In science we learn and do research based on the findings of — and conclusions drawn by — others before us. (”Standing on the shoulders of giants” ring a bell?) That is the very essence of cumulative science. To make the obligatory car analogy: What if the car manufacturers had to reinvent the wheel and the engine (steam first) every time they wanted to make a new model? That would most certainly make Thomas Kuhn cry, and we’d be driving ridiculously old-fashioned cars.

Yesterday my professor told me that he couldn’t actually provide us with access to various papers on the subject of the course he’s currently teaching, because certain publishers have hired students to spy on the teachers at the university and report back on any copyright infringements they notice. Usually the teacher would upload a PDF of the relevant article on our intranet, thus allowing students to download (and print), but now we’ll have to obtain these papers by other means, which may be any of the following:

• try to get hold of some obscure copy of some obscure journal containing the article in question
• pray that the publisher has made it available (either for free or relatively cheap) on the web
• get in contact with someone who owns the relevant issue of the relevant journal containing the relevant article and hope they’ll let us xerox it (and still infringe on the copyright, but this time without the professor’s help)

… and that’s only the articles.

A lot of the texts we use in linguistics come from various collections, where a number of people contribute to the work published in book form. Now, we have some good libraries here, but they rarely have more than a single copy of a book (well, maybe some older editions), which means that if every student had to read an article from a particular book, they’d actually have to either borrow the book or read the article at the library. Think about it… 24 students all wanting to read the same article (which they’re not allowed to xerox) in the same book, of which the library only has one copy.

One could, of course, buy all the journals, collections, etc… But that would be so ridiculously expensive that studying something like linguistics would cost a fortune. Handing in a decent paper based on good research would quickly run into the thousands of euros. And we’re expected to write 2 or 3 of those papers each semester…

Now I’m thinking Science Bay (or maybe Science Nova) — a marriage between Pirate Bay and Discogs containing nothing but torrents of scientific articles neatly categorized, with detailed meta data, and searchable in every imaginable way. It would even be possible to provide BibTeX entries for every article, and even provide one huge, downloadable BibTeX database for the entire content of Science Bay. When uploading a torrent, one would be able to either fill out all the relevant meta data form fields for the article in question, or simply paste a BibTeX entry containing all the relevant/required meta data. It wouldn’t just be a solution to a problem, it’d be awesome! Searching for and actually finding relevant articles couldn’t be much easier! I’m not talking about sharing entire books or even just chapters of books. Just scientific articles from journals, collections, and what have you.

Only problem is, where would one get such a project hosted? We’ve all heard about the legal trouble Pirate Bay has faced through the times and I certainly can’t afford to hire a lawyer to fend off pissed off pubilshers. While I could probably easily do the code for the project, I don’t have access to decent servers, bandwidth, Hungary, legal advise, etc…

But isn’t this how science is really supposed to work? Everyone sharing what they find and contributing to a greater cause. I know some scientists like to live like rock stars (I’m looking at you, Hawking! :-p), but that’s no excuse for their publishers behaving like retarded record labels.

Just overheard this. And I must admit, I adore such blankness. P1 and P2 is two people talking in front of a computer.

P1: It this also the internet?

P2: Yes.

P1: I always go down there (pointing to some other place of the screen). That’s also an internet.

Seams there is multiple internets all over the place. That’s very fortunate, eh.

I’m going to do something unusual here and actually blog about sports — more specifically American football. It has never been a secret that I’m a Green Bay Packers-fan (or Pack-man if you will) and tonight was their first regular season game since Sep. 20, 1992 without legendary quarterback Brett Favre in the starting line-up. (Favre is now starting QB for the New York Jets, more about the trade at Wikipedia) There has been a lot of talk about Aaron Rodgers, who has taken over after Favre, and whether or not he can handle the pressure and the high expectations.

Now, the pressure and expectations are hard enough to cope with and Rodgers handles it extremely well, but constantly being compared to what may well be the best QB ever in the history of NFL is downright unfair and totally illogical.

Watching Favre play football was like watching an artist creating a master-piece; art in real-time. Extending that analogy further, who would you prefer to see painting a Picasso — Picasso or Kvium? Rodgers is taking over after Favre and he is not supposed to be Favre or even play like Favre. Even though it is tempting to think, “Favre would have converted that 3rd and 33″, I don’t think that is the way to look at it. Sure, Favre would probably have been more likely to convert it; more likely than any other QB in the entire league!

From what I saw Rodgers deliver tonight against Minnesota Vikings, it seems that he has definitely learned a lot from Favre, but also sets himself aside from Favre in that he is willing to actually run the ball if there are no open receivers or simply if the opportunity presents itself and seems viable. Favre’s influence was definitely visible at his first touchdown pass, which was great to see — there is nothing wrong with learning from the best — but I was relieved to find that he was not trying to be Favre or play like him.

The Packers have a great QB in Rodgers and it was nice to see that they had enough confidence in him to line up with 4 receivers, leaving Rodgers somewhat more vulnerable to a sack (of which they gave up exactly zero mostly thanks to the offensive linemen). Leading the Pack to a 24–19 victory over division rivals Vikings (in spite of 118 penalty yards against them) is a pretty impressive beginning and I am confident that Rodgers and the rest of the team can take on the rest of NFC North and make the playoffs. One thing though… If I was Rodgers, I would practice that Lambeau Leap some more, I am sure it will not be in vain.

What the fuck is wrong with the patent laws in this world? Why is anybody even considering letting Deutsche Telekom sue Compello over the use of the color magenta? They’re not even in the same business and they have way different logos! Seriously… What is wrong with people?!?

Exactly 1 googol huzzahs for Steffen. Hope you have a great day!