From the US warning:
"If a customs official demands to examine your device... you should assume the device's hard drive has been copied."
Hmm, we all knew what was up with these US border laptop confiscations, but I didn't expect the government to come right out and say it!
First, let me say that I'm not trying to say that e-voting machines are secure. They have a number of unique vulnerabilities which could be corrected with proper planning and procedures.
However, suggesting the reliability of exit polls as an indicator of tampering is not a solution. There are social considerations involved in conducting the poll. The buzzword floating around this season is the Bradley effect and described the observed tendency of exit polls to systematically overreport the performance of minority candidates. A cause is presumed to be the voter's fear of being branded racist by the poll-taker. Additionally, a number other factors in poll methodology can bias results, such as the time of day at which exit poll-taking ceases (with respect to poll closing time) (see Exit polls).
Granted, if major tampering at a location has occurred, then exit poll will likely not match the polling location results. However, you can't use the converse of this statement to assert a rigged election (see any discussion of a logical contrapositive vs logical converse). The exit poll can only serve as an indicator that further investigation of tampering might be prudent. But, without an intelligently designed paper trail and paper trail chain of custody, those investigations won't find anything...
I think there is another reason to be glad that is more important than being in the media, IMHO. An NSF grant-backed publication from a large research institution will carry some weight in court.
IP address spoofing has been invoked by the defense in previous lawsuits to attack the prosecution's investigation methods, however, this assertion has always had to be provided by an expert witness. A scholarly publication backed by the U of W and the NSF will bolster this point. It might even stick with a jury (who knows). Anyway, this will come in handy in the courtroom, I think.
Since neither of my posts seems to convey that I don't expect the entirety of/. to be in college, let me spell out my views even more clearly with a personal example.
To access an article for the next few decades, I won't even have to leave the family. I'll have a regular enough supply of college-age first cousins (assuming half of them go to college) to supply me with any journal access I might need for 2/3rds of the next couple decades. By that time, I expect to have produced a couple college age kids of my own. After that, I hope for a couple nieces/nephews as well. That should span a good four decades or so.
Its not really a stretch of the imagination to ask a relative for a resource. My dad has done as much when I was in college, and I've helped the younger members of the family with science projects and other miscellanea before. Besides, it provides as good a reason as any to catch up with relatives.
I haven't even considered my friends and co-workers so far, not to mention a post to the sympathetic slashdot community asking for a copy/mirror/etc. of the article. If you have no family, friends or coworkers, and you feel socially awkward asking the friendly/. community for a pirate copy, I'm guessing you'll have larger problems on your mind than obtaining a nature news blurb anyway.
Speaking of piracy, mooching provides a valuable form of civil disobedience for expressing dissent against the current scholarly publication system, which I believe should be open access. Pirate this article and support free knowledge.
My point must not have been made clearly enough in my post. I am six years out of college myself, and I'm fortunate enough that my institution provides access to journal subscriptions. However, if I had no other way to obtain access to the literature, I could easily ask any number of college students or recent graduates that I work with who still have subscription privileges. I find it hard to believe that a significant portion of the/. readership is not on friendly terms with a recent college graduate through work or otherwise.
I think it is completely reasonable for slashdot to assume a base level of resources available to its user base. In this case, the presumed user base is everyone who knows ANYBODY attending ANY college. Pretty much every university provides off-site journal access to their students (whether the students know about the service or not). I think that covers most everyone here.
Additionally, when a college subscribes to journals, it usually subscribes to hundreds or thousands. It seems a bit naive to say:
Supposedly anyone already paying is likely to read it anyway...
Any strategy to combat rising yearly CO2 emissions must be a multi-pronged approach. Let's say, hypothetically, that we were to successfully implement policy to reach Kyoto target emissions. Furthermore, let's go nuts and suppose that all industrialized nations do the same and play all green and eco-friendly. Do you know where that would leave yearly emissions in, say, 2050??
The answer is that yearly emissions would be through the roof! A little acknowledged fact is that the industrialization of underdeveloped nations (China, India, Africa and parts of South America, listed in order of importance) will exponentially increase emissions within the next 50 years, regardless of optimistically estimated reductions in emissions by the industrialized world. On humanitarian grounds, we can't oppose this drastic quality of life increase that comes with reliable power, and the only reasonably priced implementation for developing countries in the next 50 years is fossil fuels.
So, should we pump research money into making all sorts of carbon neutral technologies cheaper to the point of affordability and implement policy to reduce emissions? Of course! But, should we also put a little money into the hedge fund known as carbon sequestration, in case these technologies don't pay off quickly enough, and to combat the immutable increase in emissions spurred on by the industrialization of underdeveloped nations? Of course. Any solution to this hole we've dug MUST be multi-faceted.
As a side note, the amount of money being dumped into carbon sequestration is comparable to other technologies. The US DOE has programs with similar levels of funding for both photovoltaic and biodiesel research. Sequestration is only one of many technologies being pursued, and like a responsible investor, the government is diversifying its investments.
I had doubts similar to those you expressed before I read the article, but there are some reasonable points in favor of the authors' conclusion. The sample preparation includes exposure to a hot (6000-8000 K) plasma, which should break down large molecules while preserving nuclei.
Additionally, the authors make a binding energy argument. As a consequence of relativity, two molecules with the same number of protons, neutrons and electrons (2-butyne and 1,3-butadiene, for example) will not possess exactly the same mass because one stores more energy than the other. The extra "weight" from the energy stored in a single nucleus as compared to the lesser energy stored in a multi-nucleus molecule makes the single nucleus more massive on the order of.03 amu. The equipment used, which WAS specified in the article, should be precise enough to distinguish these mass differences (Vendor Website).
To a non-expert, the experiment looks sound, but I'll believe it once it gets off the arXiv and into a peer-reviewed journal.
Folks, class 3 and 4 lasers can cause permanent eye injury. I work with lasers on a regular basis, and I observe strict safety precautions around anything marked class 3 or 4. Specifically, you don't freehand any optic (freehand --> jargon for manipulating an optic that isn't firmly mounted/bolted down) in a class 3/4 beam. Sale of these laser pointers, obviously marketed for presentation purposes (i.e. freehanding), is irresponsible and hazardous. You should see the wave of ducking and face-covering by an audience of spectroscopists as an absent-minded lecturer, using a green laser pointer, accidentally gestures across the audience with his finger still on the button.
I'm glad some government is finally regulating a dangerous product. If spectroscopists can't even use these laser pointers correctly, there's no hope for the technophobes in the business world. Granted, I'd prefer they go after the companies that make unsafe products than the unwitting masses that consume them, but I can't argue with the result.
I will be able to use my laptop for the duration of cross-continental and trans-continental flights. All I have to do is stalk up and down the aisle like a madman every couple hours! Come to think of it, the drink carts will have a hard time getting down the aisle with all the laptop user traffic, though.
The ISS is manned by idiots. This astronaut thinks he smells the same smell he recognizes from welding (which is ozone). He realizes is it comes after every space walk. On (nearly) every space walk, repairs and WELDING are performed. Therefore, the smell must come from a vacuum?!?! WTF!
With ordinary paper ballots, it doesn't matter who transports them because there's nothing a moving company can do to undermine the election.
Wait, what? THE common attack vector for BOTH electronic and paper ballots is the chain of custody of the votes. There are, in fact, a number of additional attack vectors introduced by the sloppily designed e-voting machines currently used in elections, but this is not one of them. However, until misconceptions like this, bred from a vague mistrust of technology, are stamped out, I doubt much will be done to correct the real security vulnerabilities present in todays e-voting machines. Undoubtedly, misinformation does undermine public confidence.
Nothing to see here. When the author either doesn't understand or deliberately obscures the fact that there's a difference between free (as in costs no $$) and DRM free, its time to stop reading. There isn't an educated thought throughout, and the author hasn't done a bit of research. It is disheartening that the chief editor of a successful magazine can get away with spewing such drivel. As an editor, he must not only keep his own pieces at such low quality, but also edit his journalists works to ensure similar (low) standards are met in their works. Sigh!
It must be naive of me to thing that the Parents TELEVISON Council would restrain itself to issues concerning TELEVISION and leave other media alone. I suppose its pointless to try to dissuade the PTC from pestering video game lobbies by patiently explaining to them that television has nothing to do with video games. Its entirely possible to play a video game on a device that's not capable of receiving a television feed and can't be used to play movies (i.e. my black-and-white Game Boy still works fine). Yes, some video game media can be viewed on television screens, but they're really targeting the wrong industry here. Maybe with greater education and advocacy, we can persuade these Luddites that their anger only stems from a fundamental misunderstanding of the issue being discussed (the same could be said for stem cell research from human embryos).
Thats only a couple months closer than when it was 9 months away 9 months ago. So, if 3 months of estimated release time decrease equates to 9 months of real time, I estimate spore could be out in 18 months. That means we can all finally play this game in Mar-April 09. Hooray!
The negative contribution of blog action day
on
Blog Action Day
·
· Score: 1
C'mon... the environment?! Are bloggers trying to fail??? At least choose a topic where we can (mostly) all agree in the blogosphere like labor conditions in foreign countries, child porn or racism. If you tell everyone to blog their hearts out on the environment, you'll be lucky to get enough serious contributors to neutralize the rather vocal minority that thinks everything is just fine with the environment. More likely, these jackasses will swamp the blogosphere and do more harm than good. You might as well be asking people to blog about their favorite flavor of Linux instead of the environment... at least the winning bigots won't do significant damage as a result.
Are you kidding? Haven't you every read an X-men comic with Nightcrawler? Or in an updated context, context, haven't you ever read Harry Potter? When a vacuum is suddenly created (from a body disappearing, for instance), the sound of the air rushing in to fill the space creates a sharp crack... just like the one you're going to here after I hit 'submit' and turn this loose on the blogosphere... crack, crack!
Aww, why did they have to go for the porn spammers first! If any spam is less bothersome than other types, its the type that puts a smile on my face and a spring in my... errr, step. If you're going to jail anyone in the wide world of spam, how about going for all those Nigerian princes and the penis pill peddlers first. There's no joy in those emails.
First, I'll state that I think PRISM is a farce and the government (and the people they represent) have every right to demand access to the works they fund.
However, I'd like to introduce a little balance to this discussion. While the tenets behind the movement to open access are simple and obvious, and a general framework for an open access system can be sketched out by any non-expert (evidenced in this forum), the consequences of screwing up in the transition demand caution and a great deal of forethought.
The current system, although fostering spiraling prices, is relatively good at ensuring quality, reproducible and generally true work (to the best of the authors' knowledge) gets published. The incidents of researchers fabricating or distorting data is rare enough that it usually makes large headlines in the news.
Peer-review is directly responsible for the level of credibility in academic publications. However, the peer-review process itself doesn't weed out fabrications or distortions in data, because researchers doing very specialized experiments could, hypothetically, forge data convincingly enough to fool peers in the field (for a few years at least). The aura of a thorough and organized system (and the fear and stigma of getting caught), however, force the potentially less-than-ethical researchers (a non-trivial fraction of academians seeking recognition and advancement) to police themselves and maintain ethical standards.
If even the impression of a less rigorous, less organized system infiltrates the scientific community, it could embolden the more ambitious (for advancement) researchers to lower their ethical standards (some even subconsciously), producing a feedback loop as their less-than-rigorous research enters the field. This would be a HUGE blow to forward progress in research and could take decades to rectify.
Granted, this is a low-probability outcome! However, the gov.t isn't known for meticulous foresight and smooth transitions to new business models (neither is the market system for that matter). So, even though I disagree with PRISM, I'm glad assholes like them are out there to slow the progress of the movement. Consider them as a skeptical peer-reviewer. If the open access model is sound (and I think it is), it will come through in the end, and the critiques incorporated from the likes of PRISM will only make it stronger and more rigorous. They're a balancing force, although a malevolent one.
I have an issue with one part however, it reads "...and the once lucrative album market has been overshadowed by downloaded singles, which mainly benefits Apple" and here I thought Apple made most of their money with their hardware sales and a pittance on each track, giving the majority to the producer. You're stating this as if there's a contradiction here. Let me break down your words:
I thought Apple made most of their money with their hardware sales and a pittance on each track, giving the majority to the producer. True.
the once lucrative album market has been overshadowed by downloaded singles True.
which mainly benefits Apple True. Apple makes its money on hardware, so it doesn't matter whether music is being bought in single or album form (or pirated for that matter), as long as people buy Apple Ipods to listen to content. This harms the record industry (which I'm somewhat ok with), possibly the artists (highly debateable topic, I won't take a stance here... just throwing it out there), but it doesn't harm Apple, who only makes "a pittance on each track." You said all true statements, but they were structured in an inflammatory manner, like the last line of every post on/.
While the researcher must be doing something in order to make these claims, I can't find the PNAS article mentioned in TFA. I eagerly went to the PNAS site looking for the article upon which the news release is based (science is so garbled in press releases that I don't trust them to get the premise right, and I'm currently doing ionic liquid research), and I discoverd the article didn't exist! In fact, PNAS doesn't have an Aug. 13, 2007 issue. Googling the title of the article turns up two hits: one for the news story/. links us to, and the other to the alleged principle author's homepage, where he references it as 'to be published' on Aug. 13th. If its not published yet, it sounds great and plausible, but does it really exist? Can anyone find this article?
Awww, isn't it funny when the little ones speak up. You must not have been playing games in the 80's. I won't argue that Garriott's time of fame and influence is over, but if you say he had 15 minutes of fame is selling him short. He was a superstar game designer for a good decade or so. He didn't just do Ultima Online, young one, he did the whole Ultima series! He's a pioneer in the computer RPG genre, way before the MMO got attached to the front of the acronym, and you're insinuating he's a one-hit wonder.
Slashdot Mirror
From the US warning: "If a customs official demands to examine your device... you should assume the device's hard drive has been copied." Hmm, we all knew what was up with these US border laptop confiscations, but I didn't expect the government to come right out and say it!
First, let me say that I'm not trying to say that e-voting machines are secure. They have a number of unique vulnerabilities which could be corrected with proper planning and procedures.
However, suggesting the reliability of exit polls as an indicator of tampering is not a solution. There are social considerations involved in conducting the poll. The buzzword floating around this season is the Bradley effect and described the observed tendency of exit polls to systematically overreport the performance of minority candidates. A cause is presumed to be the voter's fear of being branded racist by the poll-taker. Additionally, a number other factors in poll methodology can bias results, such as the time of day at which exit poll-taking ceases (with respect to poll closing time) (see Exit polls).
Granted, if major tampering at a location has occurred, then exit poll will likely not match the polling location results. However, you can't use the converse of this statement to assert a rigged election (see any discussion of a logical contrapositive vs logical converse). The exit poll can only serve as an indicator that further investigation of tampering might be prudent. But, without an intelligently designed paper trail and paper trail chain of custody, those investigations won't find anything...
.I think there is another reason to be glad that is more important than being in the media, IMHO. An NSF grant-backed publication from a large research institution will carry some weight in court.
IP address spoofing has been invoked by the defense in previous lawsuits to attack the prosecution's investigation methods, however, this assertion has always had to be provided by an expert witness. A scholarly publication backed by the U of W and the NSF will bolster this point. It might even stick with a jury (who knows). Anyway, this will come in handy in the courtroom, I think.
After recovering from a malicious DOS attack over the weekend by Media Defender, R3 is again under the DOS siege from the infamous slashdot effect.
Since neither of my posts seems to convey that I don't expect the entirety of /. to be in college, let me spell out my views even more clearly with a personal example.
To access an article for the next few decades, I won't even have to leave the family. I'll have a regular enough supply of college-age first cousins (assuming half of them go to college) to supply me with any journal access I might need for 2/3rds of the next couple decades. By that time, I expect to have produced a couple college age kids of my own. After that, I hope for a couple nieces/nephews as well. That should span a good four decades or so.
Its not really a stretch of the imagination to ask a relative for a resource. My dad has done as much when I was in college, and I've helped the younger members of the family with science projects and other miscellanea before. Besides, it provides as good a reason as any to catch up with relatives.
I haven't even considered my friends and co-workers so far, not to mention a post to the sympathetic slashdot community asking for a copy/mirror/etc. of the article. If you have no family, friends or coworkers, and you feel socially awkward asking the friendly /. community for a pirate copy, I'm guessing you'll have larger problems on your mind than obtaining a nature news blurb anyway.
Speaking of piracy, mooching provides a valuable form of civil disobedience for expressing dissent against the current scholarly publication system, which I believe should be open access. Pirate this article and support free knowledge.
My point must not have been made clearly enough in my post. I am six years out of college myself, and I'm fortunate enough that my institution provides access to journal subscriptions. However, if I had no other way to obtain access to the literature, I could easily ask any number of college students or recent graduates that I work with who still have subscription privileges. I find it hard to believe that a significant portion of the /. readership is not on friendly terms with a recent college graduate through work or otherwise.
Mod parent up. Incredibly funny observation!!!!
I think it is completely reasonable for slashdot to assume a base level of resources available to its user base. In this case, the presumed user base is everyone who knows ANYBODY attending ANY college. Pretty much every university provides off-site journal access to their students (whether the students know about the service or not). I think that covers most everyone here.
Additionally, when a college subscribes to journals, it usually subscribes to hundreds or thousands. It seems a bit naive to say:
I'm sorry, but anyone who can't manage to put x-y axes on their plots isn't fit to analyze the intelligence of others.
Any strategy to combat rising yearly CO2 emissions must be a multi-pronged approach. Let's say, hypothetically, that we were to successfully implement policy to reach Kyoto target emissions. Furthermore, let's go nuts and suppose that all industrialized nations do the same and play all green and eco-friendly. Do you know where that would leave yearly emissions in, say, 2050??
The answer is that yearly emissions would be through the roof! A little acknowledged fact is that the industrialization of underdeveloped nations (China, India, Africa and parts of South America, listed in order of importance) will exponentially increase emissions within the next 50 years, regardless of optimistically estimated reductions in emissions by the industrialized world. On humanitarian grounds, we can't oppose this drastic quality of life increase that comes with reliable power, and the only reasonably priced implementation for developing countries in the next 50 years is fossil fuels.
So, should we pump research money into making all sorts of carbon neutral technologies cheaper to the point of affordability and implement policy to reduce emissions? Of course! But, should we also put a little money into the hedge fund known as carbon sequestration, in case these technologies don't pay off quickly enough, and to combat the immutable increase in emissions spurred on by the industrialization of underdeveloped nations? Of course. Any solution to this hole we've dug MUST be multi-faceted.
As a side note, the amount of money being dumped into carbon sequestration is comparable to other technologies. The US DOE has programs with similar levels of funding for both photovoltaic and biodiesel research. Sequestration is only one of many technologies being pursued, and like a responsible investor, the government is diversifying its investments.
Additionally, the authors make a binding energy argument. As a consequence of relativity, two molecules with the same number of protons, neutrons and electrons (2-butyne and 1,3-butadiene, for example) will not possess exactly the same mass because one stores more energy than the other. The extra "weight" from the energy stored in a single nucleus as compared to the lesser energy stored in a multi-nucleus molecule makes the single nucleus more massive on the order of .03 amu. The equipment used, which WAS specified in the article, should be precise enough to distinguish these mass differences (Vendor Website).
To a non-expert, the experiment looks sound, but I'll believe it once it gets off the arXiv and into a peer-reviewed journal.Folks, class 3 and 4 lasers can cause permanent eye injury. I work with lasers on a regular basis, and I observe strict safety precautions around anything marked class 3 or 4. Specifically, you don't freehand any optic (freehand --> jargon for manipulating an optic that isn't firmly mounted/bolted down) in a class 3/4 beam. Sale of these laser pointers, obviously marketed for presentation purposes (i.e. freehanding), is irresponsible and hazardous. You should see the wave of ducking and face-covering by an audience of spectroscopists as an absent-minded lecturer, using a green laser pointer, accidentally gestures across the audience with his finger still on the button.
I'm glad some government is finally regulating a dangerous product. If spectroscopists can't even use these laser pointers correctly, there's no hope for the technophobes in the business world. Granted, I'd prefer they go after the companies that make unsafe products than the unwitting masses that consume them, but I can't argue with the result.
I will be able to use my laptop for the duration of cross-continental and trans-continental flights. All I have to do is stalk up and down the aisle like a madman every couple hours! Come to think of it, the drink carts will have a hard time getting down the aisle with all the laptop user traffic, though.
The ISS is manned by idiots. This astronaut thinks he smells the same smell he recognizes from welding (which is ozone). He realizes is it comes after every space walk. On (nearly) every space walk, repairs and WELDING are performed. Therefore, the smell must come from a vacuum?!?! WTF!
Nothing to see here. When the author either doesn't understand or deliberately obscures the fact that there's a difference between free (as in costs no $$) and DRM free, its time to stop reading. There isn't an educated thought throughout, and the author hasn't done a bit of research. It is disheartening that the chief editor of a successful magazine can get away with spewing such drivel. As an editor, he must not only keep his own pieces at such low quality, but also edit his journalists works to ensure similar (low) standards are met in their works. Sigh!
It must be naive of me to thing that the Parents TELEVISON Council would restrain itself to issues concerning TELEVISION and leave other media alone. I suppose its pointless to try to dissuade the PTC from pestering video game lobbies by patiently explaining to them that television has nothing to do with video games. Its entirely possible to play a video game on a device that's not capable of receiving a television feed and can't be used to play movies (i.e. my black-and-white Game Boy still works fine). Yes, some video game media can be viewed on television screens, but they're really targeting the wrong industry here. Maybe with greater education and advocacy, we can persuade these Luddites that their anger only stems from a fundamental misunderstanding of the issue being discussed (the same could be said for stem cell research from human embryos).
Thats only a couple months closer than when it was 9 months away 9 months ago. So, if 3 months of estimated release time decrease equates to 9 months of real time, I estimate spore could be out in 18 months. That means we can all finally play this game in Mar-April 09. Hooray!
C'mon... the environment?! Are bloggers trying to fail??? At least choose a topic where we can (mostly) all agree in the blogosphere like labor conditions in foreign countries, child porn or racism. If you tell everyone to blog their hearts out on the environment, you'll be lucky to get enough serious contributors to neutralize the rather vocal minority that thinks everything is just fine with the environment. More likely, these jackasses will swamp the blogosphere and do more harm than good. You might as well be asking people to blog about their favorite flavor of Linux instead of the environment... at least the winning bigots won't do significant damage as a result.
Are you kidding? Haven't you every read an X-men comic with Nightcrawler? Or in an updated context, context, haven't you ever read Harry Potter? When a vacuum is suddenly created (from a body disappearing, for instance), the sound of the air rushing in to fill the space creates a sharp crack... just like the one you're going to here after I hit 'submit' and turn this loose on the blogosphere... crack, crack!
Aww, why did they have to go for the porn spammers first! If any spam is less bothersome than other types, its the type that puts a smile on my face and a spring in my... errr, step. If you're going to jail anyone in the wide world of spam, how about going for all those Nigerian princes and the penis pill peddlers first. There's no joy in those emails.
First, I'll state that I think PRISM is a farce and the government (and the people they represent) have every right to demand access to the works they fund. However, I'd like to introduce a little balance to this discussion. While the tenets behind the movement to open access are simple and obvious, and a general framework for an open access system can be sketched out by any non-expert (evidenced in this forum), the consequences of screwing up in the transition demand caution and a great deal of forethought. The current system, although fostering spiraling prices, is relatively good at ensuring quality, reproducible and generally true work (to the best of the authors' knowledge) gets published. The incidents of researchers fabricating or distorting data is rare enough that it usually makes large headlines in the news. Peer-review is directly responsible for the level of credibility in academic publications. However, the peer-review process itself doesn't weed out fabrications or distortions in data, because researchers doing very specialized experiments could, hypothetically, forge data convincingly enough to fool peers in the field (for a few years at least). The aura of a thorough and organized system (and the fear and stigma of getting caught), however, force the potentially less-than-ethical researchers (a non-trivial fraction of academians seeking recognition and advancement) to police themselves and maintain ethical standards. If even the impression of a less rigorous, less organized system infiltrates the scientific community, it could embolden the more ambitious (for advancement) researchers to lower their ethical standards (some even subconsciously), producing a feedback loop as their less-than-rigorous research enters the field. This would be a HUGE blow to forward progress in research and could take decades to rectify. Granted, this is a low-probability outcome! However, the gov.t isn't known for meticulous foresight and smooth transitions to new business models (neither is the market system for that matter). So, even though I disagree with PRISM, I'm glad assholes like them are out there to slow the progress of the movement. Consider them as a skeptical peer-reviewer. If the open access model is sound (and I think it is), it will come through in the end, and the critiques incorporated from the likes of PRISM will only make it stronger and more rigorous. They're a balancing force, although a malevolent one.
While the researcher must be doing something in order to make these claims, I can't find the PNAS article mentioned in TFA. I eagerly went to the PNAS site looking for the article upon which the news release is based (science is so garbled in press releases that I don't trust them to get the premise right, and I'm currently doing ionic liquid research), and I discoverd the article didn't exist! In fact, PNAS doesn't have an Aug. 13, 2007 issue. Googling the title of the article turns up two hits: one for the news story /. links us to, and the other to the alleged principle author's homepage, where he references it as 'to be published' on Aug. 13th. If its not published yet, it sounds great and plausible, but does it really exist? Can anyone find this article?
Awww, isn't it funny when the little ones speak up. You must not have been playing games in the 80's. I won't argue that Garriott's time of fame and influence is over, but if you say he had 15 minutes of fame is selling him short. He was a superstar game designer for a good decade or so. He didn't just do Ultima Online, young one, he did the whole Ultima series! He's a pioneer in the computer RPG genre, way before the MMO got attached to the front of the acronym, and you're insinuating he's a one-hit wonder.