From amr w astro.uni.torun.pl  Thu Dec  1 12:16:27 2005
From: amr w astro.uni.torun.pl (Andrzej Marecki)
Date: Thu, 1 Dec 2005 12:16:27 +0100
Subject: [Cosmo-torun] Nature's News Feature: Science in the Web age
Message-ID: <20051201111627.GB1929@galileo.astro.uni.torun.pl>

----- Forwarded message from NatureAlert <NatureAlert w info.nature.com> -----

[...]

----------------------
NEWS FEATURES
----------------------
Science in the web age: The expanding electronic universe
Sarah Tomlin
http://info.nature.com/cgi-bin24/DM/y/eV4x0BfWLH0Ch0qVj0ES

Science in the web age: Joint efforts
At its best, academia is a marketplace of ideas. But many 
scientists are reluctant to embrace the latest web tools that 
would allow them to communicate their ideas in new ways, says 
Declan Butler.
http://info.nature.com/cgi-bin24/DM/y/eV4x0BfWLH0Ch0qVV0E7

Science in the web age: The real death of print
Despite clashes with publishers over copyright, Google's plan 
to make millions of books available online is turning the tide 
for efforts to digitize the world's literature. Andreas von 
Bubnoff tracks the demise of the printed page.
http://info.nature.com/cgi-bin24/DM/y/eV4x0BfWLH0Ch0qVk0ET

Science in the web age: Start your engines
Google has launched another challenge to commercial search 
services - this time aimed at scientists. But is the new 
engine running as smoothly as its fans hope? Jim Giles investigates.
http://info.nature.com/cgi-bin24/DM/y/eV4x0BfWLH0Ch0qVW0E8

[...]

----- End forwarded message -----

P.S. The access to these articles is free.

a.m.



From boud w astro.uni.torun.pl  Thu Dec  1 13:54:18 2005
From: boud w astro.uni.torun.pl (Boud Roukema)
Date: Thu, 1 Dec 2005 13:54:18 +0100 (CET)
Subject: [Cosmo-torun] Nature's News Feature: Science in the Web age
In-Reply-To: <20051201111627.GB1929@galileo.astro.uni.torun.pl>
References: <20051201111627.GB1929@galileo.astro.uni.torun.pl>
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.53.0512011308070.1487@adjani.astro.uni.torun.pl>

Hi Andrzej, everyone on cosmo-torun,

Thanks for those links. :)

Nice to see that Nature has discovered wikis and blogs, but it's rather
hypocritical for them to say that wikis and blogs are a great thing while
failing to make their own archives available for no-cost ("free as in beer")
access on the web.

Moreover, wikis are usually politically free - free as in speech.
They are also "money" free - free as in beer, but that's
secondary. The important thing is that people can edit and improve
their content.

Certainly, the wikipedia is *free* under the GFDL - GNU Free Documentation
Licence. This means that you can reuse and modify and redistribute the material
(provided you accept the licence conditions, whose main goal is to make sure
that you give the same freedoms to other people).  And of course, it's also
accessible at zero cost.

There is an argument that scientific research articles should be
non-free - i.e. once published, they cannot be modified. IMHO there is
some justification for this. However, i don't see why review articles
need to be non-free.

And certainly, both types should be available at zero-cost access.

Nature continues to refuse "free as in beer" access to virtually all of
its articles.


On Thu, 1 Dec 2005, Andrzej Marecki wrote:

> ----- Forwarded message from NatureAlert <NatureAlert w info.nature.com> -----
>
> [...]
>
> ----------------------
> NEWS FEATURES
> ----------------------
> Science in the web age: The expanding electronic universe
> Sarah Tomlin
> http://info.nature.com/cgi-bin24/DM/y/eV4x0BfWLH0Ch0qVj0ES
>
> Science in the web age: Joint efforts
> At its best, academia is a marketplace of ideas. But many

Ideas are like coca-cola and soap powder? To be sold on the market?

> scientists are reluctant to embrace the latest web tools that
> would allow them to communicate their ideas in new ways, says
> Declan Butler.
> http://info.nature.com/cgi-bin24/DM/y/eV4x0BfWLH0Ch0qVV0E7

Well, this author contradicts himself anyway, and most of the sense of
the article is to violate the politically correct, pro-market ideology :)

: Such fears are dated, argues Jason Kelly, an MIT graduate student
: involved in OpenWetWare. The upcoming generation, he says, believes
: that excessive competition can harm science; they see the benefits of
: brainstorming their research ideas on blogs as far outweighing the
: risks.


Reading between the lines: the upcoming generation believes in
cooperation, not competition. Two of our two biggest socio-political
risks are global warming and the increasing risk of nuclear war,
thanks to war criminals like Ossama bin Laden and George W. Bush and their
supporters, and it's clear that the planet is too small for competition.

Cooperation is our only practical choice.


> Science in the web age: The real death of print
> Despite clashes with publishers over copyright, Google's plan
> to make millions of books available online is turning the tide
> for efforts to digitize the world's literature. Andreas von
> Bubnoff tracks the demise of the printed page.
> http://info.nature.com/cgi-bin24/DM/y/eV4x0BfWLH0Ch0qVk0ET
>
> Science in the web age: Start your engines
> Google has launched another challenge to commercial search
> services - this time aimed at scientists. But is the new
> engine running as smoothly as its fans hope? Jim Giles investigates.
> http://info.nature.com/cgi-bin24/DM/y/eV4x0BfWLH0Ch0qVW0E8
>
> [...]
>
> ----- End forwarded message -----
>
> P.S. The access to these articles is free.

Free as in "zero cost". Yes.

But they are neither wiki articles (modifiable by internetizens),
nor are they blogs (comments allowed).

"Nature" still has some way to go, or to simply be ignored....


Anyway, Nature recommends wikis, and here's Nature on the wikipedia ;)


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nature_%28journal%29


pozdr
boud



From amr w astro.uni.torun.pl  Thu Dec 15 11:35:18 2005
From: amr w astro.uni.torun.pl (Andrzej Marecki)
Date: Thu, 15 Dec 2005 11:35:18 +0100
Subject: [Cosmo-torun] Nature recommends Wikipedia
In-Reply-To: <Pine.LNX.4.53.0512011308070.1487@adjani.astro.uni.torun.pl>
References: <20051201111627.GB1929@galileo.astro.uni.torun.pl>
	<Pine.LNX.4.53.0512011308070.1487@adjani.astro.uni.torun.pl>
Message-ID: <20051215103518.GA401@galileo.astro.uni.torun.pl>

On Thu, Dec 01, 2005 at 01:54:18PM +0100, Boud Roukema wrote:
> 
> Nice to see that Nature has discovered wikis and blogs, but it's rather
> hypocritical for them to say that wikis and blogs are a great thing while
> failing to make their own archives available for no-cost ("free as in beer")
> access on the web.

Let's hope it changes some time in the future. So far they published this
in the latest issue:

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v438/n7070/full/438890a.html

... and the last para of the above reads:

"Nature would like to encourage its readers to help. The idea is not to
seek a replacement for established sources such as the Encyclopaedia
Britannica, but to push forward the grand experiment that is Wikipedia,
and to see how much it can improve. Select a topic close to your work
and look it up on Wikipedia. If the entry contains errors or important
omissions, dive in and help fix them. It need not take too long. And
imagine the pay-off: you could be one of the people who helped turn an
apparently stupid idea into a free, high-quality global resource."

---

Also you can note that (at least) CfA UMK has a free access to new articles.

---
a.m.



From boud w astro.uni.torun.pl  Thu Dec 15 12:08:15 2005
From: boud w astro.uni.torun.pl (Boud Roukema)
Date: Thu, 15 Dec 2005 12:08:15 +0100 (CET)
Subject: [Cosmo-torun] Nature recommends Wikipedia
In-Reply-To: <20051215103518.GA401@galileo.astro.uni.torun.pl>
References: <20051201111627.GB1929@galileo.astro.uni.torun.pl>
	<Pine.LNX.4.53.0512011308070.1487@adjani.astro.uni.torun.pl>
	<20051215103518.GA401@galileo.astro.uni.torun.pl>
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.53.0512151200060.2957@adjani.astro.uni.torun.pl>

hi Andrzej, all,

On Thu, 15 Dec 2005, Andrzej Marecki wrote:

> On Thu, Dec 01, 2005 at 01:54:18PM +0100, Boud Roukema wrote:
> >
> > Nice to see that Nature has discovered wikis and blogs, but it's rather
> > hypocritical for them to say that wikis and blogs are a great thing while
> > failing to make their own archives available for no-cost ("free as in beer")
> > access on the web.
>
> Let's hope it changes some time in the future. So far they published this
> in the latest issue:
>
> http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v438/n7070/full/438890a.html
>
> ... and the last para of the above reads:
>
> "Nature would like to encourage its readers to help. The idea is not to
> seek a replacement for established sources such as the Encyclopaedia
> Britannica, but to push forward the grand experiment that is Wikipedia,
> and to see how much it can improve. Select a topic close to your work
> and look it up on Wikipedia. If the entry contains errors or important
> omissions, dive in and help fix them. It need not take too long. And
> imagine the pay-off: you could be one of the people who helped turn an
> apparently stupid idea into a free, high-quality global resource."

Wow! Cool!

i highly recommend this whole Nature article (well most of it,
unfortunately, it does not seem to be a wikified article, so i can't
correct the obvious errors...) to those people who think my style of
teaching - with a strong wikipedia component - is too "politically
incorrect"...

> Also you can note that (at least) CfA UMK has a free access to new articles.

Well, it doesn't change the fact that Nature is being hypocritical.

Anyway, thanks for the info. :)

It's nice to know when authoritarian organisations are forced to
accept the advantages of openness and cooperation instead of hierarchy
and competition...

pozdr
boud



From amr w astro.uni.torun.pl  Thu Dec 15 12:25:32 2005
From: amr w astro.uni.torun.pl (Andrzej Marecki)
Date: Thu, 15 Dec 2005 12:25:32 +0100
Subject: [Cosmo-torun] Nature recommends Wikipedia
In-Reply-To: <Pine.LNX.4.53.0512151200060.2957@adjani.astro.uni.torun.pl>
References: <20051201111627.GB1929@galileo.astro.uni.torun.pl>
	<Pine.LNX.4.53.0512011308070.1487@adjani.astro.uni.torun.pl>
	<20051215103518.GA401@galileo.astro.uni.torun.pl>
	<Pine.LNX.4.53.0512151200060.2957@adjani.astro.uni.torun.pl>
Message-ID: <20051215112532.GB28561@galileo.astro.uni.torun.pl>

> Wow! Cool!
> 
> i highly recommend this whole Nature article (well most of it,
> unfortunately, it does not seem to be a wikified article, so i can't
> correct the obvious errors...)

Write to Nature!

[...]

> Well, it doesn't change the fact that Nature is being hypocritical.

Again, write to Nature! I'm *not* ironical here. Maybe they are just in the
middle of the process of changing their philosophy. If that's the case, you 
could help them speeding up this process.

--
a.



From boud w astro.uni.torun.pl  Thu Dec 22 17:45:12 2005
From: boud w astro.uni.torun.pl (Boud Roukema)
Date: Thu, 22 Dec 2005 17:45:12 +0100 (CET)
Subject: [Cosmo-torun] H_0 stuff - christmas/new year meeting...
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.53.0512221742080.16734@adjani.astro.uni.torun.pl>

hi everyone,

Bartek L should be around for the next few days or so, also Krzyszek K  -
we'll try to meet up to talk about H_0/jet stuff.

If anyone else is interested in meeting, try to find us by email, sms,
gabber/gadu-gadu or whatever. So far we don't know when/where we'll
meet up...

Weso³y ¶wi±t itd itd :)

pozdr
boud