it shows that a weedy form of the common rice crop, Oryza sativa, gets a significant fitness boost from glyphosate resistance, even when glyphosate is not applied....The researchers also found that the transgenic hybrids had higher rates of photosynthesis, grew more shoots and flowers and produced 48–125% more seeds per plant than non-transgenic hybrids — in the absence of glyphosate. Making weedy rice more competitive could exacerbate the problems it causes for farmers around the world whose plots are invaded by the pest, Lu says.
Having weeds that are hardier and more competitive, even in the absence of glyphosate, is hardly desirable.
Some people claim that Python is, at least partly, a functional language. You disagree, as do I. Simply having a few map and filter type functions does not make for a functional language. As I understand it those functions were added to the libraries by a homesick Lisper, and that several times you've been tempted to eliminate them. In general it seems you're not a fan of functional programming, at least for Python.
Question: do you feel that the functional programming approach is not very useful in general, or simply that it's not appropriate for Python? It would be nice to hear your reasons either way.
What Lisp programmers really need are two foot pedals - one for left parentheses and one for right parentheses. That should cover 90% of their input requirements.
GGP here. I'd be a bit skeptical of the EROI for nuclear too, but the reason I posted the link was to debunk the absurd "a solar cell takes far more energy (likely coal or oil) to produce than the panel will ever, EVER, get back in its usable life". EROI calculations are always tricky and subject to debate, but I've never seen a modern calculation that suggests solar cell EROI < 1, or anywhere near that bad.
My understanding is that up to half the energy available at a large plant can be lost through the resistance (heat conversion) and other factors (induction?) in the lines before it gets to it's point of use.
No, average loss from power plant to customer is about 7%. Even very long (1000+ mile) HVDC lines only add a few percent.
It will never work. It's been done before. They'll get bought out. The laws of themodynamics make everything impossible.
I can't believe you got modded down to a -1. There is something called "humor" that many people on this site are unfamiliar with, possibly unless you hit them over the head with it.
Yes it sounds like they're going after them for conspiracy rather than simply teaching these techniques, which is the sort of legal technicality beloved of prosecutors, but you're missing the bigger point. This is not analogous to someone selling a gun to a person who says they want to rob a bank; it's analogous to letting someone take your chemistry class even though they say they want to make a bomb to blow open a bank safe. This is stopping the dissemination of information because it could be used for nefarious purposes.
Additionally, the undercover agents said that they already did commit these crimes, not that they were planning on using these techniques to commit crimes in the future. If potentially helping somebody to beat the charges is a crime, then why are defense attorneys legal?
I can see you're one tough hombre. When did you graduate?
BTW, do you enjoy sounding like an old fart? I am an old fart and I don't sound that way. In fact when I was a young man and dinosaurs roamed the earth, I was always annoyed by old farts saying "in my day...". My revenge is living to be an old fart and not sounding that way. Bonus enjoyment from making fun of people that do.
Despite your tone, all of the things you mention are good advice. They were also good advice 30+ years ago when I went to school, and many people followed it. I did something similar.
I also realize that it's a lot harder now because even following that advice the obscene costs mean it's much more expensive. Yet your attitude seems to be "don't complain about getting screwed". Even if someone can go to college these days without getting into lifelong debt, it's still reasonable to complain about getting screwed. What else do you call it when the price of something has increased several fold without being any better and with no good reason for it.
If you'd really been paying attention you would have noticed the inflection point since 2002. Between 1913 and then house prices roughly followed inflation, with some up and down swings. They didn't start going nuts until 2002.
It doesn't make any sense to allow people out from under their debts that they made the conscious decision to borrow.
Stop your moralizing, we live in an era when banks get bailed out by the Federal Reserve. I think everyone should have the right to declare themselves a bank and get the same treatment.
Did you go in the 1960's or 1970's? What a bunch of freeloaders that generation was. Tuition was paltry, jobs plentiful.
I didn't realize that the 21st century definition of freeloader included people who studied and then got a job. If you believe that then you're suffering from Stockholm syndrome.
The problem is not that my generation were freeloaders, but that your generation is getting screwed. If my sympathies aren't sufficient, take heart in the fact that I'll also probably be getting screwed when my daughter goes to college. Actually before that - my wife needs to upgrade from her associate's to her bachelor's.
Nothing is free. Ever. Not education. Not healthcare. "Free" means you're making someone else pay for it. Whether one agrees with it or not, call it what it is.
Thank you for making such an incredibly obvious point, which ignores the incredibly obvious context in which the word "free" is being used here. No doubt many here had no idea that "free" referred only to their personal expenditures.
What state, and what was the tuition? Here in NYS (SUNY) 10 years ago the state paid 75% of the tuition and you paid 25%, now it's the other way around. My wife is looking at upgrading from her associate's to her bachelor's and it's $14k/yr for nursing.
At min wage of $7.25 (minus 6.2% FICA and 1.34% Medicare) you would have to work 2090 hours/year (40.2 hrs/wk w/ no vacation, holidays or sick time) just to pay the tuition. Then there are books, either a place to live or a way to get back and forth to school, etc. Working your way through school ain't what it used to be.
Why is a movie about Jobs worthwhile? Is it because he made a lot of money? Buffett, Gates and a long list of others made more. Is it because he "created an industry"? Robert Noyce had a lot more to do with that and most people have never even heard of him. Is it because Jobs was a colorful character? Taking an engineer on a walk to show him rectangles with rounded corners is anywhere near as colorful as, say Howard Hughes?
P.S. I see my GP was already modded down, because I'm a blasphemer or a heretic or an apostate (I have trouble remebering the difference between them). Can I atone by making an offering at the Temple of Jobs?
Lower power consumption is great, but you don't think those solar panels should be tied into the grid? Even California has a few cloudy days (usually when I visit), and if you have more solar power than you need at some point you'll want to feed it back into the grid. Solar panels are great, but they're not an intrinsic part of the project.
Slashdot Mirror
Not true. FTA:
it shows that a weedy form of the common rice crop, Oryza sativa, gets a significant fitness boost from glyphosate resistance, even when glyphosate is not applied. ...The researchers also found that the transgenic hybrids had higher rates of photosynthesis, grew more shoots and flowers and produced 48–125% more seeds per plant than non-transgenic hybrids — in the absence of glyphosate. Making weedy rice more competitive could exacerbate the problems it causes for farmers around the world whose plots are invaded by the pest, Lu says.
Having weeds that are hardier and more competitive, even in the absence of glyphosate, is hardly desirable.
Some people claim that Python is, at least partly, a functional language. You disagree, as do I. Simply having a few map and filter type functions does not make for a functional language. As I understand it those functions were added to the libraries by a homesick Lisper, and that several times you've been tempted to eliminate them. In general it seems you're not a fan of functional programming, at least for Python.
Question: do you feel that the functional programming approach is not very useful in general, or simply that it's not appropriate for Python? It would be nice to hear your reasons either way.
Do you wish you'd named your language after a different type of snake?
P.S. Yes I know it's from "Monty Python". If it'd been my language I would have called it Groucho.
If Sarah Palin can find them, they can't be THAT stealthy...
You don't get it. After living around Sarah Palin, that moose decided to commit suicide.
i know more than a few hundreds fellow canadians that would love the opportunity to burn your white house down again
Don't flatter yourself. That was the British, who were your masters.
What Lisp programmers really need are two foot pedals - one for left parentheses and one for right parentheses. That should cover 90% of their input requirements.
GGP here. I'd be a bit skeptical of the EROI for nuclear too, but the reason I posted the link was to debunk the absurd "a solar cell takes far more energy (likely coal or oil) to produce than the panel will ever, EVER, get back in its usable life". EROI calculations are always tricky and subject to debate, but I've never seen a modern calculation that suggests solar cell EROI < 1, or anywhere near that bad.
A solar cell takes far more energy (likely coal or oil) to produce than the panel will ever, EVER, get back in its usable life.
Wrong, a solar cell will produce 6x as much energy over it's life as it took to produce. That factor is continuing to increase. It's not as good as most other electric power sources, but it edges out nuclear's 5x. http://www.carbonbrief.org/blog/2013/03/energy-return-on-investment-which-fuels-win
Can these things be scaled to smaller sizes and are they rugged (resistant to vibration, etc.)? If so, they'd be great for cars.
My understanding is that up to half the energy available at a large plant can be lost through the resistance (heat conversion) and other factors (induction?) in the lines before it gets to it's point of use.
No, average loss from power plant to customer is about 7%. Even very long (1000+ mile) HVDC lines only add a few percent.
It will never work.
It's been done before.
They'll get bought out.
The laws of themodynamics make everything impossible.
I can't believe you got modded down to a -1. There is something called "humor" that many people on this site are unfamiliar with, possibly unless you hit them over the head with it.
By your reasoning defense attorneys are also guilty of "knowingly [teaching] them to hide that information".
Yes it sounds like they're going after them for conspiracy rather than simply teaching these techniques, which is the sort of legal technicality beloved of prosecutors, but you're missing the bigger point. This is not analogous to someone selling a gun to a person who says they want to rob a bank; it's analogous to letting someone take your chemistry class even though they say they want to make a bomb to blow open a bank safe. This is stopping the dissemination of information because it could be used for nefarious purposes.
Additionally, the undercover agents said that they already did commit these crimes, not that they were planning on using these techniques to commit crimes in the future. If potentially helping somebody to beat the charges is a crime, then why are defense attorneys legal?
No pity from me either.
I can see you're one tough hombre. When did you graduate?
BTW, do you enjoy sounding like an old fart? I am an old fart and I don't sound that way. In fact when I was a young man and dinosaurs roamed the earth, I was always annoyed by old farts saying "in my day ...". My revenge is living to be an old fart and not sounding that way. Bonus enjoyment from making fun of people that do.
Despite your tone, all of the things you mention are good advice. They were also good advice 30+ years ago when I went to school, and many people followed it. I did something similar.
I also realize that it's a lot harder now because even following that advice the obscene costs mean it's much more expensive. Yet your attitude seems to be "don't complain about getting screwed". Even if someone can go to college these days without getting into lifelong debt, it's still reasonable to complain about getting screwed. What else do you call it when the price of something has increased several fold without being any better and with no good reason for it.
The college I graduated with over 10 years ago posted annual 2014 tuition of $3333 x 4 years that is only 13,333.
Sounds great. What school was that, and were you paying an in-state tuition?
exactly like the housing bubble, we seem to be blaming the schools and banks for the irresponsible behavior of the people taking out the loans
How unreasonable of us to blame people who are trusted with billions of dollars for making irresponsible loans.
If you'd really been paying attention you would have noticed the inflection point since 2002. Between 1913 and then house prices roughly followed inflation, with some up and down swings. They didn't start going nuts until 2002.
It doesn't make any sense to allow people out from under their debts that they made the conscious decision to borrow.
Stop your moralizing, we live in an era when banks get bailed out by the Federal Reserve. I think everyone should have the right to declare themselves a bank and get the same treatment.
Did you go in the 1960's or 1970's? What a bunch of freeloaders that generation was. Tuition was paltry, jobs plentiful.
I didn't realize that the 21st century definition of freeloader included people who studied and then got a job. If you believe that then you're suffering from Stockholm syndrome.
The problem is not that my generation were freeloaders, but that your generation is getting screwed. If my sympathies aren't sufficient, take heart in the fact that I'll also probably be getting screwed when my daughter goes to college. Actually before that - my wife needs to upgrade from her associate's to her bachelor's.
Nothing is free. Ever. Not education. Not healthcare. "Free" means you're making someone else pay for it. Whether one agrees with it or not, call it what it is.
Thank you for making such an incredibly obvious point, which ignores the incredibly obvious context in which the word "free" is being used here. No doubt many here had no idea that "free" referred only to their personal expenditures.
What state, and what was the tuition? Here in NYS (SUNY) 10 years ago the state paid 75% of the tuition and you paid 25%, now it's the other way around. My wife is looking at upgrading from her associate's to her bachelor's and it's $14k/yr for nursing.
At min wage of $7.25 (minus 6.2% FICA and 1.34% Medicare) you would have to work 2090 hours/year (40.2 hrs/wk w/ no vacation, holidays or sick time) just to pay the tuition. Then there are books, either a place to live or a way to get back and forth to school, etc. Working your way through school ain't what it used to be.
Why is a movie about Jobs worthwhile? Is it because he made a lot of money? Buffett, Gates and a long list of others made more. Is it because he "created an industry"? Robert Noyce had a lot more to do with that and most people have never even heard of him. Is it because Jobs was a colorful character? Taking an engineer on a walk to show him rectangles with rounded corners is anywhere near as colorful as, say Howard Hughes?
P.S. I see my GP was already modded down, because I'm a blasphemer or a heretic or an apostate (I have trouble remebering the difference between them). Can I atone by making an offering at the Temple of Jobs?
No, the commies were just the excuse du jour. There were no commies when we built the Erie Canal and the transcontinental railroad.
Lower power consumption is great, but you don't think those solar panels should be tied into the grid? Even California has a few cloudy days (usually when I visit), and if you have more solar power than you need at some point you'll want to feed it back into the grid. Solar panels are great, but they're not an intrinsic part of the project.
That's my point. German major construction projects are still done much more cheaply, so obviously the "greenies" aren't the problem.