the_think_tank - Slashdot User

Submission + - Steal This Research Paper! (You Already Paid for It.) (motherjones.com)

Submitted by the_think_tank on Wednesday October 02, 2013 @01:12AM

the_think_tank writes: I just spent an entire night trying to figure out how to collaborate on documents with a committee of 4 people (non-academic folks who don't all have access to ms office/have never used google docs, track changes, etc.). My introduction to the open-source movement began years ago when faced with the beast of proprietary software and the influence of slashdot.org. Patrick Brown, Michael Eisen, and others took this same line of reasoning to fight for open-access to tax-payer funded scientific publications. This is a wonderful piece chronicling the story of an individual's personal motivation to make science available to you.

Submission + - Universities - not just MIT - accused of betraying Aaron Swartz (michaeleisen.org)

Submitted by the_think_tank on Wednesday January 23, 2013 @01:53AM

the_think_tank writes: PLoS co-founder Michael Eisen is holding MIT – and the entire academic community — accountable for Aaron Swartz’s death , arguing that it is their fault that the papers Swartz was trying to download and distribute weren’t free in the first place. “Universities,” he argues, “all but force their scholars to publish their results in journals that take ownership of the work and place it behind expensive pay walls.” And he goes on to argue that the “real way to honor Aaron Swartz is to [...] do everything in our power to make sure no papers ever end up behind pay walls again.”

Comment Re:Location Choices (Score 1) 17

by the_think_tank on Sunday September 23, 2012 @12:55AM (#41425967) Attached to: Slashdot Anniversary: Raleigh, NC, US

Tyler's Tap Room has been good for accommodating large parties- though I've only been there for happy hour times. If someone wants to volunteer to help clean up my backyard/patio, I have a nice/dog-friendly "viking pad" near the map locale.

Comment Re:You don't own it (Score 1) 211

by the_think_tank on Saturday September 24, 2011 @12:20AM (#37499462) Attached to: Ask Slashdot: Best Copyright Terms For a Thesis?

Yeah, Dan B. is correct (for every research-intensive university that I've ever been affiliated with) and unless you publish in an open-access journal, the journal owns the copyrights to your writing.

The Universe Is 13.73 Billion Years Old 755

Posted by kdawson on Friday March 07, 2008 @02:05PM from the so-happy-birthday-already dept.

CaptainCarrot writes "Phil Plait, aka The Bad Astronomer has summarized for his readers the new results released by NASA from the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP), which has been surveying the 3K microwave radiation left over from the Big Bang. Some of the most interesting results: The age of the universe is now known to unprecedented accuracy: 13.73 billion years old, +/- 120 million. Spacetime is flat to within a 2% error margin. And ordinary matter and energy account for only 4.62% of the universe's total. Plait's comment on the age result: 'Some people might say it doesn't look a day over 6000 years. They're wrong.'"

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