>>People who spend $400 plus accessories and bitch about spending $2 on a missed episode can shampoo my crotch. $.99 for a song, 4-5 minutes. $1.99 for a TV show for 40 minutes."
>Just shows how overpriced the songs are.
Try watching the same episode over 2-3 times and tell me if it gets boring. I have barely
started understanding a song until after hearing it 3-4 times. A good music album can give
you many hours of listening pleasure.
What's interesting to note is that the EU's share of world publications has increased by almost 20% in the last 20 years (from 32%) and Asia's by almost 100%, but the USA's has fallen by almost 20% (from 40% to 33%).
This is correct, I was reading about this in Nature, I think. What I also read is
that some ~40% of foreign postgraduate/post-doc students/scientists have problems with
their visa at some point. It has become quite hard to move to the US for scientific work
(maybe because of terrorism and its related measures?) and extremely easy to just stay
in most parts of Europe, if you are european (thanks to the EU). Most of my fellow PhD
have considered the US but in the end the hassle is simply not worth it, unless you're
absolutely dedicated to go for some "Ivy league" university.
You have a very simplistic view of mental illness. Those suffering from schizophrenia cannot
stop hallucinating (even if you put a gun to their heads!). Those suffering from panic attacks
cannot simply "calm down". Those suffering from conversion disorder cannot stop feeling pain (even
if the pain is proven to be "functional", i.e. not pathological).
Furthermore, even if you manage to force someone to do something against his anxiety (by putting
a gun to his head) or against his phobia you HAVE NOT TREATED THE ANXIETY or PHOBIA. Even if the
person appears to do what you want him to, he won't be able to function if you withdraw your external
pressure. Many of these people are very miserable with their illness and are unable to live a normal
life. Do you think they "prefer" living this way?
From another point of view, does this mean that "healthy" people are unconstrained? If you put a
gun to someone's head will he be able to run a marathon race, or win an olympic medal? If he does not,
does this mean he is physically ill? All people are constrained by their bodies and their health status.
As a matter of fact, it is possible for someone who has suffered a heart attack to have
more endurance than a "healthy" person. Which of the two is healthier?
You also seem to believe that the attribution of "mental illness" contains a moral judgement. This is of course
true to some extent. In the exact same way that one's ability to walk is automatically compared to all
"normal" people (and not, say, to fishes), one's behaviour is also compared to "normal" behaviour.
However, this is not the only
or the most important criterion of mental illness. You also need to consider: a) whether the person is
happy (someone who can't get laid and is miserable may suffer from social phobia or depression, but the
Pope can be perfectly happy without getting laid) b) whether the person can succeed in his goals
and adapt to some environment c) whether the person is dangerous for society. Take your example: can
a deeply religious person succeed in his goals and be happy without hurting others? Probably yes. Can a person
with some paranoid delusion succeed in his goals and be happy without hurting others? Most probably not.
Normally, the list of mental illnesses changes because the way we think changes faster than the way
we walk or the way our hearts beat. In that way, the measure of mental illness does not depend that much on
what exactly you believe or do, but how well you manage to adapt and function. This of course,
does require that you comply (to some extent) with social standards. In the end, medicine does not
pass moral judgement. Society does that, usually...
What is most worrying is that few seem to be worried about the lack of real compitition. Given google declinng result quality, where is the compitition. Though the results seem to be getting no worse, there must be better ways to do searching. However, with MS pushing thier solution, and Google seeming like the new big thing, I gues no one wants to fund it.
Although the Google algorithm IS probably to most other engines, it is also the "benchmark" by
which many people "optimize" their pages to get good ranks. The end result is that Google is constantly
under attack by worthless pages that want to get to #1. Other search engines do not suffer from this.
I mostly use Google, although when I'm unhappy with the result I also turn to yahoo and clusty (www.clusty.com,
excellent concept). I have to say that their results are quite competitive most of the time!
On the other hand, GMail is currently superior to every other e-mail solution I have tried
because it offers POP/SMTP (2GB versus 1GB isn't much of a deal for me, but using
Thunderbird+Enigmail is much better).
The wireless Bluetooth mouse, Bluetooth cellphone, external Firewire HDD's, external Firewire DVD, OEM ATI Radeon video card, external USB printer, Linksys/Cisco wireless network base station, non-Apple LCD monitor, USB pen drive, etc. and EVERYTHING works perfectly with OS X (I am running 10.4.2).
Almost every "standard-based" piece of hardware ought to work. Bluetooth mice and keyboards, external USB or Firewire storage, monitors and many printers (Postscript or PCL, for example) are very standard pieces of hardware and do not need "esoteric" drivers most of the time. Most of the hardware you mention (I'll give you the USB pen drive, I've never used one) is pretty standard and is EXPECTED to work. Am I to praise Apple because an LCD MONITOR works!?!? (unless of course the monitor is some 32" 12-bit grey weird model) Or do you consider an OEM ATI Radeon card a rarity (it doesn't get any more standard than this!)?
Try some video capture cards, some older scanners, SCSI controllers, old (non-realtek or 3com) ethernet cards, maybe a winmodem or a winprinter. Non-PnP peripherals, serial or parallel port hardware, ISA cards (research apparatus that we use at the lab needs an ISA card interface) are even harder to support. This is the kind of crap that Windows or Linux has to put up with. Apple has been intelligent and lucky enough to promote the use of standard peripherals while at the same time keeping a steady hardware base (motherboard/CPU at least). Furthermore, the Apple user will usually tolerate the fact that his hardware and software is obsolete[1] when new models come out, while the Windows user expects full backwards compatibility (hell, even XP includes DOS and Win95 mode for old applications!).
Anyway, the hardware drivers are privileged pieces of code. It is true that Win has a huge disadvantage by running drivers in Ring 0 (kernel privileges). I imagine that the OS X approach is superior, but that doesn't mean that the problems they are facing with hardware are equivalent to the chaos that prevails in the x86 world.
P.
[1] This does not mean that the hardware ceases to work. Several people may work happily with MacOS 9 or very old CPUs. However, they do not expect to carry over their hardware/software.
The majority of the people were able to appreciate the transition from vinyl to CD and from VHS to DVD. The difference was clearly noticable and the new medium was much more practical. As a matter of fact, CD and DVD are so succesful that they will be very hard to replace!
Many people are quite happy watching DivX movies at 800Kbps and I imagine that the DVD format is already good enough for most. Why bother with the new technology, especially if it is so bothersome (copy protection etc)?
I've been playing games for approximately 20 years, including classics like the "Elite", "Lemmings", "Space Quest", "Monkey Island" etc etc. As a matter of fact I like to collect older games, often sold in low prices. Have you ever tried going back (instead of remembering) and actually playing these games now? There has been considerable progress which we like to forget. I fondly remember finishing Eye of the Beholder I/II/III, for example. Now, compare this with Baldur's Gate I/II and Neverwinter Nights (or Morrowind, that r0x0rz). Or try to play the original Prince of Persia, for example.
I agree that the progress does not necessarily come from the shaders or the lights, but when modern games get it right (which they sometimes do) they are excellent. The technical sophistication does make a difference in the end, when all these means are used properly.
Take Need for Speed Underground 2 as an example: this is a great game... huge amounts of content, great graphics and sound, easy to drive but difficult to master. Could you have made something like that without the graphics or the sound? Maybe you like to play brain puzzles or text adventures. I respect that. I have played them, too. But that is not the whole world of gaming. Realism and graphics can contribute immensely to an immersive gameplay experience!!
The G5 could never compete with high-end x86 hardware and this is now obvious even to the mac fanatics. Jobs is a smart guy and he realized that you can't polish a G5 anymore. This is going to be an eye-opening experience for the Mac crowd. On the other hand, there will be no more "mac" hardware... all apple components are now derived from the x86 market (GFX card, HD, RAM, CPU) with extra polishing and packing. Maybe this is what the world actually wants, instead of "alternative" but inferior hardware. After all, a large part of the mac experience has always been the "package" (meaning looks and ergonomics) instead of the contents.
The good news is that now that the playing field is actually "level", we can see whose appz are really faster/better. If OS X boots in 10" and Longhorn needs 10', this can no longer be attributed to the "mac hardware".
BTW IR is the standard abbriviation for infrared, not for ionizing radiation, particularly in contexts where ultraviolet is abbriviated as "UV".
If this bothers you much, I'll call it whatever you want, as long as everyone understands each other. English is not my native language and here in the lab we commonly call it IR instead of the [long phrase in my language]. BTW, since you like to nitpick, it's not "abbriviated", but "abbreviated".
More to the point, there are two major differences between UV and ionizing radiation. Usually UV (which, in the original discussion, came from the sun) causes single strand breaks, while ionizing radiation causes double strand breaks. Of course, this is not absolute, but does holds true to a very significant extent. In the first case we have base and nucleotide excision repair and in the second case (double strand breaks) we have homologous and non-homologous end joining. Different molecular pathways, different cellular response. Furthermore, a cell with SSBs is far more likely to survive without DNA deletions, translocations etc.
"Also, we have actually seen DNA damage in human cells after IR [sic] exposure." Yes, and we have actually seen muscle fiber damage after exercise. The body's repair systems then make the muscle stronger than it was in the first place. An analogous process happens with cellular radiation damage.
Here you are very wrong. The muscle fibers are not an information structure. Repaired DNA can only get worse, never better because the information cannot be "improved" in any way but it can deteriorate in several ways. Muscle, on the other hand, remains operational even if individual fibers get lost.
"Irradiated cells initiate protective responses within a few hours, including radical detoxification, DNA repair, cell removal by stimulated immune response, and apoptosis. These responses are also used to repair endogenous DNA and other metabolic damage as well (Feinendegen & Pollycove, 2001; Luckey, 1991, p. 5). etc...
This is true, but your conclusions are not completely accurate. A similar idea, called "conditioning" has been proposed as a protective measure for people that are at risk for myocardial infarction. People that get small repetitive episodes of ischemia are more resistant to a final more significant event. The same holds true for sun exposure: tanned people are more resistant to sunburns.
However, in all these cases, the induction of repair and resistance mechanisms is only beneficial if there is going to be a significant later exposure to greater doses of the damaging agent.
This is not a priori certain!
Radiation exposure may prepare the body for the eventual appearance of genomic instability (from endogenous, i.e. cancer, or exogenous causes) but it does have a price to pay, which is the slow deterioration of the DNA. Admittedly, I could imagine some cases where this is a worthwile investment but as a general rule I cannot recommend to the general population (which is not clearly at risk) such a protective measure. I'd rather have the population quit smoking, wear seatbelts and use condoms instead (cheap and effective measures that do not harm).
You are confusing IR (ionizing radiation) with UV (ultraviolet radiation). Their effect on the DNA is quite different. Anyway, if you quote 10 papers that don't link IR with cancer, I can quote 10^2 papers that do link IR with cancer. Also, we have actually seen DNA damage in human cells after IR exposure. This is trivial to replicate and is also widely publicized (now, arguably, there is some distance from DNA damage to cancer, but still I prefer my DNA intact...)
Now we're being told that actually x86 is probably about as good as PPC, and in the future it will be better.
I can't remember a significant period of time (2 weeks between launches don't count) during which Apple had faster hardware than PCs of similar price. Not during the Motorola era, not during the PowerPC era. As a matter of fact Apple progressively moves towards cheaper PC technologies (I was shocked when Apple dropped SCSI in favor of ATA). From a business standpoint it does make sense. PC components are getting faster and better and most workstation companies were/are unable to compete with reasonable profit margins. AMD is probably unable to provide the volume that Apple requires, although it depends on which segment of the market (low end? high end? Dual core? mobile?) Apple will want to position itself.
It's possible that even after divx is done encoding a file, there's still a certain amount of "order" left. Divx encodes using perceptual quality as it's perogative; it's not a source-coder, which is the reason it performs so much better on video files. However, it IS possible that LZ77/whatever year, is able to squeeze a little bit more size out of it, since LZ is a general source coder.
The compression scheme actually involves two steps. First the lossy compression is done by analyzing the signal and removing those components that are less critical for image quality (this is where quality is determined and most savings occur). Subsequently, the data that remain are encoded with a lossless algorithm for maximum gain. The first step reduces bandwidth from (say) 10 MB/sec to 200K/sec while the second reduces it by (say) 20-30 %.
General purpose lossless compression can usually outperform per-block (second stage) lossless compression (a) because it can be more computationaly intensive and (b) because it can read larger chunks of the file. It comes as no surprise, therefore, that DIVX avi files can be compressed a little bit with ZIP or RAR or whatever. And, most importantly, this is NOT an indicator of the efficiency of the first step (lossy) that really governs output quality and size.
I don't think that a marginal 1-2 % smaller size is something to be excited about and I think that the Tomshardware comment sux0rz, but I'd be happy if this stops users from using zip or rar on video files. People that do this are idiots.
Many people here seem to doubt the necessity of reading academic literature. I was thinking, for example, do they intend to reinvent parallel algorithms now that multi-core is getting abundant (Athlon X2, Pentium D, PS3, XBox 360)? Is it really possible to do first class work (and I'm not talking about web site design or other artistic disciplines) without knowing what's technically possible? Furthermore, many of our favorite projects (pgsql, the kernel scheduler, the modern filesystems) use relatively modern algorithms and data structures that are part of their competitive advantage. Is this something you can afford to miss?
I just remember reading in another thread about how the XBOX 360 processors likely have several things trimmed out of them. (Note: If anybody can correct me, it'd be mucho appreciated.)
Well, it is already clear that they are NOT PowerPC cores. The hardware specifications state that they are BASED on PowerPC, so you can't assume identical clock-for-clock performance. Most likely the hardware in the XBOX360 will be much more powerful than anything below high-end Macs (that will be 2x2.7 at that time, if I'm correct) Somehow it doesn't really matter, because Apple buyers generally aren't going to care if their computer takes 5" more to convert an MP3. Playing games is another area (not a strong Apple point, traditionally)
Also, do note that this thing has the cooling capacity to match: vacuum sealed water cooling (not sure of the exact details, though).
A few months in the laboratory (or coding, in your case) can often save you a few hours in in the library.
The hard part is actually being able to keep up (i.e. knowing the language, which journals to trust, what's going on etc). Since you are following the literature closely you should not abandon it. Those that don't follow it will definitely have a hard time starting, though.
1. Our planet has limited resources
2. We're using them
This seems logical, but there are several other points to consider.
a) Some resources are (practically) renewable. Say, oxygen or water. We just have to keep them clean (which is very different from, say, lack of oil).
b) Some resources will last a very long time (nuclear, solar energy)
c) Some resources are being much more efficiently utilized through the application of new technology.
The lack of resources boils down to two very significant issues. a) Unfrair distribution (which is a political rather than technological problem) can cause artificial shortage. b) Very few, specific resources are lacking (mostly energy). It's not like we are running out of every chemical element at once.
My conclusion is that space exploration is worthwhile in itself, just like any basic research that satisfies human curiosity. I don't see any real need to justify it with reference to imaginary (or real) dangers. After all, if our race (or to put it more accurately, the Western world) can afford to spend some billion dollars per YEAR in the movie industry (which is about having fun), we can also afford to spend a lot of money in basic research, which is also fun, prestigious (going to the Moon is much more impressive than making Star Wars, if you ask me) and may prove useful in the long run.
I wonder what the world will be like when simulated sex is so much better and easier to get than the real thing.
Well, my guess is that traditional sex will then become even more valuable, even if it isn't that much fun. After all, there is no fame or glory at all in saying that you dated your PS9. Dating, say, Angelina Jolie would be a different matter, even if the sex was bad (?!), don't you agree? For many males a significant part of the fun is flirting and persuading the hot female (and then telling your friends all about it...).
AFAIK, in KDE you can switch between desktops using CTRL-[F1-F4], or sequentially change between them using CTRL-TAB. Of course, you can change the bindings in KDE Control Center.
Actually they use the Win-[F1-F4] key which is even better! Thanks a lot! You really helped! (how didn't I notice before??)
I would easily change to KDE + some gtk apps that I like (gnumeric r0x0rz) but there is one killer feature that I cannot find in other desktops beside Gnome: I want to configure keybindings for desktop switching. I usually use Alt-[1-4] for 4 desktops, Ctrl- for moving windows between desktops. This is very easy to configure in Gnome and it has become an almost automatic reaction in my everyday work (e.g. Acrobat in one desktop, emacs in the other etc).
Does anyone here know how to achieve this in any other windows manager or desktop? I wouldn't mind using Ctrl-[1-4] or Alt-[F1-F4] or something similar but I DON'T want to use the mouse to do this. It has to be some keybinding. Clicking around is a horrible waste of time.
I have a similar solution for sensitive data: I have a device-mapped encrypted partition on my hardrive and the key (~500 byte file) is on a flash usb-keychain. The fun part is that the flash key itself is also encrypted ext2 and is also device-mapped when I use the correct password. In order to read the hard disk partition I need both the usb-key and the password. The usb-key alone is useless. The process is semi-automatic thanks to a little script I have written (~10 lines).
Naturally, the encrypted partition is empty because I can't think of any sensitive data I'd want to hide. Most of the time, the linux prompt scares all my collegues away and that's good enough security for my (legal!) MP3s they might want to listen...:-)
Defining addiction is a matter of overall social and psychological health. There are several key criteria to remember and usually they apply to many "addictive" habits:
(a) Doing the activity in question prevents the person from doing necessary everyday work: neglects self, hygiene, work, other people.
(b) Doing the activity in question is not necessarily pleasant, but the person cannot stop. He may be bored with the game, but he cannot stop it.
(c) The person feels guilt and will aggressively defend their "right" to do said activity or hide it.
(d) The person may have a so-called "addictive personality" (usually said to occur in people that grew without the adequate presence of their father). These are people that lack self-control and are also prone to enjoy mind-numbing activities as self-prescribed remedies for their constant anxiety.
Fine, but if you're running 64-bit code on the Turion and 32-bit on the P-M, then the effective size (number of items stored) is the same.
The code size in 64-bit mode is NOT double. All 32-bit instructions work unchanges in 64-bit mode. The jump/memory addressing instructions need 64-bit operands and a special prefix, but unless you are really working with 64-bit ints most of your instructions are unchanged (although the ones that use the new 'r' registers will need a prefix). I'd estimate the increase in code size to be ~30-50%.
As an example (not very accurate) gcc-3.3.4 (32-bit) cc1 is 2964192 compiled for i686 with moderate optimization (slackware package) while gcc-3.4.2 (64-bit gentoo) compiled with -O3 -march=athlon64 cc1 is 4222760 (42% larger). Note that optimizations are for speed, not for size.
P.
Decent audio cards do that on the fly...
on
Normalizing Music?
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· Score: 1
Just buy an Audigy card or any card that can do digital signal processing (has a processor on-board) and have it run a compression filter/effect all the time. It is trivial to do and it works without taxing your CPU. Furthermore, it does NOT alter your original music files (compression is not good for classical music--you are supposed to appreciate the range from pianissimo to fortissimo with all the intermediate steps). Otherwise, you may use an output plugin, such as these offered by foobar2000 (an excellent audio player for Win32). Foobar2000 includes a software plugin compressor, but it will run off your CPU. Not a bad idea, though.
Most of the low-to-medium publicity journals get a nice boost in their impact factor (approximate measure of quality*publicity) by being free online because more people read them. That's why many journals want to be free/open access.
There are many ways this can work. Authors already pay, for many journals. Advertisements are another source of income. Membership fees (as in Science, the journal published by the American Association for the Advancement of Science) can also help. Finally, and most importantly, most universities and libraries need subscriptions for archival purposes and can afford to pay. The individual reader is fine with PDFs online.
Several journals use honest policies that I like: (a) time limit, get all articles older than 1 year or 6 months free (b) get all original research articles free and only pay for reviews/editorials/comments (most ethical solution, because original research is not paid by the journal)
please make sure your children say 'Mother, I would like ever so much to play with my Lego-brand construction blocks, please'".
Maybe "Legos" is a terrible insult in Mongolia or some other country. Or, quite possibly, "Legos" is a trademark for some sex-related product used in Africa. Being a multi-national company they have to think about that stuff, too.
Slashdot Mirror
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Furthermore, even if you manage to force someone to do something against his anxiety (by putting a gun to his head) or against his phobia you HAVE NOT TREATED THE ANXIETY or PHOBIA. Even if the person appears to do what you want him to, he won't be able to function if you withdraw your external pressure. Many of these people are very miserable with their illness and are unable to live a normal life. Do you think they "prefer" living this way?
From another point of view, does this mean that "healthy" people are unconstrained? If you put a gun to someone's head will he be able to run a marathon race, or win an olympic medal? If he does not, does this mean he is physically ill? All people are constrained by their bodies and their health status. As a matter of fact, it is possible for someone who has suffered a heart attack to have more endurance than a "healthy" person. Which of the two is healthier?
You also seem to believe that the attribution of "mental illness" contains a moral judgement. This is of course true to some extent. In the exact same way that one's ability to walk is automatically compared to all "normal" people (and not, say, to fishes), one's behaviour is also compared to "normal" behaviour. However, this is not the only or the most important criterion of mental illness. You also need to consider: a) whether the person is happy (someone who can't get laid and is miserable may suffer from social phobia or depression, but the Pope can be perfectly happy without getting laid) b) whether the person can succeed in his goals and adapt to some environment c) whether the person is dangerous for society. Take your example: can a deeply religious person succeed in his goals and be happy without hurting others? Probably yes. Can a person with some paranoid delusion succeed in his goals and be happy without hurting others? Most probably not.
Normally, the list of mental illnesses changes because the way we think changes faster than the way we walk or the way our hearts beat. In that way, the measure of mental illness does not depend that much on what exactly you believe or do, but how well you manage to adapt and function. This of course, does require that you comply (to some extent) with social standards. In the end, medicine does not pass moral judgement. Society does that, usually...
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On the other hand, GMail is currently superior to every other e-mail solution I have tried because it offers POP/SMTP (2GB versus 1GB isn't much of a deal for me, but using Thunderbird+Enigmail is much better).
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Try some video capture cards, some older scanners, SCSI controllers, old (non-realtek or 3com) ethernet cards, maybe a winmodem or a winprinter. Non-PnP peripherals, serial or parallel port hardware, ISA cards (research apparatus that we use at the lab needs an ISA card interface) are even harder to support. This is the kind of crap that Windows or Linux has to put up with. Apple has been intelligent and lucky enough to promote the use of standard peripherals while at the same time keeping a steady hardware base (motherboard/CPU at least). Furthermore, the Apple user will usually tolerate the fact that his hardware and software is obsolete[1] when new models come out, while the Windows user expects full backwards compatibility (hell, even XP includes DOS and Win95 mode for old applications!).
Anyway, the hardware drivers are privileged pieces of code. It is true that Win has a huge disadvantage by running drivers in Ring 0 (kernel privileges). I imagine that the OS X approach is superior, but that doesn't mean that the problems they are facing with hardware are equivalent to the chaos that prevails in the x86 world.
P.
[1] This does not mean that the hardware ceases to work. Several people may work happily with MacOS 9 or very old CPUs. However, they do not expect to carry over their hardware/software.
The majority of the people were able to appreciate the transition from vinyl to CD and from VHS to DVD. The difference was clearly noticable and the new medium was much more practical. As a matter of fact, CD and DVD are so succesful that they will be very hard to replace!
Many people are quite happy watching DivX movies at 800Kbps and I imagine that the DVD format is already good enough for most. Why bother with the new technology, especially if it is so bothersome (copy protection etc)?
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I agree that the progress does not necessarily come from the shaders or the lights, but when modern games get it right (which they sometimes do) they are excellent. The technical sophistication does make a difference in the end, when all these means are used properly.
Take Need for Speed Underground 2 as an example: this is a great game... huge amounts of content, great graphics and sound, easy to drive but difficult to master. Could you have made something like that without the graphics or the sound? Maybe you like to play brain puzzles or text adventures. I respect that. I have played them, too. But that is not the whole world of gaming. Realism and graphics can contribute immensely to an immersive gameplay experience!!
P.
The G5 could never compete with high-end x86 hardware and this is now obvious even to the mac fanatics. Jobs is a smart guy and he realized that you can't polish a G5 anymore. This is going to be an eye-opening experience for the Mac crowd. On the other hand, there will be no more "mac" hardware... all apple components are now derived from the x86 market (GFX card, HD, RAM, CPU) with extra polishing and packing. Maybe this is what the world actually wants, instead of "alternative" but inferior hardware. After all, a large part of the mac experience has always been the "package" (meaning looks and ergonomics) instead of the contents.
The good news is that now that the playing field is actually "level", we can see whose appz are really faster/better. If OS X boots in 10" and Longhorn needs 10', this can no longer be attributed to the "mac hardware".
P.
More to the point, there are two major differences between UV and ionizing radiation. Usually UV (which, in the original discussion, came from the sun) causes single strand breaks, while ionizing radiation causes double strand breaks. Of course, this is not absolute, but does holds true to a very significant extent. In the first case we have base and nucleotide excision repair and in the second case (double strand breaks) we have homologous and non-homologous end joining. Different molecular pathways, different cellular response. Furthermore, a cell with SSBs is far more likely to survive without DNA deletions, translocations etc.
Here you are very wrong. The muscle fibers are not an information structure. Repaired DNA can only get worse, never better because the information cannot be "improved" in any way but it can deteriorate in several ways. Muscle, on the other hand, remains operational even if individual fibers get lost. This is true, but your conclusions are not completely accurate. A similar idea, called "conditioning" has been proposed as a protective measure for people that are at risk for myocardial infarction. People that get small repetitive episodes of ischemia are more resistant to a final more significant event. The same holds true for sun exposure: tanned people are more resistant to sunburns.However, in all these cases, the induction of repair and resistance mechanisms is only beneficial if there is going to be a significant later exposure to greater doses of the damaging agent. This is not a priori certain!
Radiation exposure may prepare the body for the eventual appearance of genomic instability (from endogenous, i.e. cancer, or exogenous causes) but it does have a price to pay, which is the slow deterioration of the DNA. Admittedly, I could imagine some cases where this is a worthwile investment but as a general rule I cannot recommend to the general population (which is not clearly at risk) such a protective measure. I'd rather have the population quit smoking, wear seatbelts and use condoms instead (cheap and effective measures that do not harm).
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General purpose lossless compression can usually outperform per-block (second stage) lossless compression (a) because it can be more computationaly intensive and (b) because it can read larger chunks of the file. It comes as no surprise, therefore, that DIVX avi files can be compressed a little bit with ZIP or RAR or whatever. And, most importantly, this is NOT an indicator of the efficiency of the first step (lossy) that really governs output quality and size.
I don't think that a marginal 1-2 % smaller size is something to be excited about and I think that the Tomshardware comment sux0rz, but I'd be happy if this stops users from using zip or rar on video files. People that do this are idiots.
P
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Well, it is already clear that they are NOT PowerPC cores. The hardware specifications state that they are BASED on PowerPC, so you can't assume identical clock-for-clock performance. Most likely the hardware in the XBOX360 will be much more powerful than anything below high-end Macs (that will be 2x2.7 at that time, if I'm correct) Somehow it doesn't really matter, because Apple buyers generally aren't going to care if their computer takes 5" more to convert an MP3. Playing games is another area (not a strong Apple point, traditionally)
Also, do note that this thing has the cooling capacity to match: vacuum sealed water cooling (not sure of the exact details, though).
P.
There's a saying:
A few months in the laboratory (or coding, in your case) can often save you a few hours in in the library.
The hard part is actually being able to keep up (i.e. knowing the language, which journals to trust, what's going on etc). Since you are following the literature closely you should not abandon it. Those that don't follow it will definitely have a hard time starting, though.
P.
This seems logical, but there are several other points to consider.
a) Some resources are (practically) renewable. Say, oxygen or water. We just have to keep them clean (which is very different from, say, lack of oil).
b) Some resources will last a very long time (nuclear, solar energy)
c) Some resources are being much more efficiently utilized through the application of new technology.
The lack of resources boils down to two very significant issues. a) Unfrair distribution (which is a political rather than technological problem) can cause artificial shortage. b) Very few, specific resources are lacking (mostly energy). It's not like we are running out of every chemical element at once.
My conclusion is that space exploration is worthwhile in itself, just like any basic research that satisfies human curiosity. I don't see any real need to justify it with reference to imaginary (or real) dangers. After all, if our race (or to put it more accurately, the Western world) can afford to spend some billion dollars per YEAR in the movie industry (which is about having fun), we can also afford to spend a lot of money in basic research, which is also fun, prestigious (going to the Moon is much more impressive than making Star Wars, if you ask me) and may prove useful in the long run.
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I would easily change to KDE + some gtk apps that I like (gnumeric r0x0rz) but there is one killer feature that I cannot find in other desktops beside Gnome: I want to configure keybindings for desktop switching. I usually use Alt-[1-4] for 4 desktops, Ctrl- for moving windows between desktops. This is very easy to configure in Gnome and it has become an almost automatic reaction in my everyday work (e.g. Acrobat in one desktop, emacs in the other etc).
Does anyone here know how to achieve this in any other windows manager or desktop? I wouldn't mind using Ctrl-[1-4] or Alt-[F1-F4] or something similar but I DON'T want to use the mouse to do this. It has to be some keybinding. Clicking around is a horrible waste of time.
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Naturally, the encrypted partition is empty because I can't think of any sensitive data I'd want to hide. Most of the time, the linux prompt scares all my collegues away and that's good enough security for my (legal!) MP3s they might want to listen... :-)
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(a) Doing the activity in question prevents the person from doing necessary everyday work: neglects self, hygiene, work, other people.
(b) Doing the activity in question is not necessarily pleasant, but the person cannot stop. He may be bored with the game, but he cannot stop it.
(c) The person feels guilt and will aggressively defend their "right" to do said activity or hide it.
(d) The person may have a so-called "addictive personality" (usually said to occur in people that grew without the adequate presence of their father). These are people that lack self-control and are also prone to enjoy mind-numbing activities as self-prescribed remedies for their constant anxiety.
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As an example (not very accurate) gcc-3.3.4 (32-bit) cc1 is 2964192 compiled for i686 with moderate optimization (slackware package) while gcc-3.4.2 (64-bit gentoo) compiled with -O3 -march=athlon64 cc1 is 4222760 (42% larger). Note that optimizations are for speed, not for size.
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There are many ways this can work. Authors already pay, for many journals. Advertisements are another source of income. Membership fees (as in Science, the journal published by the American Association for the Advancement of Science) can also help. Finally, and most importantly, most universities and libraries need subscriptions for archival purposes and can afford to pay. The individual reader is fine with PDFs online.
Several journals use honest policies that I like: (a) time limit, get all articles older than 1 year or 6 months free (b) get all original research articles free and only pay for reviews/editorials/comments (most ethical solution, because original research is not paid by the journal)
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