find the curriculum in their high school lacking), or students who cannot afford a conventional education using those videos (along with some other resources and lots of hard work) to get up to speed on a subject matter.
I fail to see how a university uploading videos that people want to watch is any different from anyone else uploading videos that people want to watch.
Parent was a joke... but I think it's true.
If you truly disagree with the ridiculous statements of the RIAA and its constituent labels (including Sony), then stop buying their music. Even buying it second-hand is encouraging those artists, and hence those labels.
There's no excuse (in my opinion) for buying music from the "big labels" in this day and age. Don't do it. Instead, get your music from Jamendo, Magnatune, directly from the artist, or other "reasonable" sources--where the majority of the profits go to the artists, and where none of the profits go to maintaining a cartel.
I'm serious, here. We need to all stop supporting the big labels... which may mean not buying music from groups that you otherwise enjoy. But, from my own experience, there is plenty of top-quality music available when you meander off the beaten track. Give it a try.
1. There is not a single "Slashdot mind." Despite the groupthink that moderation may encourage, varied and even dissenting views frequently arise. Thus the preponderance of highly-moderated "current copyright law is bad" posts and the preponderance of "pro-GPL" posts are not necessarily posted by the same people. Also note that moderators should (and probably frequently do) mod-up things they don't agree with. So even if the average opinion were that the GPL was bad, it's possible to see highly-modded "pro-GPL" posts.
2. It is not inconsistent to say "status quo copyright is bad" and "the GPL is good." It may be that the person's consistent viewpoint is that a scaled-back version of copyright would be best. Such a scaled-back version of copyright could be consistent with both the GPL and broad fair-use (e.g. non-commercial private copying of music).
3. Many posters may agree with the spirit of the GPL, and even the spirit of copyright law, but believe it is immoral to use great force in enforcement. Put otherwise, they do not see anything wrong with copyright per se, but they decry the abusive measures utilized by entrenched monopolies such as the RIAA and MPAA represent. Thus it is the tactics they are unhappy with. This stance is not hypocritical because, at present, the tactics used in GPL enforcement are rather more reasonable as compared to the tactics used in the widescale "fight against piracy."
4. Many slashdotters actually don't agree with the GPL. You'll notice many highly-moderated posts that describe why the BSD license is better (even "more free") since it imposes effectively no burdens on other's use of the code. Such a stance is entirely consistent with a similar stance with respect to music: that everyone should be able to freely use/modify/redistribute intellectual works.
5. People can have nuanced views or see a continuum of options. For instance, a person may believe that status-quo copyright is terrible, that a no-copyright world would be better (but not ideal), and that a medium-copyright world (with protection arising only in cases where source material is released: i.e. copyright applies to BSD, GPL, Creative Commons, but not to closed-source works) is best. If a person holds such a view, it is not inconsistent to say "the GPL is good and should be honored" but to also say "status-quo all-rights-reserved copyright is bad and should be ignored."
And so on... I'm not necessarily defending any of these particular viewpoints, by the way. I'm merely pointing out that it doesn't require much imagination to come up with a consistent viewpoint that matches the highly-modded rhetoric seen on Slashdot.
Basically it is a fallacy to believe that Slashdot is a single mind that you can argue with. If you are attempting to point out some hypocrisy, then find a particular user who you think is espousing contradictory viewpoints in different posts. Beyond that, any cry of hypocrisy is actually a failure on your part to understand the inherent variability among the Slashdot readership, and the subtlety in the opinions being expressed.
But, of course, the real reason for using Flash-based players is that it acts as a weak form of DRM. The intention is to force the user to watch the video only at the site (with ads, etc.), and to not allow the user to take the video, transfer it elsewhere (e.g. iPod), edit out commercials, redistribute it, etc.
Of course, we all know that it is possible to write a script that extracts the video... but it becomes a tiresome arms race. This is just another example of the fundamental tradeoff between the notion of "convenience" (for the user) and "control" (for the distributor). The user wants freedom. The distributor wants DRM.
However Skype has certain stability problems. In my own usage, I've noticed that it can sometimes be a bit flaky. Moreover, the entire Skype network went offline for many days. As a result, businesses stopped thinking of Skype as a serious, reliable option.
My point is that things could have turned out differently if the Skype technology had become mature and stable enough to be a viable option for reliable international calling. They could certainly have gathered a large, paying customer base if the system was bullet-proof. But, as is, many people are (rightly) dubious of the reliability. I think Skype's business model has merit, and the program is very useful. But, eBay certainly overpaid in as much as they paid as if they were buying a mature technology/solution, when in reality there are still many growing pains left in that technology sector.