Man, I need to write an include file for this evolution misperception. I blame Star Trek.
Evolution is not a progression, it is a reaction.
Diversity equals security.
The more diverse humanity's gene pool is, the better it can react to environmental stresses.
You and others like you just might be the people carrying a genetic makeup that allows you to survive the next global change thus securing the viability of our species.
Your genes are not weakening the species but diversifying it. If you don't think diversity is good, read up on wheat.
What you say makes sense...if you only think with a narrow point of view between perceived "strength" and "weakness".
I've said it before, and I'll say it again: evolution is not a progression, it is a reaction.
There is no ultimate goal for human evolution, no perfect being that we are gradually approaching. We are simply suited to our environment.
How do you know that today's "weak" human, won't also be the human carrying the immunity to tomorrow's pandemic? You don't.
By keeping as much genetic material in the system as medically possible, we are essentially enlarging our species genetic toolbox. So as a species, we are capable of absorbing a huge amount of change. Sure something might come along and kill most of us, but the only thing that could kill all of us is some cataclysmic event greater than which killed off the dinosaurs. Something like "Giant Asteroid Liquifies Earth", or "Sun Explodes", or "New Space Highway Construction Complete".
Other, more specialized species (such as the birds in your example and most of the animal species on our planet) are immensely susceptible to extinction. A slight change in their environment or ecosystem and *poof* they are either gone or on the brink of extinction.
If you don't think that weakness can create strength, read up on the link between malaria immunity and sickle-cell anemia.
Go into SysPreferences->Display and click on the Color Tab. Then "Calibrate" and use the expert options. It will take about ten minutes, and if you try to do it all at once your vision will be screwy for a while (you'll see what I mean). But once complete, you won't believe how much clearer your screen is! Save your calibration as something unique and you can click back and forth between the default and your completely calibrated to *your* vision monitor.
When I check out the default color settings now I literally have to squint to see anything. I can't believe it was ever my default setting.
Those comments all deal with battery life and maintenance. All of those issues are solved by the Gas Station of The Future.
These GSTF would keep a rack of cells, freshly charged, guaranteed to be at 95%+ capacity, yadda yadda. You pull into the "gas" station and, for the first few years, someone runs out and swaps the cells charging a flat fee of around 5-10 bucks. Actually they'd probably keep the cost dirt cheap for the first few years so people will think, "Wow, electric cars really are cheaper!" Also the attendant doing the swap will be gone in a few years as well, once companies figure that people are familiar enough with the process.
The gas station chains own (or even manufacture) the cells (use Exxon Cells, we rub them with cheetah blood) so the costs go down and profit goes up.
You don't have to buy the fuel cells, whenever you stop at a Cell Swap Station you get a "brand new" one. They would be rechargeable, but all of the stations would recommend swapping your cell at least once a month.
So, tada. All four points are nullified when you envision a nationwide switchover. The sooner we do it, the happier we'll all be. It would suck to wait until the absolute, last possible minute by government mandated switch. You want a revolution? Mess with people's cars, even if it's to help.
Woo! A fellow study of China. Good, insightful comments all around.
A favorite teacher once explained China's current situation like this.
The young and old CCP are riding in a taxi which is coming to a fork in the road. To the left is a sign labeled: Communism. To the right, a sign labeled: Capitalism.
The driver asks which way to go.
The young CCP thinks for a moment, steals a glance at the half dozing old CCP, and leans in to the driver. "Signal a turn to the left, but go right."
If you haven't noticed, the Chinese aren't big on grand, meaningless showboating: they do what they do because it furthers their long-term objectives, not because it wins them short-term positive press coverage.
I didn't notice. They are as big on grand, meaningless showboating as much as everyone else. Be careful about over-generalizing about any group of people, especially when it's a group of one billion!
Dude, my wife and I use VoIP as our landline. Our regular phones plug straight into the phone wall outlets and in every respect act just like regular phones...except that calls to the US and Canada are completely free. Long distance calls are also dirt cheap, to China for 15 cents a minute! 15 cents a minute! I remember when that was a tag line for long distance in the US!
It's just a little black box plugged into a dedicated cable line and then into a phone wall jack. With the box hidden away, we can treat the wall phone jacks as if the phone company had set them up.
In case you can't tell, we are extreme advocates of the service. Having family spread across the country (and the globe) makes for expensive phone contact, but not for us:-).
BTW, it's Mao Ze Dong (or Zedong). Tse Tung is from the old and evil wade-giles pronunciation system. You'll see it in sources because many, many insightful books were written before the switch to pinyin. But it still hurts to read it. Gaah!
Ah I see. The liberals in Raleigh were working and thus not at the fair during the week. That does make sense.
Ok ok. Chapel Hill and Carrboro are like Kill Devil Hills/Nags Head/Kitty Hawk but Chapel Hill as part of Durham? As an alumni from UNC-Chapel Hill I think I'm now technically required to challenge you to a duel.:-)
I will concede that the triangle area is the heart of the Democratic party in NC.
1) If Raleigh and Durham are the liberal hubs of NC...why does that contribute to you seeing Bush/Cheney signs at the fair? The Fair is held in Raleigh/Durham and the last I checked, Bush/Cheney don't really equate with liberal.
2) Raleigh and Durham the liberal hubs of NC?? Never get out to Chapel Hill and Carrboro?:-)
Really? When my wife and I went to the State Fair (the first Saturday it was open) it was completely the opposite. Swarms of Kerry signs and stickers and I literally only saw two people with Bush signs.
When my wife remarked that there were much more people for Kerry than Bush, a random woman near us said, "Lord I hope so!" in perfect southern drawl.
I don't care what the analysts say, NC was a swing state this election and I believe it's swinging blue this year.
The cool thing about Chinese is that sentence structure is pretty solid. Kind of like a well designed programming language. Anyhoo, in correct Chinese grammar to say, "Yesterday I went to the store." You would say: I Yesterday Go Store.
The structure is like this: . Mostly.
There are some quantifier words that can indicate some sort of tense, but they really don't have an equivalent in English and can be tricky to translate. "Le" is an example. It kind of means, "verb has been done in the past." For example, you could say "Have you eaten?" and I could respond "I eat "le" (wo chi le) which would mean, I have eaten. Or I could say "chi bao le" (bao means round, so I would have said "I have finished eating to my roundness." A Chinese equivalent to "I'm full." Le essentially means an action that is entirely in the past.
"The presidential candidates are obviously aware that the small states don't have much clout under the Electoral College, and have adjusted their travel schedules accordingly. The states where Bush and Kerry are spending disproportionate time aren't the small states, but the swing states, especially the swing states with the most electors. The gravitational pull of swing states would weaken considerably if the Electoral College were eliminated, because candidates could pick up votes almost anywhere."
If you have gas then you can get a natural gas electrical generator. Connected to the gas line, when power goes out some models will automatically ignite and provide power to the house, some require a manual ignition.
Ok, didn't you just completely contradict yourself there? Or are you saying people still get their news elsewhere also, but they only "respect" The Daily Show?
No for the first, Yes! for the second. In other words, they (and I) don't respect any other television news show. We don't get one bit of our daily news input from television.
News from the Internet, biting and brilliant comedic satire of the whole mess from The Daily Show. It is an incredibly fine line for a show to be both satire and news, but The Daily Show pulls it off. For the Daily Show to remain as good as it is, it can't cross that line into "real" journalism.
In other words, just because they run an incredibly well written and popular comedy show, doesn't mean that they have to start asking the hard hitting questions that the real news shows should be asking.
The Daily Show is the most watched news program in the 18-25 demographic, but that doesn't mean that's where they get their news.
The Daily Show is satire, and it is not Jon Stewart's role to ask tough questions. Unfortunately for him, what started as a comedy program has become the only television news show that is still respected by anyone in my large circle of friends.
It is respected not because they ask the hard hitting questions or even because it's good journalism. It's respected because they use humor to highlight the sheer depressing nature of the current state of our political system and the media.
Because Jon Stewart so effectively exposes the BS of the system, he gains respect from the people that watch his show. I have been a fan of the Daily Show since Craig Killborn started the thing "When news breaks, we fix it!" Even when Jon Stewart took over, it wasn't a political show. As the media completely de-evolved into spewing talking points right around 9/11/01: the jokes started to become more and more relevant and the Daily Show slowly but surely became the only place where the sheer incredible stupidness of it all was, and continues to be, pointed out.
My brother had a job when we were students at UNC-Chapel Hill cataloging old letters written to Paul Green (pretty famous playwright, as far as playwrights go).
One letter dated from 1946 (or 45?) was written to Paul Green from the head of the UNC library system at the time (no idea what his name was). He signed off the letter with the phrase "Live Long, and Prosper."
Vulcans may not be in our government, but running our libraries?
Slashdot Mirror
Man, I need to write an include file for this evolution misperception. I blame Star Trek.
Evolution is not a progression, it is a reaction.
Diversity equals security.
The more diverse humanity's gene pool is, the better it can react to environmental stresses.
You and others like you just might be the people carrying a genetic makeup that allows you to survive the next global change thus securing the viability of our species.
Your genes are not weakening the species but diversifying it. If you don't think diversity is good, read up on wheat.
What you say makes sense...if you only think with a narrow point of view between perceived "strength" and "weakness".
I've said it before, and I'll say it again: evolution is not a progression, it is a reaction.
There is no ultimate goal for human evolution, no perfect being that we are gradually approaching. We are simply suited to our environment.
How do you know that today's "weak" human, won't also be the human carrying the immunity to tomorrow's pandemic? You don't.
By keeping as much genetic material in the system as medically possible, we are essentially enlarging our species genetic toolbox. So as a species, we are capable of absorbing a huge amount of change. Sure something might come along and kill most of us, but the only thing that could kill all of us is some cataclysmic event greater than which killed off the dinosaurs. Something like "Giant Asteroid Liquifies Earth", or "Sun Explodes", or "New Space Highway Construction Complete".
Other, more specialized species (such as the birds in your example and most of the animal species on our planet) are immensely susceptible to extinction. A slight change in their environment or ecosystem and *poof* they are either gone or on the brink of extinction.
If you don't think that weakness can create strength, read up on the link between malaria immunity and sickle-cell anemia.
Go into SysPreferences->Display and click on the Color Tab. Then "Calibrate" and use the expert options. It will take about ten minutes, and if you try to do it all at once your vision will be screwy for a while (you'll see what I mean). But once complete, you won't believe how much clearer your screen is! Save your calibration as something unique and you can click back and forth between the default and your completely calibrated to *your* vision monitor.
When I check out the default color settings now I literally have to squint to see anything. I can't believe it was ever my default setting.
Those comments all deal with battery life and maintenance. All of those issues are solved by the Gas Station of The Future.
These GSTF would keep a rack of cells, freshly charged, guaranteed to be at 95%+ capacity, yadda yadda. You pull into the "gas" station and, for the first few years, someone runs out and swaps the cells charging a flat fee of around 5-10 bucks. Actually they'd probably keep the cost dirt cheap for the first few years so people will think, "Wow, electric cars really are cheaper!" Also the attendant doing the swap will be gone in a few years as well, once companies figure that people are familiar enough with the process.
The gas station chains own (or even manufacture) the cells (use Exxon Cells, we rub them with cheetah blood) so the costs go down and profit goes up.
You don't have to buy the fuel cells, whenever you stop at a Cell Swap Station you get a "brand new" one. They would be rechargeable, but all of the stations would recommend swapping your cell at least once a month.
So, tada. All four points are nullified when you envision a nationwide switchover. The sooner we do it, the happier we'll all be. It would suck to wait until the absolute, last possible minute by government mandated switch. You want a revolution? Mess with people's cars, even if it's to help.
Woo! A fellow study of China. Good, insightful comments all around.
A favorite teacher once explained China's current situation like this.
The young and old CCP are riding in a taxi which is coming to a fork in the road. To the left is a sign labeled: Communism. To the right, a sign labeled: Capitalism.
The driver asks which way to go.
The young CCP thinks for a moment, steals a glance at the half dozing old CCP, and leans in to the driver. "Signal a turn to the left, but go right."
If you haven't noticed, the Chinese aren't big on grand, meaningless showboating: they do what they do because it furthers their long-term objectives, not because it wins them short-term positive press coverage.
I didn't notice. They are as big on grand, meaningless showboating as much as everyone else. Be careful about over-generalizing about any group of people, especially when it's a group of one billion!
That and burltech (the wood grainy stuff). Back in my retail days at The Sharper Image we'd take bets on what product would have:
1) Those damn nature sounds added
2) The wood grain added
3) Negative Ions added
Some products would get a nature sound added, and no volume control. Brilliant work.
Wait for: the "negative ion standing fan with wood grain and 50 soothing sounds" to hit the shelves for only $399.95.
Dude, you know that R2D2 sabotaged the motivator or convinced the R5 to play broken right?
:-)
R2 doesn't leave the fate of the galaxy to chance
Megabloks are the new lego, now that lego is focused on specialized piece models.
Check out the awesome dragon series.
Dude, my wife and I use VoIP as our landline. Our regular phones plug straight into the phone wall outlets and in every respect act just like regular phones...except that calls to the US and Canada are completely free. Long distance calls are also dirt cheap, to China for 15 cents a minute! 15 cents a minute! I remember when that was a tag line for long distance in the US!
:-).
We use the VoIP service from Time Warner Cable in NC.
It's just a little black box plugged into a dedicated cable line and then into a phone wall jack. With the box hidden away, we can treat the wall phone jacks as if the phone company had set them up.
In case you can't tell, we are extreme advocates of the service. Having family spread across the country (and the globe) makes for expensive phone contact, but not for us
Hey you didn't offend. It's actually a pretty obscure historical reference. Kudos!
Chiang Kai Shek and the Guomindang.
BTW, it's Mao Ze Dong (or Zedong). Tse Tung is from the old and evil wade-giles pronunciation system. You'll see it in sources because many, many insightful books were written before the switch to pinyin. But it still hurts to read it. Gaah!
No problem. I prefer to ask for permission when possible.
The post will be on Caffeinated Musings.
Ah I see. The liberals in Raleigh were working and thus not at the fair during the week. That does make sense.
:-)
Ok ok. Chapel Hill and Carrboro are like Kill Devil Hills/Nags Head/Kitty Hawk but Chapel Hill as part of Durham? As an alumni from UNC-Chapel Hill I think I'm now technically required to challenge you to a duel.
I will concede that the triangle area is the heart of the Democratic party in NC.
My God. Yours is one of the best political posts I've ever read, spot on about the problems with the Democratic party.
Mind if I post it on my blog?
Uh. Your second point is confusing.
:-)
1) If Raleigh and Durham are the liberal hubs of NC...why does that contribute to you seeing Bush/Cheney signs at the fair? The Fair is held in Raleigh/Durham and the last I checked, Bush/Cheney don't really equate with liberal.
2) Raleigh and Durham the liberal hubs of NC?? Never get out to Chapel Hill and Carrboro?
Support the troops by giving them a competent leader.
Really? When my wife and I went to the State Fair (the first Saturday it was open) it was completely the opposite. Swarms of Kerry signs and stickers and I literally only saw two people with Bush signs.
When my wife remarked that there were much more people for Kerry than Bush, a random woman near us said, "Lord I hope so!" in perfect southern drawl.
I don't care what the analysts say, NC was a swing state this election and I believe it's swinging blue this year.
The cool thing about Chinese is that sentence structure is pretty solid. Kind of like a well designed programming language. Anyhoo, in correct Chinese grammar to say, "Yesterday I went to the store." You would say: I Yesterday Go Store.
The structure is like this: . Mostly.
There are some quantifier words that can indicate some sort of tense, but they really don't have an equivalent in English and can be tricky to translate. "Le" is an example. It kind of means, "verb has been done in the past." For example, you could say "Have you eaten?" and I could respond "I eat "le" (wo chi le) which would mean, I have eaten. Or I could say "chi bao le" (bao means round, so I would have said "I have finished eating to my roundness." A Chinese equivalent to "I'm full." Le essentially means an action that is entirely in the past.
Sorry. FUD.
"The presidential candidates are obviously aware that the small states don't have much clout under the Electoral College, and have adjusted their travel schedules accordingly. The states where Bush and Kerry are spending disproportionate time aren't the small states, but the swing states, especially the swing states with the most electors. The gravitational pull of swing states would weaken considerably if the Electoral College were eliminated, because candidates could pick up votes almost anywhere."
From America's Worst College, Part 4
To you sir I say, thank you.
Remember everyone, evolution is a reaction and not a progression.
If you have gas then you can get a natural gas electrical generator. Connected to the gas line, when power goes out some models will automatically ignite and provide power to the house, some require a manual ignition.
Ok, didn't you just completely contradict yourself there? Or are you saying people still get their news elsewhere also, but they only "respect" The Daily Show?
No for the first, Yes! for the second. In other words, they (and I) don't respect any other television news show. We don't get one bit of our daily news input from television.
News from the Internet, biting and brilliant comedic satire of the whole mess from The Daily Show. It is an incredibly fine line for a show to be both satire and news, but The Daily Show pulls it off. For the Daily Show to remain as good as it is, it can't cross that line into "real" journalism.
In other words, just because they run an incredibly well written and popular comedy show, doesn't mean that they have to start asking the hard hitting questions that the real news shows should be asking.
Wow, good trolling. I can't help but respond :-)
The Daily Show is the most watched news program in the 18-25 demographic, but that doesn't mean that's where they get their news.
The Daily Show is satire, and it is not Jon Stewart's role to ask tough questions. Unfortunately for him, what started as a comedy program has become the only television news show that is still respected by anyone in my large circle of friends.
It is respected not because they ask the hard hitting questions or even because it's good journalism. It's respected because they use humor to highlight the sheer depressing nature of the current state of our political system and the media.
Because Jon Stewart so effectively exposes the BS of the system, he gains respect from the people that watch his show. I have been a fan of the Daily Show since Craig Killborn started the thing "When news breaks, we fix it!" Even when Jon Stewart took over, it wasn't a political show. As the media completely de-evolved into spewing talking points right around 9/11/01: the jokes started to become more and more relevant and the Daily Show slowly but surely became the only place where the sheer incredible stupidness of it all was, and continues to be, pointed out.
So far offtopic but:
My brother had a job when we were students at UNC-Chapel Hill cataloging old letters written to Paul Green (pretty famous playwright, as far as playwrights go).
One letter dated from 1946 (or 45?) was written to Paul Green from the head of the UNC library system at the time (no idea what his name was). He signed off the letter with the phrase "Live Long, and Prosper."
Vulcans may not be in our government, but running our libraries?