I agree with you there, I would neither as a Ph. D. candidate submit a paper without references and with smileys in the text. Good classic research in my opinion, need to be standard form, and I do not think I would have made the try to not refer to previous research even if my team is a class of 8yo. He could have added the references into an addendum online or publish a separate paper completing and referring to this article, I think I would have done that.

But, this paper is exceptional nevertheless and the principal author made the choice to not include references and explained why. It is exceptional maybe not by the extent of the paper (scientific impact) but by initiating very young scientist to science with real science (except references ;-) ). I had my first paper as an undergraduate, still pretty soon if I looked around at the time compared to the rest of my group.

Having 8yo, I would have been very proud today to have participated in this, and make me think that scientific literacy can be achieved sooner than in college. What I remember when I was that age, I went to my teacher and asked him : when will we do paleontology, planetary science and dinosaurs studies: he told me : that is not this year, not the next year, not in high school, but not before college maybe. I can say that this was not one of the best answers I had in my life. If someone had a practical answer to my question at the time, I would not have loose so much time before starting university...

And one little thing I noticed on the paper itself when I read the full text (free in html or pdf through the web site) - they didn't cite any sources. Few publications would allow that these days, I would have expected that their corresponding (last) author would have added in some sources to establish the background at the least.

While I agree that the absence of source may be a problem in most cases of publishing a scientific paper, the corresponding author explain in the abstract why it would not be a good idea to publish this article with references. The research is still original, 8yo or not, and well at least they do not try to hide the fact that there is no references.

Possibly that the guy who loose it all is billionnaire ingame (he's a an alliance director and corporation CEO) and buy it with ingame money from other people selling PLEX on the market. No difference with any other items. and BTW a Titan class ship cost like 5 times that loss (80 B+ ISK) and these die too =)

I must agree. I haven't used Linux in a while. I was using it as a desktop on a box and as a firewall on another. I was using Slackware (~7.0) and well, as far as I was able to tell, I could do anything with it. Switch desktop manager, disable everything, just do FTP serv, burn CD... etc.. I am wondering why one would fit better to a non-expert user than another. It is not all the same ?

But these guys who own MySpace are wearing ties, so it's OK if they owe money to artists and do not pay.

If we isolate variables, for all setbacks being equal for church and soccer (abuses, brainwashing, training), maybe soccer teach tactics, teamwork and make you healthy. I don't know what is the 'altar boy experience' is giving as an advantage in this context.

But adult soccer players may be payed millions of dollar! Not adult altar boy.

PS: I am no altar boy nor a soccer player...

Hmm didn't knew Quebec was having internet...