You made a dumb comment, given the context. And when called on it, your defense was to call other people stupid and make further comments that were irrational given the existing research in the field.
If that's too long for you (and we both know it isn't), then whatever. My only intent was to see that you understood why the comment was dumb.
"All the rest of the tech world is second class until someone decisively shows that one of the emperors is wearing no clothes."
Funny thing is: Facebook stock today closed at barely over its opening price. Why?
Sorry, but the Tech Bubble was over 10 years ago. Nobody in their right mind buys stock at 100 times price/earnings ratio, unless they expect the company to grow, very fast.
The problem is: Facebook can't grow very fast. They probably have near their peak audience right now, considering that more and more people are getting fed up with them and their corporate "me first" policies.
And for once, not many people were fooled. Actually, the starting price of 38 was way too high... I would not have bought at a quarter of that much.
So yeah, Zuckerburg was out there actually kinda naked today. He might not have been wearing no clothes, but apparently he was wearing sheer underwear.
"Don't lay this on Tim Cook. This was Steve Jobs's plan; Tim is just carrying on with it."
It doesn't matter whose idea it was. It is still a bad idea. They are making exactly the same mistakes that Microsoft did, for the same reasons Microsoft made them, and from which Microsoft has not, to this day, recovered.
Cook or Jobs, either one should know better. I could see this coming from a mile away, and they have had plenty of warning. If Apple keeps this up, the results will not be good for them.
I will summarize here, since you still seem to have some problem understanding what I was saying:
What *I* have been discussing all along has been your failure to understand item #4 above, which is what I first commented to you about... in the CONTEXT of the comment about cancer by khallow:
That's a bit slim for some of the claims they make such as the bit about cancer.
NOT that the experiments were not different... I never claimed they were the same, and in fact acknowledged that they were different.
The issue here is that the specific procedures they used have not demonstrated -- in OTHER research -- to increase the incidence of cancer, AND that lengthened telomeres -- also in other ongoing research -- has not been shown to increase cancer rates. These things HAVE been published before, and that was my main point.
If you had been referring to being the first to publish only that their technique resulted in lengthened telomeres, fine, but that would have been rather off-topic, given that the posts that came before were all about the cancer question. So that is not a valid defense of your reply. In fact your comment strongly implied that you were referring to the publishing of the other effects that appeared in TFA, which, as I mentioned, are hardly unique and have been published before.
In short, I think it is pretty clear that either: (a) your comments were made in ignorance of that prior research, or (b) out of context, given the post to which you were replying.
And yet you claim that I am the one who does not understand science. And your basis for saying that appears to be simply that I called you on a dumb comment you made.
I am glad you find it amusing. While I, on the other hand, find your lack of understanding to be somewhat alarming, given that you say you are a scientist.
It was your own initial reply about "first to publish" that was laughable. Let me repeat these things yet again, in one place so that maybe you will see how they fit together:
(1) The techniques they used were not original. They have been used not just once before but many times, although perhaps in different contexts.
(2) The results of those techiques in this case, were also not unique: lengthened telomeres. Now, it may be that those particular results were never achieved with these techniques. I grant you that. But that was NOT the topic of the post you were replying to. That was about cancer, AND whether the small sample size was significant. Then YOU chime in about "first to publish", which in this context is pretty ridiculous, because there is ONLY one unique thing about this experiment, which was achieving that particular result (lengthened telomeres), with this particular technique. However, that has little to do with the claims made in TFA, or the cancer question to which you were replying.
(3) So here we have unremarkable techniques that achieved unremarkable results, and here you are talking about "first to publish". And none of that has ANYTHING to do with the cancer issue that was the topic of the post you were replying to.
(4) Then I pointed out explicitly that they were not the first to publish, at least about many of the claims that were made in TFA.
(5) You replied (also laughably) that I "am clearly not involved in science". But what is even more clear is that you had not even understood what I was saying to you. (Nor were you familiar with the earlier research which I had been reading about years ago.)
(6) Then you mentioned that your remark was a reply about small sample size... when the MAIN topic of that post was the cancer question... the small sample size was only in relation to the larger issue, and I pointed out that it was irrelevant, given the OTHER research. But you STILL failed to see how that OTHER research ties in to your comment about "first to publish".
(7) Now you claim that I must have been replying to someone else... you STILL haven't gotten it through your head that I was demonstrating how asinine YOUR comments were, given the ACTUAL SCIENTIFIC CONTEXT of what was being discussed.
(8) And you say you are involved in stem cell research, and apparently don't understand -- either -- why that concerns me.
"The vast majority of the time I'm doing boring, easy stuff, that nevertheless needs to be done."
Then either you are in the wrong position, or you have a particularly cushy job.
If I get stuck doing boring, easy stuff for any length of time, then I tell the customer (who is my "employer", in a real sense) that my talents are being wasted and that they can -- and should, as soon as possible -- find someone else to do it for less money.
I'm not happy doing that, and eventually that will show in my work. F*ck that noise. I move on to the next thing.
Having said that: maybe what the boss here had in mind was in act boring, easy stuff... but I saw no evidence of that.
To elaborate a little, when I say "very functional", it includes these features:
Most "typical" digital watch functions: 12 / 24 hr. time, date, dual time, stopwatch, countdown timer. Also calculates sunrise/sunset times for your location, the date, and ST or DT.
Altimeter / barometer / depth gauge: tells you your altitude, atm. pressure, or depth underwater (down to 30 feet, not for scuba). Keeps a chart of pressure or altitude, depending on which mode has priority. Charts show directly on the watch. Logbook stores a number of these records. Also has a little 2-part arrow showing whether the pressure is increasing or decreasing (or altitude decreasing or increasing) right now, and half an hour ago.
Almost forgot: the storm alarm. If the pressure drops a certain amount or past a certain rate, it sets off the storm alarm. It works and it has come in very handy, warning me of coming bad weather in time to get out of or prepare for rain for example.
Ambient temperature: in F or C. Like almost all such watches (the ones that claim otherwise are lying), if you want an accurate temp. reading you have to take it off for a few minutes. But over time you learn the relative offset for different temperature ranges and you can tell the temperature pretty closely without taking it off.
Accurate compass: (Not just one of those 8-point jobs. It is accurate to at least 2 degrees, but if I remember correctly it's actually 1 degree.) Has numeric heading but also a "needle point" on the edge of the dial that you can sight across. Adjustable for the magnetic declination in your area. Also rotating bezel in 1-degree increments for marking a heading, and a glow-in-the-dark sight point on the bezel, so you can use the compass at night along with the backlight.
I've probably forgotten a couple of things. It's available in light dial with black display or black dial with light display. Also military model that is all black, with the black dial.
Mine is a Suunto Core. I'm not real happy with how big it is, but large seems to be the style these days.
But other than that, it is very functional. Barometer and altimeter work very well, and it even has a storm alarm when the pressure drops faster than a certain rate. I have found that works well, too.
Very functional, and nice looking (for a men's-style watch). I could hope for a smaller version, but I haven't seen any.
"It's not a derogatory term. It's just a way of saying that he wants to outsource the things he doesn't feel like should be a problem..."
It's possible that I am wrong, but I disagree. I think the context was pretty clear, and that he thinks just about anybody can do it... thus the outsourcing.
"Actually, the post I replied to about 'first to publish' was about the small sample size. I made that clear when I stated they would likely reproduce the experiment hundreds of times on new experiments refining the method"
And I repeat: given that these same techniques have been used by many researchers studying many different things, and that other researchers have also been studying the effects of lengthened telomeres for years, then the small sample size in this particular experiment is not terribly relevant to the question about cancer.
The issue under discussion was whether the methods involved here might increase the incidence of cancer. (And I chose to include whether the lengthening of telomeres itself might increase the incidence of cancer.)
And many years of research, and using these same techniques, have shown nothing of the kind. While granted, in general absence of evidence is not evidence of absence (the more generic way to put it), years of research with many researchers involved, and still no signal that these techniques, used properly, increase cancer rates, is significant data in itself.
I don't need to BE a scientist to understand science.
"I do stemcell research in a top notch lab."
Then Grid help us all. Given the general quality of the posts of yours that I have read, and the fact that you often seem to have trouble constructing a coherent English sentence, this does not serve to raise my confidence in contemporary research.
"But you would agree that progress is progress, yes? Why are you so excited to discredit this? Do you have a horse in this race?"
You misunderstand me. I have no interest in discrediting this at all. On the contrary, it appears to reinforce past research into the same thing, and reach the same conclusions.
And to me, that is all Good News. It just isn't so much "news".
"My dad hypothesized this in the early 80s. Theory and proof are far diffetent..."
I did not say "hypothesis" or "speculation". Look elsewhere in this thread for a link I supplied. This research has been going on for years and is far from mere speculation.
"The value of being first to publish is wat youre talking about."
Except that they aren't. See the Scientific American article I linked to way up above. Others have been studying lengthened telomeres (achieved by other means) for many years now, and none of them have reported any increase in cancer rates. Quite the opposite, in fact.
Some of the research suggests that short telomeres might actually be a factor in causing cancer, or helping it to grow.
Population increases have been leveling off faster than just about anybody predicted. Rates are down in Africa, China, India (the worst "offenders" of recent history).
Granted, things will probably get worse before they get better, but I just don't see the population apocalypse that others in the past have predicted, actually happening.
According to census figures, if it were not for immigration, the population of the U.S. would actually be lower today than 10 years ago.
"The older you get, the crazier you become in most peoples eyes."
Tell that to people like Albert Einstein, Richard Feynman, Stephen Hawking, etc., etc....
Sure, some people go crazy or get cantankerous. Others gain wisdom and give damned good advice. I don't think generalizing is going to go very far here.
By the way (and pardon the multiple posts... there are distractions here that keep pulling me away): the research published by the researchers at T.A. Sciences document a remarkable correlation between lengthened telomeres in the mice and longer lifespan (up to 40%), so that part was in fact demonstrated years ago, not just now.
They also reported all the other effects that these researchers claim: a drastic decrease in age-related disorders, and renewed strength and coordination (as demonstrated by tightrope-walking experiments).
So maybe the particular treatment is different, but the correlation between these effects and lengthened telomeres has in fact been well known for years now.
The exact formula they make from astragalus (and possibly other sources?) they claim is made from several ingredients that they claim to have a synergistic effect. However, it is also astronomically expensive. But the main "active ingredient" is available on the open market at much more reasonable rates.
Pardon me, you are correct. I had that article mixed up with another one.
But the basic concept is still not new. A few years ago some other scientists demonstrated that you can even lengthen telomeres via oral administration of a plant extract. I didn't believe that until I read the research paper, which was peer-reviewed.
Slashdot Mirror
"Tldr lol."
Okay, fine. Short and sweet:
You made a dumb comment, given the context. And when called on it, your defense was to call other people stupid and make further comments that were irrational given the existing research in the field.
If that's too long for you (and we both know it isn't), then whatever. My only intent was to see that you understood why the comment was dumb.
"All the rest of the tech world is second class until someone decisively shows that one of the emperors is wearing no clothes."
Funny thing is: Facebook stock today closed at barely over its opening price. Why?
Sorry, but the Tech Bubble was over 10 years ago. Nobody in their right mind buys stock at 100 times price/earnings ratio, unless they expect the company to grow, very fast.
The problem is: Facebook can't grow very fast. They probably have near their peak audience right now, considering that more and more people are getting fed up with them and their corporate "me first" policies.
And for once, not many people were fooled. Actually, the starting price of 38 was way too high... I would not have bought at a quarter of that much.
So yeah, Zuckerburg was out there actually kinda naked today. He might not have been wearing no clothes, but apparently he was wearing sheer underwear.
"Don't lay this on Tim Cook. This was Steve Jobs's plan; Tim is just carrying on with it."
It doesn't matter whose idea it was. It is still a bad idea. They are making exactly the same mistakes that Microsoft did, for the same reasons Microsoft made them, and from which Microsoft has not, to this day, recovered.
Cook or Jobs, either one should know better. I could see this coming from a mile away, and they have had plenty of warning. If Apple keeps this up, the results will not be good for them.
What * I * have been discussing all along has been your failure to understand item #4 above, which is what I first commented to you about... in the CONTEXT of the comment about cancer by khallow:
That's a bit slim for some of the claims they make such as the bit about cancer.
NOT that the experiments were not different... I never claimed they were the same, and in fact acknowledged that they were different.
The issue here is that the specific procedures they used have not demonstrated -- in OTHER research -- to increase the incidence of cancer, AND that lengthened telomeres -- also in other ongoing research -- has not been shown to increase cancer rates. These things HAVE been published before, and that was my main point.
If you had been referring to being the first to publish only that their technique resulted in lengthened telomeres, fine, but that would have been rather off-topic, given that the posts that came before were all about the cancer question. So that is not a valid defense of your reply. In fact your comment strongly implied that you were referring to the publishing of the other effects that appeared in TFA, which, as I mentioned, are hardly unique and have been published before.
In short, I think it is pretty clear that either: (a) your comments were made in ignorance of that prior research, or (b) out of context, given the post to which you were replying.
And yet you claim that I am the one who does not understand science. And your basis for saying that appears to be simply that I called you on a dumb comment you made.
I am glad you find it amusing. While I, on the other hand, find your lack of understanding to be somewhat alarming, given that you say you are a scientist.
It was your own initial reply about "first to publish" that was laughable. Let me repeat these things yet again, in one place so that maybe you will see how they fit together:
(1) The techniques they used were not original. They have been used not just once before but many times, although perhaps in different contexts.
(2) The results of those techiques in this case, were also not unique: lengthened telomeres. Now, it may be that those particular results were never achieved with these techniques. I grant you that. But that was NOT the topic of the post you were replying to. That was about cancer, AND whether the small sample size was significant. Then YOU chime in about "first to publish", which in this context is pretty ridiculous, because there is ONLY one unique thing about this experiment, which was achieving that particular result (lengthened telomeres), with this particular technique. However, that has little to do with the claims made in TFA, or the cancer question to which you were replying.
(3) So here we have unremarkable techniques that achieved unremarkable results, and here you are talking about "first to publish". And none of that has ANYTHING to do with the cancer issue that was the topic of the post you were replying to.
(4) Then I pointed out explicitly that they were not the first to publish, at least about many of the claims that were made in TFA.
(5) You replied (also laughably) that I "am clearly not involved in science". But what is even more clear is that you had not even understood what I was saying to you. (Nor were you familiar with the earlier research which I had been reading about years ago.)
(6) Then you mentioned that your remark was a reply about small sample size... when the MAIN topic of that post was the cancer question... the small sample size was only in relation to the larger issue, and I pointed out that it was irrelevant, given the OTHER research. But you STILL failed to see how that OTHER research ties in to your comment about "first to publish".
(7) Now you claim that I must have been replying to someone else... you STILL haven't gotten it through your head that I was demonstrating how asinine YOUR comments were, given the ACTUAL SCIENTIFIC CONTEXT of what was being discussed.
(8) And you say you are involved in stem cell research, and apparently don't understand -- either -- why that concerns me.
Just wow.
"... most of the time I'm doing repetitive stuff that is necessary nonetheless."
"Doing repetitive stuff" is not programming, that's data entry. And that's beneath even "code monkeys".
I think your definitions need a little work.
"The vast majority of the time I'm doing boring, easy stuff, that nevertheless needs to be done."
Then either you are in the wrong position, or you have a particularly cushy job.
If I get stuck doing boring, easy stuff for any length of time, then I tell the customer (who is my "employer", in a real sense) that my talents are being wasted and that they can -- and should, as soon as possible -- find someone else to do it for less money.
I'm not happy doing that, and eventually that will show in my work. F*ck that noise. I move on to the next thing.
Having said that: maybe what the boss here had in mind was in act boring, easy stuff... but I saw no evidence of that.
If you're outsourcing to "entry level" programmers, then you're a fool.
Entry-level programmers can be had in-house for not much more than minimum wage, without the hassles of outsourcing.
I don't think that's the situation here.
To elaborate a little, when I say "very functional", it includes these features:
Most "typical" digital watch functions: 12 / 24 hr. time, date, dual time, stopwatch, countdown timer. Also calculates sunrise/sunset times for your location, the date, and ST or DT.
Altimeter / barometer / depth gauge: tells you your altitude, atm. pressure, or depth underwater (down to 30 feet, not for scuba). Keeps a chart of pressure or altitude, depending on which mode has priority. Charts show directly on the watch. Logbook stores a number of these records. Also has a little 2-part arrow showing whether the pressure is increasing or decreasing (or altitude decreasing or increasing) right now, and half an hour ago.
Almost forgot: the storm alarm. If the pressure drops a certain amount or past a certain rate, it sets off the storm alarm. It works and it has come in very handy, warning me of coming bad weather in time to get out of or prepare for rain for example.
Ambient temperature: in F or C. Like almost all such watches (the ones that claim otherwise are lying), if you want an accurate temp. reading you have to take it off for a few minutes. But over time you learn the relative offset for different temperature ranges and you can tell the temperature pretty closely without taking it off.
Accurate compass: (Not just one of those 8-point jobs. It is accurate to at least 2 degrees, but if I remember correctly it's actually 1 degree.) Has numeric heading but also a "needle point" on the edge of the dial that you can sight across. Adjustable for the magnetic declination in your area. Also rotating bezel in 1-degree increments for marking a heading, and a glow-in-the-dark sight point on the bezel, so you can use the compass at night along with the backlight.
I've probably forgotten a couple of things. It's available in light dial with black display or black dial with light display. Also military model that is all black, with the black dial.
Mine is a Suunto Core. I'm not real happy with how big it is, but large seems to be the style these days.
But other than that, it is very functional. Barometer and altimeter work very well, and it even has a storm alarm when the pressure drops faster than a certain rate. I have found that works well, too.
Very functional, and nice looking (for a men's-style watch). I could hope for a smaller version, but I haven't seen any.
"It's not a derogatory term. It's just a way of saying that he wants to outsource the things he doesn't feel like should be a problem..."
It's possible that I am wrong, but I disagree. I think the context was pretty clear, and that he thinks just about anybody can do it... thus the outsourcing.
And that's a bad sign.
If you are a developer, and your boss thinks programming is "monkey work", I'd be looking for a different job, right now.
I know that's not the question you asked, but that's the answer I have.
"Actually, the post I replied to about 'first to publish' was about the small sample size. I made that clear when I stated they would likely reproduce the experiment hundreds of times on new experiments refining the method"
And I repeat: given that these same techniques have been used by many researchers studying many different things, and that other researchers have also been studying the effects of lengthened telomeres for years, then the small sample size in this particular experiment is not terribly relevant to the question about cancer.
"You are clearly not involved in science."
You are clearly not very logically-minded.
The issue under discussion was whether the methods involved here might increase the incidence of cancer. (And I chose to include whether the lengthening of telomeres itself might increase the incidence of cancer.)
And many years of research, and using these same techniques, have shown nothing of the kind. While granted, in general absence of evidence is not evidence of absence (the more generic way to put it), years of research with many researchers involved, and still no signal that these techniques, used properly, increase cancer rates, is significant data in itself.
I don't need to BE a scientist to understand science.
"I do stemcell research in a top notch lab."
Then Grid help us all. Given the general quality of the posts of yours that I have read, and the fact that you often seem to have trouble constructing a coherent English sentence, this does not serve to raise my confidence in contemporary research.
"Unfortunately, at least in the US, it would be more like think of Thurmond, Byrd, and Stevens. We'd have to start actively killing off politicians."
Hahahaha. Somebody please mod this up. I am laughing way too hard. Tears of truth.
"But you would agree that progress is progress, yes? Why are you so excited to discredit this? Do you have a horse in this race?"
You misunderstand me. I have no interest in discrediting this at all. On the contrary, it appears to reinforce past research into the same thing, and reach the same conclusions.
And to me, that is all Good News. It just isn't so much "news".
"My dad hypothesized this in the early 80s. Theory and proof are far diffetent..."
I did not say "hypothesis" or "speculation". Look elsewhere in this thread for a link I supplied. This research has been going on for years and is far from mere speculation.
"The value of being first to publish is wat youre talking about."
Except that they aren't. See the Scientific American article I linked to way up above. Others have been studying lengthened telomeres (achieved by other means) for many years now, and none of them have reported any increase in cancer rates. Quite the opposite, in fact.
Some of the research suggests that short telomeres might actually be a factor in causing cancer, or helping it to grow.
"you're right, there's no point in it unless we can fuck hot young women until the end."
I'll be here. For a l--o--n--g time.
Population increases have been leveling off faster than just about anybody predicted. Rates are down in Africa, China, India (the worst "offenders" of recent history).
Granted, things will probably get worse before they get better, but I just don't see the population apocalypse that others in the past have predicted, actually happening.
According to census figures, if it were not for immigration, the population of the U.S. would actually be lower today than 10 years ago.
"The older you get, the crazier you become in most peoples eyes."
Tell that to people like Albert Einstein, Richard Feynman, Stephen Hawking, etc., etc. ...
Sure, some people go crazy or get cantankerous. Others gain wisdom and give damned good advice. I don't think generalizing is going to go very far here.
By the way (and pardon the multiple posts... there are distractions here that keep pulling me away): the research published by the researchers at T.A. Sciences document a remarkable correlation between lengthened telomeres in the mice and longer lifespan (up to 40%), so that part was in fact demonstrated years ago, not just now.
They also reported all the other effects that these researchers claim: a drastic decrease in age-related disorders, and renewed strength and coordination (as demonstrated by tightrope-walking experiments).
So maybe the particular treatment is different, but the correlation between these effects and lengthened telomeres has in fact been well known for years now.
Here is a link to an article in Scientific American about the guys I mentioned just above.
The exact formula they make from astragalus (and possibly other sources?) they claim is made from several ingredients that they claim to have a synergistic effect. However, it is also astronomically expensive. But the main "active ingredient" is available on the open market at much more reasonable rates.
Pardon me, you are correct. I had that article mixed up with another one.
But the basic concept is still not new. A few years ago some other scientists demonstrated that you can even lengthen telomeres via oral administration of a plant extract. I didn't believe that until I read the research paper, which was peer-reviewed.