
Computer Chips Seem Poised to Shrink Again - robg
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/31/science/31compute.html?hp
======
hugh3
This is an awfully non-informative article. But apparently they've done...
something! And it involves silicon oxide! And somebody stumbled upon it by
accident! But for anyone with a knowledge of chip design beyond the "magic
happens here" level, it's lacking in detail, with not even a link to the
actual article.

Anyone know what they're actually talking about?

~~~
jessriedel
>...with not even a link to the actual article.

Incidentally, how is it that a newspaper could _ever_ report on published
research without linking or citing the publications? I could never understand
how common that is, not could I get a good answer from anyone in the industry.

~~~
v21
Even the BBC, usually so good, is terrible about this. And it's not like
people haven't told them, they're just terribly intransigent about it.

[http://bengoldacre.posterous.com/trying-to-get-the-bbc-to-
li...](http://bengoldacre.posterous.com/trying-to-get-the-bbc-to-link-to-
journal-arti) is Ben Goldacre writing in to the Beeb.

He later had a response ( [http://bengoldacre.posterous.com/no-movement-on-
the-bbcs-biz...](http://bengoldacre.posterous.com/no-movement-on-the-bbcs-
bizarre-links-policy) ):

"Many thanks for your message, and interest in the site. The issue of linking
to specific research papers, rather than the journals in which they appear is
something with which we have long wrestled.

Linking to the journal gives the reader the chance to look at the source of
the story, understand something of the wider context and get an idea of
whether the research is peer reviewed. It also gives a chance to read
associated information in editorials, etc, which often may be of interest. It
is also a way for us to credit the journal.

We accept that linking to the specific research paper itself is often a
desirable thing to do, and it is certainly something we will try to do more of
in future. However, we don't believe that it is something we can do on every
occasion - for instance many papers are available on the web via subscription
only, while others give only an Abstract summary. In these instances, the vast
majority of our readers would not be able to read the full papers, without
paying for access, even if we provided the relevant link.

In addition, we do have finite resources, and our view is that our top
priority should always be to provide authoratitive, accurate and attractive
reportage. We have to balance that against the desirability of providing a
link on a story which is likely to be of use only to a small number of our
readers.

We have sent out new guidelines to reporting staff summarising our position,
and stressing that linking to individual papers is something they should
consider as an option on each story."

Which he (and I) thought was a bit rubbish. So it goes.

~~~
jessriedel
Wow, thanks for that. Those are exactly my feelings.

Incidentally, that (rubbish) response doesn't address the fact that at the
very least they could include a citation without a link, exactly as the
economist does when it discusses a research article.

------
kiba
People can engineer technologies on nanoscales, but they can't pretty much
repair the human body to make it last forever.

