I think state troopers and other "real" law enforcement types are much more heavily indoctrinated than TSA agents though. They believe they're with a good organization, that it's cop and cop against the bad guys, you can trust other cops and no one else.
TSA agents though rightly don't give two shits about TSA beyond their paycheck.
Whether that translates to TSA agents being more willing to turn their fellow co-workers in than cops (who overlook murder if it was one of their own that was the criminal), I don't know, but I'd guess so.
True. When I say I don't want to go through the nudity/cancer machines, the TSA officers mutter the same line about it being safe and we both roll our eyes. I spare them a lecture about how I deserve privacy, since it was their bosses' choice to take it away from me.
Nucleation is in some crystals a limiting step. Under some conditions, it takes a long time for a crystal to form, but once it does, growth is rapid. You can therefore take a bit of a crystal and drop it into liquid under certain conditions, and it will grow a new crystal, thus reproducing.
Cells do much the same thing. Cells grow from other cells a hell of a lot faster than new cells form out of chemical components on their own.
Judge: To the plaintiff, the RIAA, I award 10 billion dollars.
Ireland: Now see here laddie, we ain't got that type of money now.
Judge: Hmm... What DO you have?
Ireland: Well, we have good old Irish luck! And we have this four-leaf clover that's always brought us... well financial ruin when you get down to it.
Judge: I hear you have good whiskey...
Ireland: WE'LL KILL YE WHERE YE STAND BY GOD!!!
Judge: OKAY, calm down. What else?
Ireland: We have a few bands I suppose we could part with. The Cranberries! They're Irish! They can have the Cranberries. Remember "Zombie?"
Judge: I'm trying not to... zo-hom-bie,zo-hom-bie,... damnit! Well, not good enough. Who else?
Ireland:...Sinéad O'Connor?
Judge: Oh come on!
Ireland: Who do ye suggest?
Judge: I think you know.
Ireland: Oh... God no... you couldn't be talking about
Judge: Yes. U2.
Ireland: (starts crying) No! Not Bono! You can take the Edge and... that other guy, but leave Bono!
I agree that there are an awful lot of +5 comments, and relatively few +3 and so on. As it is, it really only sorts comments into bad, neutral, and good. I think that's something that could better be sorted out by changing the balance between number of mod points available per day and the cap on points. Make it go to +10 but don't change the number of votes given out each day. The percentages of top rated comments will go down, and it will be better at sorting out the good ones.
I think a cap is still necessary, as it forces mods to move on to other comments. After a certain point on reddit, the top comments just keep snowballing until you see comments with 3000 points. Not just parent comment either, the children comments are also overrated.. Meanwhile equally insightful or funny comments in lower threads are +40. That's worse sorting in my experience.
A mule has metabolism but cannot reproduce (being sterile due to a mismatch in the number of chromesomes from a donkey and a horse). A prion is probably not considered alive by most scientists, but it does reproduce and arguably has metabolism.
I do think metabolism is a good definition, as I'm finding it hard to think of examples of non-living things that undergo metabolism, but on the other hand, what is metabolism? Chemical reactions resulting in energy exchange?
I'm a biologist, and tomorrow I'm leading a discussion section on "What is life" (first class of freshman biology, starting out easy).
There IS no set definition of life. Viruses, prions, crystals, fire, mules, computers, you can come up with obvious exceptions to any criteria. Reproduction? Fire does that, crystals do that, mules do not. Metabolism? A car battery undergoes some metabolism, bacterial spores and seeds I think don't, though I could be wrong.
The closest thing we have is like Justice Potter Stewart's definition of porn: we know it when we see it.
I don't. I think that Reddit moderations are much more prone to "I disagree with this post so I'm going to vote it down" and groupthink. And uncapped moderations doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me. Slashdot comments on a scale of 1 to 5, that's reasonable. Reddit comments on a scale of 1 to a million doesn't really work, the top comments have thousands of upvotes and no one reads the later ones.
Anyway, different user populations are going to vote differently no matter what system you implement.
We are limited on options at this point. The vote on the bill is happening soon, before elections where we can boot out the proponents of the bill, before we can make the sweeping changes to campaign contributions you're talking about (if that's possible at all, which I don't think it is.) Once the bill gets passed, it's staying in effect for years at least.
Our options are to play just as dirty as the other side has to stop censorship now, or vainly fight the good fight after the battle has already been lost.
Your post implies that Issa is either good or evil. Tell me, do you imagine Issa is a character in a Disney film or do you realize he is actually guy who exists in the real world?
He's a real person, and a politician at that. Neither completely good nor completely bad. Don't oversimplify.
You're right that there is no way to completely stop someone from buying influence in government and no way to prevent all elected officials from being bought, but making it inefficient and as difficult as possible is good.
It's exactly what the MPAA and RIAA are doing to pirates. Many if not most of them know that SOPA won't actually end piracy, but they're doing it anyway, because by adding another hurdle, they can cut down on at least some of it, and to them, that's better. The only difference is that with theirs, there will be more collateral damage, people who are not pirating will be affected by SOPA. There will likely be negative consequences of saying money from corporations to politicians is not speech (and that's assuming Move to Amend focuses their efforts on that instead of attacking all aspects of corporate personhood) but I don't think the consequences will be as far-reaching as SOPA's.
... I think I may have meant IED: improvised explosive device. Throwing poop to inactivate intrauterine device contraceptives in Iraq would be even LESS useful.
You're right, it's not genetically modified. The scientists involved don't seem to have made that claim in the Cell paper, nor does the Popsci article.
This is actually a setback for making a genetically modified primate if I'm understanding it from the abstract. Genetically modified mice have been made for a while now. The process involves injecting embryonic stem cells which you've modified into the embryo. That makes a chimera (some of the cells are normal, some of the cells are modified). You then mate two such mice and hopefully should get some mice that are have one copy of the gene in every cell.
Embryonic stem cells are somewhat easy to work with, you can grow as much as you need. Modifying the genes of a cell is not easy, but you only need one success.
Panel one of the current paper shows that with primates, injecting modified embryonic stem cells doesn't seem to work: the embryos never incorporate those ES cells. They only incorporate todipotent cells, which are capable of making a whole organism (as opposed to ES cells which can make any cell TYPE but won't be able to make a complete animal on their own, as far as I know).
Much less work has been done on todipotent cells, we have fewer tools for genetically modifying them than we do for ES cells. I've never heard of anyone genetically modifying them (though I don't follow that research closely.)
So it would appear that making a genetically modified human or monkey will be much more challenging than making a modified mouse, which is already quite expensive and difficult.
They are much stronger and faster than humans, so would be incredible soldiers.
I don't see them being worth the investment compared to a predator drone. What good would a chimp do in Iraq? Convince an informant to give up the location of an insurgent by pretending to smoke a cigar in a cute fashion? Throw poop at a IUD until it was deactivated?
I don't know about that. The cost is still pretty high on those for a walmart. Even if the prices come down significantly, you'd need to pay someone to monitor the nudie pictures, which is an additional salary to be paying. They'd need to be armed, since detecting concealed weapons on someone is not too useful if you can't do anything about it. That requires training and insurance against shooting an innocent bystander, not cheap either.
TSA does it because cost is not an issue, they're spending our tax money. Airports all do it because they have to by law. Private establishments aren't going to be willing to pay that type of money, and since they aren't required to, they won't. If some business implements it, and they don't have a monopoly, their competitors aren't going to be wise to do it themselves, and will have an advantage in terms of costs and in terms of some of us still care about our privacy.
Ah, the old "If you aren't doing anything wrong, you have nothing to hide" argument. Foolish, as it assumes the invasion of privacy will always be used only to increase public safety, and never for more nefarious purposes, while history suggests this will not be the case.
I think that depends on jobs taking online college diplomas as seriously as a physical college diploma in the future. If Kahn Academy graduates are more useful than a brick and mortar school, that school isn't going to be at all competitive and is going to die out, would be my guess. How many schools survive I'm guessing will depend on whether physical colleges can offer something better. The professor mentioned here focuses on the memorization vs training difference. Time will tell which one will be more useful.
Coming to a congress near you by 2020 if this happens: SPACE JOB act
(Solving Pirating American Copyright Enforcement Junk Orbiting Ban)
A bill sold as protecting American satellites from this terrible problem of space junk in orbit, American jobs from overseas satellite hackers bent on stealing movies, and national security.
It stipulates that the military will, at the RIAA/MPAA's command, blow up any satellite that the RIAA/MPAA lawyers say probably has pirated material on it. Additionally, large amounts of metal objects will be placed in orbit make it difficult for pirates to launch any more satellites. Sponsors of the bill say they don't really understand physics, but they doubt that could damage innocent satellites. They also point out that the constitution doesn't apply in space.
Slashdot Mirror
Plus, since it's TSA, there's probably a rule in there about how they can't send more than 3 dollars per envelope...
I think state troopers and other "real" law enforcement types are much more heavily indoctrinated than TSA agents though. They believe they're with a good organization, that it's cop and cop against the bad guys, you can trust other cops and no one else.
TSA agents though rightly don't give two shits about TSA beyond their paycheck.
Whether that translates to TSA agents being more willing to turn their fellow co-workers in than cops (who overlook murder if it was one of their own that was the criminal), I don't know, but I'd guess so.
True. When I say I don't want to go through the nudity/cancer machines, the TSA officers mutter the same line about it being safe and we both roll our eyes. I spare them a lecture about how I deserve privacy, since it was their bosses' choice to take it away from me.
Nucleation is in some crystals a limiting step. Under some conditions, it takes a long time for a crystal to form, but once it does, growth is rapid. You can therefore take a bit of a crystal and drop it into liquid under certain conditions, and it will grow a new crystal, thus reproducing.
Cells do much the same thing. Cells grow from other cells a hell of a lot faster than new cells form out of chemical components on their own.
Mules come from crossing a donkey with a horse. Any time you want a mule, you have to cross a donkey and a horse.
Judge: To the plaintiff, the RIAA, I award 10 billion dollars. ...Sinéad O'Connor?
Ireland: Now see here laddie, we ain't got that type of money now.
Judge: Hmm... What DO you have?
Ireland: Well, we have good old Irish luck! And we have this four-leaf clover that's always brought us... well financial ruin when you get down to it.
Judge: I hear you have good whiskey...
Ireland: WE'LL KILL YE WHERE YE STAND BY GOD!!!
Judge: OKAY, calm down. What else?
Ireland: We have a few bands I suppose we could part with. The Cranberries! They're Irish! They can have the Cranberries. Remember "Zombie?"
Judge: I'm trying not to... zo-hom-bie,zo-hom-bie,... damnit! Well, not good enough. Who else?
Ireland:
Judge: Oh come on!
Ireland: Who do ye suggest?
Judge: I think you know.
Ireland: Oh... God no... you couldn't be talking about
Judge: Yes. U2.
Ireland: (starts crying) No! Not Bono! You can take the Edge and... that other guy, but leave Bono!
I agree that there are an awful lot of +5 comments, and relatively few +3 and so on. As it is, it really only sorts comments into bad, neutral, and good. I think that's something that could better be sorted out by changing the balance between number of mod points available per day and the cap on points. Make it go to +10 but don't change the number of votes given out each day. The percentages of top rated comments will go down, and it will be better at sorting out the good ones.
I think a cap is still necessary, as it forces mods to move on to other comments. After a certain point on reddit, the top comments just keep snowballing until you see comments with 3000 points. Not just parent comment either, the children comments are also overrated.. Meanwhile equally insightful or funny comments in lower threads are +40. That's worse sorting in my experience.
A mule has metabolism but cannot reproduce (being sterile due to a mismatch in the number of chromesomes from a donkey and a horse). A prion is probably not considered alive by most scientists, but it does reproduce and arguably has metabolism.
I do think metabolism is a good definition, as I'm finding it hard to think of examples of non-living things that undergo metabolism, but on the other hand, what is metabolism? Chemical reactions resulting in energy exchange?
I'm a biologist, and tomorrow I'm leading a discussion section on "What is life" (first class of freshman biology, starting out easy).
There IS no set definition of life. Viruses, prions, crystals, fire, mules, computers, you can come up with obvious exceptions to any criteria. Reproduction? Fire does that, crystals do that, mules do not. Metabolism? A car battery undergoes some metabolism, bacterial spores and seeds I think don't, though I could be wrong.
The closest thing we have is like Justice Potter Stewart's definition of porn: we know it when we see it.
I've never tried it, but I'm guessing stomping on a blue whale would not kill it...
Shoot one down or take control of one. Not easy, but eventually you'll find out, and you can then tell your cellmate at Guantanamo Bay who it is.
I don't. I think that Reddit moderations are much more prone to "I disagree with this post so I'm going to vote it down" and groupthink. And uncapped moderations doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me. Slashdot comments on a scale of 1 to 5, that's reasonable. Reddit comments on a scale of 1 to a million doesn't really work, the top comments have thousands of upvotes and no one reads the later ones. Anyway, different user populations are going to vote differently no matter what system you implement.
We are limited on options at this point. The vote on the bill is happening soon, before elections where we can boot out the proponents of the bill, before we can make the sweeping changes to campaign contributions you're talking about (if that's possible at all, which I don't think it is.) Once the bill gets passed, it's staying in effect for years at least.
Our options are to play just as dirty as the other side has to stop censorship now, or vainly fight the good fight after the battle has already been lost.
Your post implies that Issa is either good or evil. Tell me, do you imagine Issa is a character in a Disney film or do you realize he is actually guy who exists in the real world?
He's a real person, and a politician at that. Neither completely good nor completely bad. Don't oversimplify.
You're right that there is no way to completely stop someone from buying influence in government and no way to prevent all elected officials from being bought, but making it inefficient and as difficult as possible is good. It's exactly what the MPAA and RIAA are doing to pirates. Many if not most of them know that SOPA won't actually end piracy, but they're doing it anyway, because by adding another hurdle, they can cut down on at least some of it, and to them, that's better. The only difference is that with theirs, there will be more collateral damage, people who are not pirating will be affected by SOPA. There will likely be negative consequences of saying money from corporations to politicians is not speech (and that's assuming Move to Amend focuses their efforts on that instead of attacking all aspects of corporate personhood) but I don't think the consequences will be as far-reaching as SOPA's.
... I think I may have meant IED: improvised explosive device. Throwing poop to inactivate intrauterine device contraceptives in Iraq would be even LESS useful.
You're right, it's not genetically modified. The scientists involved don't seem to have made that claim in the Cell paper, nor does the Popsci article.
This is actually a setback for making a genetically modified primate if I'm understanding it from the abstract. Genetically modified mice have been made for a while now. The process involves injecting embryonic stem cells which you've modified into the embryo. That makes a chimera (some of the cells are normal, some of the cells are modified). You then mate two such mice and hopefully should get some mice that are have one copy of the gene in every cell.
Embryonic stem cells are somewhat easy to work with, you can grow as much as you need. Modifying the genes of a cell is not easy, but you only need one success.
Panel one of the current paper shows that with primates, injecting modified embryonic stem cells doesn't seem to work: the embryos never incorporate those ES cells. They only incorporate todipotent cells, which are capable of making a whole organism (as opposed to ES cells which can make any cell TYPE but won't be able to make a complete animal on their own, as far as I know).
Much less work has been done on todipotent cells, we have fewer tools for genetically modifying them than we do for ES cells. I've never heard of anyone genetically modifying them (though I don't follow that research closely.)
So it would appear that making a genetically modified human or monkey will be much more challenging than making a modified mouse, which is already quite expensive and difficult.
They are much stronger and faster than humans, so would be incredible soldiers.
I don't see them being worth the investment compared to a predator drone. What good would a chimp do in Iraq? Convince an informant to give up the location of an insurgent by pretending to smoke a cigar in a cute fashion? Throw poop at a IUD until it was deactivated?
Give us abundant cheap energy and food replication!
I don't particularly fancy it, but that second part could be addressed with the current subject...
I don't know about that. The cost is still pretty high on those for a walmart. Even if the prices come down significantly, you'd need to pay someone to monitor the nudie pictures, which is an additional salary to be paying. They'd need to be armed, since detecting concealed weapons on someone is not too useful if you can't do anything about it. That requires training and insurance against shooting an innocent bystander, not cheap either.
TSA does it because cost is not an issue, they're spending our tax money. Airports all do it because they have to by law. Private establishments aren't going to be willing to pay that type of money, and since they aren't required to, they won't. If some business implements it, and they don't have a monopoly, their competitors aren't going to be wise to do it themselves, and will have an advantage in terms of costs and in terms of some of us still care about our privacy.
Ah, the old "If you aren't doing anything wrong, you have nothing to hide" argument. Foolish, as it assumes the invasion of privacy will always be used only to increase public safety, and never for more nefarious purposes, while history suggests this will not be the case.
The people in the Chrysler don't need to climb out of the car. The car is perfectly fine, and is ready to drive away with minor cosmetic damage.
It's true, the people that were in the Chrysler have flown out through the windshield, leaving you free to drive their car away.
The most important things you can do in University are to take courses in Logic, Philosophy, and Critical Thinking.
I found the most important things I did in university were beer and sex.
I think that depends on jobs taking online college diplomas as seriously as a physical college diploma in the future. If Kahn Academy graduates are more useful than a brick and mortar school, that school isn't going to be at all competitive and is going to die out, would be my guess. How many schools survive I'm guessing will depend on whether physical colleges can offer something better. The professor mentioned here focuses on the memorization vs training difference. Time will tell which one will be more useful.
Coming to a congress near you by 2020 if this happens: SPACE JOB act
(Solving Pirating American Copyright Enforcement Junk Orbiting Ban)
A bill sold as protecting American satellites from this terrible problem of space junk in orbit, American jobs from overseas satellite hackers bent on stealing movies, and national security.
It stipulates that the military will, at the RIAA/MPAA's command, blow up any satellite that the RIAA/MPAA lawyers say probably has pirated material on it. Additionally, large amounts of metal objects will be placed in orbit make it difficult for pirates to launch any more satellites. Sponsors of the bill say they don't really understand physics, but they doubt that could damage innocent satellites. They also point out that the constitution doesn't apply in space.