Science Cartoons - 3

I wasn't going to do more than one comic a day, but since I just published it into the FindPeaks 4.0 manual today, I may as well put it here too, and kill two birds with one stone.

Just to clarify, under copyright laws, you can certainly re-use my images for teaching purposes or your own private use (that's generally called "fair use" in the US, and copyright laws in most countries have similar exceptions), but you can't publish it, take credit for it, or profit from it without discussing it with me first. However, since people browse through my page all the time, I figure I should mention that I do hold copyright on the pictures, so don't steal them, ok?

Anyhow, Comic #3 is a brief description of how the compare in FindPeaks 4.0 works. Enjoy!

MIT Backs Free Access to Scientific Papers

I'm sure it's old news for a few people, but this was the first I've heard of it.

MIT Backs Free Access to Scientific Papers

I think this is pretty awesome. It's not just a few people, either it's the whole university. I hope other institutions follow their lead - Science should be a public venture, and free access to information is a keystone for scientists.

Has Apple gone too far?

As a bioinformatician, I enjoy a good looking piece of computer hardware and, for the last few years, the best looking hardware around has been the Apple Macs. I've even thought about buying their new macbooks, although for the same specs, you can pick up a dell on sale at 1/3rd of the price, so it's hardly a good deal. I really can't see myself running anything other than Linux on it, though, so despite the beautiful engineering, I can't see myself paying ~$300 for an OS I'd just remove. (I was even upset at paying ~$50 for a copy of Windows XP with my current laptop. Drop me a line if you want to buy the license - It doesn't even have a Valid EULA... but that's another story.)

Anyhow, I've got to admit, Apple has finally managed to turn me off completely. Check out this article. To paraphrase, Apple has decided to follow suit with Microsoft and Intel in order to prevent you from enjoying the content you own in the way you'd like to use it. In other words, Mac OSX is now claiming control over your media files. (And, I might add, this is not about copyright, because the article shows uses that are clearly restricting "fair use" as well.) DRM is now built right into your hardware, and if your hardware isn't DRM enabled, you can't use it. Ouch.

I feel sorry for those people who have jumped the Microsoft ship just to end up in the Apple camp and are about to discover that Apple doesn't have their best interests at heart either. Why shouldn't you be able show a movie on an external monitor or projector?

In the long run, this is probaby good advertising for GNU/Linux, which doesn't enforce media company greed on it's users. So, if anyone wants a free Ubuntu disk to make their Apple harware work for them instead of against them, here you go.