One of the things I love about english is it has so much error correction built in that, even if one is going to be snarky about such mistakes, readers still know exactly what the person intended.
As a general rule, people resort to violence or threats of violence when their options for working within simple arguments do not work. There are very few nice ways to deal with a much more powerful foe who has no interest in compromise or capitulation.
Eh, it is a mixed bag. Something that we have gotten worse about today is general research. After the 80s there was an increased focus on short term returns and multiple companies built business models around looking at good ideas other companies took risks on but failed then repackaging them with better marketing, which created a climate where companies became highly research adverse. Everyone hopes some other company (or university) will take those risks and the profits go to whoever does the same thing next.
During Engelbart's time, there were more companies still running research departments. Not that we do not have such places today, but they have become increasingly rare.
yeah, the selection of amount really seems kinda bias. Looking at the author's chart the person is really focusing on only the biggest of the big vendors.
Though to be honest, I actually could see such a system benefiting everyone if it was forced on the big companies. Their software tends to be so wide spread that bugs in their stuff doesn't just impact their direct customers but has a watershed effect on the whole industry. So I could kinda see if a 'if you are so big your screw ups cause everyone problems, then you need to do XYZ or we lynch you' type thing.
Well, if we were going to be in favor of this, I could see a company's underwriters requiring such a system or perhaps offering it as an insurance package.
I suspect someone was mixing up their termonology, or they just wanted it to sound cool so they borrowed "dark" from all those hip new darknets all the kids are talking about.
The necessity for skipping sedation or pain killers is primarily for the psychological health of researchers and people who talk about research. If you believe that non-human animals do not feel pain then that provides a bit of a blank check to inflict it. However if you acknowledge pain by reducing it, that means that one IS inflicting serious injury and eventual death on an unwilling test subject. So the belief that such creatures simply do not feel or comprehend the way we do is really important to these people.... otherwise they would have to face the implications of what they support or simply accept that they have sociopathic tendencies.
Since 'personhood' has changed multiple times, I do not think one can say that it is an absolute, otherwise it would have been settled a long time ago. Even today look at all the debate around abortion and contraception. No, there is quite a bit of subjectivity and arbitrariness going on here.
That being said, yes, it is a human construct, meaning we can change it to mean whatever we want. We get to choose what rights and protections we extend to those who lack the ability to fight for themselves. As a civilization we weight the economic advantages of minimizing those protections vs the ethics of what it costs others.
Not really. This will not end it any more then early court cases that came to the inevitable conclusion that women, blacks, children, and non-christians were not people either.
Many fights over civil rights started as ridiculous lawsuits that did not have a snowball's chance in hell of making it through court. However they tend to get the ball rolling and start a paper trail for examining who gets what rights in society. This is the same basic process we went through to convert 'non-people' into 'people' over the last few centuries.
Well, slashdot, home of more then a single person and thus opinions on any particular topic vary by poster and thus a single thread or issue can have multiple mutually exclusive views since they were posted by different people.
Since the people who sell these advertising packages can not actually demonstrate an impact of their product, any consumer backlash is generally written off as "the market shifted, but your sales would have been even lower if not for our targeted ads!". It is a very self protecting system where consumers and the market have surprisingly little impact on it. Advertisers sell belief and authority.
Right now much of this is based on the rather unsubstantiated idea that such targeted advertising and tracking actually results in an increase of sales. There is a lot of faith and bluster involved, it could easily turn into a house of cards if it turns out all these fancy tricks do not actually do anything for the clients.
Most of the funding I have worked with came from NSF or DARPA. One nasty bit we have discovered over the years is that a multi-year grant is not as multi-year as one would hope, and often disappears after the first spiral or even worse the paperwork is slow so there is a gap between the blocks of funding, but without an active grant in the bank the university doesn't fund the lab.
But they work so much harder when they can't run away! I mean I got them an exercise wheel and always put down fresh wood-chips... ungrateful bastards.
Though that touches on one of the other major problems, the one I would argue is bigger then the publishing one. Setting up labs with expertise is a nightmare since you are not allowed to have a 'war chest'. If you have a 6 month grant, a month gap, then a 6 month grant, you loose all your people between the two grants. Unless you are one of the tenured people who is immune to the gaps, working in university research is riskier then corporate, which causes a significant brain drain and leads to inferior research since keeping experienced people over time is difficult.
That has its own problems. As much as bloggers try to claim otherwise, publishing online has generally been a rather poor substitute for peer review and generally allows for a lot of really bad science to get wide attention. While journals are not perfect, they do (usually) maintain some minimum bars and filters for the material that goes into them.
Plus, if I recall correctly, the original act didn't actually do anything anyway since the 'growing prevalence' of metal detector proof guns didn't really exist.
Politicians all around love laws that address imaginary problems, they can argue about them in order to pander to their respective bases without having to worry about actual consequences of whatever they pass or do not pass.
I suspect most academics and researchers at this point are fed up with the way journals work, I have yet to hear one of them actually praise the current system of publication. I am not sure how it could be restructured, but what is happening today is retarding research and frustrating a lot of good people who would rather just be doing what they are supposed to be doing, teaching and research.
Slashdot Mirror
One of the things I love about english is it has so much error correction built in that, even if one is going to be snarky about such mistakes, readers still know exactly what the person intended.
As a general rule, people resort to violence or threats of violence when their options for working within simple arguments do not work. There are very few nice ways to deal with a much more powerful foe who has no interest in compromise or capitulation.
Eh, it is a mixed bag. Something that we have gotten worse about today is general research. After the 80s there was an increased focus on short term returns and multiple companies built business models around looking at good ideas other companies took risks on but failed then repackaging them with better marketing, which created a climate where companies became highly research adverse. Everyone hopes some other company (or university) will take those risks and the profits go to whoever does the same thing next.
During Engelbart's time, there were more companies still running research departments. Not that we do not have such places today, but they have become increasingly rare.
yeah, the selection of amount really seems kinda bias. Looking at the author's chart the person is really focusing on only the biggest of the big vendors.
Though to be honest, I actually could see such a system benefiting everyone if it was forced on the big companies. Their software tends to be so wide spread that bugs in their stuff doesn't just impact their direct customers but has a watershed effect on the whole industry. So I could kinda see if a 'if you are so big your screw ups cause everyone problems, then you need to do XYZ or we lynch you' type thing.
Well, if we were going to be in favor of this, I could see a company's underwriters requiring such a system or perhaps offering it as an insurance package.
I suspect someone was mixing up their termonology, or they just wanted it to sound cool so they borrowed "dark" from all those hip new darknets all the kids are talking about.
Depends on the regulation. They can help, and they can hurt. They can increase inventiveness or decrease it.
The necessity for skipping sedation or pain killers is primarily for the psychological health of researchers and people who talk about research. If you believe that non-human animals do not feel pain then that provides a bit of a blank check to inflict it. However if you acknowledge pain by reducing it, that means that one IS inflicting serious injury and eventual death on an unwilling test subject. So the belief that such creatures simply do not feel or comprehend the way we do is really important to these people.... otherwise they would have to face the implications of what they support or simply accept that they have sociopathic tendencies.
Since 'personhood' has changed multiple times, I do not think one can say that it is an absolute, otherwise it would have been settled a long time ago. Even today look at all the debate around abortion and contraception. No, there is quite a bit of subjectivity and arbitrariness going on here.
That being said, yes, it is a human construct, meaning we can change it to mean whatever we want. We get to choose what rights and protections we extend to those who lack the ability to fight for themselves. As a civilization we weight the economic advantages of minimizing those protections vs the ethics of what it costs others.
Many humans are not legally responsible for their actions yet still are considered granted personhood (and the protections that come with it).
Not really. This will not end it any more then early court cases that came to the inevitable conclusion that women, blacks, children, and non-christians were not people either.
Many fights over civil rights started as ridiculous lawsuits that did not have a snowball's chance in hell of making it through court. However they tend to get the ball rolling and start a paper trail for examining who gets what rights in society. This is the same basic process we went through to convert 'non-people' into 'people' over the last few centuries.
Well, slashdot, home of more then a single person and thus opinions on any particular topic vary by poster and thus a single thread or issue can have multiple mutually exclusive views since they were posted by different people.
Yeah... the reason behind that is back in those days such things were considered a crime against the fathers/brothers, not the young lady.
Since the people who sell these advertising packages can not actually demonstrate an impact of their product, any consumer backlash is generally written off as "the market shifted, but your sales would have been even lower if not for our targeted ads!". It is a very self protecting system where consumers and the market have surprisingly little impact on it. Advertisers sell belief and authority.
Right now much of this is based on the rather unsubstantiated idea that such targeted advertising and tracking actually results in an increase of sales. There is a lot of faith and bluster involved, it could easily turn into a house of cards if it turns out all these fancy tricks do not actually do anything for the clients.
But.. but.. if it isn't good for everything including our l33t development/gamer/photoshop requirements it can't be good for anything!
Most of the funding I have worked with came from NSF or DARPA. One nasty bit we have discovered over the years is that a multi-year grant is not as multi-year as one would hope, and often disappears after the first spiral or even worse the paperwork is slow so there is a gap between the blocks of funding, but without an active grant in the bank the university doesn't fund the lab.
But they work so much harder when they can't run away! I mean I got them an exercise wheel and always put down fresh wood-chips... ungrateful bastards.
Though that touches on one of the other major problems, the one I would argue is bigger then the publishing one. Setting up labs with expertise is a nightmare since you are not allowed to have a 'war chest'. If you have a 6 month grant, a month gap, then a 6 month grant, you loose all your people between the two grants. Unless you are one of the tenured people who is immune to the gaps, working in university research is riskier then corporate, which causes a significant brain drain and leads to inferior research since keeping experienced people over time is difficult.
That has its own problems. As much as bloggers try to claim otherwise, publishing online has generally been a rather poor substitute for peer review and generally allows for a lot of really bad science to get wide attention. While journals are not perfect, they do (usually) maintain some minimum bars and filters for the material that goes into them.
Plus, if I recall correctly, the original act didn't actually do anything anyway since the 'growing prevalence' of metal detector proof guns didn't really exist.
Politicians all around love laws that address imaginary problems, they can argue about them in order to pander to their respective bases without having to worry about actual consequences of whatever they pass or do not pass.
I suspect most academics and researchers at this point are fed up with the way journals work, I have yet to hear one of them actually praise the current system of publication. I am not sure how it could be restructured, but what is happening today is retarding research and frustrating a lot of good people who would rather just be doing what they are supposed to be doing, teaching and research.
More specifically, groups with a good mix of conservatives and progressives which can change the ratio quickly survive.
Wait, you mean the RIAA does not skin people alive? What the hell have I been reading then....