proselytize [pros-uh-li-tahyz] -verb (used with object), verb (used without object), -ized, -izing. to convert or attempt to convert as a proselyte; recruit.
You proselytize on behalf of porn, or to allow people to send porn, or for people to accept the spamming. When you use proselytize with an object, though, as in "proselytize [thing]", the thing is what you are converting. I.e., if I "proselytize you", I convert you to some other opinion or religion, etc.
But you don't "proselytize porn spam" unless you "attempt to convert" spam to a new opinion or to "recruit" porn spam to a religion or other... group! And, in my experience, "porn spam" is not very religious, nor particularly apt to hold any opinion at all besides "we've got the most hot babes on the net" or something similar.
Would Jesus resort to using Halo as bait to drag people into his Father's Heavenly Kingdom? I'm pretty sure not. Kinda pathetic to use conversion tactics that say "hey convert... you'll get to play video games!" rather than "hey, convert... you'll walk in the light of the Lord during this lifetime and then spend eternity in our Savior's heavenly Paradise!"
Would he even play, or endorse, or even condone playing a violent video game -- a game which introduces violence into your life for no reason other than entertainment?
Why is it that such a large section of the planet seemingly churns out nothing but garbage? Kudos, you sound just like that new Pope that was part of the Hitler youth.
to have any shot at reaching the rest of the world. Not everyone is blocking.asia. Try asking the average American consumer of home internet service how to block content of any kind from any domain. They don't know how.
if the entire region is flooding the rest of the world with shit, they may find themselves completely cut off from the rest of the world by admins who have better things to do than ban individual IPs all day every day. I love it when computer administrators like to make it sound like they're going to change the world from their desk. "You just watch... I'll ban your IP. Then see how you like it when nobody from the 40 employee company I work for reads your spam!"
In the US, content of any kind (movies, books, video games) that are illegal to sell to some people because of their age are not sold to people above 18 years old.
I can't imagine that anyone could possibly believe that people should have to wait until they are 21 years old before they should be legally allowed to purchase any video, book, or movie. Or beer. (Or drugs.)But let 'em fight a good wholesome war rather than exposing them to sex or drugs or ridiculous old text files. Or voting. What a world.
And, I'll echo the OP in this thread explicitly: censorship of any kind, designed to restrict what media adults can consume is not good. Very not good.
There's no need for laws that criminalize possessing information:
1) If someone commits a "terrorist" act, then you book them for that.
2) If someone doesn't commit a terrorist act, and they are adults, they should be free to possess whatever information they please.
Clause to #2: If they have not committed a terrorist act, but are very clearly about to do so, you can book them for conspiracy. However, conspiracy laws must not be overreaching! The conspiracy laws should not criminalize possessing information -- otherwise number 2 would be violated. There should be clear proof that they had committed to taking an action. This is a matter of degree, and subjective lines must be drawn. I believe that at most possessing information should be a *small* part of a case -- serious evidence that they were going to do something illegal should be present.
And this isn't a... "rights" based argument whose results are questionable. This is practical. The only assumption is that prosecuting people for possessing information without criminal intentions should be legal. People possess information that could be used to commit a crime without committing a crime. In fact, I'd argue that a lot of people who commit crimes don't do a whole lot of reading!:) And people also possess information that could only find practical application in criminality WITHOUT doing something criminal! Think about computer security books for an example of the former! Or books on a variety of sciences. (Hey, is that medical books so you can perform underground abortions or take bullets out of mobsters?) So, it's absurd to prosecute someone who hasn't done something yet, but who possesses something like the Anarchist's Cookbook, *unless they were clearly going to commit a crime*.
And, to bring the argument down to the earth, I would put the total number of people who did something illegal after reading the Anarchist's Cookbook in the dozens. And, those people never came to the attention of police. You know why? Because the only crime they committed was getting high on banana peels. (Bananadine! Assuming that's illegal.) The Anarchist's Cookbook is *comedy*. Get it? *Nobody* who is serious about committing a crime would use it as a source for information. It is totally absurd to consider possession of literature like the Anarchist's Cookbook primary or substantial evidence against someone in a conspiracy case.
Information that could potentially used criminally shouldn't be illegal; only actually committing a crime or intending to commit a crime should be prosecuted. And the burden of proof regarding intent in a conspiracy case should be very high. No amount of proof of reading should ever be illegal.
Let's hope that the guys responsible for prosecuting this will figure this out or that justice will otherwise prevail and some 17-year old won't be convicted for terrorism over something absurd. "Terrorism". Man, that word has really come on strong this past decade.
Didn't it used to be said that it was our use of tools that was one of the defining characteristics of humans (and chimpanzees)?
Now it seems like all sorts of animals use tools. Even the "bird brained". And that put-down rightly invokes the stupidity of birds, because they are stupid. So, I guess our tool using trick isn't so high falootin' after all. No better than birds, how sad.
"There is an ongoing debate about what is driving the forces of evolution, and this is one of the clearest studies that say mutation is a driving force," said Dan Graur, Ph.D., the John and Rebecca Moores professor of biology and biochemistry at the University of Houston, who was not involved in the research. "If you want to put a catch phrase on it, it is not so much the survival of the fittest, but survival of the luckiest. The outcome is not determined by the 'fitness' of a particular trait, in terms of whether the trait affects an animal's ability to compete and survive. The author says "If you want to put a catch phrase on it, it is not so much the survival of the fittest, but survival of the luckiest."
--That's right, survival of whoever is luckiest to set of genes. And when those genes are the ones that allow you to "compete and survive", those are the lucky ones. If a mutation was part of that package of lucky genes, and you reproduce successfully, and that mutation becomes standard equipment, we've just seen evolution.
Then the author says "the outcome is not determined by the 'fitness' of a particular trait, in terms of whether the trait affects an animal's ability to compete and survive."
--That's wrong! Like above, it's mutation, from whatever cause, that "drives" evolution, if you will, but it's natural selection which "channels" that drive into actual evolution.
He's right when he says mutation is a driving force in evolution. But he's wrong when he seems to write off the other hypothesized "driving force" in evolution: environment, i.e. necessity.
But, when do these "protein mutations" actually manifest in evolution that actually changes the whole of a group of organisms? When that mutation is something useful in the environment!
Your comment needs to define its terms a bit. There is a direction to evolution: forward. Change is synonymous with evolution. And things always keep changing. If two species are on the same branch in the tree of life (?) then it's reasonably understandable about what is meant by making ordinal comparisons between those species regarding degree of evolution.
But it is true that evolution lacks a destination, i.e. degree of evolution shouldn't be measured by things like intelligence or size or how like humans a species is.
"Move evolved" just means "having reached this state by more mutation", however you're going to quantify that. I assume... "mechanically"/repdocutively rather than genetically. Well, actually, I guess you deal with it the same way people differentiate between species...
Also, I'm not sure that's what the OP was getting at. I think maybe he meant that this "drift", this "protein evolution", is not equivalent to "evolution" in the bio-mechanical/functional sorta sense -- it's just meaningless back and forth, either "inactive" mutations (if such things exist) or inconsequential ones.
Therefore, this article would not have anything to tell us about how quick warm and small animals "evolve", just how often they go through inconsequential "protein evolution".
But, for some reason I thought this whole matter of smaller things evolving quicker was settled. Maybe I've confused it with the thing about small things hearts beating faster!
I do remember one thing that dealt with sizing of living things and evolution: on islands, mammals tend to evolve to be smaller. That was the explanation for those "Hobbit cavemen" who were supposed to be little Homo sapiens or homo erectus's that washed up on some Pacific Island and then shrank down to like 3 feet tall a piece! Some people thought they were microencephalic Homo sapiens that were found, but I recall seeing that they found several skeletons, and it would be pretty unlikely. I believe in the hobbit caveman, what can I say?
But, the thing that was really interesting was this: the reptiles, the cold blooded creatures on the island, they grew larger! So, at the same time the human were shrinking, the lizards were being magnified! For the life of me, I cannot remember why the hell the cold blooded creatures would expand. I don't think I ever understood the explanation from Discovery Channel. But may have had something to do with the added incentive to larger size as the mammals on the island shrunk to a size that put them near the size range of something the lizards could eat. The Hobbit vs. The Giant Lizard is a retro-evolutionary death match that I think could do with some computer animation.
Instead the show just modeled the meeting of regular Homo sapiens with Homo hobbit and showed the big sapien push the hobbit's face in the sand, like some pre-historic antecedent of those 1950's weight lifting ads with the wimp getting sand kicked in his face. Poor hobbit.
How did this get an interesting? It gets a funny, if anything.
This whole "F*ck environmentalism" sentiment, that was on diplay during Live Earth, for example -- where the hell are people getting this? F the environment is not punk, at least not anymore -- now saying "F the environment" is echoing the more polished but substantively equal sentiment of multinational corporations' CEOs. Not cool, dude.
We *need* this goddamn world.
I'm all for better living through chemistry, but that's *better* living, which includes taking care of the earth. These kind of casual remarks, when meant and/or taken as "interesting" rather than passionate sarcasm, are bad, bad, bad.
You will have descendants, your brother or cousin, etc., will have kids. And, a 10th generation descendant from your cousin and a 7th generation descendant from you probably share about the same amount of genetic code in common with you. (That's a guess. I'd be interested to know...)
So, all of us have a living, breathing, genetic legacy that'll carry on after we're dead.
Let's not leave a world to our sweet little great^10 grandchildren (or equivalent) that is covered in pollution and in the midst of violent and unpleasant weather.
And, while we're at it, let's keep the water clean for us to go swimming or something fun like that. Makes sense, doesn't it?
They're just automating an inspection that could have been performed by cops on the ground
That's what bothers me more than the privacy aspect of this... That's totally legitimate. And understandable.
However, the problem that you described, saying
A friend of mine got an automated ticket for being 0.1 seconds under the red. And we have some short yellows, that are difficult to stop for in good conditions. If it was raining, you could easily end up fishtailing into an intersection trying to stop for the silly things. isn't really down on the automated ticketing. The problem sounds to be the shortness of the yellow. If the yellow was long enough to accomodate drivers who are 1) driving near the speed limit and 2) do not have enough room stop before entering the intersection after the yellow light starts -- if it was long enough that any driver at or reasonably below the speed limit could make it through the intersection after seeing the yellow and realizing he hadn't the time to stop (without spilling his half-full coffee), then what's wrong with the law being enforced to the letter, even if we get one of these damn robats to handle it? (Robats, like Baston.)
If the yellow was sufficiently long, being caught under the red for 0.1 seconds would be rightly and reasonably prosecuted then, right?
So, although I can understand automation of law enforcement engendering a sort of unreasoned aversion in those of us who hate to see Big Brother wrap its tentacles any tighter around every inch of an ancient world, I think a lot of the problem people have with automation sounds like the beef is really with law enforcement in general. I.e., the complaint about automation is simply that it increases the total of law being enforced.
If we craft our laws carefully, there is no reason not to want to see those laws enforced perfectly, and there isn't any reason to worry about how breaks in the law are detected. (You get what I'm saying... there's always "reason to worry" about anything this important, but you know what I mean.)
When you're dealing with automation of law, you need to make sure that:
1) the law has a truly defined hard edge rather than a "spirit" -- this means some laws that are about "spirit" rather than definition are not eligible.
2) that the set of instructions that define how a "break" in the law will be detected are completely defined, i.e., you have to be ready to program them.
So, basically, any crime which was going to be detected automatically using tech would have to be defined rigidly enough to program it into a computer. If the law was a good one in the first place, and doesn't need human interpretation (which I don't think is true of the traffic lights, despite what is partially implied by your post) we should be fine.
And this would have to start with legislators. Maybe somebody should find them a copy of Logo so they can get familiar with the concept of thinking and speaking clearly.;)
Yeah, those "addicts" out there will do a bit for their drug of choice, but they're not going to snort some sadistically formulated pill, if that's what you're thinking.
They're just going to take whatever other prescription opiate is most available at the time. And others will just find a way around capsaicin and any other measure devised by those who'd waste their talents devising ways of preventing other people from taking pills of their own volition.
It's a war that can't be won, nor does it deserve to be. It's wrong-headed and truly hateful towards freedom.
It really does work by the mechanism I proposed after those OTC capsaicin and menthol patches gave me a terrible burning feeling on my back! It just hurts so bad that you forget about any other pain you had.
So, the actions of capsaicin that cause pain relief when used alone and which allow that other drug to get into a cell and cause pain relief are "unrelated"?
I'm not so sure saying that saying capsaicin causes
all of the nerves in the treated area to fire off like crazy until they burned out is really an accurate description of how capsaicin (alone) causes pain relief.
They're just automating an inspection that could have been performed by cops on the ground. I know because I got a ticket for driving in the stupid carpool lane once. And you're already in public in a vehicle where you're, at most, shielded from plain view by a bit of glass. Which is to say you're not shielded from plain view.
So, unless law enforcement plans to use this technology to see something it's not already capable of seeing, e.g. using it to see through the walls of your home, I don't think this is a big deal.
So what? If they want you to do the debugging for them via this method then it is up to us, the users, to satisfy that. If you do not want a part of it then do not participate You can say "then don't participate" in response to criticism of any sort of proposal. That's not the point. The point is not whether or not we should participate, but whether the proposal is the best one.
Again, like the man said, IT TAKES A SINGLE LINE IN/etc/apt/sources.list and an apt-get update and an apt-get install.
3 steps. Done in *1* minute.
Sometimes, special circumstances mean that a broad swath of a user base needs a fix. Thus, they install the fix. End of story.
I reckon I've been a reader since I installed Slackware off of floppy disks...
That has to be at least 8 years ago. How elite does that those of us who are in this Slashdot demo?
Can't say I feel too bad that languages are dying faster than living species!
I'd rather go without Esperanto than without killer whales. (Some of my best friends are killer whales.)
Uhh, they're "going to prove", or provide enough evidence to prohibit reasonable doubt, about what's true by trying the matter in court.
That's how you deal with libel and slander, you try them in court.
One weird thing about these laws: in Britain, and presumably elsewhere, it's "slander" even if what you say is true... I'm not saying people are charged like this often, but I distinctly remember reading about a case where the person was found guilty of saying something about the plaintiff which was totally true and verifiable.
What makes the salmonella become more "lethal" after spending time in space?
Why does the fact that "in microgravity the force of fluids passing over the cells is low, similar to conditions in the gastrointestinal tract", allow the cells to adapt quickly "to the new environment"?
*And why does adapting to space make it more lethal to earthly creatures?*
It sounds like a weird coincidence that space truly is the sort of lethality breeding crucible that turns salmonella into the Andromeda Strain!
Sounds great but I'll stick to fish oil and exercise and socializing if I'm ever depressed.
I think people ignore the root causes of depression too much. (I know that in this universe we can't really dig down to the "root cause" of anything without invoking the big bang and then asking "why?" one more time and finding there is no root at all, but you know what I mean.)
I think depression is basically a social disease -- the hallmark of depression, I think, is social dysfunction, mainly a lack of meaningful time spent with others. This is a symptom of course, but it can also be a cause. Everyone knows that: isolation is not good for you. And social isolation has sky-rocketed, especially physical isolation, in the past century. (Just being on the phone or on the net doesn't do as much good as being in person, IMNHO.) Is it a wonder that depression has increased so much, too? (Now, I know our data has big limitations, and that this depression epidemic coincided with the development of "safe" anti-depressants [with a side-effect of suicide, who'd a thunk it?] because depression was actually *sold* to the public, but I do tend to believe that depression has really increased big time in the past century, and in the past 25 years, too.) Another thing that got worse in the past century: our diet.
Specifically, the ratio of omega-3 fatty acids to omega-6 fatty acids has swung drastically in favor of omega-6 fatty acids. Omega-3 fatty acids "comprise approximately eight percent of the average human brain" (from Omega-3(wikipedia)). So, it seems to me that, as we've gone from something like 1:1 omega-3:omega-6 to 30:1 over the past 100 years, we're really f'ing with our brain. Also, breast milk has DHA (one of the two essential fatty acids in fish oil). Only the pricier infant formulas that have come to market in the past decade have DHA. Infants breast-fed had an IQ almost 10 points higher than those not. It's compelling, if debated. But, the depression studies with fish oil are pretty unequivocal. Also, schizophrenics benefited significantly, particularly those who were not yet being treated with anti-psychotics (but who did have schizophrenia -- so the take away is probably that fish oil [EPA in particular] is good for more "mild" cases of schizophrenia (?) ).
Also, exercise is good for depression. Who'd have guessed it? It's really good for depression. Also also, spending time with other human beings, in person, is negatively correlated with depression. Amazing!
By the way, since Diane has such a virulent "strain" of depression, I wondered if they ever tried the dreaded and "addictive" opiates for her disease. You know, we can't be giving people morphine willy-nilly, sure, it's been used for longer than any other drug in human history, but it's ADDICTIVE. That's right, once you start, you have to take it everyday. ADDICTIVE=take your medicine everyday. Oh, the bane of my existence, taking another pill in addition to my Centrum. But, didn't the doctors say that patients with major depression should expect to take medication for the rest of their life? Hmmm.... Maybe someone should see if the opiates work for depression... What's that? The few times they've been studied in the recent past they worked much better than the SSRI's, with fewer side effects, more complete recovery from depression, and without making people suicidal? Wow! Imagine that -- the world has turned their back on a drug because, instead of just anti-depressing people, it might make them feel genuinely good. Huh. And, they'd rather shock your brain. Still, they prefer Prozac to all of the above: Physical dependence (aka addiction) + no euphoria + incomplete healing in most patients. Sounds like a winner. This way, they keep coming to the psychiatrist looking for a second drug to finish their depression off.
Also, they rarely prescribe amphetamine for depression now. Yet, a child with "ADD" or "ADHD" will have no trouble at all getting a prescription for it. Adults can't get it, probably beca
I'm glad you took my accusations of insanity and uninformedness(?) as they should be. Perhaps you aren't so crazy.
Still, Vista is a hog, and yes, you're right, even hogs can be satiated. HOWEVER, an OS should be very usable on a mid-range computer when it's released. Period. That's my line, anyhow. And I think it's reasonable: Linux always manages it, and even XP did. The secret? In Linux, you have OPTIONS galore.
And, on OS X being ultra-restrictive and Apple rotten: I disagree. OS X leaves a lot of customization to be done by the user -- it's UNIX! It's going to be POSIX compliant with 10.5, I believe, and it's damn close as it is. Outside of the UNIX-y parts of the OS, I can't see where there's a lot less options left the user than in Windows...
And, I have a computer just like the one you described for running Vista. That's well and good. HOWEVER, as I wrote in my other nasty post in reply to a post of yours (meant to be taken not-too-seriously in its venom but very seriously in its recommendations) Linux just has so much to offer, so many superiorities. If you follow my instructions, and install Ubuntu Feisty Fawn, on your dual-core 2 gig'er (what I'm typing on fits that description), and install Beryl, you'll feel like the prettiest girl at the dance (if you were a girl at a dance and your GUI counted as clothing). My point is, your desire for aesthetics will be far more pleased than with Vista. There's no way around it -- Beryl looks so much better and has so many more options... Trust me.
G'day Marsten!
This sounds dumb, but what you don't realize is HOW BIG RINGTONES ARE! And, 3 songs for $6, plus a ringtone in the mix -- that's only twice what Apple charges for the same songs on iTunes PLUS you're getting a ringtone, plus it's CD quality. Throw enough reasons in, and a price that's a 5 spot plus a single... and you'll find music retailers easily wheedling the money out of the pockets of people who would otherwise pay for the songs on iTunes.
By the way -- singles only used to have 2 tracks on 'em! This is not at all a ridiculous price for the product, and given the prices some ringtones go for, it's not surprising that a product like this would be viewed to be saleable by the industry.
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That sentence doesn't make any sense.
proselytize [pros-uh-li-tahyz]
-verb (used with object), verb (used without object), -ized, -izing.
to convert or attempt to convert as a proselyte; recruit.
You proselytize on behalf of porn, or to allow people to send porn, or for people to accept the spamming. When you use proselytize with an object, though, as in "proselytize [thing]", the thing is what you are converting. I.e., if I "proselytize you", I convert you to some other opinion or religion, etc.
But you don't "proselytize porn spam" unless you "attempt to convert" spam to a new opinion or to "recruit" porn spam to a religion or other... group! And, in my experience, "porn spam" is not very religious, nor particularly apt to hold any opinion at all besides "we've got the most hot babes on the net" or something similar.
Would Jesus resort to using Halo as bait to drag people into his Father's Heavenly Kingdom? I'm pretty sure not. Kinda pathetic to use conversion tactics that say "hey convert ... you'll get to play video games!" rather than "hey, convert ... you'll walk in the light of the Lord during this lifetime and then spend eternity in our Savior's heavenly Paradise!"
Would he even play, or endorse, or even condone playing a violent video game -- a game which introduces violence into your life for no reason other than entertainment?
I think not.
In the US, content of any kind (movies, books, video games) that are illegal to sell to some people because of their age are not sold to people above 18 years old.
... "rights" based argument whose results are questionable. This is practical. The only assumption is that prosecuting people for possessing information without criminal intentions should be legal. People possess information that could be used to commit a crime without committing a crime. In fact, I'd argue that a lot of people who commit crimes don't do a whole lot of reading! :) And people also possess information that could only find practical application in criminality WITHOUT doing something criminal! Think about computer security books for an example of the former! Or books on a variety of sciences. (Hey, is that medical books so you can perform underground abortions or take bullets out of mobsters?) So, it's absurd to prosecute someone who hasn't done something yet, but who possesses something like the Anarchist's Cookbook, *unless they were clearly going to commit a crime*.
I can't imagine that anyone could possibly believe that people should have to wait until they are 21 years old before they should be legally allowed to purchase any video, book, or movie. Or beer. (Or drugs.)But let 'em fight a good wholesome war rather than exposing them to sex or drugs or ridiculous old text files. Or voting. What a world.
And, I'll echo the OP in this thread explicitly: censorship of any kind, designed to restrict what media adults can consume is not good. Very not good.
There's no need for laws that criminalize possessing information: 1) If someone commits a "terrorist" act, then you book them for that. 2) If someone doesn't commit a terrorist act, and they are adults, they should be free to possess whatever information they please. Clause to #2: If they have not committed a terrorist act, but are very clearly about to do so, you can book them for conspiracy. However, conspiracy laws must not be overreaching! The conspiracy laws should not criminalize possessing information -- otherwise number 2 would be violated. There should be clear proof that they had committed to taking an action. This is a matter of degree, and subjective lines must be drawn. I believe that at most possessing information should be a *small* part of a case -- serious evidence that they were going to do something illegal should be present.
And this isn't a
And, to bring the argument down to the earth, I would put the total number of people who did something illegal after reading the Anarchist's Cookbook in the dozens. And, those people never came to the attention of police. You know why? Because the only crime they committed was getting high on banana peels. (Bananadine! Assuming that's illegal.) The Anarchist's Cookbook is *comedy*. Get it? *Nobody* who is serious about committing a crime would use it as a source for information. It is totally absurd to consider possession of literature like the Anarchist's Cookbook primary or substantial evidence against someone in a conspiracy case.
Information that could potentially used criminally shouldn't be illegal; only actually committing a crime or intending to commit a crime should be prosecuted. And the burden of proof regarding intent in a conspiracy case should be very high. No amount of proof of reading should ever be illegal.
Let's hope that the guys responsible for prosecuting this will figure this out or that justice will otherwise prevail and some 17-year old won't be convicted for terrorism over something absurd. "Terrorism". Man, that word has really come on strong this past decade.
Didn't it used to be said that it was our use of tools that was one of the defining characteristics of humans (and chimpanzees)?
Now it seems like all sorts of animals use tools. Even the "bird brained". And that put-down rightly invokes the stupidity of birds, because they are stupid. So, I guess our tool using trick isn't so high falootin' after all. No better than birds, how sad.
--That's right, survival of whoever is luckiest to set of genes. And when those genes are the ones that allow you to "compete and survive", those are the lucky ones. If a mutation was part of that package of lucky genes, and you reproduce successfully, and that mutation becomes standard equipment, we've just seen evolution.
Then the author says "the outcome is not determined by the 'fitness' of a particular trait, in terms of whether the trait affects an animal's ability to compete and survive."
--That's wrong! Like above, it's mutation, from whatever cause, that "drives" evolution, if you will, but it's natural selection which "channels" that drive into actual evolution.
He's right when he says mutation is a driving force in evolution. But he's wrong when he seems to write off the other hypothesized "driving force" in evolution: environment, i.e. necessity.
But, when do these "protein mutations" actually manifest in evolution that actually changes the whole of a group of organisms? When that mutation is something useful in the environment!
Your comment needs to define its terms a bit. There is a direction to evolution: forward. Change is synonymous with evolution. And things always keep changing. If two species are on the same branch in the tree of life (?) then it's reasonably understandable about what is meant by making ordinal comparisons between those species regarding degree of evolution.
But it is true that evolution lacks a destination, i.e. degree of evolution shouldn't be measured by things like intelligence or size or how like humans a species is.
"Move evolved" just means "having reached this state by more mutation", however you're going to quantify that. I assume... "mechanically"/repdocutively rather than genetically. Well, actually, I guess you deal with it the same way people differentiate between species...
Also, I'm not sure that's what the OP was getting at. I think maybe he meant that this "drift", this "protein evolution", is not equivalent to "evolution" in the bio-mechanical/functional sorta sense -- it's just meaningless back and forth, either "inactive" mutations (if such things exist) or inconsequential ones.
Therefore, this article would not have anything to tell us about how quick warm and small animals "evolve", just how often they go through inconsequential "protein evolution".
But, for some reason I thought this whole matter of smaller things evolving quicker was settled. Maybe I've confused it with the thing about small things hearts beating faster!
I do remember one thing that dealt with sizing of living things and evolution: on islands, mammals tend to evolve to be smaller. That was the explanation for those "Hobbit cavemen" who were supposed to be little Homo sapiens or homo erectus's that washed up on some Pacific Island and then shrank down to like 3 feet tall a piece! Some people thought they were microencephalic Homo sapiens that were found, but I recall seeing that they found several skeletons, and it would be pretty unlikely. I believe in the hobbit caveman, what can I say?
But, the thing that was really interesting was this: the reptiles, the cold blooded creatures on the island, they grew larger! So, at the same time the human were shrinking, the lizards were being magnified! For the life of me, I cannot remember why the hell the cold blooded creatures would expand. I don't think I ever understood the explanation from Discovery Channel. But may have had something to do with the added incentive to larger size as the mammals on the island shrunk to a size that put them near the size range of something the lizards could eat. The Hobbit vs. The Giant Lizard is a retro-evolutionary death match that I think could do with some computer animation.
Instead the show just modeled the meeting of regular Homo sapiens with Homo hobbit and showed the big sapien push the hobbit's face in the sand, like some pre-historic antecedent of those 1950's weight lifting ads with the wimp getting sand kicked in his face. Poor hobbit.
How did this get an interesting? It gets a funny, if anything.
...)
This whole "F*ck environmentalism" sentiment, that was on diplay during Live Earth, for example -- where the hell are people getting this? F the environment is not punk, at least not anymore -- now saying "F the environment" is echoing the more polished but substantively equal sentiment of multinational corporations' CEOs. Not cool, dude.
We *need* this goddamn world.
I'm all for better living through chemistry, but that's *better* living, which includes taking care of the earth. These kind of casual remarks, when meant and/or taken as "interesting" rather than passionate sarcasm, are bad, bad, bad.
You will have descendants, your brother or cousin, etc., will have kids. And, a 10th generation descendant from your cousin and a 7th generation descendant from you probably share about the same amount of genetic code in common with you. (That's a guess. I'd be interested to know
So, all of us have a living, breathing, genetic legacy that'll carry on after we're dead.
Let's not leave a world to our sweet little great^10 grandchildren (or equivalent) that is covered in pollution and in the midst of violent and unpleasant weather.
And, while we're at it, let's keep the water clean for us to go swimming or something fun like that. Makes sense, doesn't it?
That's what bothers me more than the privacy aspect of this... That's totally legitimate. And understandable. However, the problem that you described, saying A friend of mine got an automated ticket for being 0.1 seconds under the red. And we have some short yellows, that are difficult to stop for in good conditions. If it was raining, you could easily end up fishtailing into an intersection trying to stop for the silly things. isn't really down on the automated ticketing. The problem sounds to be the shortness of the yellow. If the yellow was long enough to accomodate drivers who are 1) driving near the speed limit and 2) do not have enough room stop before entering the intersection after the yellow light starts -- if it was long enough that any driver at or reasonably below the speed limit could make it through the intersection after seeing the yellow and realizing he hadn't the time to stop (without spilling his half-full coffee), then what's wrong with the law being enforced to the letter, even if we get one of these damn robats to handle it? (Robats, like Baston.)
If the yellow was sufficiently long, being caught under the red for 0.1 seconds would be rightly and reasonably prosecuted then, right?
So, although I can understand automation of law enforcement engendering a sort of unreasoned aversion in those of us who hate to see Big Brother wrap its tentacles any tighter around every inch of an ancient world, I think a lot of the problem people have with automation sounds like the beef is really with law enforcement in general. I.e., the complaint about automation is simply that it increases the total of law being enforced.
If we craft our laws carefully, there is no reason not to want to see those laws enforced perfectly, and there isn't any reason to worry about how breaks in the law are detected. (You get what I'm saying
When you're dealing with automation of law, you need to make sure that:
1) the law has a truly defined hard edge rather than a "spirit" -- this means some laws that are about "spirit" rather than definition are not eligible.
2) that the set of instructions that define how a "break" in the law will be detected are completely defined, i.e., you have to be ready to program them.
So, basically, any crime which was going to be detected automatically using tech would have to be defined rigidly enough to program it into a computer. If the law was a good one in the first place, and doesn't need human interpretation (which I don't think is true of the traffic lights, despite what is partially implied by your post) we should be fine.
And this would have to start with legislators. Maybe somebody should find them a copy of Logo so they can get familiar with the concept of thinking and speaking clearly.
Yeah, those "addicts" out there will do a bit for their drug of choice, but they're not going to snort some sadistically formulated pill, if that's what you're thinking.
They're just going to take whatever other prescription opiate is most available at the time. And others will just find a way around capsaicin and any other measure devised by those who'd waste their talents devising ways of preventing other people from taking pills of their own volition.
It's a war that can't be won, nor does it deserve to be. It's wrong-headed and truly hateful towards freedom.
It really does work by the mechanism I proposed after those OTC capsaicin and menthol patches gave me a terrible burning feeling on my back! It just hurts so bad that you forget about any other pain you had.
So, the actions of capsaicin that cause pain relief when used alone and which allow that other drug to get into a cell and cause pain relief are "unrelated"?
Brilliant idea. "Let's turn our pharmaceuticals into weapons in the war on drugs."
Why do I have to unnecessarily swallow capsaicin everytime I take a pill? Oh, so we can make somebody else's nose sting.
That'll put a big dent in drug use.
Are you questioning the value of naming celestial objects after celebrities?
They're just automating an inspection that could have been performed by cops on the ground. I know because I got a ticket for driving in the stupid carpool lane once. And you're already in public in a vehicle where you're, at most, shielded from plain view by a bit of glass. Which is to say you're not shielded from plain view.
So, unless law enforcement plans to use this technology to see something it's not already capable of seeing, e.g. using it to see through the walls of your home, I don't think this is a big deal.
Again, like the man said, IT TAKES A SINGLE LINE IN /etc/apt/sources.list and an apt-get update and an apt-get install.
3 steps. Done in *1* minute.
Sometimes, special circumstances mean that a broad swath of a user base needs a fix. Thus, they install the fix. End of story.
I reckon I've been a reader since I installed Slackware off of floppy disks... That has to be at least 8 years ago. How elite does that those of us who are in this Slashdot demo?
Can't say I feel too bad that languages are dying faster than living species! I'd rather go without Esperanto than without killer whales. (Some of my best friends are killer whales.)
Uhh, they're "going to prove", or provide enough evidence to prohibit reasonable doubt, about what's true by trying the matter in court. That's how you deal with libel and slander, you try them in court. One weird thing about these laws: in Britain, and presumably elsewhere, it's "slander" even if what you say is true ... I'm not saying people are charged like this often, but I distinctly remember reading about a case where the person was found guilty of saying something about the plaintiff which was totally true and verifiable.
"surpass"?
What makes the salmonella become more "lethal" after spending time in space? Why does the fact that "in microgravity the force of fluids passing over the cells is low, similar to conditions in the gastrointestinal tract", allow the cells to adapt quickly "to the new environment"? *And why does adapting to space make it more lethal to earthly creatures?* It sounds like a weird coincidence that space truly is the sort of lethality breeding crucible that turns salmonella into the Andromeda Strain!
Sounds great but I'll stick to fish oil and exercise and socializing if I'm ever depressed. I think people ignore the root causes of depression too much. (I know that in this universe we can't really dig down to the "root cause" of anything without invoking the big bang and then asking "why?" one more time and finding there is no root at all, but you know what I mean.) I think depression is basically a social disease -- the hallmark of depression, I think, is social dysfunction, mainly a lack of meaningful time spent with others. This is a symptom of course, but it can also be a cause. Everyone knows that: isolation is not good for you. And social isolation has sky-rocketed, especially physical isolation, in the past century. (Just being on the phone or on the net doesn't do as much good as being in person, IMNHO.) Is it a wonder that depression has increased so much, too? (Now, I know our data has big limitations, and that this depression epidemic coincided with the development of "safe" anti-depressants [with a side-effect of suicide, who'd a thunk it?] because depression was actually *sold* to the public, but I do tend to believe that depression has really increased big time in the past century, and in the past 25 years, too.) Another thing that got worse in the past century: our diet. Specifically, the ratio of omega-3 fatty acids to omega-6 fatty acids has swung drastically in favor of omega-6 fatty acids. Omega-3 fatty acids "comprise approximately eight percent of the average human brain" (from Omega-3(wikipedia)). So, it seems to me that, as we've gone from something like 1:1 omega-3:omega-6 to 30:1 over the past 100 years, we're really f'ing with our brain. Also, breast milk has DHA (one of the two essential fatty acids in fish oil). Only the pricier infant formulas that have come to market in the past decade have DHA. Infants breast-fed had an IQ almost 10 points higher than those not. It's compelling, if debated. But, the depression studies with fish oil are pretty unequivocal. Also, schizophrenics benefited significantly, particularly those who were not yet being treated with anti-psychotics (but who did have schizophrenia -- so the take away is probably that fish oil [EPA in particular] is good for more "mild" cases of schizophrenia (?) ). Also, exercise is good for depression. Who'd have guessed it? It's really good for depression. Also also, spending time with other human beings, in person, is negatively correlated with depression. Amazing! By the way, since Diane has such a virulent "strain" of depression, I wondered if they ever tried the dreaded and "addictive" opiates for her disease. You know, we can't be giving people morphine willy-nilly, sure, it's been used for longer than any other drug in human history, but it's ADDICTIVE. That's right, once you start, you have to take it everyday. ADDICTIVE=take your medicine everyday. Oh, the bane of my existence, taking another pill in addition to my Centrum. But, didn't the doctors say that patients with major depression should expect to take medication for the rest of their life? Hmmm.... Maybe someone should see if the opiates work for depression... What's that? The few times they've been studied in the recent past they worked much better than the SSRI's, with fewer side effects, more complete recovery from depression, and without making people suicidal? Wow! Imagine that -- the world has turned their back on a drug because, instead of just anti-depressing people, it might make them feel genuinely good. Huh. And, they'd rather shock your brain. Still, they prefer Prozac to all of the above: Physical dependence (aka addiction) + no euphoria + incomplete healing in most patients. Sounds like a winner. This way, they keep coming to the psychiatrist looking for a second drug to finish their depression off. Also, they rarely prescribe amphetamine for depression now. Yet, a child with "ADD" or "ADHD" will have no trouble at all getting a prescription for it. Adults can't get it, probably beca
I'm glad you took my accusations of insanity and uninformedness(?) as they should be. Perhaps you aren't so crazy. Still, Vista is a hog, and yes, you're right, even hogs can be satiated. HOWEVER, an OS should be very usable on a mid-range computer when it's released. Period. That's my line, anyhow. And I think it's reasonable: Linux always manages it, and even XP did. The secret? In Linux, you have OPTIONS galore. And, on OS X being ultra-restrictive and Apple rotten: I disagree. OS X leaves a lot of customization to be done by the user -- it's UNIX! It's going to be POSIX compliant with 10.5, I believe, and it's damn close as it is. Outside of the UNIX-y parts of the OS, I can't see where there's a lot less options left the user than in Windows... And, I have a computer just like the one you described for running Vista. That's well and good. HOWEVER, as I wrote in my other nasty post in reply to a post of yours (meant to be taken not-too-seriously in its venom but very seriously in its recommendations) Linux just has so much to offer, so many superiorities. If you follow my instructions, and install Ubuntu Feisty Fawn, on your dual-core 2 gig'er (what I'm typing on fits that description), and install Beryl, you'll feel like the prettiest girl at the dance (if you were a girl at a dance and your GUI counted as clothing). My point is, your desire for aesthetics will be far more pleased than with Vista. There's no way around it -- Beryl looks so much better and has so many more options... Trust me. G'day Marsten!
This sounds dumb, but what you don't realize is HOW BIG RINGTONES ARE! And, 3 songs for $6, plus a ringtone in the mix -- that's only twice what Apple charges for the same songs on iTunes PLUS you're getting a ringtone, plus it's CD quality. Throw enough reasons in, and a price that's a 5 spot plus a single... and you'll find music retailers easily wheedling the money out of the pockets of people who would otherwise pay for the songs on iTunes. By the way -- singles only used to have 2 tracks on 'em! This is not at all a ridiculous price for the product, and given the prices some ringtones go for, it's not surprising that a product like this would be viewed to be saleable by the industry.