Mr Barker has been collecting his own navel fluff in jars every day since 1984. The achievement has won him a place in the Guinness Book of Records for the world's largest collection of navel lint.
I've had my feelings hurt plenty of times by very mean anonymous cowards who for no good reason refuse to believe that the earth is flat. The joke will be on them though when they fall off the edge of the earth.
Which is not a good reason to not have good intentions.
Few could argue that the government means well, initially, but when has the state managed anything better than the private sector?
I think medicine is one such area. If it were up to the private sector entirely, more snake oil would be sold. Patients, even doctors don't do the required homework when making decisions about healthcare. If there were no certification process for new drugs, for example, the pharmaceutical industry wouldn't just suddenly start playing nice.
It depends on where you go. Not knowing what I know now, and on the advice from my mother, who is a nurse, I went into the emergency room over a persistent sore throat. It was a big metro hospital, the wait was over an hour, they told me it was viral. $400, and that was with insurance.
Granted it's not half a semester's tuition (depending on where you go I guess) but it could have been worse easily, and not everyone knows much of anything about the health industry, or where to go to get answers.
At the very least, don't be an asshole and say "way to go" to someone who clearly knows he didn't make the smartest choice.
Doctors don't hate science - doctors hate the misapplication of science and the failure to apply common sense.
No it's accurate. Where I go to school, the med students constantly bully the bio grad students. Wedgies, keep away with the beakers... They hate us and we hate them. I started smoking just to piss them off.
I have a cranky baby at home. My friends asked me why I don't use Oval. I told them that there is evidence that it doesn't work. They stared at me like I had three heads. After all, they tried it and it worked for them!
You don't actually have three heads do you? Because maybe there's an alternative reason for the staring...
Sorry, but find me one federal agency that never tried to expand their power exponentially, often in the name of "the public good".
I would guess that the Bureau of Indian Affairs is not too keen on doing the job it's tasked with already, let alone exponentially increasing it's powers. But your point is well taken.
People do seem to use liberal and conservative as relative terms without realizing it. If you honestly want the government to start investigating anti-americanism, you probably think Newsweek, and maybe even Rush Limbaugh, are liberals. If you want to abolish all highways so that we don't disturb the environment, you probably find newsweek a little too conservative.
Also important to realize that having identified something as being liberal or conservative compared to you, that says absolutely nothing about whether anything they say is wrong or right, at least to anyone who does not share your position. You say newsweek is too liberal, that to me seems like a reason to renew my subscription.
I see where you are coming from, but I still can't agree that people should eat food and drive cars that they can't afford. I don't to see how health care should be any different.
One important point of difference: if you can't pay for your car, you get it taken away. If you can't pay for your health care, either your family does, or the hospital's rates go up for people who do have insurance, which I've heard is the reason for the seven dollar asprin.
So it gets paid for either way because it's not optional.
I disagree, Fear 2 did scare me despite not ever feeling like I was about dead. Some of that was due to the creepy cutscenes. I'm not alone either in thinking that cutscenes or scripted events, like "ohmigod, that shadow isn't MINE!" are frightening.
Lesson: I guess some people aren't scared by scripted events, others can be.
I guess the actual answer would be that these people don't want to and, having studied the issue beyond just a slashdot blurb, think it's a good idea. Or maybe it's a big scam. Could be either way really.
At least one obvious pragmatic reason to save them: we might find a use for them. We already use frogs in a lot of bio research. In establishing captive breeding programs we might find that one of these more exotic species is actually better than our current model organisms at some things. We might find some chemical in them that is useful for something, like a protein that is extremely efficient at regulating chromatin dynamics that we could use as a cancer-fighting drug.
Anyway, it seems a more worthy goal to me than some other goals. Like "My goal is to become the next american idol!" or "I want to establish abstinence-only education for inner city schools." Lets make fun of THOSE people instead of these guys.
It seems to me, that here they are begging money to fight evolution...
Natural selection, not evolution. And people have always been about preventing natural selection. We call it compassion, it's a pretty common trait. I guess it's more comfortable to look at it cynically for some people though.
Genetic power is the most awesome force the planet's ever witnessed, yet you wield it like a kid that's found his dad's gun.
I do?!? Gee, I thought I was just idly commenting on someone who was doing what you just described. Or are you talking about my... er... extracirricular genetic experimentation? That's really none of your buisness and off-topic.
If there is one thing the history of evolution has taught us it's that life will not be contained. Life breaks free, expands to new territory, and crashes through barriers, painfully, maybe even dangerously.
And slowly (at least on the timescale for a human life). Again, how long has it taken us to colonize space? How long did it take life to conquer dry land? Was it weeks, years, or millions of years? I think we'll get bored with AGEIS long before a warlike tribe of superhumans comes out of it.
Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn't stop to think if they should.
You're right, they're just spending the thousands of research dollars on a whim.
Wait, no, I'm sure if you bothered to RTFA or better yet their research proposal you'd see some reasons to do it.
I'm not understanding the notion that any creation of life in a lab is inevitably going to kill everyone. What's going on in AGEIS is not that dissimilar than many environments you can find existing in nature right now and throughout history. Is there anything other than baseless FUD that makes you think something terrible is going to come out of this? Absolutely not, you've just seen jurrasic park too many times, don't understand what's going on here, and jumped to the conclusion that biologists are goign to destroy us all.
If given enough time it might. I'm reassured by the fact that after more than 4 billion years, life on Earth apparently has yet to leave it's much much bigger vat. For that reason, I propose we don't leave AGEIS running for more than a billion years.
How many stupid bloody plastic toy accessories are going to be released for this fad of a console?
I don't know, but I'd expect the total volume of plastic used for accessories to the wii to be maybe 0.0000000000000001% of the total plastic humanity has made.
So once the environmentalists have recycled all the billions of plastic bottles (maybe they will put a roof over the state of Washington or something) then wii accessories might be a priority.
I didn't add enough qualifiers to that statement? I said "Speaking from experience... I... at least for some people... (sample size = 1)" What more do you want from me in terms of not overrepresenting my experience!?!
Interesting, your post echoed mine but you got modded up faster than me...
I agree. I do not think that these bacteria would last long outside the AGEIS system.;-P
In seriousness, I think the 8 artificial nucleotide dependance is a pretty high hurdle. Evolving to the point of being able to make all 12 nucleotides from the natural 4 or other natural building blocks is possible, but I'm doubtful that it would ever be competitive with bacteria that don't bother doing that. Lowering the amount of artificial nucleotide in the vat gradually until the artificial bugs had completely replaced that nucleotide in their genomes with the others could work, but I would think it would take a VERY long time with just one, going from 12 to 4... we certainly couldn't possibly get away with triming our nucleotide use down from 4 to 2. I'd expect an absolute dependance on all 12 since that's how they were raised.
On the other hand some of the artificial nucleotides probably are easily replaced with natural ones. BrdU is a commonly used artificial nucleotide that can be used by cells in place of thymidine, pairing with adenosine. If they used BrdU that could probably be replaced by natural thymidine, and depending on how the artificial bugs evolved that might not make any difference. On the previous hand, if they're using artificial nucleotides that only pair with other artificial nucleotide, that would probably not be as easily replaceable.
Slashdot Mirror
On the other hand, having just RTFA,
I'm pretty certain it's actually from a lint trap in a dryer.
Why did you read it then? It's not exactly bait and switch. It's EXACTLY what the title sounds like.
The Terminator, The Matrix, Battlestar Galactica are a few stories out there.
You should probably destroy your computer, just to be safe.
Well, it sounds like your mistake was going to the emergency room.
You seem to have a habit of pointing out lessons to people who have already learned them.
My point again was that not everyone has innate knowledge of the health industry and that can be costly.
It seems that these First Amendment cases are always about the most trivial and petty things possible.
You don't run a doughnut store, do you?
Anyway, yo momma's so fat, she has diabetes.
An anonymous statement holds no weight
I've had my feelings hurt plenty of times by very mean anonymous cowards who for no good reason refuse to believe that the earth is flat. The joke will be on them though when they fall off the edge of the earth.
The path to hell is paved with good intentions.
Which is not a good reason to not have good intentions.
Few could argue that the government means well, initially, but when has the state managed anything better than the private sector?
I think medicine is one such area. If it were up to the private sector entirely, more snake oil would be sold. Patients, even doctors don't do the required homework when making decisions about healthcare. If there were no certification process for new drugs, for example, the pharmaceutical industry wouldn't just suddenly start playing nice.
It depends on where you go. Not knowing what I know now, and on the advice from my mother, who is a nurse, I went into the emergency room over a persistent sore throat. It was a big metro hospital, the wait was over an hour, they told me it was viral. $400, and that was with insurance.
Granted it's not half a semester's tuition (depending on where you go I guess) but it could have been worse easily, and not everyone knows much of anything about the health industry, or where to go to get answers.
At the very least, don't be an asshole and say "way to go" to someone who clearly knows he didn't make the smartest choice.
Doctors don't hate science - doctors hate the misapplication of science and the failure to apply common sense.
No it's accurate. Where I go to school, the med students constantly bully the bio grad students. Wedgies, keep away with the beakers... They hate us and we hate them. I started smoking just to piss them off.
I have a cranky baby at home. My friends asked me why I don't use Oval. I told them that there is evidence that it doesn't work. They stared at me like I had three heads. After all, they tried it and it worked for them!
You don't actually have three heads do you? Because maybe there's an alternative reason for the staring...
Sorry, but find me one federal agency that never tried to expand their power exponentially, often in the name of "the public good".
I would guess that the Bureau of Indian Affairs is not too keen on doing the job it's tasked with already, let alone exponentially increasing it's powers. But your point is well taken.
Dude goes in for a sore throat, doctor accidentally amputates his leg. Which of these makes you feel safer?
Why exactly did Dude agree to go under general anesthesia for a sore throat?
... suprised no one has said "usually people who want to hurt/maim people don't become DOCTORS."
They become dentists.
People do seem to use liberal and conservative as relative terms without realizing it. If you honestly want the government to start investigating anti-americanism, you probably think Newsweek, and maybe even Rush Limbaugh, are liberals. If you want to abolish all highways so that we don't disturb the environment, you probably find newsweek a little too conservative.
Also important to realize that having identified something as being liberal or conservative compared to you, that says absolutely nothing about whether anything they say is wrong or right, at least to anyone who does not share your position. You say newsweek is too liberal, that to me seems like a reason to renew my subscription.
I see where you are coming from, but I still can't agree that people should eat food and drive cars that they can't afford. I don't to see how health care should be any different.
One important point of difference: if you can't pay for your car, you get it taken away. If you can't pay for your health care, either your family does, or the hospital's rates go up for people who do have insurance, which I've heard is the reason for the seven dollar asprin.
So it gets paid for either way because it's not optional.
I disagree, Fear 2 did scare me despite not ever feeling like I was about dead. Some of that was due to the creepy cutscenes. I'm not alone either in thinking that cutscenes or scripted events, like "ohmigod, that shadow isn't MINE!" are frightening.
Lesson: I guess some people aren't scared by scripted events, others can be.
Why not leave nature to its own devices?
I guess the actual answer would be that these people don't want to and, having studied the issue beyond just a slashdot blurb, think it's a good idea. Or maybe it's a big scam. Could be either way really.
At least one obvious pragmatic reason to save them: we might find a use for them. We already use frogs in a lot of bio research. In establishing captive breeding programs we might find that one of these more exotic species is actually better than our current model organisms at some things. We might find some chemical in them that is useful for something, like a protein that is extremely efficient at regulating chromatin dynamics that we could use as a cancer-fighting drug.
Anyway, it seems a more worthy goal to me than some other goals. Like "My goal is to become the next american idol!" or "I want to establish abstinence-only education for inner city schools." Lets make fun of THOSE people instead of these guys.
It seems to me, that here they are begging money to fight evolution...
Natural selection, not evolution. And people have always been about preventing natural selection. We call it compassion, it's a pretty common trait. I guess it's more comfortable to look at it cynically for some people though.
Genetic power is the most awesome force the planet's ever witnessed, yet you wield it like a kid that's found his dad's gun.
I do?!? Gee, I thought I was just idly commenting on someone who was doing what you just described. Or are you talking about my... er... extracirricular genetic experimentation? That's really none of your buisness and off-topic.
If there is one thing the history of evolution has taught us it's that life will not be contained. Life breaks free, expands to new territory, and crashes through barriers, painfully, maybe even dangerously.
And slowly (at least on the timescale for a human life). Again, how long has it taken us to colonize space? How long did it take life to conquer dry land? Was it weeks, years, or millions of years? I think we'll get bored with AGEIS long before a warlike tribe of superhumans comes out of it.
Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn't stop to think if they should.
You're right, they're just spending the thousands of research dollars on a whim.
Wait, no, I'm sure if you bothered to RTFA or better yet their research proposal you'd see some reasons to do it.
I'm not understanding the notion that any creation of life in a lab is inevitably going to kill everyone. What's going on in AGEIS is not that dissimilar than many environments you can find existing in nature right now and throughout history. Is there anything other than baseless FUD that makes you think something terrible is going to come out of this? Absolutely not, you've just seen jurrasic park too many times, don't understand what's going on here, and jumped to the conclusion that biologists are goign to destroy us all.
To quote Dr. Ian Malcom: "Life. Finds. A. Way."
If given enough time it might. I'm reassured by the fact that after more than 4 billion years, life on Earth apparently has yet to leave it's much much bigger vat. For that reason, I propose we don't leave AGEIS running for more than a billion years.
How many stupid bloody plastic toy accessories are going to be released for this fad of a console?
I don't know, but I'd expect the total volume of plastic used for accessories to the wii to be maybe 0.0000000000000001% of the total plastic humanity has made.
So once the environmentalists have recycled all the billions of plastic bottles (maybe they will put a roof over the state of Washington or something) then wii accessories might be a priority.
Well, that's so short and pithy that it MUST be true. Tell that to the dinosaurs (keeping in mind that Jurrasic park hasn't actually happened yet.)
Your experience is not everything.
I didn't add enough qualifiers to that statement? I said "Speaking from experience... I... at least for some people... (sample size = 1)" What more do you want from me in terms of not overrepresenting my experience!?!
I am trolling
D'oh!
Interesting, your post echoed mine but you got modded up faster than me...
I agree. I do not think that these bacteria would last long outside the AGEIS system. ;-P
In seriousness, I think the 8 artificial nucleotide dependance is a pretty high hurdle. Evolving to the point of being able to make all 12 nucleotides from the natural 4 or other natural building blocks is possible, but I'm doubtful that it would ever be competitive with bacteria that don't bother doing that. Lowering the amount of artificial nucleotide in the vat gradually until the artificial bugs had completely replaced that nucleotide in their genomes with the others could work, but I would think it would take a VERY long time with just one, going from 12 to 4... we certainly couldn't possibly get away with triming our nucleotide use down from 4 to 2. I'd expect an absolute dependance on all 12 since that's how they were raised.
On the other hand some of the artificial nucleotides probably are easily replaced with natural ones. BrdU is a commonly used artificial nucleotide that can be used by cells in place of thymidine, pairing with adenosine. If they used BrdU that could probably be replaced by natural thymidine, and depending on how the artificial bugs evolved that might not make any difference. On the previous hand, if they're using artificial nucleotides that only pair with other artificial nucleotide, that would probably not be as easily replaceable.