Re:People are bad, mmkay?
on
TigerCloning
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· Score: 1
Yeah, you are right, and believe it or not, as an evolutionary biologist I've heard that argument a hundred times before, and don't really disagree with it.
However, just because anything we do do is part of our "extended phenotype" that doesn't mean we need to do it. I'd like to see our extended phentotype begin to include some foresight and understanding of what we do before we do it - that would be more impressive to me. Not that I think cloning this tiger is evil - far from it. I think it's (in the words of Ollie North) "a neat idea". But I just hate it when people use that same argument to basically say that humans should not check themselves in anything they do to the environment, other species, other races, etc. It wouldn't be unnatural (or unsmart) of us as a species to decide we have to take some fucking accountability for our "extended phenotype" as well as showing we can break things, but not usually understand them very well, how to fix them, or how important they may be to us one day.
Yeah, but did you see ANYTHING that explained what anybody was protesting ABOUT, or just that there were "riots" and protests, and the police were keeping the people in check with rubber bullets?
I didn't - and I watched a lot of the coverage on the major news broadcasts.
Ok - I see what you're saying: that this DMCA and "Corporations" are taking away our basic rights to free speech and privacy, etc. so fast and insidiously that we are being left as sitting ducks and powerless pawns. Something that affects MOST of us. Whereas segregation was v. bad, took away a lot of basic rights too, and only happened to SOME of us, and is basically almost completely better now or getting there.
I will be the first one to believe that corporations' greedy insidious actions and the DMCA are wrong, unconstitutional, immoral, and potentially life threatening when it comes to their environmental irresponsisbility. (obviously last point not about DMCA.) BUT!!! You simply CANNOT say this is as fundamentally evil as what people fought against in the battle for TRUE recognized equality and civil rights! Not if you want anybody else but a bunch of geek zealots or possibly bigots to listen to you - because:
you will need the common masses to back you in this fight, not just a bunch of geeks who understand and see why the DMCA is so inherently bad w/o having to have it spelled out for them
you need to have a little better understanding of the background of both issues involved before you could ever say such a thing w/o actually a net loss of support for your position.
In the fight for civil rights, people were fighting for true equality. In that society they were very much seen as second class citizens, if even citizens at all. They were trying to enlighten people against the bigoted notion that one race of people was inherently better than the other - a moral issue.
In our (as in the majority of upper-middle -or-middle-lower class citizens) fight against corporations we are fighting their power, which is based on their wealth - an economic issue. The notion that the rich and powerful are "better" individuals than the rest of us is nourished by the very system of capitalism, which I'm sure very few of us is actually completely against. The rich and powerful WILL get better tables in better restaurants, better schools, better living conditions, better legal protection, better political representation. It is noble to fight these things but when you think about it, since anyone could potentially become rich, and NO ONE could potentially become a white male if they are not already, the injustice is not as deep, and is at least PARTIALLY merit/incentive -based.
It is certainly up to us masses to band together to be more powerful than that top 1% of assholes who are "keepin' us down" like the MPAA. And no easy task, that. But please remember that the loss of certain aspects of free speech is NOT as awful as never having it to begin with, or any chance at all, much less a fair one, which is what MLK and other civil rights leaders were fighting against. And you will NEVER get a majority of the population to believe that it is (as awful) no matter how hard you try along this line of reasoning - only alienate them.
ooky "I...hate...you...Walt...freakin'...Whitman!!!! LEAVES OF GRASS MY ASS!!!!"
Hmmmm... I still find your logic just as flawed. Yes recycling makes a difference, but don't you know the basic tennants of green/enviro -concious behavior?
REDUCE, Reuse, recycle.
Recycling alone is certainly not going to "save us", and reducing initial WASTES comes first, not just in the slogan, but in how much energy and resources it saves for the entire system. Reducing certainly DOES have a cumulative effect - how many more trees do you suppose were smashed into pulp last year to make these bigger boxes, and how much gas to transport the logs, toxic inks to make them pretty, etc, etc. Even if it was only 50 trees (which I would say is probably pretty conservative) those 50 trees are now gone FOREVER. Plus all of the other plants, animals, fungus, etc. that relied on those trees are now SOL. And don't tell me all trees come from tree farms nowadays - if you've been to the Pacific Northwest you'd know that deforestation is continuing at an alarming rate in old growth and secondary growth forests. Try to tell even one 100-yr old tree that its death isn't cumulatively significant. If that's true, then the (for example) murder of one of your loved ones wouldn't really be either, at least not to me. But that doesn't mean its desireable or "right", according to Ghandi or anyone else.
ooky Numbers can be used to prove anything thats even REMOTELY true!- Homer Lies, damned lies, and statistics. - I forget but not me
"Cynicism" is when you say "my vote doesn't count; why should I vote?" when clearly the cumulative effect makes a difference (Ghandhi's "what you do makes no difference, but it's very important that you do it"). In this case, it's simply factual that the cumulative effect makes no real difference to the overall total..
Um, maybe I'm missing something but basically you're saying: 1. You should vote even though it won't make a difference whether YOU personally do so because it's a)the "right" thing to do according to Ghandi and b) it would be cynical not to just because you can't really directly measure YOUR own contribution 2. You should not care how things like this are packaged because YOUR contribution to the problem makes no difference to anything measured overall.
Isn't it also "simply factual" that one vote makes no real difference to the overall total, especially when considering the electoral college? But I still make a big effort to vote, and I think its a great idea to get some packaging rules in effect here. The substance behind the idea counts, too-
me. I hate MS Exploder. And windows sucks the big one whether its 98, NT, or 2000. I've used em all. Office is pretty good, tho - no arguments there. Are you a MS shareholder or similar, or just a devil's advocate?
Actually, I hate to nitpick, but most "fauna" also use what you call "saturation" strategies, although this only lends creedence to your argument of using many different methods to find life "out there". Think of all the insects, snails, worms, fish, sponges, jellyfish, amphibians, coral, crustaceans (shrimp, krill), and even mammals such as certain rodents that exibit a somewhat to extreme r-selected population dynamic, while only a small percent of any life uses a definite K-selected population dynamic. We humans are the extreme of K - selected, dumping massive pre and post natal care and resources into each offspring, which I guess you've described as "specific". (R-selected is so named because final pop size has to do with both rate of new birth and rate of mortality of any given season, while K selected has to do with the overall long-term carrying capacity of environment.)
A better analogy if you want to use the terms saturated and specific (as specific means more as to whether the species in question is quite generalist in food consumption and ecological niche, or specialist) would be the difference in reproductive strategies among K-selected males and females. Females want to focus their substantial rescource commitment in a very specific, choosy manner, while guys generally want to just get it all out there, as much as possible, as many ways as possible, although both are proactive, I guess. A guy who mates with an undesireable mate has often little to lose in the bargain, as he can mate with many other girls even that same day, but the female in the same situation must spend considerable resources raising a "sub-standard" offspring.
ooky I want one big nuclear bomb and two, no, THREE little ones. For setting examples. -Keith No nukes! - me
I loved it! I had some issues, but there are rarely movies anymore that I don't have issues with. I had been watching a lot of anime lately (esp. Lain) and I was blown away by Titan's superior plot and animation. Some things I hadn't realized I hated so much about anime until rewatching the Rats of NIHM and seeing Titan:
In anime, much effort is given over to detail of background and foreground but almost none is given into trying to mesh the two together. Although it is comic-booky and thus pleasureable to some, I HATE it when aanime has a motionless 2-d cutout character "thinking" in a close up. In these Bluth fils, even a still character has the movement of a living being.
The overall portrayal of ANY kind of motion is better than anime. Watch Mrs. Brisby and you'll see she moves exactly like a real mouse. Or the swooping 1st person flying scenes in Titan - nothing as realistic is ever done in anime.
I feel the girl characters are stronger. Just to bring Lain in, the girl is practically fucking catatonic and only ever says a badly dubbed "...Eh?? Mmm?" to anything anyone says to her. The girl from Ghost in a shell was pretty cool, tho, must admit, but not as cool as akima.
Less boring pretentiousness!!!
My one issue was that in a movie so smart as to have an intelligent prison guard that could not be fooled, it never even attempted to explain how they got a LIVABLE planet in less than a year. I mean, I know star trek III explained it, but they shouldn't assume we would either not notice or just ddecide it was Genesis project two or something. ooky> He HATES those cans!!! -SM
With all the immense energy that life on Earth has always taken from the sun, I think there is a pretty good precedent that it would be just fine. Anything that is going to come whether you use it or not (sun, wind) and comes bearing such HUGE amounts of energy I truly doubt we as a species could fuck up. And there's no way it could be worse than what we're doing now.
By the way, what sort of effects did you possibly have in mind? I mean, if we even used 1% of the sun's energy there is still 99% left. Unless we cover the entire earth with solar cells (which is STUPID and self-defeating to the problem) and don't let anything else have sun, how will this effect other life except for reducing pollution and greenhouse gas emmissions? You should remember that as we take energy out of the system there is always more continually being rained down (even in the case of wind, because it is the sun that drives the weather) at GIGANTIC levels.
ooky Wake up to find out that you are the eyes of the world.
I don't know how you can claim that/. has a monopoly on "real news" anyway because it mostly just links to articles written for other sites.
I'd say what makes/. special is the discussion that comes after each link. It almost always makes me reconsider SOMETHING I thought about the article/issue/whatever. And the selection of other articles off the net is pretty cool too. If you don't like the current selection of articles/. is giving you now, why not change your site preferences to make it more geeky/hardcore/katzfree/etc. (I fully realize I am about the 9 billionth poster to suggest this to someone but the way some people bitch it really just must not be getting through.)
I don't know HOW you can say this article is not pro-Slashdot. I mean, what does that mean, exactly? That it's against the idea of slashdot, or the actual incarnation, that it causes you to want to pass a law against/.? Its like when Letterman asked GW Bush "What does that mean, anyway: you're a uniter, not a divider??" And GW replied, "Well Dave, it means I like to...unite. I don't...divide." Or words to that effect. Meaningless.
ooky "Look brain: you don't like me, and I don't like you. Let's just do this quick and then I can get back to killing you with beer." "Deal!!"
Three of my friends (excluding myself) use linux at home so you may be more misinformed on this point than you might think.
Also, I had no idea that linux was being used on the Enterprise since it hasn't even been built yet. If that's not a plug for linux I don't know what is!!
Since you have such great Federation connections, though, do you know where I might get some gagh?
Selling support for Open Source Software doesn't work as an exclusive business model because unlike proprietary software most people who have jobs working with OSS have a clue and they have the source or at least have access to people who have the source. This means that unlike IBM and MSFT who can rest assured that if there is a problem with their software their users will have to call their expensive support lines, users of OSS can simply fix the code or ask on a newsgroup and get a faster and sometimes better response from some enterprising hacker than from some tech support flunkie. But if linux is to take hold, shouldn't it be branching out into the market of (as people often call them here) lusers, where the real money is anyway? For example, my dad is an amazingly smart person, but he has no real interest in computers other than what they will do for him. If he runs into a problem, then he's not going to jump on the linux kernel mailing list or usenet to get answers, he's going to get pissed and call whomever he bought the software from, if the answer can't be found in the included documentation. Real people need structured software support, and I'm confidant in predicting they always will. I mean, even smart people won't know everything about everything!
ooky "I'll take the rapists for $600, Alex!" "Um, that's Therapists, Mr. Connery."
Gotta love those $pin doctors. The virus may affect apples (although I haven't heard of it affecting any of my work's ~1000 macs) but there's no way it can affect linux users who don't run email from root. ALSO its a visual basic script, and linux don't run THAT, man. We've seen it. My boss actually sent me a copy of the virus as a joke on purpose! When I opened the attatchment it showed me the script (instead of running it) which I thought was pretty neat. ooky "He hates those cans!!!"
Why would I rip my own mp3s of stuff I already have on cd to burn again on cd? I burn songs (mostly bootlegs, live versions, and cool covers that were never released on domestic cds anyway) that I don't have at home to take home and listen to there. I download mp3s to try out new stuff or to have some of my old stuff to listen to on my computer at work. Anyway, I am not a linux guru like many of you, so to tell the truth I haven't even tried to rip any mp3s yet. And as long as it took me to figure out how to burn mp3s to cd on linux (I am slow to figure out which lib files I need to update from the ftp site, figuring out scsi id set ups, problems with./configure in the beta release I use, etc. etc. etc.) I haven't even thought of a reason I even want to rip mp3s.
Besides, I only burn 128kbs 44kHz songs and to me they still sound no better than an audio cassette tape. My point was that even burning these songs onto cd is not a substitute for the real, non compressed-then-decompressed thing.
My other main point was that metallica can just sod off, the stupid wankers. love, ooky "He hates those cans!"
I'm sure this comment will be repeated many times here today but I don't care.
I just started using napster a few weeks ago. I've primarily used it to try out new bands and new songs from bands I already like, and download old music that I used to have and wish I hadn't lost/sold to used cd shops/had stolen from me during college. Some songs I've downloaded even though I already own legitimate copies - I just want to be able to listen to the songs on my computert at work and not have to lug my cds in.
After this kind of blanket attack by metallica, without them even trying to find out if music downloads could help them in any way (which I'm sure it could - I've bought 10 cds to date because of the mp3s I've loaded - AND I can even burn my mp3s onto CD. But the sound quality just isn't there after compression/decompression of the files...) I don't even feel like listening to their music anymore. I got a few metallica songs off napster, BUT I ALREADY OWNED and HAD PAID FULL PRICE for ALL of them.
This is the type of situation which makes me wish that real worls karma was reliable, predictable, and immediate enough for me to see the effects soon! Fuck off, Metallica!
Celera's business plan, as I understand it, is to create their own map of the human genome. This map will be different from the Public project's map in that
They are using five different differnt people that the project it (presumeably)
The actual sequencing was done in a different manner (shotgun sequencing which sequences millions of fragments of the genome and uses computing power to look for overlapping sequnces to order the fragments)
The form that thier map takes will be diferent, and maybe proprietary. I don't know what this form will look like, since I haven't seen how they've presented the (freely released) Drisophila genome, but I know that that came as a CD-ROM. Perhaps their map will have certain programs, links to "pages" that tell what currently known loci (genes) do, etc.
Basically they are betting that at least some scientists will pay for their map because of the way in which it rendered, maybe it will be easier to use, look prettier, run sequence search algorhythms faster, or something similar. But two independent copies of the genomic map (done in two scientifically proven methods) can only be better than one, so many scientists will probably end up using both maps for some percentage of their work/research/experimentation.
You will just have to pay for the bells and whistles (and speed of release) of Celera's map.
However, I don't believe that the NAB should pay royalties to the artists that perform the song, because each time the song is played over the radio it 1)does not cost them any personal effort, and 2) potentially increases their fan base who may then buy the album or attend a real performance. Composers may be different, I could see arguments for why actually writing a song "should" earn you more than performing it, but in the end I don't think that is exactly the issue.
The RIAA has been screwing consumers for a long, long time, and most of us, being consumers, knew this. What many people are discovering now, or at least what is becoming more widely known, is that the RIAA has also been screwing the artists at the other end for a long long time. I think that what is truly ironic is that one of the groups that they couldn't screw was the radio stations, for the simple reason that the radio stations were the only ones rich/powerful/corporate enough to fight back.
When you think about it, the radio stations only help the RIAA make more profits anyway - thousands of radio stations all over the country and abroad have to buy their own copies of all the RIAA songs to play, often in the more expensive single format or full CDs or remixes or all of the above. (I'm sure they must get discounts, but I'm betting that the RIAA protects their profit margin.) They don't make thier money (the radio stations, that is) directly off the music they play, just the ads they put in between. And then the artists get heard all over the world, causing people to like them and want their recordings. Therefore, what I feel is ironic is that of the three groups I've mentioned that help the RIAA (consumers, artists, and radio stations), only the entity big enough to fight back has been spared a righteous screwing - up till now.
Personally, I just hope the RIAA keeps shooting itself in the foot enough to get more of these entities that can actually fight it to be as angry as we are.
I have to start by saying that I haven't read this book, but the quotes Jon Katz has picked to illustrate its theme make me think that it must be at least a good part "scientific" drivel - and I don't mean that its science isn't solid - that I don't know. But any scientist who truly believes that scientific rational thought is the only way to understand the "true nature" of life, the universe, and everything, is either not a very good scientist or is deluding himself.
Only in science, and especially mathematics, have the ideals of the Greek philosophers been upheld (and in philosophy itself, of course). When it comes to addressing the really deep issues of existence, such as the origin and meaning of the universe, the place of human beings in the world, and the structure and organization of nature, there is a strong temptation to retreat into unreasoned belief."
I would venture, as a scientist myself, to say that science and so-called rational thought is in itself formed often out of "unreasoned beliefs". We form hypotheses that seem plausible and then try to prove them wrong through reproducible experimentation, but it is hardly ever that we absolutely prove something undoubtedly RIGHT. (Take evolution, for example, which I totally believe in, but it has not been PROVEN TRUE, per se, there is just a great amount of evidence in its favor.) Evidence in favor of a hypothesis is sometimes only in favor of said hypothesis IF you CHOOSE to see it that way - others may not. Are they thinking more or less rationally than you? Who knows - it depends on the situation.
Science is performed by emotional humans, each with separate beliefs they bring with them from their emotional state, motives, upbringing, and culture. WE ARE NOT, AS A RULE, ALWAYS OR EVEN USUALLY rational. Scientists fall into a trap if they don't recognize this about themselves. Not I am definately not a born again Christian (or even a Christian at all for that matter, execpt I believe a really cool guy named Christ once existed) but how can I say with absolute certainty that my thoughts and beliefs are better and more right than anothers beliefs which happen to be born out of religion and still stay COMPLETELY UNBIASED AND RATIONAL? The answer is, I can't. Thats why this quote bugs me so much:
"The modern world is plagued by a greater diversity of beliefs than ever,"
I for one don't believe that the world is plagued by diversity of beliefs - thats probably a pretty cool thing at its core, even if I hate the beliefs of some. It sounds like the author is a bit of a scientific missionary, if you will, believing people must hear the message of rationalism to "make it into heaven" as the christians believed each person, whether they were born in the heart of Africa or whatever, had to hear the word of God or they would be doomed without a chance. Just because I'm a scientist doesn't mean that I am a more rational being than you or even my cat.
-"I eat a scoobysnack, I take a disco nap" - bboys
I truly beg to differ - I found Edward Scissorhands, The Nighmare Before Christmas, and especially Ed Wood were all strongly visual yet fundamentally story/theme driven.
--"We were lost in the bowels of Northern California for days and days. Well actually 11:30 to 12:30" - unknown source book called the "drug log"
Star Wars, while being one of my very favorite movies of all time, is not particularly original at all. It is often taught in middle school and early high school classes across the nation as an easily understandable and almost universally watched (although this may be changing - my little cousins were bored watching SW with me, the little heathens) example of the most common story line in western literature: the hero's journey archetype. I can still remember the graph teachers would draw on the board for us, up, peak, descent into hell of tribulations and conflict for hero (Luke or Han or Leia, it works pretty well with any or all of them being "the hero", turning point, often accompanied by "A DECISION", then usually more trials or upsetting things, then a conflict resolution and reward in some way for the hero, followed by a falling c\action ending or deneumont (sp?). But if it suprised you I'm glad, because that meant the story did its job well in this incarnation, which we all know : )
I for one love Tim Burton and can't wait to see what sort of a darkly baroque visual "spin" he puts on this classic - that's what he's best at.
-ooky
"My namesake medallion / Says never trust a Hal 9000" - bboys
But in my defense the article that is posted on yahoo now is different (and gives slightly different and much more detailed info) than the short article I prepared my submission from yesterday. Unfortunately I don't have that version cached, so I can't prove it to all you chem whizes, and I didn't notice anything weird in the statement as I haven't taken inorganic chemistry since 1994 and have never taken astrophysics. But I thought that it was a very cool story, never the less, and I am pleased more than I can say to have had the story posted, which I never actually thought would happen. Thank you, timothy!!!!
--ooky
"We're the scientists of sound/we're mathematically puttin in down/If lightning strikes, best grab a ground..." "My namesake medallion/Says never trust a Hal 9000..." - bboys
OOG, you sound like Zach the dog from ToyFare. I think you'd get along, HAVE MANY COMMON INTERESTS LIKE CHEWING TOYS AND BUSTING HEADS! But I think you're smarter. You should check it out, probably availiable at any caveman comic book store!
Well, while this is the first free "book" from King to be downloaded online, its not the first eNovella that he's put out.
The software F13 (King-centric and authorized) contains a ~110 page eNovella (I forget what it's called) that, while not his best work by far, was not bad. And it was surprisingly easy to read onscreen, as well, thanks to a nice large font, wide spacing, and a rather beige background that all in all was much easier on my eyes than reading slashdot for a comparable length of time!!
Also, don't forget that King purposely released "The Green Mile" in six novella-length fragments on purpose - I think that he is recently fascinated with working withing the singular constraints of this length. The fact that they were awarded a huge market share and much critical acclaim shouldn't really apply to the rest of this burgeoning eNovella tradition, tho - ANYTHING that King writes is gonna make a million for somebody automatically. I think that he knows this and probably is not trying to be lauded "cutting-edge" perse for his own sake, but is maybe using his huge marketing power to lend momentum to the e-/computer-craze, which from his literature I think that he just personally enjoys.
This post is very interesting to me because I have only in the past year begun to download "pirate" mp3s and make copies of CDs. I have thought long and hard about this too, and whether I think that it is stealing. I have finally come to the conclusion that under today's laws and music distribution system, it is not ethical, but I believe that (at least the way I do it) it is moral.
The cost of individual cds is so prohibitive that I would NEVER buy one that did not have at least two (prefferrably several) songs that I already know that I like, UNLESS I know from previous albums that I already like virtuallly everything from that artist/producer combo. I have spent literally thousands of dollars on recording industry certified releases over the years, and although I neccessarily pick and choose very carefully, looking back over my collection I do NOT feel that I now own thousands of dollars WORTH of product, if you get my meaning.
This has been stated before, but I feel that with the price it takes to press out cds, making them cost half as much would not be detrimental to the music industry - almost everyone I have asked has confirmed that they would probably buy more than twice the amount of cds at half the price. I for one would be much more willing to try out new bands or old bands that I know I like that one song of, but am too wary of hating everything else on the album to invest in. And music listening stations rarely help the problem - EVEN IF they let you listen to absolutely anything you want to listen to (not just the Hot 15 that they have decided you can preview) one quick scan doesn't tell you much about how that initially catchy ditty is going to annoy the hell out of you the tenth time you've heard it, you know?
Also, I don't understand why so many artists seem to think that the music industry executives are actually working in thier best intrests - I mean from what I understand artists get screwed all the time in initial contracts with flat fee royalties, etc. They do practically all the work and many end up with only a tiny percentage of the net profit. Its like ticketmaster, in a way - play by their rules or get booted, and just because there are many different names of recording companies, they all seem like the same beast to me.
Finally, the two bands I know of the effectively "open-sourced" their music by allowing free and practically unrestriced taping of their concerts (Phish and The Grateful Dead) made millions off it by exponentially widening thier fan base and giving people a real reason to respect them - I mean they were obviously in it for the love of playing and having their music heard and appreciated - which seems the most honorable route to me. But to work in a system like this (and there are total parallells here to open-source software) you have to be talented and play good music. It certainly wouldn't work with the one-hit/one-album wonders the recording industry makes so much bank on.
Anybody with the right tools will have figured out the same thing in about the same time. It takes zero skill to do this; just an insane amount of money and people.
You are dead wrong here - decoding and sequencing genes is NOT automatic, zero-training monkey work. It is highly technical and time consuming. Venter's company DOES use slightly different technology to do some of the sequencing than the rest of the HGP laboratories, which is why he went biotech in the first place, and why he will finish over a year earlier than the HGP completion estimates. Not to say his company should be the sole holder of the information when he is done - and as the article pointed out, some of his stuff may well be wrong, which is why a collaboration will provide a more robust and valuable data set.
Slashdot Mirror
Yeah, you are right, and believe it or not, as an evolutionary biologist I've heard that argument a hundred times before, and don't really disagree with it.
However, just because anything we do do is part of our "extended phenotype" that doesn't mean we need to do it. I'd like to see our extended phentotype begin to include some foresight and understanding of what we do before we do it - that would be more impressive to me. Not that I think cloning this tiger is evil - far from it. I think it's (in the words of Ollie North) "a neat idea". But I just hate it when people use that same argument to basically say that humans should not check themselves in anything they do to the environment, other species, other races, etc. It wouldn't be unnatural (or unsmart) of us as a species to decide we have to take some fucking accountability for our "extended phenotype" as well as showing we can break things, but not usually understand them very well, how to fix them, or how important they may be to us one day.
ooky
"He hates those cans!!!"
Yeah, but did you see ANYTHING that explained what anybody was protesting ABOUT, or just that there were "riots" and protests, and the police were keeping the people in check with rubber bullets?
I didn't - and I watched a lot of the coverage on the major news broadcasts.
ooky
I will be the first one to believe that corporations' greedy insidious actions and the DMCA are wrong, unconstitutional, immoral, and potentially life threatening when it comes to their environmental irresponsisbility. (obviously last point not about DMCA.) BUT!!! You simply CANNOT say this is as fundamentally evil as what people fought against in the battle for TRUE recognized equality and civil rights! Not if you want anybody else but a bunch of geek zealots or possibly bigots to listen to you - because:
In the fight for civil rights, people were fighting for true equality. In that society they were very much seen as second class citizens, if even citizens at all. They were trying to enlighten people against the bigoted notion that one race of people was inherently better than the other - a moral issue.
In our (as in the majority of upper-middle -or-middle-lower class citizens) fight against corporations we are fighting their power, which is based on their wealth - an economic issue. The notion that the rich and powerful are "better" individuals than the rest of us is nourished by the very system of capitalism, which I'm sure very few of us is actually completely against. The rich and powerful WILL get better tables in better restaurants, better schools, better living conditions, better legal protection, better political representation. It is noble to fight these things but when you think about it, since anyone could potentially become rich, and NO ONE could potentially become a white male if they are not already, the injustice is not as deep, and is at least PARTIALLY merit/incentive -based.
It is certainly up to us masses to band together to be more powerful than that top 1% of assholes who are "keepin' us down" like the MPAA. And no easy task, that. But please remember that the loss of certain aspects of free speech is NOT as awful as never having it to begin with, or any chance at all, much less a fair one, which is what MLK and other civil rights leaders were fighting against. And you will NEVER get a majority of the population to believe that it is (as awful) no matter how hard you try along this line of reasoning - only alienate them.
ooky
"I...hate...you...Walt...freakin'...Whitman!!!! LEAVES OF GRASS MY ASS!!!!"
Hmmmm...
I still find your logic just as flawed. Yes recycling makes a difference, but don't you know the basic tennants of green/enviro -concious behavior?
REDUCE, Reuse, recycle.
Recycling alone is certainly not going to "save us", and reducing initial WASTES comes first, not just in the slogan, but in how much energy and resources it saves for the entire system. Reducing certainly DOES have a cumulative effect - how many more trees do you suppose were smashed into pulp last year to make these bigger boxes, and how much gas to transport the logs, toxic inks to make them pretty, etc, etc. Even if it was only 50 trees (which I would say is probably pretty conservative) those 50 trees are now gone FOREVER. Plus all of the other plants, animals, fungus, etc. that relied on those trees are now SOL. And don't tell me all trees come from tree farms nowadays - if you've been to the Pacific Northwest you'd know that deforestation is continuing at an alarming rate in old growth and secondary growth forests. Try to tell even one 100-yr old tree that its death isn't cumulatively significant. If that's true, then the (for example) murder of one of your loved ones wouldn't really be either, at least not to me. But that doesn't mean its desireable or "right", according to Ghandi or anyone else.
ooky
Numbers can be used to prove anything thats even REMOTELY true!- Homer
Lies, damned lies, and statistics. - I forget but not me
"Cynicism" is when you say "my vote doesn't count; why should I vote?" when clearly the cumulative effect makes a difference (Ghandhi's "what you do makes no difference, but it's very important that you do it"). In this case, it's simply factual that the cumulative effect makes no real difference to the overall total..
Um, maybe I'm missing something but basically you're saying:
1. You should vote even though it won't make a difference whether YOU personally do so because it's a)the "right" thing to do according to Ghandi and b) it would be cynical not to just because you can't really directly measure YOUR own contribution
2. You should not care how things like this are packaged because YOUR contribution to the problem makes no difference to anything measured overall.
Isn't it also "simply factual" that one vote makes no real difference to the overall total, especially when considering the electoral college? But I still make a big effort to vote, and I think its a great idea to get some packaging rules in effect here. The substance behind the idea counts, too-
ooky Never trust a Hal 9000 - bboys
me. I hate MS Exploder. And windows sucks the big one whether its 98, NT, or 2000. I've used em all. Office is pretty good, tho - no arguments there. Are you a MS shareholder or similar, or just a devil's advocate?
Actually, I hate to nitpick, but most "fauna" also use what you call "saturation" strategies, although this only lends creedence to your argument of using many different methods to find life "out there". Think of all the insects, snails, worms, fish, sponges, jellyfish, amphibians, coral, crustaceans (shrimp, krill), and even mammals such as certain rodents that exibit a somewhat to extreme r-selected population dynamic, while only a small percent of any life uses a definite K-selected population dynamic. We humans are the extreme of K - selected, dumping massive pre and post natal care and resources into each offspring, which I guess you've described as "specific". (R-selected is so named because final pop size has to do with both rate of new birth and rate of mortality of any given season, while K selected has to do with the overall long-term carrying capacity of environment.)
A better analogy if you want to use the terms saturated and specific (as specific means more as to whether the species in question is quite generalist in food consumption and ecological niche, or specialist) would be the difference in reproductive strategies among K-selected males and females. Females want to focus their substantial rescource commitment in a very specific, choosy manner, while guys generally want to just get it all out there, as much as possible, as many ways as possible, although both are proactive, I guess. A guy who mates with an undesireable mate has often little to lose in the bargain, as he can mate with many other girls even that same day, but the female in the same situation must spend considerable resources raising a "sub-standard" offspring.
ooky
I want one big nuclear bomb and two, no, THREE little ones. For setting examples. -Keith
No nukes! - me
My one issue was that in a movie so smart as to have an intelligent prison guard that could not be fooled, it never even attempted to explain how they got a LIVABLE planet in less than a year. I mean, I know star trek III explained it, but they shouldn't assume we would either not notice or just ddecide it was Genesis project two or something.
ooky>
He HATES those cans!!! -SM
With all the immense energy that life on Earth has always taken from the sun, I think there is a pretty good precedent that it would be just fine. Anything that is going to come whether you use it or not (sun, wind) and comes bearing such HUGE amounts of energy I truly doubt we as a species could fuck up. And there's no way it could be worse than what we're doing now.
By the way, what sort of effects did you possibly have in mind? I mean, if we even used 1% of the sun's energy there is still 99% left. Unless we cover the entire earth with solar cells (which is STUPID and self-defeating to the problem) and don't let anything else have sun, how will this effect other life except for reducing pollution and greenhouse gas emmissions? You should remember that as we take energy out of the system there is always more continually being rained down (even in the case of wind, because it is the sun that drives the weather) at GIGANTIC levels.
ooky
Wake up to find out that you are the eyes of the world.
I don't know how you can claim that /. has a monopoly on "real news" anyway because it mostly just links to articles written for other sites.
/. special is the discussion that comes after each link. It almost always makes me reconsider SOMETHING I thought about the article/issue/whatever. And the selection of other articles off the net is pretty cool too. If you don't like the current selection of articles /. is giving you now, why not change your site preferences to make it more geeky/hardcore/katzfree/etc. (I fully realize I am about the 9 billionth poster to suggest this to someone but the way some people bitch it really just must not be getting through.)
/.? Its like when Letterman asked GW Bush "What does that mean, anyway: you're a uniter, not a divider??" And GW replied, "Well Dave, it means I like to...unite. I don't...divide." Or words to that effect. Meaningless.
I'd say what makes
I don't know HOW you can say this article is not pro-Slashdot. I mean, what does that mean, exactly? That it's against the idea of slashdot, or the actual incarnation, that it causes you to want to pass a law against
ooky
"Look brain: you don't like me, and I don't like you. Let's just do this quick and then I can get back to killing you with beer."
"Deal!!"
Three of my friends (excluding myself) use linux at home so you may be more misinformed on this point than you might think.
y did/IlivethelifeIownacar/Andnowtheycallm eSUPASTAR!!!
Also, I had no idea that linux was being used on the Enterprise since it hasn't even been built yet. If that's not a plug for linux I don't know what is!!
Since you have such great Federation connections, though, do you know where I might get some gagh?
ooky
Theyusedtocallmetrickykid/Ilivethelifetheywishthe
Selling support for Open Source Software doesn't work as an exclusive business model because unlike proprietary software most people who have jobs working with OSS have a clue and they have the source or at least have access to people who have the source. This means that unlike IBM and MSFT who can rest assured that if there is a problem with their software their users will have to call their expensive support lines, users of OSS can simply fix the code or ask on a newsgroup and get a faster and sometimes better response from some enterprising hacker than from some tech support flunkie. But if linux is to take hold, shouldn't it be branching out into the market of (as people often call them here) lusers, where the real money is anyway? For example, my dad is an amazingly smart person, but he has no real interest in computers other than what they will do for him. If he runs into a problem, then he's not going to jump on the linux kernel mailing list or usenet to get answers, he's going to get pissed and call whomever he bought the software from, if the answer can't be found in the included documentation. Real people need structured software support, and I'm confidant in predicting they always will. I mean, even smart people won't know everything about everything!
ooky
"I'll take the rapists for $600, Alex!"
"Um, that's Therapists, Mr. Connery."
Gotta love those $pin doctors. The virus may affect apples (although I haven't heard of it affecting any of my work's ~1000 macs) but there's no way it can affect linux users who don't run email from root. ALSO its a visual basic script, and linux don't run THAT, man. We've seen it. My boss actually sent me a copy of the virus as a joke on purpose! When I opened the attatchment it showed me the script (instead of running it) which I thought was pretty neat. ooky "He hates those cans!!!"
Why would I rip my own mp3s of stuff I already have on cd to burn again on cd? I burn songs (mostly bootlegs, live versions, and cool covers that were never released on domestic cds anyway) that I don't have at home to take home and listen to there. I download mp3s to try out new stuff or to have some of my old stuff to listen to on my computer at work. Anyway, I am not a linux guru like many of you, so to tell the truth I haven't even tried to rip any mp3s yet. And as long as it took me to figure out how to burn mp3s to cd on linux (I am slow to figure out which lib files I need to update from the ftp site, figuring out scsi id set ups, problems with ./configure in the beta release I use, etc. etc. etc.) I haven't even thought of a reason I even want to rip mp3s.
Besides, I only burn 128kbs 44kHz songs and to me they still sound no better than an audio cassette tape. My point was that even burning these songs onto cd is not a substitute for the real, non compressed-then-decompressed thing.
My other main point was that metallica can just sod off, the stupid wankers. love, ooky "He hates those cans!"
I'm sure this comment will be repeated many times here today but I don't care.
I just started using napster a few weeks ago. I've primarily used it to try out new bands and new songs from bands I already like, and download old music that I used to have and wish I hadn't lost/sold to used cd shops/had stolen from me during college. Some songs I've downloaded even though I already own legitimate copies - I just want to be able to listen to the songs on my computert at work and not have to lug my cds in.
After this kind of blanket attack by metallica, without them even trying to find out if music downloads could help them in any way (which I'm sure it could - I've bought 10 cds to date because of the mp3s I've loaded - AND I can even burn my mp3s onto CD. But the sound quality just isn't there after compression/decompression of the files...) I don't even feel like listening to their music anymore. I got a few metallica songs off napster, BUT I ALREADY OWNED and HAD PAID FULL PRICE for ALL of them.
This is the type of situation which makes me wish that real worls karma was reliable, predictable, and immediate enough for me to see the effects soon! Fuck off, Metallica!
Basically they are betting that at least some scientists will pay for their map because of the way in which it rendered, maybe it will be easier to use, look prettier, run sequence search algorhythms faster, or something similar. But two independent copies of the genomic map (done in two scientifically proven methods) can only be better than one, so many scientists will probably end up using both maps for some percentage of their work/research/experimentation.
You will just have to pay for the bells and whistles (and speed of release) of Celera's map.
I agree that the situation is ironic.
However, I don't believe that the NAB should pay royalties to the artists that perform the song, because each time the song is played over the radio it 1)does not cost them any personal effort, and 2) potentially increases their fan base who may then buy the album or attend a real performance. Composers may be different, I could see arguments for why actually writing a song "should" earn you more than performing it, but in the end I don't think that is exactly the issue.
The RIAA has been screwing consumers for a long, long time, and most of us, being consumers, knew this. What many people are discovering now, or at least what is becoming more widely known, is that the RIAA has also been screwing the artists at the other end for a long long time. I think that what is truly ironic is that one of the groups that they couldn't screw was the radio stations, for the simple reason that the radio stations were the only ones rich/powerful/corporate enough to fight back.
When you think about it, the radio stations only help the RIAA make more profits anyway - thousands of radio stations all over the country and abroad have to buy their own copies of all the RIAA songs to play, often in the more expensive single format or full CDs or remixes or all of the above. (I'm sure they must get discounts, but I'm betting that the RIAA protects their profit margin.) They don't make thier money (the radio stations, that is) directly off the music they play, just the ads they put in between. And then the artists get heard all over the world, causing people to like them and want their recordings. Therefore, what I feel is ironic is that of the three groups I've mentioned that help the RIAA (consumers, artists, and radio stations), only the entity big enough to fight back has been spared a righteous screwing - up till now.
Personally, I just hope the RIAA keeps shooting itself in the foot enough to get more of these entities that can actually fight it to be as angry as we are.
Beefcake. BEEFCAAAAKE!!!
I have to start by saying that I haven't read this book, but the quotes Jon Katz has picked to illustrate its theme make me think that it must be at least a good part "scientific" drivel - and I don't mean that its science isn't solid - that I don't know. But any scientist who truly believes that scientific rational thought is the only way to understand the "true nature" of life, the universe, and everything, is either not a very good scientist or is deluding himself.
Only in science, and especially mathematics, have the ideals of the Greek philosophers been upheld (and in philosophy itself, of course). When it comes to addressing the really deep issues of existence, such as the origin and meaning of the universe, the place of human beings in the world, and the structure and organization of nature, there is a strong temptation to retreat into unreasoned belief."
I would venture, as a scientist myself, to say that science and so-called rational thought is in itself formed often out of "unreasoned beliefs". We form hypotheses that seem plausible and then try to prove them wrong through reproducible experimentation, but it is hardly ever that we absolutely prove something undoubtedly RIGHT. (Take evolution, for example, which I totally believe in, but it has not been PROVEN TRUE, per se, there is just a great amount of evidence in its favor.) Evidence in favor of a hypothesis is sometimes only in favor of said hypothesis IF you CHOOSE to see it that way - others may not. Are they thinking more or less rationally than you? Who knows - it depends on the situation.
Science is performed by emotional humans, each with separate beliefs they bring with them from their emotional state, motives, upbringing, and culture. WE ARE NOT, AS A RULE, ALWAYS OR EVEN USUALLY rational. Scientists fall into a trap if they don't recognize this about themselves. Not I am definately not a born again Christian (or even a Christian at all for that matter, execpt I believe a really cool guy named Christ once existed) but how can I say with absolute certainty that my thoughts and beliefs are better and more right than anothers beliefs which happen to be born out of religion and still stay COMPLETELY UNBIASED AND RATIONAL? The answer is, I can't. Thats why this quote bugs me so much:
"The modern world is plagued by a greater diversity of beliefs than ever,"
I for one don't believe that the world is plagued by diversity of beliefs - thats probably a pretty cool thing at its core, even if I hate the beliefs of some. It sounds like the author is a bit of a scientific missionary, if you will, believing people must hear the message of rationalism to "make it into heaven" as the christians believed each person, whether they were born in the heart of Africa or whatever, had to hear the word of God or they would be doomed without a chance. Just because I'm a scientist doesn't mean that I am a more rational being than you or even my cat.
-"I eat a scoobysnack, I take a disco nap" - bboys
I truly beg to differ - I found Edward Scissorhands, The Nighmare Before Christmas, and especially Ed Wood were all strongly visual yet fundamentally story/theme driven.
--"We were lost in the bowels of Northern California for days and days. Well actually 11:30 to 12:30" - unknown source book called the "drug log"
Star Wars, while being one of my very favorite movies of all time, is not particularly original at all. It is often taught in middle school and early high school classes across the nation as an easily understandable and almost universally watched (although this may be changing - my little cousins were bored watching SW with me, the little heathens) example of the most common story line in western literature: the hero's journey archetype. I can still remember the graph teachers would draw on the board for us, up, peak, descent into hell of tribulations and conflict for hero (Luke or Han or Leia, it works pretty well with any or all of them being "the hero", turning point, often accompanied by "A DECISION", then usually more trials or upsetting things, then a conflict resolution and reward in some way for the hero, followed by a falling c\action ending or deneumont (sp?). But if it suprised you I'm glad, because that meant the story did its job well in this incarnation, which we all know : )
I for one love Tim Burton and can't wait to see what sort of a darkly baroque visual "spin" he puts on this classic - that's what he's best at.
-ooky
"My namesake medallion / Says never trust a Hal 9000" - bboys
But in my defense the article that is posted on yahoo now is different (and gives slightly different and much more detailed info) than the short article I prepared my submission from yesterday. Unfortunately I don't have that version cached, so I can't prove it to all you chem whizes, and I didn't notice anything weird in the statement as I haven't taken inorganic chemistry since 1994 and have never taken astrophysics. But I thought that it was a very cool story, never the less, and I am pleased more than I can say to have had the story posted, which I never actually thought would happen. Thank you, timothy!!!!
--ooky
"We're the scientists of sound/we're mathematically puttin in down/If lightning strikes, best grab a ground..."
"My namesake medallion/Says never trust a Hal 9000..." - bboys
OOG, you sound like Zach the dog from ToyFare. I think you'd get along, HAVE MANY COMMON INTERESTS LIKE CHEWING TOYS AND BUSTING HEADS! But I think you're smarter. You should check it out, probably availiable at any caveman comic book store!
-ooky
"And Rufus is back home grow-l-in'" -bbobys
Well, while this is the first free "book" from King to be downloaded online, its not the first eNovella that he's put out.
The software F13 (King-centric and authorized) contains a ~110 page eNovella (I forget what it's called) that, while not his best work by far, was not bad. And it was surprisingly easy to read onscreen, as well, thanks to a nice large font, wide spacing, and a rather beige background that all in all was much easier on my eyes than reading slashdot for a comparable length of time!!
Also, don't forget that King purposely released "The Green Mile" in six novella-length fragments on purpose - I think that he is recently fascinated with working withing the singular constraints of this length. The fact that they were awarded a huge market share and much critical acclaim shouldn't really apply to the rest of this burgeoning eNovella tradition, tho - ANYTHING that King writes is gonna make a million for somebody automatically. I think that he knows this and probably is not trying to be lauded "cutting-edge" perse for his own sake, but is maybe using his huge marketing power to lend momentum to the e-/computer-craze, which from his literature I think that he just personally enjoys.
I put my root down!! - bboys
This post is very interesting to me because I have only in the past year begun to download "pirate" mp3s and make copies of CDs. I have thought long and hard about this too, and whether I think that it is stealing. I have finally come to the conclusion that under today's laws and music distribution system, it is not ethical, but I believe that (at least the way I do it) it is moral.
The cost of individual cds is so prohibitive that I would NEVER buy one that did not have at least two (prefferrably several) songs that I already know that I like, UNLESS I know from previous albums that I already like virtuallly everything from that artist/producer combo. I have spent literally thousands of dollars on recording industry certified releases over the years, and although I neccessarily pick and choose very carefully, looking back over my collection I do NOT feel that I now own thousands of dollars WORTH of product, if you get my meaning.
This has been stated before, but I feel that with the price it takes to press out cds, making them cost half as much would not be detrimental to the music industry - almost everyone I have asked has confirmed that they would probably buy more than twice the amount of cds at half the price. I for one would be much more willing to try out new bands or old bands that I know I like that one song of, but am too wary of hating everything else on the album to invest in. And music listening stations rarely help the problem - EVEN IF they let you listen to absolutely anything you want to listen to (not just the Hot 15 that they have decided you can preview) one quick scan doesn't tell you much about how that initially catchy ditty is going to annoy the hell out of you the tenth time you've heard it, you know?
Also, I don't understand why so many artists seem to think that the music industry executives are actually working in thier best intrests - I mean from what I understand artists get screwed all the time in initial contracts with flat fee royalties, etc. They do practically all the work and many end up with only a tiny percentage of the net profit. Its like ticketmaster, in a way - play by their rules or get booted, and just because there are many different names of recording companies, they all seem like the same beast to me.
Finally, the two bands I know of the effectively "open-sourced" their music by allowing free and practically unrestriced taping of their concerts (Phish and The Grateful Dead) made millions off it by exponentially widening thier fan base and giving people a real reason to respect them - I mean they were obviously in it for the love of playing and having their music heard and appreciated - which seems the most honorable route to me. But to work in a system like this (and there are total parallells here to open-source software) you have to be talented and play good music. It certainly wouldn't work with the one-hit/one-album wonders the recording industry makes so much bank on.
"Killer umbrellas....of course!" - Homer Simpson
Anybody with the right tools will have figured out the same thing in about the same time. It takes zero skill to do this; just an insane amount of money and people.
You are dead wrong here - decoding and sequencing genes is NOT automatic, zero-training monkey work. It is highly technical and time consuming. Venter's company DOES use slightly different technology to do some of the sequencing than the rest of the HGP laboratories, which is why he went biotech in the first place, and why he will finish over a year earlier than the HGP completion estimates. Not to say his company should be the sole holder of the information when he is done - and as the article pointed out, some of his stuff may well be wrong, which is why a collaboration will provide a more robust and valuable data set.