SEATTLE — Warner Music Group, a major holdout on selling music online without copy protection, caved in to the growing trend Thursday and agreed to sell its tunes on Amazon.com Inc.'s digital music store.
Until now, Warner Music had resisted offering songs by its artists in the MP3 format, which can be copied to multiple computers and burned onto CDs without restriction and played on most PCs and digital media players, including Apple Inc.'s iPod and Microsoft Corp.'s Zune.
The deal raises the total number of MP3s for sale through Amazon's music download store to more than 2.9 million.
Warner Music's entire catalog, including work by artists Led Zeppelin, Aretha Franklin and Sean Paul, will be added to the site throughout the week.
The Amazon store launched with nearly 2.3 million songs in September.
• Click here for FOXNews.com's Personal Technology Center.
Major music labels Universal Music Group and EMI Music Group PLC had already signed to sell large portions of their catalogs on Amazon, as had thousands of independent labels. Most songs cost 89 cents to 99 cents each and most albums sell for $5.99 to $9.99.
Warner Music Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Edgar Bronfman Jr. had been reluctant to follow in the steps of the rival recording companies.
In February, when Apple Inc. CEO Steve Jobs penned an essay calling on record labels to drop Digital Rights Management from tracks sold on the company's iTunes Store, Bronfman shot back during a conference call with Wall Street analysts: "We will not abandon DRM nor services that are successfully implementing DRM for both content and consumers."
The recording industry had argued that DRM itself is not what makes some songs incompatible with some digital players, but the fact that there are different versions of DRM in use.
The companies suggested Apple, whose iPod outsells all other media players, should license its DRM technology to other music services.
Apple didn't budge, and the industry's position began to unravel when EMI struck a deal with Apple to sell DRM-free versions of its music on iTunes.
A few months later, Universal announced it would do the same with a host of online retailers — with the exception of iTunes.
In an e-mail obtained by The Associated Press and distributed to Warner employees Thursday, Bronfman noted that selling downloads without DRM would help spur new types of online music applications and foster competition among online retailers.
"By removing a barrier to the sale and enjoyment of audio downloads, we bring an energy-sapping debate to a close and allow ourselves to refocus on opportunities and products that will benefit not only WMG, but our artists and our consumers as well," Bronfman wrote.
Philip Leigh, a senior analyst with the research group Inside Digital Media, said Warner Music's changing strategy is a signal that all the record labels will move in the same direction, including the last major player to drag its heels, Sony BMG Music Entertainment.
"It's not surprising they've chosen to do this first with Amazon," Leigh said. "They don't want to admit to Apple right away that they were wrong. They would rather do it indirectly."
Warner Music did not comment beyond statements in a news release Thursday, but Leigh said it is likely the company is discussing a similar deal with Apple.
Pete Baltaxe, director of digital music at Amazon, emphasized in an interview that the retailer's music store stands out from most competitors like iTunes in that it only sells MP3s, rather than a mix of protected and unprotected music.
www.foxnews.com
Senin, 31 Desember 2007
Apple IP Virus Released 00:01 2008
Amberg, Germany - Scientists have finally developed, and accidentally released, the first active apple virus. It has the capability of traversing IP networks and the worldvirus yeah right wide web, even Web 2.0. The virus was apparently dropped at 00:01, 2008 and saturated the internet in seconds. A German physicist and biologist was reported as saying, “Es tut mir leid, aber das ist aber schade.” Which means,”I’m sorry but, that’s a shame.”
The virus strain was apparently keep in the lab under study for several months before a technicians energy drink spilled in the lab, washing the virus in to a Gigabit Ethernet card. When asked, “How could this happen?” He replied, “Ja, Es macht nichts. This translated to, “Yes, It doesn’t matter.
Its effects are unknown at this point. A spokesperson for the Ip Virus Association (IPA) declined to comment on Tuesday.
bloggingthat.com
The virus strain was apparently keep in the lab under study for several months before a technicians energy drink spilled in the lab, washing the virus in to a Gigabit Ethernet card. When asked, “How could this happen?” He replied, “Ja, Es macht nichts. This translated to, “Yes, It doesn’t matter.
Its effects are unknown at this point. A spokesperson for the Ip Virus Association (IPA) declined to comment on Tuesday.
bloggingthat.com
I want to punch Dick Clark
Watching Dick “Terminator Face” Clark just pissed me off so much I have to write about it. Just give up, go to some old folks home in Florida, and drown in your big bowl of breakfast mush. I hope the next thing he counts down is his heart rate as he flat lines.I don’t know what is more pathetic, Dick Clark or stupid Ryan Seacrest pretending to have a normal conversation with that old pudding brain.
I literally cringed every time Americas Oldest Stroke Faced Teenager mumbled a incoherent sentence. I get it Dick, it’s a lot of confetti. ABC should have just CGI’ed him doing something that actually matters.
I got to give him some credit though. At least this year he didn’t forget the number 7 in his count down.
The worst part of Dick Clark’s Rockin Eve is that it was the best thing on. I wasn’t going to sit through Fox’s “Cross promotion” 2008 or whatever the hell Carson Daily does that he calls entertainment.
Dick Clark needs to get some tips from Jerry Lewis, because at least Jerry spiced up his bore-a-thon with a faggot joke. Hey, maybe Jerry and Dick can help each other out. Lewis can write some material for the new years eve gig, while Dick can stand in for one of Jerry’s Muscular Dystrophy kids.
grarg.net
I literally cringed every time Americas Oldest Stroke Faced Teenager mumbled a incoherent sentence. I get it Dick, it’s a lot of confetti. ABC should have just CGI’ed him doing something that actually matters.
I got to give him some credit though. At least this year he didn’t forget the number 7 in his count down.
The worst part of Dick Clark’s Rockin Eve is that it was the best thing on. I wasn’t going to sit through Fox’s “Cross promotion” 2008 or whatever the hell Carson Daily does that he calls entertainment.
Dick Clark needs to get some tips from Jerry Lewis, because at least Jerry spiced up his bore-a-thon with a faggot joke. Hey, maybe Jerry and Dick can help each other out. Lewis can write some material for the new years eve gig, while Dick can stand in for one of Jerry’s Muscular Dystrophy kids.
grarg.net
Shut the hell up. Xbox live is down, boo hoo...
After reading a few digg posts and the Xbox forums I've come to the conclusion that everyone on there should just keep their big FUCKING MOUTH SHUT! I mean Jesus Christ, Xbox live has been down for ONE week since it started, ONE WHOLE WEEK!! and you people woke stop yapping on about it. Listen to me and listen good retard, because I'm only gonna say this once.
Microsoft is a big company, one of the biggest in the world, if not the biggest. Since Xbox live started way way back on the Xbox there hasn't been a stink of lag, or an ordour of downtime. That's pretty amazing considering the servers are running 24/7 and when you people complain over and over and over and demand, yes that;s right DEMAND compensation for a weeks lost of vegetating, you're pushing it. Is complaining going to do anything about it? No. Are you going to get reimbursed? No. Will you ever shut the fuck up about it? No.
It's 50 dollars a YEAR, a week's worth of that is BARELY 50 cents. So why don't you sit back in your gaming chair, play single player or how about going outside to get some nice fresh air or maybe interacting with actual people and not headsets.
Stupid cunts, signed yours sincerely,
Elliott Flynn
Microsoft is a big company, one of the biggest in the world, if not the biggest. Since Xbox live started way way back on the Xbox there hasn't been a stink of lag, or an ordour of downtime. That's pretty amazing considering the servers are running 24/7 and when you people complain over and over and over and demand, yes that;s right DEMAND compensation for a weeks lost of vegetating, you're pushing it. Is complaining going to do anything about it? No. Are you going to get reimbursed? No. Will you ever shut the fuck up about it? No.
It's 50 dollars a YEAR, a week's worth of that is BARELY 50 cents. So why don't you sit back in your gaming chair, play single player or how about going outside to get some nice fresh air or maybe interacting with actual people and not headsets.
Stupid cunts, signed yours sincerely,
Elliott Flynn
2008 Here I Come!
Well it’s been a hell of a year, lots of fucked up shit went down.
* I found out I’m not Anna Nicole’s baby’s daddy.
* Also not Britney’s baby’s daddy either, damn you low sperm count.
* The iPhone was released and all the little bitch fan-boys ran out to buy one for $599 and then 2 months later the price was dropped to $399. haha n00bs
* Britney was constantly bashed this year, anybody else find her bald head sexy?
* Bush still sucks cock. Let me throw out a quote of what sums up my feelings for Bush - “Only steers and queers come from Texas President Bush, and you don’t much look like a steer to me so that kinda narrows it down” Fuck Bush, one immediately good thing that starts out 2008 is the fact it’s Mr. Cock-sucking Bushs’ last freaking year, yay world.
* There were some decent movies released this year but for the life of me I cannot think of one. Now that makes me wonder if they were actually any good or not, hmmmmmmm.
* I got my first ever paid vacation, woohoo go me
* I got me a new pc.
* I finally got my website back up.
* I caught the biggest fish (actually it was a shark) I had ever caught. btw shark fishing fucking rules
Now I haven’t set no specific goals for this year yet but I do have one resolution for this year.
My New Year’s resolution is to stay awake more (god I love sleep - I’m a dreamer I can’t help it) and live a little more. I know it sounds corny and all but it’s something that’s personal and I won’t talk about it to you. I get out and all but I never seem to really do things that are enjoyable, it always seems to be a mission for me. Like working on my truck or fixing people’s computer or helping out family/friends. Not that I really mind but I’m missing out on alot of what I want to do. So this year is dedicated to my happiness and all that gay crap. So here’s to me in 2008 and to the rest of you have a GREAT NEW YEAR.
written by hal
unusualfrequency.com
* I found out I’m not Anna Nicole’s baby’s daddy.
* Also not Britney’s baby’s daddy either, damn you low sperm count.
* The iPhone was released and all the little bitch fan-boys ran out to buy one for $599 and then 2 months later the price was dropped to $399. haha n00bs
* Britney was constantly bashed this year, anybody else find her bald head sexy?
* Bush still sucks cock. Let me throw out a quote of what sums up my feelings for Bush - “Only steers and queers come from Texas President Bush, and you don’t much look like a steer to me so that kinda narrows it down” Fuck Bush, one immediately good thing that starts out 2008 is the fact it’s Mr. Cock-sucking Bushs’ last freaking year, yay world.
* There were some decent movies released this year but for the life of me I cannot think of one. Now that makes me wonder if they were actually any good or not, hmmmmmmm.
* I got my first ever paid vacation, woohoo go me
* I got me a new pc.
* I finally got my website back up.
* I caught the biggest fish (actually it was a shark) I had ever caught. btw shark fishing fucking rules
Now I haven’t set no specific goals for this year yet but I do have one resolution for this year.
My New Year’s resolution is to stay awake more (god I love sleep - I’m a dreamer I can’t help it) and live a little more. I know it sounds corny and all but it’s something that’s personal and I won’t talk about it to you. I get out and all but I never seem to really do things that are enjoyable, it always seems to be a mission for me. Like working on my truck or fixing people’s computer or helping out family/friends. Not that I really mind but I’m missing out on alot of what I want to do. So this year is dedicated to my happiness and all that gay crap. So here’s to me in 2008 and to the rest of you have a GREAT NEW YEAR.
written by hal
unusualfrequency.com
3 dead in Alabama helicopter crash
3 dead in Alabama helicopter crash
Early Sunday morning, a rescue helicopter from Air Evac EMS crashed in thick woods during the search for hunter who had disappeared after dark in the Freedom Hills Wildlife Management Area, a 31,572-acre state hunting preserve. All three people on board, the pilot, a nurse, and an unidentified third crew member, were killed. According to a Federal Aviation Administration spokesman, the helicopter crew had spotted the hunter and the crash occurred as the aircraft was hovering over his location. The hunter was recovered and was taken to a hospital for non-life-threatening injuries. The cause of the crash is under investigation.
www.newsrightnow.org
Early Sunday morning, a rescue helicopter from Air Evac EMS crashed in thick woods during the search for hunter who had disappeared after dark in the Freedom Hills Wildlife Management Area, a 31,572-acre state hunting preserve. All three people on board, the pilot, a nurse, and an unidentified third crew member, were killed. According to a Federal Aviation Administration spokesman, the helicopter crew had spotted the hunter and the crash occurred as the aircraft was hovering over his location. The hunter was recovered and was taken to a hospital for non-life-threatening injuries. The cause of the crash is under investigation.
www.newsrightnow.org
Woodchoppers Inn, Mudgeeraba
We came here a couple of weeks ago for dinner with a friend one Friday night.
It’s an old fashioned pub located in the village of Mudgeeraba. We had some drinks first in the bar which was quite nice - lots of wooden tables in a cosy atmosphere but there wasn’t much seating and the tables around the corner are in another room and don’t have much atmosphere.
We went into the dining room at a table near the windows. I was slightly shocked to see that almost all the meals were in the $27 plus range - quite expensive for a suburban pub meal.
I ordered the twice cooked duck and my partner ordered oysters with crab meat topping and our friend ordered the lamb shanks. The lamb shanks could have been a lot more tender as the meat did not fall off the bone, the twice cooked duck also should have been crispier - the skin was still quite fatty and was not crisp like I’ve had at most other restaurants and I wasn’t a fan of the thinly sliced crisped vegetables. The interior of the restaurant is also looking a bit daggy and outdated but I guess other peoples view is that it has a country feel.
I will visit this pub again but I’ll probably just stick to catching up with friends for some drinks rather than dinner. Perhaps they should introduce some more mid range meal prices.
To write your own review of this restaurant click here.
Location:
Woodchoppers Inn
66 Railway Street
Mudgeeraba, 4213
Phone: 07 5525 3500
Web: http://www.woodchoppersinn.com
It’s an old fashioned pub located in the village of Mudgeeraba. We had some drinks first in the bar which was quite nice - lots of wooden tables in a cosy atmosphere but there wasn’t much seating and the tables around the corner are in another room and don’t have much atmosphere.
We went into the dining room at a table near the windows. I was slightly shocked to see that almost all the meals were in the $27 plus range - quite expensive for a suburban pub meal.
I ordered the twice cooked duck and my partner ordered oysters with crab meat topping and our friend ordered the lamb shanks. The lamb shanks could have been a lot more tender as the meat did not fall off the bone, the twice cooked duck also should have been crispier - the skin was still quite fatty and was not crisp like I’ve had at most other restaurants and I wasn’t a fan of the thinly sliced crisped vegetables. The interior of the restaurant is also looking a bit daggy and outdated but I guess other peoples view is that it has a country feel.
I will visit this pub again but I’ll probably just stick to catching up with friends for some drinks rather than dinner. Perhaps they should introduce some more mid range meal prices.
To write your own review of this restaurant click here.
Location:
Woodchoppers Inn
66 Railway Street
Mudgeeraba, 4213
Phone: 07 5525 3500
Web: http://www.woodchoppersinn.com
Talk good things of your deads - Hadith
I was watching a program on PTV in which an analyst Mr Gohar Hamayun was invited to talk on death consequences of Benazir Bhutto. He talked lot of things but the best sentence i like from his talk was “Nabi Mohammad (peace be upon him) quoted talk good things of your deads and repeat a lot”. I really appreciate Mr Gohar to remind of that valuable and timely hadith.
In other program which right now i am watching some guests are invited who are the friends of late Benazir Bhutto. Mr Ashish Nehra who is Benazir family friend and lawyer also said the benazir Bhutto was a simple personality.
Another couple who seems to be quite good friend of Benazir Bhutto family were recalling their past moments with Benazir Bhutto by saying she was very friendly. She talked to peoples according to the peoples nature and never showed any superiority to others. She always remember to her friends, even if some one send her gift or flowers she used to call immediately and thanks for the compliments.
In my opinion she was a bold lady. She gave a new hope to women in Pakistan and Muslim world. She was courageous lady died in the path of democracy. It is my prayer for her “May Allah rest her in peace thereafter”.
source www.apnaavenue.com
In other program which right now i am watching some guests are invited who are the friends of late Benazir Bhutto. Mr Ashish Nehra who is Benazir family friend and lawyer also said the benazir Bhutto was a simple personality.
Another couple who seems to be quite good friend of Benazir Bhutto family were recalling their past moments with Benazir Bhutto by saying she was very friendly. She talked to peoples according to the peoples nature and never showed any superiority to others. She always remember to her friends, even if some one send her gift or flowers she used to call immediately and thanks for the compliments.
In my opinion she was a bold lady. She gave a new hope to women in Pakistan and Muslim world. She was courageous lady died in the path of democracy. It is my prayer for her “May Allah rest her in peace thereafter”.
source www.apnaavenue.com
The Scientific Paper: past, present and probable future
Communication
Communication of any kind, including communication of empirical information about the world (which includes scientific information), is constrained by three factors: technology, social factors, and, as a special case of social factors - official conventions. The term "constrained" I used above has two meanings - one negative, one positive. In a negative meaning, a constraint imposes limits and makes certain directions less likely, more difficult or impossible. In its positive meaning, constraint means that some directions are easy and obvious and thus much more likely for everyone to go to. Different technological and societal constraints shape what and how is communicated at different times in history and in different places on Earth.
Technology - Most communication throughout history, including today, is oral communication, constrained by human language, cognitive capabilities and physical distance. Oral communication today, in contrast to early history, is more likely to include a larger number of people in the audience with whom the speaker is not personally acquanted. It may also include technologies for distance transmission of sound, e.g., telephone or podcasts. This is the most "natural" means of communication.
Smoke signals and tom-toms introduced new constraints to communication - the messages had to be codified, short and simple and much of verbal and non-verbal communication had to be eliminated. Invention of writing, on stone tablets, clay tablets and papyrus, and later on paper and in print, changed the constraints further, making some aspects of communication easier and others more difficult, leading to the development of universal rules and norms of written communication. Unlike oral communication, the written communication is unidirectional, from one to many, making feedback from the audience difficult or impossible. Thus, it is necessarily linear. Its permanence also requires greater care be taken about the form and content. Finally, physical constraints (i.e., the size of a book) impose a structure to written communication, e.g., breaking down the work into chapters, subheadings and paragraphs, placed in a particular order. Also, written communication introduces the concept of authorship (and readership) while oral communication is "owned" by all the participants in the conversation.
Society - What and how is communicated differs dramatically if the audience is small and familiar (e.g., one's children or neighbors) or large and unfamiliar (speaking at a conference). Written communication is, by definition, aimed at a large and unfamiliar audience, which has an effect on form, style and content of communication. Local habits and traditions further determine the forms and styles of communication.
Conventions - Different types of communication within particular groups of people are often officially codified, often precisely defining the language, style and format. Legal and scientific literature are probably the most extreme examples of a very strict code imposed by official societies. Such strict formalization of communication was initially very useful, imposing order (positive meaning of "constraint") to an otherwise chaotic and undependable mish-mash of communication forms, allowing all the members of the community to understand and trust each other. However, when such strict forms last for decades and centuries, they are often made out-dated by the passage of time, invention of new technologies and societal changes, thus making the negative meaning of 'constraint' more and more obvious.
Scientific Communication
Development of communication of science reflects the development of science itself. Communication of information about the facts about the world did not differ much from other forms of communication for most of history until science itself started distinguishing itself as a special type of human endeavor, different from philosophy and religion. The way science communication evolved parallels the changes in our thinking about the scientific method. At the time when trips to the countryside and armchair thinking were still regarded as science, much of communication was in the form of books. When the hypothetico-deductive aspect of the scientific method "won" as the scientific method, the fledgling scientific societies, led by the Royal Society in the UK and the Academy in France, designed the form and structure of the scientific paper - the form we still use today: title, author, abstract, introduction, materials and methods, results, discussion and references.
Today, we understand that the hypothetico-deductive method is just one of several elements of the scientific method (see this) and that the standard format of the scientific paper is perfectly unsuitable for publication of findings reached through other methods.
Description of new species (extant or extinct) requires a monograph format, for which specialized journals exist that cater to this particular format. Ecological surveys are often straight-jacketed into the standard format, with addition of unwarranted mathematization - not all science requires numbers and statistics. Finally, science is getting more and more collaborative - single-author papers are becoming a rarity, while the papers boasting 10, 20, 50 or even 100 authors are becoming a norm, which challenges the way authorship in science is determined (see this and links within).
But what really made the limitations of the standard format obvious is the genomic revolution. Sequencing a genome is not hypothetico-deductive science - it is akin to an ecological survey: apply a technique and see what you get! Now that the excitement of publication of the first few genomes has receded, the existing journals are inadequate platforms for publication of new genomes. While sequencing is getting easier with time, it is still expensive and time-consuming. Yet, the techniques have been standardized and there is really not much to say in the introduction, materials and methods or discussion sections of a genome paper. All that is needed is a place to deposit the raw data as tools for future research in an easily-minable format that makes such future research easy. The data would be accompanied by the minimal additional information: which species (or individual) was sequenced, which standard method was used (and if it was modified), and who did the work. It is not, any more, an intellectually creative endeavor, as useful as it is for the progress of biology and medicine.
Science On The Web
When e-mail first became popular as a communication method, some people understood it as an extension of the written communication (letters) while others took it to be a new form of oral communication (telephone). Of course, it is both and more. Two people can rapidly exchange a large number of brief personal messages (as in a phone conversation), or one can send a long e-mail message to a large group of people, written with proper grammar, capitalization, punctuation and formatting (as a pamphlet). And yet, it is also neither - unlike oral communication, there is no way to convey non-verbal communication (thus the invention of emoticons ;-) ). Unlike written communication, it is fast, informal, not usually taken very seriously or read carefully, and is easy to delete. E-mail is now a communication form of its own.
The communication on the Web is, likewise, a whole new form. Again, some people see it as written communication (putting an article or book online in order to reach more readers and nothing more), while others see it as a more personal, oral communication that is written down (and such people, unlike the first group, love podcasts and videos which add the non-verbal components of communication to the text). The former prefer static web-pages with their 'feel' of permanence. The latter prefer Usenet, livejournals and blogs. The latter perceive the former as stodgy, authoritarian and boring. The former perceive the latter as wild, illiterate and untrustworthy. Again, they are both right and they are both wrong - it is a whole new way of communicating, fusing and meshing the two styles in sometimes unpredictable ways - it is a mix of written and oral communication that combines permanency and authority with immediacy, honesty and the ability for rapid many-to-many communication. The younger generation will use it naturally (though this does not mean that many senior citizens today did not grasp it already as well).
So, how will the constraints (both positive and negative) imposed by the new technology and new social norms alter the formality of the scientific communication, including the format of the scientific paper?
Online, the constraints of the paper and printing press will be gone. No more need for volumes, or issues, or page numbers, or, for that matter, for the formal scientific papers.
The standard format of the scientific paper will become just one of many (and probably not the dominant or most frequent) form of scientific communication. Different people have different talents and inclinations. One is analytic, another synthetic. One is creative, another a hard worker. One has great hands with the equipment or animals, while another is good with computers and statistics. One has a lot of space and money and a network of collaborators at a prestigious institution, another is stuck in a small office somewhere in the developing world with no research funds at all. And each can make a valid and useful contribution to science. How?
One will have a great idea and publish it online. The other will turn the idea into an experimental protocol that tests the idea and will publish it somewhere online. The next will make a video of the experimental method. The next person will go to the lab and actually follow the protocol and post raw data online. The next person will take the data an analyze it and post the results somewhere else online. The next person will graph and visualize the data for easier understanding. The next person will write an essay that interprets the findings and puts them into the broader context (e.g., what does it mean?). The next one will write a summary that combines several of those findings (a review). The next will place that entire research program into the historical or philosophical context. The next will translate it into normal language that lay-people can understand.
They are all co-authors of the work. Each used his/her own strengths, knowledge and talents to contribute to the work. Yet they did not publish together, simultaneously or in the same online space, though all the pieces link to each other and thus can be accessed from a single spot. That single spot is the Scientific Journal, a place that hosts all of the pieces and links them together (also see Vernor Vinge's vision of the science of the future, combining laboratories at universities with online boards where ideas and results are rapidly exchanged).
In the future, journals will be online hosts for all styles of scientific contribution and ways to link them together (within and betwen journals) - from hypotheses and experimental methods, to data, analyses, graphs to syntheses and philosophical discussions. The peers will review each other in real time and assign each other portions of the available funding according to the community perceptions of the individual's needs and qualities. Universities will be places for teaching/training the next generations of scientists and for housing the labs. The PhD will be needed for becoming a professor, but not for becoming a worthy and respected contributor to science - that evaluation will be up to peers.
This may sound like science fiction, but we are already living in it. Repositories (like arXiv and Nature Precedings), science blogs, OA journals, Open Notebook Science (what Rosie Redfield and Jean-Claude Bradley do, for instance) are already here. And there is no going back.
So, how do we prepare for this future? Word: slowly but smartly. Science has some very conservative elements (in a non-political sense of the term) that will resist change. They will denigrate online contributions unless they are peer-reviewed in a traditional sense and published in a reputable journal in the traditional format of a scientific paper. Some will retire and die out. Others can be reformed. But such reforming takes patience and careful hand-holding.
The division of scientists into two camps as to understanding of the Web is obvious in the commentary on PLoS ONE articles (which is my job to monitor closely). Some scientists, usually themselves bloggers, treat the commentary space as a virtual conference - a place where real-time oral communication is written down for the sake of historical record. Their comments are short, blunt and to the point. Others write long treatises with lists of references. Even if their conclusions are negative, they are very polite about it (and very sensitive when on the receiving end of criticism). The former regard the latter as dishonest and thin-skinned. The latter see the former as rude and untrustworthy (just like in journalism). In the future, the two styles will fuse - the conversation will speed up and the comments will get shorter, but will still retain the sense of mutual respect (i.e., unlike on political blogs, nobody will be called an 'idiot' routinely). It is important to educate the users that the commentary space on TOPAZ-based journals is not a place for op-eds, neither it is a blog, but a record of conversations that are likely to be happening in the hallways at conferences, at lab meetings and journal clubs, preserved for posterity for the edification of students, scientists and historians of the future.
PLoS ONE is a good example of the scientific journal of the future that I have in mind - the ONE place where all the data will be deposited. The commentary space and the Hubs are where all the really interesting stuff will be happening before and after publication of data: hypotheses, methods, videos, podcasts, blogs, debates, discussions, user-user peer-review, etc. The other PLoS Journals will be places, closely connected to ONE and the Hubs, of course, where works of special value will be highlighted - high-quality, media-worthy and large/complete pieces of work, plus editorials, news, etc. - the added value. They are a necessary link between the present (past?) and the future - the showcase of the quality that we can provide and thus hopefully change the minds of the more resistant members of the scientific community.
source scienceblogs.com
Communication of any kind, including communication of empirical information about the world (which includes scientific information), is constrained by three factors: technology, social factors, and, as a special case of social factors - official conventions. The term "constrained" I used above has two meanings - one negative, one positive. In a negative meaning, a constraint imposes limits and makes certain directions less likely, more difficult or impossible. In its positive meaning, constraint means that some directions are easy and obvious and thus much more likely for everyone to go to. Different technological and societal constraints shape what and how is communicated at different times in history and in different places on Earth.
Technology - Most communication throughout history, including today, is oral communication, constrained by human language, cognitive capabilities and physical distance. Oral communication today, in contrast to early history, is more likely to include a larger number of people in the audience with whom the speaker is not personally acquanted. It may also include technologies for distance transmission of sound, e.g., telephone or podcasts. This is the most "natural" means of communication.
Smoke signals and tom-toms introduced new constraints to communication - the messages had to be codified, short and simple and much of verbal and non-verbal communication had to be eliminated. Invention of writing, on stone tablets, clay tablets and papyrus, and later on paper and in print, changed the constraints further, making some aspects of communication easier and others more difficult, leading to the development of universal rules and norms of written communication. Unlike oral communication, the written communication is unidirectional, from one to many, making feedback from the audience difficult or impossible. Thus, it is necessarily linear. Its permanence also requires greater care be taken about the form and content. Finally, physical constraints (i.e., the size of a book) impose a structure to written communication, e.g., breaking down the work into chapters, subheadings and paragraphs, placed in a particular order. Also, written communication introduces the concept of authorship (and readership) while oral communication is "owned" by all the participants in the conversation.
Society - What and how is communicated differs dramatically if the audience is small and familiar (e.g., one's children or neighbors) or large and unfamiliar (speaking at a conference). Written communication is, by definition, aimed at a large and unfamiliar audience, which has an effect on form, style and content of communication. Local habits and traditions further determine the forms and styles of communication.
Conventions - Different types of communication within particular groups of people are often officially codified, often precisely defining the language, style and format. Legal and scientific literature are probably the most extreme examples of a very strict code imposed by official societies. Such strict formalization of communication was initially very useful, imposing order (positive meaning of "constraint") to an otherwise chaotic and undependable mish-mash of communication forms, allowing all the members of the community to understand and trust each other. However, when such strict forms last for decades and centuries, they are often made out-dated by the passage of time, invention of new technologies and societal changes, thus making the negative meaning of 'constraint' more and more obvious.
Scientific Communication
Development of communication of science reflects the development of science itself. Communication of information about the facts about the world did not differ much from other forms of communication for most of history until science itself started distinguishing itself as a special type of human endeavor, different from philosophy and religion. The way science communication evolved parallels the changes in our thinking about the scientific method. At the time when trips to the countryside and armchair thinking were still regarded as science, much of communication was in the form of books. When the hypothetico-deductive aspect of the scientific method "won" as the scientific method, the fledgling scientific societies, led by the Royal Society in the UK and the Academy in France, designed the form and structure of the scientific paper - the form we still use today: title, author, abstract, introduction, materials and methods, results, discussion and references.
Today, we understand that the hypothetico-deductive method is just one of several elements of the scientific method (see this) and that the standard format of the scientific paper is perfectly unsuitable for publication of findings reached through other methods.
Description of new species (extant or extinct) requires a monograph format, for which specialized journals exist that cater to this particular format. Ecological surveys are often straight-jacketed into the standard format, with addition of unwarranted mathematization - not all science requires numbers and statistics. Finally, science is getting more and more collaborative - single-author papers are becoming a rarity, while the papers boasting 10, 20, 50 or even 100 authors are becoming a norm, which challenges the way authorship in science is determined (see this and links within).
But what really made the limitations of the standard format obvious is the genomic revolution. Sequencing a genome is not hypothetico-deductive science - it is akin to an ecological survey: apply a technique and see what you get! Now that the excitement of publication of the first few genomes has receded, the existing journals are inadequate platforms for publication of new genomes. While sequencing is getting easier with time, it is still expensive and time-consuming. Yet, the techniques have been standardized and there is really not much to say in the introduction, materials and methods or discussion sections of a genome paper. All that is needed is a place to deposit the raw data as tools for future research in an easily-minable format that makes such future research easy. The data would be accompanied by the minimal additional information: which species (or individual) was sequenced, which standard method was used (and if it was modified), and who did the work. It is not, any more, an intellectually creative endeavor, as useful as it is for the progress of biology and medicine.
Science On The Web
When e-mail first became popular as a communication method, some people understood it as an extension of the written communication (letters) while others took it to be a new form of oral communication (telephone). Of course, it is both and more. Two people can rapidly exchange a large number of brief personal messages (as in a phone conversation), or one can send a long e-mail message to a large group of people, written with proper grammar, capitalization, punctuation and formatting (as a pamphlet). And yet, it is also neither - unlike oral communication, there is no way to convey non-verbal communication (thus the invention of emoticons ;-) ). Unlike written communication, it is fast, informal, not usually taken very seriously or read carefully, and is easy to delete. E-mail is now a communication form of its own.
The communication on the Web is, likewise, a whole new form. Again, some people see it as written communication (putting an article or book online in order to reach more readers and nothing more), while others see it as a more personal, oral communication that is written down (and such people, unlike the first group, love podcasts and videos which add the non-verbal components of communication to the text). The former prefer static web-pages with their 'feel' of permanence. The latter prefer Usenet, livejournals and blogs. The latter perceive the former as stodgy, authoritarian and boring. The former perceive the latter as wild, illiterate and untrustworthy. Again, they are both right and they are both wrong - it is a whole new way of communicating, fusing and meshing the two styles in sometimes unpredictable ways - it is a mix of written and oral communication that combines permanency and authority with immediacy, honesty and the ability for rapid many-to-many communication. The younger generation will use it naturally (though this does not mean that many senior citizens today did not grasp it already as well).
So, how will the constraints (both positive and negative) imposed by the new technology and new social norms alter the formality of the scientific communication, including the format of the scientific paper?
Online, the constraints of the paper and printing press will be gone. No more need for volumes, or issues, or page numbers, or, for that matter, for the formal scientific papers.
The standard format of the scientific paper will become just one of many (and probably not the dominant or most frequent) form of scientific communication. Different people have different talents and inclinations. One is analytic, another synthetic. One is creative, another a hard worker. One has great hands with the equipment or animals, while another is good with computers and statistics. One has a lot of space and money and a network of collaborators at a prestigious institution, another is stuck in a small office somewhere in the developing world with no research funds at all. And each can make a valid and useful contribution to science. How?
One will have a great idea and publish it online. The other will turn the idea into an experimental protocol that tests the idea and will publish it somewhere online. The next will make a video of the experimental method. The next person will go to the lab and actually follow the protocol and post raw data online. The next person will take the data an analyze it and post the results somewhere else online. The next person will graph and visualize the data for easier understanding. The next person will write an essay that interprets the findings and puts them into the broader context (e.g., what does it mean?). The next one will write a summary that combines several of those findings (a review). The next will place that entire research program into the historical or philosophical context. The next will translate it into normal language that lay-people can understand.
They are all co-authors of the work. Each used his/her own strengths, knowledge and talents to contribute to the work. Yet they did not publish together, simultaneously or in the same online space, though all the pieces link to each other and thus can be accessed from a single spot. That single spot is the Scientific Journal, a place that hosts all of the pieces and links them together (also see Vernor Vinge's vision of the science of the future, combining laboratories at universities with online boards where ideas and results are rapidly exchanged).
In the future, journals will be online hosts for all styles of scientific contribution and ways to link them together (within and betwen journals) - from hypotheses and experimental methods, to data, analyses, graphs to syntheses and philosophical discussions. The peers will review each other in real time and assign each other portions of the available funding according to the community perceptions of the individual's needs and qualities. Universities will be places for teaching/training the next generations of scientists and for housing the labs. The PhD will be needed for becoming a professor, but not for becoming a worthy and respected contributor to science - that evaluation will be up to peers.
This may sound like science fiction, but we are already living in it. Repositories (like arXiv and Nature Precedings), science blogs, OA journals, Open Notebook Science (what Rosie Redfield and Jean-Claude Bradley do, for instance) are already here. And there is no going back.
So, how do we prepare for this future? Word: slowly but smartly. Science has some very conservative elements (in a non-political sense of the term) that will resist change. They will denigrate online contributions unless they are peer-reviewed in a traditional sense and published in a reputable journal in the traditional format of a scientific paper. Some will retire and die out. Others can be reformed. But such reforming takes patience and careful hand-holding.
The division of scientists into two camps as to understanding of the Web is obvious in the commentary on PLoS ONE articles (which is my job to monitor closely). Some scientists, usually themselves bloggers, treat the commentary space as a virtual conference - a place where real-time oral communication is written down for the sake of historical record. Their comments are short, blunt and to the point. Others write long treatises with lists of references. Even if their conclusions are negative, they are very polite about it (and very sensitive when on the receiving end of criticism). The former regard the latter as dishonest and thin-skinned. The latter see the former as rude and untrustworthy (just like in journalism). In the future, the two styles will fuse - the conversation will speed up and the comments will get shorter, but will still retain the sense of mutual respect (i.e., unlike on political blogs, nobody will be called an 'idiot' routinely). It is important to educate the users that the commentary space on TOPAZ-based journals is not a place for op-eds, neither it is a blog, but a record of conversations that are likely to be happening in the hallways at conferences, at lab meetings and journal clubs, preserved for posterity for the edification of students, scientists and historians of the future.
PLoS ONE is a good example of the scientific journal of the future that I have in mind - the ONE place where all the data will be deposited. The commentary space and the Hubs are where all the really interesting stuff will be happening before and after publication of data: hypotheses, methods, videos, podcasts, blogs, debates, discussions, user-user peer-review, etc. The other PLoS Journals will be places, closely connected to ONE and the Hubs, of course, where works of special value will be highlighted - high-quality, media-worthy and large/complete pieces of work, plus editorials, news, etc. - the added value. They are a necessary link between the present (past?) and the future - the showcase of the quality that we can provide and thus hopefully change the minds of the more resistant members of the scientific community.
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