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Repairing Genetic Mutations With Lasers?
Roland Piquepaille writes "German researchers at the Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel (CAU) think they've proved that genetic information can be controlled by light. The group studied the interaction between the four DNA bases — adenine (A), cytosine (C), guanine (G), and thymine (T) — by using femtosecond time-resolved fluorescence spectroscopy. The researchers think that they've demonstrated that DNA strands differ in their light sensitivity depending on their base sequences. The team thinks that it might be possible in the future to repair gene mutations using laser radiation. One of the project leaders said that 'it might even be possible under some circumstances to make transistors from DNA that would work through the hydrogen bonds.' It's not the first time I've heard about DNA computing, but this new approach looks promising."
Althouth I really like Linux and the free software, I think that we have to accept the crushing truth.
In these times it really doesn't matter if is launched KDE 35.0 or Gnome Whistler, because while both environments (and others with less weight like IceWM) were worrying in confuse the user with a completely different aspect, Microsoft was consolidating his position as the leader in the field of the operating systems, first with the operating system Windows XP (that have approximately 90% of the market on the client side) and with its advanced successor, the recently Windows Vista, that offers a new form to interact with our PCs. Is faster, friendlier, and secure.
The reality is that Linux has little to offer to the inexperienced user. The same novice that is seen disconcerted by the impossibility to do a simple copy-paste between QT and GTK applications. If you don't believe me, go out and ask to the people how they install a program that does NOT have packages for their distribution (because each one has its own packege system, completely incompatible with the others, and requires the use of complicated commands). Even RPM packages can't be installed equally in Mandriva and SuSE.
Then what we suggest to this user (that is just beginning in the Unix Word) is that he need to download the source code, open the console, decompress it and compile it. How many people get to do it? One of each a million, I have to say. We persist in THAT is the normal thing... nothing more far from reality.
Explain him why in his Ubuntu, Kubuntu or Fedora, he cannot see many web pages: he must download the Flash and the Java plugin, in order to install them with complicated commands. Also make him know that he won't be able to listen his MP3, WMA and WMV files. Tell to the flaming buyer of a new AMD64 how he can play flash games. A shit.
And the gamers? Obviously they'll return to windows, because even God can't use the hardware acceleration of the most modern graphics cards (besides, the drivers don't come included with the distributions... becuase of "freedom"). How many games can be run on Linux?... just a few ones. By each Linux videogame we have 500 that run on Windows. And the few ones that run on Linux...Oh! Surprise!...Just Windows binaries on the CD, and you have to download the Linux version from a website. Finally the user returns to the best option, the most used OS in homes (we know what OS is).
The proof of the free software failure is seen also in the professional world, either in areas like electronic design (doesn't exist anything similar to Protel), architecture (the standard CAD -all we know wich one-only works on Windows), web design (something similar to Dreamweaver? Don't mention me something like NVU, that not only is full of bugs, but just have the 5% of the Dreamweaver features. Neither Bluefish, Quanta or similars... no one would face a complex project with such a primitive tools). DTP? Scribus is a good try (very immature) but Quark or InDesign are far batter. Flash content creation (a standard, and a flash player installed in the 99% of PCs)? It cannot be done on Linux.
In the software development industry there's not a single decent RAD tool. Gambas seems to promise, but for now is shit; Eclipse is a RAM eater (thanks Java) that can only be used with 2GB RAM; Kylix promised to give us the potential of Delphi to Linux, but it was discontinued because the developers hate to pay for licenses and they prefer to use a primitive tool, like KDevelop. And now that we talk about Borland tools, is not rare that programming gurus like Ian Marteens abandoned Delphi and C++ Builder and now prefer the most powerful system for software development: Microsoft Visual Studio.NET.
A computer game developer would not develop free (as in free spech) games, because they have to eat and there's not a business model compatible with free software. The Linux users don't want free (as in free spech) games, they just want commercial quality without pay a single buck.
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