I really don't understand the infatuation with high tech voting. For something as critical as voting in a democratic election, I think the engineer's mantra KISS (keep it simple, stupid!) applies. Use paper ballots with the name and picture of the candidate in large print. Above their name, have a big checkbox, and indicate "Check here to vote for candidate". Count the number of ballots issued at each polling station, count the number of ballots that go into the box, and and count the number of ballots that come out of the box. Sure, it will take longer, but how hard is it to screw that up? It could be argued that using a simple enough ballot, anyone who fucks their ballot up is not "disenfranchised", they just fucked up, and it would rightfully be their own fault.
Barbara McClintock did not work on the structure of DNA, she won the Nobel Prize for her work on transposable DNA elements in maize. You are thinking of Rosalind Franklin.
I'm not so sure you can separate the two so easily. First, consider the fact that if the reviewer cannot understand what you are saying by reading your paper, many other people who will read your paper once it's been published won't understand it either. I can just see it: the reviewer asks the author a question using this email system you describe. The author explains their intent and the reviewer understands and accepts the paper. The confusing wording in the paper is never cleared up. Expecting all those people who have to read the thing once it's published to make heads or tails out of something worded poorly is just not fair. And don't give me the "once the author sees the reviewer's confusion, s/he will take it upon themselves to fix up the wording" bit. That would be really nice but don't count on it.
Why not? In publishing fiction and literature, is this not the realm of the editor's work? I submit that what you just described is exactly how scientific literature should be published. Referees judge on scientific merit, editors should facilitate communication to ensure that no misunderstandings are made.
Second, you seem to make the distinction between having great scientific thoughts and the ability to communicate them effectively. Brilliant physists like Richard Feynman were able to explain very complicated concepts to a wide audience. If you really, truly understand something you should be able to make it understandable to others. If you cannot describe something without falling back on a lot of jargon, then perhaps you don't really have that deep an understanding after all.
Not everyone is Feynman. and probably not every physicist can understand Feynman. I dunno, IANAP so I can't speak to that. It is clear that since biology is so specialized that people often working in labs next door to each other have no idea what each are up to. It's common for biology papers to be fairly concise and contain reasonable amounts of jargon, making it difficult for people not directly in the field. Of course there are the occasional ground breaking papers that touches on a subject so central that EVERYONE gets it; most papers are not of that caliber and are geared towards specialists.
>Third, writing really isn't that difficult. Let's face it: a lot of science-types look down on those who majored in literature and humanities stuff in college. The feeling among scientists is that all the writing stuff is easy compared to the hardcore technical stuff that they do. If that's so, then prove it. It really shouldn't be too difficult for them to produce something reasonably easy to read. No one is going to kill you if you don't get all the rules for comma usage correct. But you should really have the ability to communicate your thoughts clearly to others in your field.
again, how do you deal with incompetent reviewers? you basically get one chance at revision. if they are failing to comprehend at a very basic level, is it REALLY my fault as an author for failing to communicate my findings, or is it the editor's fault for not finding a more suitable reviewer?
A recent reviewer asked us to do an experiment to prove/disprove a point, but what he proposed DID NOT ADDRESS HIS CONCERNS AT ALL. I won't go into the gory details, but if you know anything about biology, the analogy is that he/she asked for a Northern blot to determine where the RNA is subcellularly localized. It made ABSOLUTELY NO SENSE TO ANY REASONABLE PERSON. The other reviewer of our manuscript gave us enthusiastic support, and the work at a technical level was strongly supported by another expert in the field when we presented it at a meeting. I find it really hard to believe that we failed at either a technical or communicative level, we just go really unlucky with a reviewer.
I don't know that constant anonymous email communication w/ referees is the answer. I do know that uninformed referees are a problem. They are supposed to provide oversight to the author's work; who is overseeing theirs? Certainly not the journal editors. They are so bogged down in submissions that out of practicality they must defer to the referee's decisions.
I agree that its important to communicate clearly. But how do you explain that one reviewer gives a glowing review, while another thinks its a steaming pile of dogshit? the assumption is that everyone comprehends at the same level, which is certainly not true. The negative reviewer is likely not a dumbass, he/she may just not be familiar enough with the literature. This becomes a problem when they send back a negative review w/o a clear understanding of the technical issues presented. surely you do not suggest that scientific literature be toned down to the lowest common denominator?
Bollocks. There is a difference between somatic mutations and germline mutations. Many human cancers are due to loss of heterozygosity in the soma at tumor suppressor gene loci.
Re:Read "Bringing Down the House"
on
Geeks and Poker?
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· Score: 5, Insightful
While an interesting read (I own the book and have read it several times), it's more about the social engineering aspect of going against the casinos than the actual mathmatics and statistics aspects of card counting. For instance, the MIT team had to resort to (legal) aliases and disguises to avoid being kicked out of Vegas casinos. The trick was not card counting per se, but card counting without the house knowing about it.
also, Bringing Down The House was about blackjack, not poker:) Poker Nation (forgot the author, sorry) is a much more interesting look into the world of competitive poker players.
on the one hand, I feel its a good thing because at least this way the students are getting the reading material.
on the other, I find it extremely hard to believe that they can afford IBM Thinkpads, but not manage to get dead tree books. There is a great deal to be said about dead tree books, none the least that they are easy on the eyes. I've also found books to be the better format for things such as textbooks, because it's easier to flip back and forth between pages. K-12 textbooks are also larger and probably hold more text per page than a laptop screen can (goes back to easier on the eyes).
Then there's the old fart in me that has this uneasy feeling in the back of my mind that says "laptops?!? back in my day we had used textbooks and took notes by hand! and we learned to search for text in an index! (barefoot,uphill, in the snow, etc etc). and we liked it!" While I am all for technology in learning, I just can't get over the nagging feeling that it's just school boards looking to justify spending to make it LOOK like they're doing a good job, and not spending it where it NEEDS to be spent, like on actually qualified and caring teachers.
given the smaller form factor of flash cards, why not just RAID a bunch of smaller cards together? According to pricewatch. a 1GB flashcard is about $160.00 US. 160*8 = 1280, which is a little below 5 times the cost of the 8 gb card, and also gives you increased bandwidth. For a portable device that doesn't need oodles of space for multimedia files, you wouldn't even need this much disk space. the only thing that is worrisome is the limited flash cycles.
I think sending manned missions to Mars directly is a tad bit over-ambitious. For starters, isn't it true that the 60's technology that got us to the moon is largely lost? I remember reading somewhere that the plans for the Apollo missions were lost in a sea of red tape somewhere. Look at the failures of unmanned Mars spacecraft. Even if we had the technology, you would expect a few human-less dry runs first, much like the Apollo missions. Even then you would want to send astronauts to Mars orbit without landing (like Apollo 10). With Mars being months away, and with essentially untested technology, establishing a moonbase seems a more realistic and attainable goal.
I dunno, dude. "Self-important egomanic" is pretty harsh. Take me for example. I can't hear the difference between a 160 kbps and 128 kbps encoded file, much less the difference between ogg and mp3. Yet I encode everything to ogg (except for the time when I had my ripper set up wrong by mistake, and too lazy to re-rip:P). I think supporting Free (as in speech) Software ala RMS is a noble cause. Am I a strict adherent to the gospel according to St. Stallman? Hardly. sheeit, I use winXP:P But if a nice, Free, alternative (ogg) to proprietary/non-Free software (mp3) exists, operates seamlessly with my existing setup (Winamp + cheap ass computer speakers), then why not support it by using it? It's not like I don't try to force other ppl to use ogg, or anything like that. it simply fits my needs. I'd hardly classify myself as a self-important egomanic, as you so bluntly put.
I think ogg is a great example of Free Software. Aside from the file extension, to me (the end user) it really is no different than mp3. If only other Free Software were so easy to use (operating systems, productivity software, etc.), I would support it by using it as well.
I figured 88 cents is cheap enough to give it a try. It doesn't work:P wouldn't accept my payment. Fuck that. Going to finally bite the bullet and try iTunes:P
now that I think about it, there is an inherent flaw in this line of reasoning. Think about it: the Ring corrupted Smeagol almost immediately to kill Deagol. This says that hobbits are not all created equal wrt to ring resistance, and therefore Gandalf letting Frodo inherit the ring was a fundamentally dangerous thing to do, with frodo being Bilbo's cousin being his only reference point of his resistiveness, even though it turned out alright in the end.
no disrespect, but I really liked the last chapters of the book. I always got the feeling that when Tolkien was writing about Great Events he used the more poetic and formal language (i.e., more like Yoda-speak with back-assward syntax); when dealing with Hobbits, he (puposely?) slipped into more "Common" speech. While I agree that the style was different, it think it was done on purpose and with great effect. It FELT like they were coming home when I read it. It also sets up the idea that, although the Shire has been rescued from Saruman, Frodo has sustained too much hurt to remain and departs over the Sea with Bilbo. It's not as bittersweet if he just gets up and leaves coming back from Gondor. Although I can understand why PJ left it out of the movie (even accounting for the fact that he is on record of hating the "Scouring" chapter).
that's not a very objective viewpoint, either. I know of about 25 million people who would argue that it's a Taiwanese matter. Most Taiwanese that I know, even if they are pro-unification, have absolutely no interest in doing so under the current (or any) communist regime.
Remember that this is the (more or less) same leadership that drove tanks over peaceful protesters in Tienanmen Square. They "rationalized" that atrocity by saying it was an internal matter. Very little was done by the international community after that incident, if I recall correctly. Governments are too eager to try and tap into China's vast market to really sanction China in any meaningful way with regards to human rights. if Taiwan outrights declares independence, I would not put it past them to bomb Taiwan into oblivion just on a matter of principle. I also wouldn't put it past the current U.S. administration to do nothing about it.
from a moral standpoint I agree with you. However, technologically, there is a aignificant difference between cross-breeding and introducing heterologous transgenes from different species. With cross-breeding, the parental species are similar enough that the hybrid progeny are not really THAT different, and obstensibly present far less risk, environmentally or ecologically (although the risk still exists). Transgenic animals, on the other hand, are an unknown, because the transgene is being put into a context that is completely foreign. It's analogous to, say, "contaminating" Mars with Earth microbes on space probes. Can we reasonably conclude that earth microbes will not have an effect on the Mars environment, given that there isn't much environment on Mars to start out with? Probably. But we still play it safe and don't land properly quarantined spacecraft on Mars. One would think that we'd be more careful with releasing genetically modified organisms into the environment that we actually inhabit.
expressing a fluorescent protein in zebrafish may sound harmless, but I think restricting such things for now is prudent. It's completely unclear what environmental effects it might have. Ever hear of prions? These are proteins that are misfolded, but also cause similar proteins in normal cells to also misfold. The misfolded proteins can cause diseases, such as mad cow disease. The scary thing about prions is that they are resistant to digestive enzymes in your digestive tract. Thus, diseases like mad cow disease may propagate indefinitely.
While there is no evidence that fluorescent proteins have prion-like properties, I bring this example up because prions have only been accepted doctrine among biochemists within the past decade. In the 80's if you proposed that there was an epigenetic disease-causing agent consisting of misfolded protein, people would have laughed in your face. There is just not enough information as to what may happen. IN addition, I can think of other, simpler, more plausible scenarios regarding glowing fish. Green fluorescing fish may affect native algae populations, which would certainly affect aquatic ecosystems. Also, in introducing the transgene, there are probably also antibiotic drug resistance genes used during the cloning process that are present in the organism. Introducing these genes into the wild is not a good idea for obvious reasons.
The truth of the matter is, we know very little about how heterologous proteins and transgenes will behave in the wild. I myself am a molecular geneticist, and I'm all for promoting biotechnology, but I think it's not a bad idea to keep this kind of technology out of the hands of your average "well the kids are bored of the fish, let's flush it down the toilet" type of consumers. Having genetically modified agriculture is pretty scary in and of itself, although I do believe that the benefits outweigh the risks in that case. Certainly, more studies on environmental and ecosystem impact may be prudent.
oh, stop being so pessimistic:) if Peter Jackson and WETA et al. did the Hobbit, I'd give 80-20 odds that it'll turn out better than expected, given their track record so far. Kids' movies can be done well! Like you say, they can be done like crap, too, it all depends on who makes the film.
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I really don't understand the infatuation with high tech voting. For something as critical as voting in a democratic election, I think the engineer's mantra KISS (keep it simple, stupid!) applies. Use paper ballots with the name and picture of the candidate in large print. Above their name, have a big checkbox, and indicate "Check here to vote for candidate". Count the number of ballots issued at each polling station, count the number of ballots that go into the box, and and count the number of ballots that come out of the box. Sure, it will take longer, but how hard is it to screw that up? It could be argued that using a simple enough ballot, anyone who fucks their ballot up is not "disenfranchised", they just fucked up, and it would rightfully be their own fault.
Barbara McClintock did not work on the structure of DNA, she won the Nobel Prize for her work on transposable DNA elements in maize. You are thinking of Rosalind Franklin.
I'm not so sure you can separate the two so easily. First, consider the fact that if the reviewer cannot understand what you are saying by reading your paper, many other people who will read your paper once it's been published won't understand it either. I can just see it: the reviewer asks the author a question using this email system you describe. The author explains their intent and the reviewer understands and accepts the paper. The confusing wording in the paper is never cleared up. Expecting all those people who have to read the thing once it's published to make heads or tails out of something worded poorly is just not fair. And don't give me the "once the author sees the reviewer's confusion, s/he will take it upon themselves to fix up the wording" bit. That would be really nice but don't count on it.
Why not? In publishing fiction and literature, is this not the realm of the editor's work? I submit that what you just described is exactly how scientific literature should be published. Referees judge on scientific merit, editors should facilitate communication to ensure that no misunderstandings are made.
Second, you seem to make the distinction between having great scientific thoughts and the ability to communicate them effectively. Brilliant physists like Richard Feynman were able to explain very complicated concepts to a wide audience. If you really, truly understand something you should be able to make it understandable to others. If you cannot describe something without falling back on a lot of jargon, then perhaps you don't really have that deep an understanding after all.
Not everyone is Feynman. and probably not every physicist can understand Feynman. I dunno, IANAP so I can't speak to that. It is clear that since biology is so specialized that people often working in labs next door to each other have no idea what each are up to. It's common for biology papers to be fairly concise and contain reasonable amounts of jargon, making it difficult for people not directly in the field. Of course there are the occasional ground breaking papers that touches on a subject so central that EVERYONE gets it; most papers are not of that caliber and are geared towards specialists.
>Third, writing really isn't that difficult. Let's face it: a lot of science-types look down on those who majored in literature and humanities stuff in college. The feeling among scientists is that all the writing stuff is easy compared to the hardcore technical stuff that they do. If that's so, then prove it. It really shouldn't be too difficult for them to produce something reasonably easy to read. No one is going to kill you if you don't get all the rules for comma usage correct. But you should really have the ability to communicate your thoughts clearly to others in your field.
again, how do you deal with incompetent reviewers? you basically get one chance at revision. if they are failing to comprehend at a very basic level, is it REALLY my fault as an author for failing to communicate my findings, or is it the editor's fault for not finding a more suitable reviewer?
A recent reviewer asked us to do an experiment to prove/disprove a point, but what he proposed DID NOT ADDRESS HIS CONCERNS AT ALL. I won't go into the gory details, but if you know anything about biology, the analogy is that he/she asked for a Northern blot to determine where the RNA is subcellularly localized. It made ABSOLUTELY NO SENSE TO ANY REASONABLE PERSON. The other reviewer of our manuscript gave us enthusiastic support, and the work at a technical level was strongly supported by another expert in the field when we presented it at a meeting. I find it really hard to believe that we failed at either a technical or communicative level, we just go really unlucky with a reviewer.
I don't know that constant anonymous email communication w/ referees is the answer. I do know that uninformed referees are a problem. They are supposed to provide oversight to the author's work; who is overseeing theirs? Certainly not the journal editors. They are so bogged down in submissions that out of practicality they must defer to the referee's decisions.
I agree that its important to communicate clearly. But how do you explain that one reviewer gives a glowing review, while another thinks its a steaming pile of dogshit? the assumption is that everyone comprehends at the same level, which is certainly not true. The negative reviewer is likely not a dumbass, he/she may just not be familiar enough with the literature. This becomes a problem when they send back a negative review w/o a clear understanding of the technical issues presented. surely you do not suggest that scientific literature be toned down to the lowest common denominator?
Bollocks. There is a difference between somatic mutations and germline mutations. Many human cancers are due to loss of heterozygosity in the soma at tumor suppressor gene loci.
While an interesting read (I own the book and have read it several times), it's more about the social engineering aspect of going against the casinos than the actual mathmatics and statistics aspects of card counting. For instance, the MIT team had to resort to (legal) aliases and disguises to avoid being kicked out of Vegas casinos. The trick was not card counting per se, but card counting without the house knowing about it.
:) Poker Nation (forgot the author, sorry) is a much more interesting look into the world of competitive poker players.
also, Bringing Down The House was about blackjack, not poker
on the one hand, I feel its a good thing because at least this way the students are getting the reading material.
on the other, I find it extremely hard to believe that they can afford IBM Thinkpads, but not manage to get dead tree books. There is a great deal to be said about dead tree books, none the least that they are easy on the eyes. I've also found books to be the better format for things such as textbooks, because it's easier to flip back and forth between pages. K-12 textbooks are also larger and probably hold more text per page than a laptop screen can (goes back to easier on the eyes).
Then there's the old fart in me that has this uneasy feeling in the back of my mind that says "laptops?!? back in my day we had used textbooks and took notes by hand! and we learned to search for text in an index! (barefoot,uphill, in the snow, etc etc). and we liked it!" While I am all for technology in learning, I just can't get over the nagging feeling that it's just school boards looking to justify spending to make it LOOK like they're doing a good job, and not spending it where it NEEDS to be spent, like on actually qualified and caring teachers.
since when could you get an iGP-100 for under 200 bucks? The cheapest I could find was $210 on pricewatch.
given the smaller form factor of flash cards, why not just RAID a bunch of smaller cards together? According to pricewatch. a 1GB flashcard is about $160.00 US. 160*8 = 1280, which is a little below 5 times the cost of the 8 gb card, and also gives you increased bandwidth. For a portable device that doesn't need oodles of space for multimedia files, you wouldn't even need this much disk space. the only thing that is worrisome is the limited flash cycles.
or you could support independent artists.
probably much less payload? no crew's quarters and supplies, life support systems, etc...
I think sending manned missions to Mars directly is a tad bit over-ambitious. For starters, isn't it true that the 60's technology that got us to the moon is largely lost? I remember reading somewhere that the plans for the Apollo missions were lost in a sea of red tape somewhere. Look at the failures of unmanned Mars spacecraft. Even if we had the technology, you would expect a few human-less dry runs first, much like the Apollo missions. Even then you would want to send astronauts to Mars orbit without landing (like Apollo 10). With Mars being months away, and with essentially untested technology, establishing a moonbase seems a more realistic and attainable goal.
I agree with just about everything you say, except that I think establishing a permanent moon base first should be a priority. Reasons:
1. The moon is only 3 days away. Mars is months away. Logistically, it's easier.
2. The moon gives us an opportunity to work out engineering issues of establishing a permanent base on foreign celestial bodies.
3. There may be immediate tangible benefits to a moon base: mining, factories, observatories, astronaut training, research.
AHH shit, should read "It's not like I try to force other ppl to use ogg, or anything like that." should f-ing preview :P
I dunno, dude. "Self-important egomanic" is pretty harsh. Take me for example. I can't hear the difference between a 160 kbps and 128 kbps encoded file, much less the difference between ogg and mp3. Yet I encode everything to ogg (except for the time when I had my ripper set up wrong by mistake, and too lazy to re-rip :P). I think supporting Free (as in speech) Software ala RMS is a noble cause. Am I a strict adherent to the gospel according to St. Stallman? Hardly. sheeit, I use winXP :P But if a nice, Free, alternative (ogg) to proprietary/non-Free software (mp3) exists, operates seamlessly with my existing setup (Winamp + cheap ass computer speakers), then why not support it by using it? It's not like I don't try to force other ppl to use ogg, or anything like that. it simply fits my needs. I'd hardly classify myself as a self-important egomanic, as you so bluntly put.
I think ogg is a great example of Free Software. Aside from the file extension, to me (the end user) it really is no different than mp3. If only other Free Software were so easy to use (operating systems, productivity software, etc.), I would support it by using it as well.
Northbound I-93 tunnel has been in use since summer.
I figured 88 cents is cheap enough to give it a try. It doesn't work :P wouldn't accept my payment. Fuck that. Going to finally bite the bullet and try iTunes :P
now that I think about it, there is an inherent flaw in this line of reasoning. Think about it: the Ring corrupted Smeagol almost immediately to kill Deagol. This says that hobbits are not all created equal wrt to ring resistance, and therefore Gandalf letting Frodo inherit the ring was a fundamentally dangerous thing to do, with frodo being Bilbo's cousin being his only reference point of his resistiveness, even though it turned out alright in the end.
no disrespect, but I really liked the last chapters of the book. I always got the feeling that when Tolkien was writing about Great Events he used the more poetic and formal language (i.e., more like Yoda-speak with back-assward syntax); when dealing with Hobbits, he (puposely?) slipped into more "Common" speech. While I agree that the style was different, it think it was done on purpose and with great effect. It FELT like they were coming home when I read it. It also sets up the idea that, although the Shire has been rescued from Saruman, Frodo has sustained too much hurt to remain and departs over the Sea with Bilbo. It's not as bittersweet if he just gets up and leaves coming back from Gondor. Although I can understand why PJ left it out of the movie (even accounting for the fact that he is on record of hating the "Scouring" chapter).
It's an internal Chinese matter.
that's not a very objective viewpoint, either. I know of about 25 million people who would argue that it's a Taiwanese matter. Most Taiwanese that I know, even if they are pro-unification, have absolutely no interest in doing so under the current (or any) communist regime.
Remember that this is the (more or less) same leadership that drove tanks over peaceful protesters in Tienanmen Square. They "rationalized" that atrocity by saying it was an internal matter. Very little was done by the international community after that incident, if I recall correctly. Governments are too eager to try and tap into China's vast market to really sanction China in any meaningful way with regards to human rights. if Taiwan outrights declares independence, I would not put it past them to bomb Taiwan into oblivion just on a matter of principle. I also wouldn't put it past the current U.S. administration to do nothing about it.
from a moral standpoint I agree with you. However, technologically, there is a aignificant difference between cross-breeding and introducing heterologous transgenes from different species. With cross-breeding, the parental species are similar enough that the hybrid progeny are not really THAT different, and obstensibly present far less risk, environmentally or ecologically (although the risk still exists). Transgenic animals, on the other hand, are an unknown, because the transgene is being put into a context that is completely foreign. It's analogous to, say, "contaminating" Mars with Earth microbes on space probes. Can we reasonably conclude that earth microbes will not have an effect on the Mars environment, given that there isn't much environment on Mars to start out with? Probably. But we still play it safe and don't land properly quarantined spacecraft on Mars. One would think that we'd be more careful with releasing genetically modified organisms into the environment that we actually inhabit.
expressing a fluorescent protein in zebrafish may sound harmless, but I think restricting such things for now is prudent. It's completely unclear what environmental effects it might have. Ever hear of prions? These are proteins that are misfolded, but also cause similar proteins in normal cells to also misfold. The misfolded proteins can cause diseases, such as mad cow disease. The scary thing about prions is that they are resistant to digestive enzymes in your digestive tract. Thus, diseases like mad cow disease may propagate indefinitely.
While there is no evidence that fluorescent proteins have prion-like properties, I bring this example up because prions have only been accepted doctrine among biochemists within the past decade. In the 80's if you proposed that there was an epigenetic disease-causing agent consisting of misfolded protein, people would have laughed in your face. There is just not enough information as to what may happen. IN addition, I can think of other, simpler, more plausible scenarios regarding glowing fish. Green fluorescing fish may affect native algae populations, which would certainly affect aquatic ecosystems. Also, in introducing the transgene, there are probably also antibiotic drug resistance genes used during the cloning process that are present in the organism. Introducing these genes into the wild is not a good idea for obvious reasons.
The truth of the matter is, we know very little about how heterologous proteins and transgenes will behave in the wild. I myself am a molecular geneticist, and I'm all for promoting biotechnology, but I think it's not a bad idea to keep this kind of technology out of the hands of your average "well the kids are bored of the fish, let's flush it down the toilet" type of consumers. Having genetically modified agriculture is pretty scary in and of itself, although I do believe that the benefits outweigh the risks in that case. Certainly, more studies on environmental and ecosystem impact may be prudent.
oh, stop being so pessimistic :) if Peter Jackson and WETA et al. did the Hobbit, I'd give 80-20 odds that it'll turn out better than expected, given their track record so far. Kids' movies can be done well! Like you say, they can be done like crap, too, it all depends on who makes the film.
Gimli is not in the Hobbit, his dad Gloin is.