I'm with you. Wikipedia has revolutionized access to information. I can't imagine where we would be without it today. I'd much rather they be more than ready to weather a few storms than about to pull the plug before people feel the need to donate.
I think this article rubs me the wrong way because it leans a little heavily on vagueness to take you from the facts to how you should feel about them. Some volunteers are not amused? How many? A majority? A vocal few? "Wikipedians who have made hundreds of thousands of edits may well feel someone else is enjoying the fruit of their labor." Well, do they or don't they? Did you ask them?
I'll even admit that my initial reaction to this article was why do they need more of my money? But I gave $10 last year (basically nothing for my current income), and I'll do the same this year. Don't give so much money that you get bent out of shape about where it goes. If everyone gave an amount that meant relatively little to them, they would be in great shape. That's also basically what the donation banners say, too, but the article doesn't mention that.
I read an article a few years ago that casts some doubt on Rube Marquard's story [1], which was one of my favorites from the book. I don't think this actually changed my opinion of the book, but just added a little more color to it.
The section in wikipedia that discusses this mentions that it is not clear that his employment by tobacco firms motivated his behavior:
From wikipedia:
'To quote his biographers Yates and Mather, "It has been suggested that the fact that Fisher was employed as consultant by the tobacco firms in this controversy casts doubt on the value of his arguments. This is to misjudge the man. He was not above accepting financial reward for his labours, but the reason for his interest was undoubtedly his dislike and mistrust of puritanical tendencies of all kinds; and perhaps also the personal solace he had always found in tobacco."'
I believe this is thesis of the original article as well.
There is still an open debate among statisticians as to whether employment of statisticians by tobacco firms causes statisticians to disbelieve in tobacco-caused cancer.
You're absolutely right and, thankfully, NASA agrees with you. NASA plans to continue operating Hubble even after JWST is up for as long as Hubble still functions. Without shuttles, there will be no more servicing missions, so when it breaks, that'll be it. Until then, Hubble will keep doing its thing.
An explanation of this is put forth in both the video and paper linked to in the opening paragraph. The principle is that bends in rivers tend to grow as erosion happens on the outside of the bend and soil deposition on the inside. This increases sinuosity until the point at which the bend comes full circle, forms an oxbox lake, and returns the local region of the river to a straight line with sinuosity of 1. The value of pi is supposed to come out when you consider all of a river's curves and wiggles on all length scales.
The right answer may not be pi, but the data shown make a compelling case that rivers do tend to some average value.
As a sidenote, there are active human efforts to keep certain rivers, like the Mississippi, from meandering too far from their current locations. I don't know how many of the world's rivers have such efforts being applied to them, but it's not unreasonable to think that this could have some effect.
I suspect damming (and other human intervention as you note) in general causes restrictions in sinuosity, artificially either preventing on creating local regions of sinuosity = 1.
To see what this means for the cosmological parameters, the best place to look is Figure 15 of the journal article [1]. The effect of the distance bias pushes for a higher value of Omega_M (the fraction of the energy density of the universe in matter) and a lower value of w (a term which characterizes the equation of state of dark energy). The currently accepted values for these two parameters are roughly Omega_M = 0.3 and w = -1. If w = -1, it means that dark energy is consistent with a cosmological constant, which is more-or-less the simplest form of dark energy (not that we really know what it is). Going to w < -1 is interesting because it means that the acceleration of the expansion of the universe will itself also increase, resulting in a Big Rip. If these findings are correct, it would mean the universe is more exotic than previously thought.
If these things were said in person, I think you would feel differently. It's easy to pass off actions that take place on the internet as being without consequence, but they can still do real damage. I think this same sense of detachment from consequences is what allows people to do things they would never do if they could see the recipient. I don't know what punishments are just, but it seems to me that returning a feeling of consequence to actions is how you also bring back civility.
Any of these said in person, I would not feel differently. Almost all of them make some reference to a baseball comment and then try to make a joke about Kurt's daughter based on that. They are simply assholes making poor jokes. Unless Kurt didn't post the most extreme ones (e.g. someone said "I'm going to rape your daughter when she gets here"), I feel like none of them even border the line of a creditable threat. Are we going to start arresting new comedians that make shitty jokes because they went too far trying to make fun of a celebrity? Where's the line of poor joke and creditable threat? I personally think its a lot farther away than any of the tweets Kurt posted.
You may have somewhat of a point. As I said, I'm unsure whether the commenters should be criminally punished or just as they have been already.
However, even if you would not feel differently, I don't think all of the people who said what they did would even have the nerve to say those things in person. The internet creates this imbalance where the effect of actions is felt much more by the recipient than the actor. This, at least, is not a good thing, and a slightly different context than a comedian making a tasteless joke.
You aren't most people then. If most fathers were told to their face that their daughter's hymen was about to be shredded, I can assure you that person would be in danger of serious injury!
It's amazing that they could have the following sentence:
"Built to Spiers's specifications, the crate allowed him to sit up straight-legged, or lie on his back with his knees bent."
and then have that graphic where his torso takes up nearly the whole 5ft length of the box. That ridiculous graphic seems unnecessary given that that sentence explains just how he fit into the crate.
Many police cars used to have "To protect and serve" painted on their sides. I certainly remember that, although I haven't seen it in years.
No one is saying they expect the police to carry your groceries inside. They are law enforcement officers whose job description is to enforce laws. If they can't/wont' do that because of external factors, then citizens should be told the truth about why that is. Vigilantism comes from a sense of injustice, that the system doesn't work for unknown reasons. Without that transparency, we are left to fill that void in understanding with our imaginations.
You're thinking of a martyr. Saintliness, other than the silly Catholic rules, refers more to living righteously. You can be either one of those without being the other.
I think this article rubs me the wrong way because it leans a little heavily on vagueness to take you from the facts to how you should feel about them. Some volunteers are not amused? How many? A majority? A vocal few? "Wikipedians who have made hundreds of thousands of edits may well feel someone else is enjoying the fruit of their labor." Well, do they or don't they? Did you ask them?
I'll even admit that my initial reaction to this article was why do they need more of my money? But I gave $10 last year (basically nothing for my current income), and I'll do the same this year. Don't give so much money that you get bent out of shape about where it goes. If everyone gave an amount that meant relatively little to them, they would be in great shape. That's also basically what the donation banners say, too, but the article doesn't mention that.