Boy, aren't we exaggerating.

Before thinking about purchasing a particle accelerator, you have a considerable number of things which you can and must actually do by yourself in order to test the paper's validity. One of those things is actually reading the paper, understanding the theoretical hypothesis which were laid out, analyse the data which was used as a basis for the results presented in the paper, check if it holds out, evaluate the results... You know, the peer review process.

In this context, the need for a particle accelerator only enters the equation if you suspect that the results presented in the paper aren't up to par, and you wish to replicate them to see if you aren't being duped. Even in that case, you still need to run the series of tests which I pointed out.

So, if you actually intend to judge the validity of a paper on the Higgs boson then it's safe to say that purchasing a particle accelerator is the least of your concerns. In fact, how many of those actually involved in reviewing that sort of papers have access to their own personal particle accelerator? And does that stop them from doing it? Precisely.

Notice that you actually don't need access to a particle accelerator to do any of those things. You actually only need to have an academic interest in the subject. If you are interested in scientific problems such as the validity of the Higgs boson and you are curious enough to be willing to spend your time rummaging through articles on the Higgs boson then odds are to actually know something about it, and you are actually in a position to judge by yourself at least a portion of those details.

So, unless you intend to avoid having to think about the stuff and instead you want an authority to tell you what you must believe in, whether a paper is published in a journal or is distributed directly from the site of a university or research institution is actually irrelevant, because you are quite able and willing to turn on your brain and actually do science.

You aren't required to be an expert in the field. If you are interested enough on a given field to actually read the papers then you are certainly already knowledgeable about the subject. Moreover, you certainly are already aware that a paper is supposed to be food for thought, not a textbook.

It isn't intended to replace the peer review process. If all a person wants in journals is that they serve as an authoritative seal of approval which gives him enough confidence to place blind faith on a paper then the logo of a big name institution actually does the same thing. Let's not pretend that that doesn't happen right now with how the logo of companies such as elsevier is perceived and used.

The fact of the matter is this: if someone actually reads papers of a given field and actually cares about how the peer review process works in that field then that person is already quite able to digest that information. If, instead, someone only wants to have someone tell him what to believe, then that's an entirely different problem which the existence of journals does nothing to mitigate.

Considering what you've been posting, your claim, that you are in academia, is not believable.

We are talking about science.

You know, testable explanations and predictions about everything.

You judge the validity of a paper by testing their explanations and predictions. That's essentially what the scientific community does for a living. Some person finds something odd, some other person comes up with an explanation, others test that explanation to see if its valid, and in the process might find other odd stuff. Rince and repeat.

If you are worried that, without journals, you might not get a conforting authority dictating what you should and should not believe then rest assure, because organizations such as universities and research institutions are more than willing to put their logo on the cover of their member's papers, and also distribute them to the public.

So, it's safe to say that the sky isn't falling.

I see what you meant, but I have to point out that certainly you didn't actuallly meant "closed source". You can only freely access a copy of a software package without paying anyone anything if the license explicitly states that you are free to do it.

For that, the right to access the software's source code is irrelevant, as you are granted such a right by using either freeware, which doesn't necessarily provide the source code, or free software, which does.

This is one of those cases where clearly open source software != free software, and the difference between those licensing terms, particularly in this case, are extremelly important.

Average people DO have a use for the "supercomputers" under their desks. Otherwise, everyone would still be buying sub-gigahertz semprons. But software continues to get more bloated, and "managed code" imposes even more of an overhead.

For sub-gigahertz semprons? Maybe.

Yet, if we do a realistic comparison and consider, for example, an AMD Athlon X2 (which is the cheapest CPU that was available at a local hardware store) then exactly what do people actually get by purchasing a beefier CPU? Do they get a better user experience exchanging emails, browsing facebook and seeing youtube clips? They don't.

After a certain threshold, it's irrelevant if you get to run your computer games any faster, and you can't possibly justify spending twice as much on a piece of hardware if the only thing that gets you is the ability to run a computer game at 200fps instead of 150fps. Sure, it might look good in a marketing blurb to claim that your product is 33% faster than the competitor's, but the practical result of that is perfectly irrelevant for any user.

It makes the assumption - always wrong - that people don't want more cpu. People ALWAYS want more cpu.

Your assertion is dissociated from reality. It completely ignores the netbook phenomenon, not to mention the inception of smartphones and tablet computers.

People don't buy these devices because they "want more CPU". After a certain level, the "CPU" amount is irrelevant and its practical effects are completely unnoticeable. There is a good reason why hardware companies rely on artificial benchmarks designed to push the hardware in completely unrealistic, useless and impractical scenarios to be able to compare their hardware against the competitor's offering, and therefore justify a higher asking price.

To drive the point home, I can tell you my personal case. My last two hardware purchases were a netbook and a smartphone, which, by today's standards, are considerably lacking o the "CPU" department. Yet, they are by far the two pieces of hardware which I use the most. I also have a desktop and a laptop which I've purchased a few years ago, and I actually use them for serious stuff which actually require real CPUs to crunch real numbers. I'm talking about structural analysis and CAD work. In spite of actually having to use a computer to actually do some serious number crunching to actually get a meaningful result, unlike calculating pi to the nth digit after the decimal point, the fact is that both my archaic desktop and laptop are more than capable of handling heavy workloads required for practical engineering work.

And this without even relying on OpenCL to take advantage of the hardware which is already present in the system and basically never leaves the idle state.

So, in short, contraty to what you said, people actually "don't want more cpu". People actaully know that they can't notice it after a certain point, which was actually passed about half a dozen years ago, and people are also aware that the inflated price tag associated with having "more cpu" actually doesn't justify the diminishing returns they get with that purchase. What they want is cheaper stuff that is actually good enough to get the job done, and if the job in mind is checking email, facebook and any other mundane tasks then people do know that the price tag of a supercomputer is completely unjustified, when they can easily get away with it by purchasing a glorified cellphone, with or without an embedded keyboard.

The thing about Piracy is, the people who pirate are not people who would have paid for it in the first place.

That isn't totally correct.

I've spent about 5 years not listening to any music, but a while ago I decided to check out what the bands I knew and liked have been up to in all these years. Some ended, which made me die a bit inside, others kept going without releasing any new album but others actually put out a couple of them.

So, I've decided to check these new albums.

One of these bands was The Atomic Bitchwax. The band recorded a couple albums since I stopped listening to music, and so I set forth to download them. I did that, and on the .rar file which packed the latest album was a small text file which mentioned that the band's entire discography was being sold via download through the band's site. I've checked them out and lo and behold, they were selling a pack with their first 6 albums for 5 dollars. They were also selling the latest album for 5 dollars as well.

So, I've spent 10 dollars and purchased both of them. Quite nice.

At least in my case, I've only shelved 10 dollars on music, my only music purchase in the last 5 years, because I've downloaded some mp3 albums and stumbled on a good deal. I may not represent a lot of people, but as I happen to exist then it certainly must mean something. At least now, when I see someone claiming that people who download mp3 don't purchase music, or that music downloads hurt business, I know enough to call it like it is: a load of bullshit.

They removed the kidney from her brother because they believed it was already broken. So, they instead transplanted it to the desperate 67 year old guy who prefered getting a diseased kidney, hoping it could extend his life for a little bit, instead of passing it to a perfecly healthy person, which might put her life in jeopardy.

Or so I believe.

"Large scale" does not mean what you want it to mean.

I don't know what imaginative definition for "large scale" you are using, but if you wish to claim that Portugal's energy production doesn't fit your definition of large scale then, by your own definition, the energy needs of at least 145 out of 192 countries in the world also don't fit your definition of large scale.

Also, it also wouldn't matter to you that the energy produced in Portugal from renewable sources alone would be more than enough to fulfill all the energy needs of 128 countries in the world.

And, finally, Germany generates around 17% of it's energy needs from renewable sources. Maybe the 7th largest energy producer in the world also doesn't fit your definition of "large scale".

Or, possibly, you are desperately trying to move the goal post to avoid looking like a fool with your bullshit assertions.

Japan has just finished turning off all nuclear power over a "disaster" that proved just how safe modern nuclear can be. Wind, hydro, tide .. these are all bullshit: they will never matter in the big picture, they'll feelgood measures that's don't actually accomplish anything large scale, just like most green initiatives.

According to wikipedia, Portugal produces 52% of its energy from renewable sources, with a combination of hydro, solar, wind and geothermal. Do you see 52% of the energy produced in a country with a population of 11 million as "all bullshit" and a failure to "actually accomplish anything large scale"?