Getting and sending mail becomes less convenient. I'm a big USPS fan (clearly...), and the draws are convenience and personal contact, not speed.
Getting mail twice a week would suffice for me, but getting rid of the mailperson -- the one who hand delivers a letter door-to-door anywhere in the States, for under a dollar! -- robs the USPS of its charm.
Before the Civil War, you had to go to the local post office to pick up your mail.
In 1863, Postmaster Montgomery Blair petitioned congress to "promote the public convenience" by providing free home delivery in cities, and argued - correctly, it turns out - that the resultant increase in postal usage would offset the delivery cost and yield a profit. Free rural delivery followed around the turn of the century.
Others at the time argued that whether home delivery yielded a profit was irrelevant, since government entities should be more concerned with civic duty than profit. It's a balance, for sure, but I wish the civic duty sentiment were more common today, or at least to acknowledge the trade-off.
Have Woese and Goldenfeld a brilliant new idea? All they're saying, I think, is that "parent" and "child" are the appropriate units of selection only when genes are passed vertically: from parent to child. They're suggesting that horizontal gene transfer is underrated as a historical evolutionary force.
Agree or not, it hardly undermines Darwin. Genes weren't known in the 19th century. Darwin didn't have a clue about genes, so we're gonna knock him for being "wrong" about it? I mean, was Jesus wrong about genes, too? It's anachronistic silliness.
Science is fundamentally dynamic. Any science that hasn't progressed in 150 years ain't doing too well. (Dear creationists: stop calling us "Darwinists." We've moved on.) I mean, The Origin came out in 1859, for crying out loud! Darwin was more brilliant, more insightful, and rightly more famous than I'll ever be. But if we both had to take a biology test right now, I'd kill him.
Plants react to death and damage, but so does a water balloon. Neither has a nervous system, so I don't worry too much about it. Yes, there is an element of "if it's not like me, then it can't suffer like me," but what else can you do? Assume, despite no evidence to the contrary, that grass can suffer? Then soccer is a monstrous sport!
Why draw the line at tomatoes? First, I don't really. I eat fish on occasion. There is no magical line. Second, it's easy for me to avoid eating cows, and I'm very confident that cattle can suffer. It's damn hard to avoid eating plants, and I'm not at all confident that plants can suffer. So not eating cattle is a better ethical bang for my buck.
especially when it's for something shallow like cosmetic testing.
...or like cheaper hamburgers?
Sorry. As a vegetarian biologist, this is just an inconsistency that I see constantly. "How can you be vegetarian and use antibodies that came from lab rabbits in your research?!" Easy: the cost/benefit ratio is wildly different. I don't understand how McDonald's-eating folks complain about animal testing.
Maybe important findings get publicity and "breakthrough!" status only if they're somewhat surprising? If folks chip away at a problem for 20 years, even if the result is the same as waiting 19 years and then having a eureka discovery, is it still called a breakthrough?
I hope the dictionary works on a sort of democratic principle, where words are defined by their actual usage.
Dictionary editors understand this, but they just don't update enough to make it work. M-W doesn't have the Simpsons' cromulent, but it has Shakespeare's puke and Dr. Suess's nerd. It'd be nice to have a dictionary that evolves as quickly as language.
As much as I love science (and how!), I'm ambivalent about even the idea of NCCAM. Testing herbal remedies... I don't know, maybe we'll find something great. But testing things like homeopathy, which even NCCAM admits "a number of its key concepts are not consistent with the current understanding of science, particularly chemistry and physics," is just a waste of resources.
...how far we have fallen, people with zero background, training or experience in a field are claiming that their opinions are just as valid as someone who are studied a field for 20 years.
Um... questioning authority is kinda the hallmark of science. I understand what you're saying - science is underappreciated - but empowering people to seek the truth for themselves is what science is!
The 16th century's Glorious Revolution was society saying "How come we have to believe Galen? I'm gonna dissect some humans myself and see what's inside." We didn't need authority to be our conduit to truth: we could seek truth directly. (At the same time, people were rebelling against needing the Pope as a conduit to God, and voila, Protestantism.)
Seriously, why is overpopulation rarely mentioned by environmentalists? Total human footprint = footprint per person x number of people. Why is all the focus on the first part?
In grade school, we learned that 'tribal peoples' were super environmentalist. Now, in a backlash against the cultural relativism (and historically-based guilt) I grew up in, folks like Dawkins argue that tribal people weren't environmentalists at all - they were just incapable of making such an impact due to their low population densities. But intentional or not, isn't that a killer way to lessen your impact?
It's high time folks stopped applauding huge families (I'm looking at you, religion...).
Yes, the educated benefit from being educated, but everybody benefits from having educated people around. The former is why private schools are seductive to many, but the latter is why we should embrace education as a public good - external to the market - and support/fix our existing socialized system.
So you're right, the problem is the incompetence of public schools. But privatization ain't the solution.
Libertarians, who are often persuasively consistent (and I really do appreciate your consistency), have given monopolies, governments, and other non-market institutions a bad reputation. Even the term for something that doesn't jibe with a market - "an externality" - belittles the importance of things like pollution, basic science, education, overfishing, national defense, a judicial system, national highways, and on and on and on.
I write code almost every day. Being ultimately lazy, I try to automate everything...
Lazy? Really? You're lazy enough to be unsatisfied with inefficiency, but ambitious enough to effect a change. That curious duo is the coal and fire of progress.
I think it's wonderful that you still code after retirement - you probably liked your job. All jobs are somewhat means to an end, but some are ends in themselves as well. You really have a good head on your shoulders.
I hear you - I really do - but if marijuana were legal and regulated, but driving stoned were prohibited, I bet we'd have more stoners but fewer stoned drivers on the street. Make respectable laws and people will respect them.
These slippery slopes to vices happen all the time. I know lots of folks who would never/rarely drive drunk, but drive stoned all the time. Folks are so inured to breaking the marijuana laws (understandably) that they think nothing of driving stoned, but breaking alcohol laws still has some legitimacy behind it.
Ridiculous laws lead to disdain and apathy toward the legal system. You're just inuring consumers to the idea of "infringement" by making such ludicrous demands.
I learned that nerve, fat, and muscle cells didn't change in number during life*. Seems that's not true about neurons. Apparently also not true about fat cells ("If excess weight is gained as an adult, fat cells increase in size about fourfold before dividing and increasing the absolute number of fat cells present.") Anyone know the scoop on muscle cells?
* - Supposedly weight gain was due to the individual adipocytes getting larger, like a microcosmic obesity. And strength gain was due to more actin and myocin in each myocyte, like a micrcosmic bodybuilder.
I'm trying to figure out why the researchers are using DNA. Is it...
A - some unique and intrinsic property of DNA that makes it suited for the job. (If so, then is it just coincidence that our genetic information is stored in a molecule that has these unique properties?)
B - just that DNA has been so well-studied in the last half century that we can manipulate it better (and cheaper) than most other complex micro-structures? (If so, then that's just one more example of basic research leading to unforeseen breakthroughs.)
The company gets a punitive fine, okay. But who gets the money?
A Michigan-based company lies on the internet, so giving the money to the State of New York doesn't make sense to me. I'm having a tough time specifying just which group was wronged by the company -- Michigan consumers, American consumers, all consumers who have access to the internet, suckers? Wouldn't the money be more appropriately given to the FTC?
Is it possible to have national taxes/benefits without a federal database? Drivers' licenses are issued by state, and each state has a database of its licensees. Federal income tax is federal, and there's a federal ID for it (SSN).
Slashdot readers, little help? If universal healthcare were implemented in the US, wouldn't we need a federal database for it?
2. We expected that the genomes of different ethnic groups would be very different. They aren't.
Seriously, how surprised can we be? We share 98% of our DNA with chimps. Hell, we share tons of DNA with single-celled algae.
Think of the genome as a computer program, and genes are little subs that do helpful things. Lots of subs are sitting unused, abandoned, all over our genomes. Lots are called at different times by barely-related parts of our 'human program'. Very different programs can share lots of lines, lots of entire subs. Very different creatures can share lots of DNA, lots of entire genes.
(Statements like "siblings share half their genes" are super misleading. Yes, you get half from Mom and half from Dad, but 99.9% of those genes are the same anyway.)
Seriously. Obviously 12% fewer cattle is the methane equivalent of "half a million cars off the road," according to their PR lady. So if everyone ate 12% less beef/dairy...
If you eat beef twice a week, then a 12% reduction is skipping one beef meal a month. One of the biggest 'vegetarian movement' mistakes was to paint vegetarianism as a black & white issue. If one meal a month can make this kind of environmental difference, vegetarians might do more for their cause if they applauded and promoted meat in moderation.
One of the reasons my folks didn't allow video games was because the games weren't social or creative enough. Video games today can certainly be more social, but I still think they lack user creativity. But this! All the castles we built with Legos, all the forts we designed with construction paper... a way to integrate that kind of creativity into video games just sounds awesome. And it wouldn't hurt video game reputation, either.
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Getting and sending mail becomes less convenient. I'm a big USPS fan (clearly...), and the draws are convenience and personal contact, not speed.
Getting mail twice a week would suffice for me, but getting rid of the mailperson -- the one who hand delivers a letter door-to-door anywhere in the States, for under a dollar! -- robs the USPS of its charm.
Before the Civil War, you had to go to the local post office to pick up your mail.
In 1863, Postmaster Montgomery Blair petitioned congress to "promote the public convenience" by providing free home delivery in cities, and argued - correctly, it turns out - that the resultant increase in postal usage would offset the delivery cost and yield a profit. Free rural delivery followed around the turn of the century.
Others at the time argued that whether home delivery yielded a profit was irrelevant, since government entities should be more concerned with civic duty than profit. It's a balance, for sure, but I wish the civic duty sentiment were more common today, or at least to acknowledge the trade-off.
Thorn and eth are still used in Iceland, and their keyboards have 'em.
Have Woese and Goldenfeld a brilliant new idea? All they're saying, I think, is that "parent" and "child" are the appropriate units of selection only when genes are passed vertically: from parent to child. They're suggesting that horizontal gene transfer is underrated as a historical evolutionary force.
Agree or not, it hardly undermines Darwin. Genes weren't known in the 19th century. Darwin didn't have a clue about genes, so we're gonna knock him for being "wrong" about it? I mean, was Jesus wrong about genes, too? It's anachronistic silliness.
Science is fundamentally dynamic. Any science that hasn't progressed in 150 years ain't doing too well. (Dear creationists: stop calling us "Darwinists." We've moved on.) I mean, The Origin came out in 1859, for crying out loud! Darwin was more brilliant, more insightful, and rightly more famous than I'll ever be. But if we both had to take a biology test right now, I'd kill him.
Plants react to death and damage, but so does a water balloon. Neither has a nervous system, so I don't worry too much about it. Yes, there is an element of "if it's not like me, then it can't suffer like me," but what else can you do? Assume, despite no evidence to the contrary, that grass can suffer? Then soccer is a monstrous sport!
Why draw the line at tomatoes? First, I don't really. I eat fish on occasion. There is no magical line. Second, it's easy for me to avoid eating cows, and I'm very confident that cattle can suffer. It's damn hard to avoid eating plants, and I'm not at all confident that plants can suffer. So not eating cattle is a better ethical bang for my buck.
And as a Botanist I don't see how you gain any moral high ground by killing plants.
Because plants can't suffer. It's not the killing that bothers me, it's the suffering.
I'd say capacity for suffering goes something like:
humans > cows > fish > bivalves > tomato plants > sand
especially when it's for something shallow like cosmetic testing.
...or like cheaper hamburgers?
Sorry. As a vegetarian biologist, this is just an inconsistency that I see constantly. "How can you be vegetarian and use antibodies that came from lab rabbits in your research?!" Easy: the cost/benefit ratio is wildly different. I don't understand how McDonald's-eating folks complain about animal testing.
[Zelda], [Mario], Donkey Kong, Metroid, F-Zero, Fire Emblem, Golden Sun, Kirby, Starfy, Star Fox, Punch-Out!!, Pokemon, Kid Icarus
Shigeru Miyamoto made Nintendo what it is.
Maybe important findings get publicity and "breakthrough!" status only if they're somewhat surprising? If folks chip away at a problem for 20 years, even if the result is the same as waiting 19 years and then having a eureka discovery, is it still called a breakthrough?
I hope the dictionary works on a sort of democratic principle, where words are defined by their actual usage.
Dictionary editors understand this, but they just don't update enough to make it work. M-W doesn't have the Simpsons' cromulent, but it has Shakespeare's puke and Dr. Suess's nerd. It'd be nice to have a dictionary that evolves as quickly as language.
NCCAM started as a promise to put "complimentary and alternative medicine" (CAM) to scientific scrutiny, with politically predictable results.
As much as I love science (and how!), I'm ambivalent about even the idea of NCCAM. Testing herbal remedies... I don't know, maybe we'll find something great. But testing things like homeopathy, which even NCCAM admits "a number of its key concepts are not consistent with the current understanding of science, particularly chemistry and physics," is just a waste of resources.
...how far we have fallen, people with zero background, training or experience in a field are claiming that their opinions are just as valid as someone who are studied a field for 20 years.
Um... questioning authority is kinda the hallmark of science. I understand what you're saying - science is underappreciated - but empowering people to seek the truth for themselves is what science is!
The 16th century's Glorious Revolution was society saying "How come we have to believe Galen? I'm gonna dissect some humans myself and see what's inside." We didn't need authority to be our conduit to truth: we could seek truth directly. (At the same time, people were rebelling against needing the Pope as a conduit to God, and voila, Protestantism.)
Seriously, why is overpopulation rarely mentioned by environmentalists? Total human footprint = footprint per person x number of people. Why is all the focus on the first part?
In grade school, we learned that 'tribal peoples' were super environmentalist. Now, in a backlash against the cultural relativism (and historically-based guilt) I grew up in, folks like Dawkins argue that tribal people weren't environmentalists at all - they were just incapable of making such an impact due to their low population densities. But intentional or not, isn't that a killer way to lessen your impact?
It's high time folks stopped applauding huge families (I'm looking at you, religion...).
Yes, the educated benefit from being educated, but everybody benefits from having educated people around. The former is why private schools are seductive to many, but the latter is why we should embrace education as a public good - external to the market - and support/fix our existing socialized system.
So you're right, the problem is the incompetence of public schools. But privatization ain't the solution.
Libertarians, who are often persuasively consistent (and I really do appreciate your consistency), have given monopolies, governments, and other non-market institutions a bad reputation. Even the term for something that doesn't jibe with a market - "an externality" - belittles the importance of things like pollution, basic science, education, overfishing, national defense, a judicial system, national highways, and on and on and on.
I write code almost every day. Being ultimately lazy, I try to automate everything...
Lazy? Really? You're lazy enough to be unsatisfied with inefficiency, but ambitious enough to effect a change. That curious duo is the coal and fire of progress.
I think it's wonderful that you still code after retirement - you probably liked your job. All jobs are somewhat means to an end, but some are ends in themselves as well. You really have a good head on your shoulders.
I hear you - I really do - but if marijuana were legal and regulated, but driving stoned were prohibited, I bet we'd have more stoners but fewer stoned drivers on the street. Make respectable laws and people will respect them.
These slippery slopes to vices happen all the time. I know lots of folks who would never/rarely drive drunk, but drive stoned all the time. Folks are so inured to breaking the marijuana laws (understandably) that they think nothing of driving stoned, but breaking alcohol laws still has some legitimacy behind it.
Ridiculous laws lead to disdain and apathy toward the legal system. You're just inuring consumers to the idea of "infringement" by making such ludicrous demands.
I learned that nerve, fat, and muscle cells didn't change in number during life*. Seems that's not true about neurons. Apparently also not true about fat cells ("If excess weight is gained as an adult, fat cells increase in size about fourfold before dividing and increasing the absolute number of fat cells present.") Anyone know the scoop on muscle cells?
* - Supposedly weight gain was due to the individual adipocytes getting larger, like a microcosmic obesity. And strength gain was due to more actin and myocin in each myocyte, like a micrcosmic bodybuilder.
It might be a doctor saying "This arrythmia dates back to 7th grade? With that vital piece of information, we should really..."
I'm trying to figure out why the researchers are using DNA. Is it...
A - some unique and intrinsic property of DNA that makes it suited for the job.
(If so, then is it just coincidence that our genetic information is stored in a molecule that has these unique properties?)
B - just that DNA has been so well-studied in the last half century that we can manipulate it better (and cheaper) than most other complex micro-structures?
(If so, then that's just one more example of basic research leading to unforeseen breakthroughs.)
Anyone know which it is?
The company gets a punitive fine, okay. But who gets the money?
A Michigan-based company lies on the internet, so giving the money to the State of New York doesn't make sense to me. I'm having a tough time specifying just which group was wronged by the company -- Michigan consumers, American consumers, all consumers who have access to the internet, suckers? Wouldn't the money be more appropriately given to the FTC?
Is it possible to have national taxes/benefits without a federal database? Drivers' licenses are issued by state, and each state has a database of its licensees. Federal income tax is federal, and there's a federal ID for it (SSN).
Slashdot readers, little help? If universal healthcare were implemented in the US, wouldn't we need a federal database for it?
2. We expected that the genomes of different ethnic groups would be very different. They aren't.
Seriously, how surprised can we be? We share 98% of our DNA with chimps. Hell, we share tons of DNA with single-celled algae.
Think of the genome as a computer program, and genes are little subs that do helpful things. Lots of subs are sitting unused, abandoned, all over our genomes. Lots are called at different times by barely-related parts of our 'human program'. Very different programs can share lots of lines, lots of entire subs. Very different creatures can share lots of DNA, lots of entire genes.
(Statements like "siblings share half their genes" are super misleading. Yes, you get half from Mom and half from Dad, but 99.9% of those genes are the same anyway.)
Seriously. Obviously 12% fewer cattle is the methane equivalent of "half a million cars off the road," according to their PR lady. So if everyone ate 12% less beef/dairy...
If you eat beef twice a week, then a 12% reduction is skipping one beef meal a month. One of the biggest 'vegetarian movement' mistakes was to paint vegetarianism as a black & white issue. If one meal a month can make this kind of environmental difference, vegetarians might do more for their cause if they applauded and promoted meat in moderation.
This tech + Legos = awesome!
One of the reasons my folks didn't allow video games was because the games weren't social or creative enough. Video games today can certainly be more social, but I still think they lack user creativity. But this! All the castles we built with Legos, all the forts we designed with construction paper... a way to integrate that kind of creativity into video games just sounds awesome. And it wouldn't hurt video game reputation, either.