I don't want to annotate with an awkward keyboard. I want a pen so I can draw directly on the page. I don't even care about OCR, I just want to be able to draw a star or circle or my own chicken scratch just like I would with a real book.
And PDFs have to go through a conversion process on Amazon's website, which then sends it to the Kindle. That's annoying. I'd love to have my entire library of research papers for my dissertation on a Kindle, but I don't want to have to go through that process for every paper. I just want a Bluetooth connection between my computer and Kindle so that I can choose my PDFs, press a button, and presto, they're on the Kindle.
Nobody needs files? How, exactly, can I retrieve a document then? This FA is damned short on details.
I think he's talking about programmer-land, not user-land here. Sure, users can do File->Open and see the documents they've created. As a programmer, though, you don't need to worry about creating a handle to a file, populating that file, closing the file, etc. Instead, you would just create a new object of whatever document class you need. Because EVERY object on the system is automatically persisted, your document objects are automatically persisted and you don't have to worry about file i/o, autosave, etc. It's built into the OS for all objects.
I think there are many interesting ideas behind this OS, but from an actual usability perspective, I'll believe it when I see it.
He seems to believe that Tivo PC is a method of accessing online content, but it's not. If you have a TV tuner card in your PC, it lets you use the Tivo software with that card. That's all.
There's nothing you can do with this new product that you can't already do with MythTV or similar products. People who are going to save programs, edit out commercials, and post the final product up on the web are already doing it. This won't facilitate such behavior.
Keen doesn't seem to have a clue as to what this product actually does.
This probably isn't a great article for Slashdot's front page. The original work referred to in the press release cited (and to be honest, the release overstates the original work to which it refers) is a piece of correspondence in a scientific journal of cell biology (Nature Cell Biology) from a cell biologist to fellow cell biologists calling for a more holistic approach to studying the origin of disease. It has a very specific target audience and a very specific message.
He states (correctly) that many people thought that decoding genetics would lead to understand the nature of disease, but that hasn't happened to the degree we thought it would. Rather, they (I'm not a cell biologist) need to look at the entire cell and all of the components of the cell, not just the genes and proteins.
To that end, he provides a very nice diagram that lists 4 major groups of organic molecules and shows at a high level how they fit together. It's a nice little reference piece for researchers and students and a nice reminder that the cell is a dynamic, complex body with many important components other than the genes and proteins that receive such a large amount of scrutiny.
1. It's obvious - since these are the only components in cells, and they have all been known for years, how is this remotely interesting?
It's interesting in that this is a nice summary of information that we've known for a while that has never been presented in so succinct a format.
2. It's not really relevant - It's like me saying "100 elements are enough to understand disease" - yes, all biological processes may only involve 100, probably fewer, elements, but how the hell does that aid our understanding? It's the identities and actions of the resulting molecules and macromolecular complexes, not their components, which define their actions
See below.
3. If we're going to be anal it is far fewer molecules - The 4 bases of DNA and the proteins involved in their replication are all we need really to understand all disease processes, for it is from this template, and the proteins which they code for, that everything comes from. These 68 are all coded for in the DNA, even the DNA itself. One may wish to be a bit more anal and include mitochondrial DNA and proteins separately, as they are a separate genome technically.
You either didn't read or understand the article correctly (and I suggest reading the original article in Nature Cell Biology; it's a very quick, high-level piece. As to your point, the molecules that compose RNA and DNA are only 8 of the building blocks he lists. The 20 amino acides that compose proteins (and the amino acids themselves are not encoded by DNA) make up another subgroup. Then you have your glycans and lipids as the other two main subgroups, again not encoded by DNA.
4. This is misleading. Not all constituents in the body are made from merely these building blocks. What about hydroxyapatite? This is an incredibly common molecule in our bones, but like so many other molecules in the body, it is a relatively simple organic molecule.
See above.
The whole point of Marth's paper is that there has been too much focus on genes and proteins as the origins of disease, and that the research into lipids and glycans that has been conducted hasn't been integrated well enough into the genetic research.
To that end, he put together a very nice chart listing the major constituents of a cell divided into four major groups, along with diagrams of where those molecules are found in the cell. His article is more of a commentary piece about how more integrative work needs to be done with a nice chart on how these pieces fit together. It's one I'll probably print out and hang on the wall, because I appreciate that it's simple and still conveys quite a bit of information.
I don't think that jtcedinburgh meant that the OP should remain ignorant of other languages or technologies. Of course it's important for a programmer to stay on top of new technologies and recognize how they fit into the bigger picture.
On the other hand, I do agree with him that, while having knowledge of many tools is admirable, if you spend your time trying to learn some of everything, the likelihood of becoming a true master of any one language or technology dwindles. It's important to try to reach a balance and not be too specialized or too broad.
If I'm hiring a developer, I'm more interested in someone who can do the task incredibly well and efficiently as opposed to someone who has many abbreviations on their resume, but in reality only kind of knows how to use a language, In the end, people who become too broad aren't going to know how to use a language's features to their greatest extent (or truly recognize the limitations of a given language or technology).
What I think is interesting is that people have no problem believing that someone's genetics serve as a template for their hair, eye color, height, etc, but are much more skeptical about the role of genetics role behavior. Behavior is a result of the brain (and the rest of the body), which is just as much a physical item as the rest of you.
That's not to say that genetics can explain everything. There are epigenetic and environmental facts at play that are also important. But an individual's genetics are the starting point, so how is it foolish that to believe that understanding genetics can provide insights. Genetics isn't the end all and be all of understanding people, but it's a very important component.
No one claimed that they had learning figured out a genetic level. What they do claim is that they've pinpointed a gene that corresponds well with different behaviors. And it just so happens that this gene results in a reduction in dopamine tone. And there's been quite a bit of research showing that changes in dopamine tone result in changes in learning and memory (speaking as someone who's worked on a bit of that research).
And I'm going to go out on a limb and predict that producing a transgenic mouse that expresses the variation of the gene associated with "not learning with your mistakes" is going to result in behavioral differences in those animals that might just correspond to the behaviors they've described in humans.
And it's not like we don't already have any examples of a single gene resulting in pretty drastic behavioral and cognitive effects.
What we do know is that who we are is a combination of many genetic, epigenetic, and environmental factors. None of them fully explains who we are, but that doesn't mean that individual factors can't exert a strong force on who we are.
As others have noted, finding a problem that he's interested in solving is pretty key. If he's interested in games, help him find a gaming project. Something else I'd consider, however, is some kind of basic robotics project. Get him a kit that he can hook up to his computer and use a BASIC-style language to control. It sounds like he's already inclined towards "geek" projects, and this gets him both some software and hardware experience in one go, and he can see three-dimensional results of his programming.
I can understand how he'd consider 95 a high point, at least in terms of excitement. It was a bit of a cultural phenomenon and extremely popular. It was the first widely-adopted even-your-grandma-can-use-it OS. They had taken Windows beyond a glorified file manager, and it was used by lay-people and techies. There was a zeitgeist around it that I haven't really felt until OS X in the last few years. I'd count that as a high point.
I did programming and consulting and ended up growing very tired it. While this was only 6 years after college, my main interest through life had been computers, and I had been making money (full time in the summers) doing programming/IT since I was halfway through high school.
Luckily, there was no one depending on me once I reached that point of dissatisfaction, so I packed up and went to grad school to study biology. Turns out though, I'm doing more programming now when I left my old job. And I love it. I plan on returning to programming once I finish, but I'm going to stay in the sciences.
For me, I needed a new domain in which to apply my skills. I didn't care about defense or telecommunications. But I love scientific research. So my advice would be to look for a job in a domain that you can actually enjoy. It'll give you the chance to learn something new, and you'll be more invested in the output you produce. It may turn out that it's not IT that you're put out with, but the specific situation you're in.
So my advice, since you have the family, is to try not to make a wholesale change like going back to school. Try to find a job at a company whose goal is more in tune with your own personal interests. You might be surprised at how much a difference that can make.
That's thinking a bit short term. If their terms are met like they were hoping, it means that they're not cut out of emerging media outlets. That's going to be an important point in the next couple of decades as people shift their content viewing to legitimate online venues and away from traditional television.
Here are some facts about orexin to supplement the article. It's a neuropeptide that is endogenous in the mamallian brain (probably outside of mammals, but I've never checked). It was discovered about 10 years ago, and the original biological function described for it was increasing feeding, hence the name orexin (although many scientists prefer the name hypocretin). It's also been shown to subserve the reward system in the brain as a modulating agent.
All which leads me to the question, how could this effect eating disorders and addiction? It's been shown that blocking the orexin system decreases relapse to drugs in animal models. Could artificially increasing the levels of orexin in the brain support the development or maintenance of drug abuse? Could it have similar effects on eating? It is interesting (and makes sense) that it only affected drowsy monkeys, as orexin seems to support the maintenance of wakefulness, so it's possible that there's a ceiling effect to orexin. Still, I'd be wary of longterm exposure to non-natural levels.
The pathways for fear memories are different than for, say, declarative or procedural memory. Optimally, a treatment option would target fear reconsolidation while not touching other types of memory.
The most famous research in this territory is the study of Phineas Gage. He had his prefrontal cortex removed due to a work injury--a dynamite tamper went straight through his skull. Everyone was amazed because he didn't even pass out and seemed to be fine. His memories were completely intact. It was considered a miracle.
What happened afterwards, though, was less then happy. He had been one of the most respected men in town, considered a good guy by everyone who knew him. Post-accident, he became a gambling, womanizer with an angry disposition. It's there that we started learning about the function of the prefrontal cortex. If there's any part of the brain that could be considered the seat of personality, that would be it. Look of executive functioning on wikipedia (it's not a bad starting article) for what prefrontal cortex seems to be involved in.
First off, you're comparing memory retention to memory formation, two very different processes. From a research point-of-view, their finding is quite significant (and IAANeuroscientist, with my area being electrophysiological studies of memory systems and how they are impaired by alcohol). Specifically, they've identified a protein that seems to be essential for the long-term maintenance of memories in cortex.
As a mentioned elsewhere, this finding probably won't help much therapeutically, as it is too far-reaching. What's really needed for treatment of memory-based pathologies is something that erases a memory (or prevents a memory from being restored) when it is accessed so that you can target specific memories, and there's evidence that it might be feasible.
I'm going to have to disagree with you here. There are some cases where "accepting and coping" isn't an option. And I'm not talking about an in "Eternal Sunshine"-my-girlfriend-broke-up-with-me-and-I'm-r eally-sad type of way. I'm talking about cases where, because of bugs in the fear machinery, people's brains are in an error state that "coping with" can't reverse. Just as cells have normal parameters for homeostasis in which everything functions correctly, so do mental processes. In severe cases, we're not talking about just the psyschological realm. We're talking about gene transcription, protein levels, etc, that are outside of their normal boundaries, and that type of problem isn't easily (or even not so easily) helped by cognitive therapy and coping alone.
Exactly. It's interesting, no question, but not necessarily practical.
In order for something like this to be practical, it needs to disrupt reconsolidation. That is, as the theory goes, when a memory is accessed, there is an active process to "re-store" that memory. What would be needed in this treatment is some agent (whether pharmacological or electric or magnetic or whatever) that blocks the reconsolidation process. Then in a clinical setting, that treatment would be delivered, a doctor would guide one through the memory recollection process, and the memory would be "lost" after being accessed. That's the idea, anyway. There may be a few other memories lost in the process, but it would probably be worth it for people having flashback-based episodes (or possibly even addiction), but it's wouldn't be a whitewashing like this ZIP-based method.
Slashdot Mirror
I don't want to annotate with an awkward keyboard. I want a pen so I can draw directly on the page. I don't even care about OCR, I just want to be able to draw a star or circle or my own chicken scratch just like I would with a real book.
And PDFs have to go through a conversion process on Amazon's website, which then sends it to the Kindle. That's annoying. I'd love to have my entire library of research papers for my dissertation on a Kindle, but I don't want to have to go through that process for every paper. I just want a Bluetooth connection between my computer and Kindle so that I can choose my PDFs, press a button, and presto, they're on the Kindle.
I'd get one of these the second it became usable for textbooks/research papers. You need 3 things for that to happen:
1) Native PDF support (which I don't believe this has).
2) Color.
3) A pen for the ability to annotate.
That would be a killer device. This...is not.
Nobody needs files? How, exactly, can I retrieve a document then? This FA is damned short on details.
I think he's talking about programmer-land, not user-land here. Sure, users can do File->Open and see the documents they've created. As a programmer, though, you don't need to worry about creating a handle to a file, populating that file, closing the file, etc. Instead, you would just create a new object of whatever document class you need. Because EVERY object on the system is automatically persisted, your document objects are automatically persisted and you don't have to worry about file i/o, autosave, etc. It's built into the OS for all objects.
I think there are many interesting ideas behind this OS, but from an actual usability perspective, I'll believe it when I see it.
Since it's already slahshdotted, here's the cached version.
He seems to believe that Tivo PC is a method of accessing online content, but it's not. If you have a TV tuner card in your PC, it lets you use the Tivo software with that card. That's all.
There's nothing you can do with this new product that you can't already do with MythTV or similar products. People who are going to save programs, edit out commercials, and post the final product up on the web are already doing it. This won't facilitate such behavior.
Keen doesn't seem to have a clue as to what this product actually does.
This probably isn't a great article for Slashdot's front page. The original work referred to in the press release cited (and to be honest, the release overstates the original work to which it refers) is a piece of correspondence in a scientific journal of cell biology (Nature Cell Biology) from a cell biologist to fellow cell biologists calling for a more holistic approach to studying the origin of disease. It has a very specific target audience and a very specific message.
He states (correctly) that many people thought that decoding genetics would lead to understand the nature of disease, but that hasn't happened to the degree we thought it would. Rather, they (I'm not a cell biologist) need to look at the entire cell and all of the components of the cell, not just the genes and proteins.
To that end, he provides a very nice diagram that lists 4 major groups of organic molecules and shows at a high level how they fit together. It's a nice little reference piece for researchers and students and a nice reminder that the cell is a dynamic, complex body with many important components other than the genes and proteins that receive such a large amount of scrutiny.
Again, go back and look at the chart. He lists the 8 (not 5) nucleic acids involved in DNA and RNA:
Deoxyadenosine
Deoxycytidine,
Deoxyguanosine,
Deoxythymidine,
Adenosine,
Cytidine,
Guanosine,
Uridine
The first four nucleosides make up DNA, the last four RNA.
1. It's obvious - since these are the only components in cells, and they have all been known for years, how is this remotely interesting?
It's interesting in that this is a nice summary of information that we've known for a while that has never been presented in so succinct a format.
2. It's not really relevant - It's like me saying "100 elements are enough to understand disease" - yes, all biological processes may only involve 100, probably fewer, elements, but how the hell does that aid our understanding? It's the identities and actions of the resulting molecules and macromolecular complexes, not their components, which define their actions
See below.
3. If we're going to be anal it is far fewer molecules - The 4 bases of DNA and the proteins involved in their replication are all we need really to understand all disease processes, for it is from this template, and the proteins which they code for, that everything comes from. These 68 are all coded for in the DNA, even the DNA itself. One may wish to be a bit more anal and include mitochondrial DNA and proteins separately, as they are a separate genome technically.
You either didn't read or understand the article correctly (and I suggest reading the original article in Nature Cell Biology; it's a very quick, high-level piece. As to your point, the molecules that compose RNA and DNA are only 8 of the building blocks he lists. The 20 amino acides that compose proteins (and the amino acids themselves are not encoded by DNA) make up another subgroup. Then you have your glycans and lipids as the other two main subgroups, again not encoded by DNA.
4. This is misleading. Not all constituents in the body are made from merely these building blocks. What about hydroxyapatite? This is an incredibly common molecule in our bones, but like so many other molecules in the body, it is a relatively simple organic molecule.
See above.
The whole point of Marth's paper is that there has been too much focus on genes and proteins as the origins of disease, and that the research into lipids and glycans that has been conducted hasn't been integrated well enough into the genetic research.
To that end, he put together a very nice chart listing the major constituents of a cell divided into four major groups, along with diagrams of where those molecules are found in the cell. His article is more of a commentary piece about how more integrative work needs to be done with a nice chart on how these pieces fit together. It's one I'll probably print out and hang on the wall, because I appreciate that it's simple and still conveys quite a bit of information.
I don't think that jtcedinburgh meant that the OP should remain ignorant of other languages or technologies. Of course it's important for a programmer to stay on top of new technologies and recognize how they fit into the bigger picture.
On the other hand, I do agree with him that, while having knowledge of many tools is admirable, if you spend your time trying to learn some of everything, the likelihood of becoming a true master of any one language or technology dwindles. It's important to try to reach a balance and not be too specialized or too broad.
If I'm hiring a developer, I'm more interested in someone who can do the task incredibly well and efficiently as opposed to someone who has many abbreviations on their resume, but in reality only kind of knows how to use a language, In the end, people who become too broad aren't going to know how to use a language's features to their greatest extent (or truly recognize the limitations of a given language or technology).
Yep, it's called state-dependent learning.
What I think is interesting is that people have no problem believing that someone's genetics serve as a template for their hair, eye color, height, etc, but are much more skeptical about the role of genetics role behavior. Behavior is a result of the brain (and the rest of the body), which is just as much a physical item as the rest of you.
That's not to say that genetics can explain everything. There are epigenetic and environmental facts at play that are also important. But an individual's genetics are the starting point, so how is it foolish that to believe that understanding genetics can provide insights. Genetics isn't the end all and be all of understanding people, but it's a very important component.
No one claimed that they had learning figured out a genetic level. What they do claim is that they've pinpointed a gene that corresponds well with different behaviors. And it just so happens that this gene results in a reduction in dopamine tone. And there's been quite a bit of research showing that changes in dopamine tone result in changes in learning and memory (speaking as someone who's worked on a bit of that research).
And I'm going to go out on a limb and predict that producing a transgenic mouse that expresses the variation of the gene associated with "not learning with your mistakes" is going to result in behavioral differences in those animals that might just correspond to the behaviors they've described in humans.
And it's not like we don't already have any examples of a single gene resulting in pretty drastic behavioral and cognitive effects.
What we do know is that who we are is a combination of many genetic, epigenetic, and environmental factors. None of them fully explains who we are, but that doesn't mean that individual factors can't exert a strong force on who we are.
As others have noted, finding a problem that he's interested in solving is pretty key. If he's interested in games, help him find a gaming project. Something else I'd consider, however, is some kind of basic robotics project. Get him a kit that he can hook up to his computer and use a BASIC-style language to control. It sounds like he's already inclined towards "geek" projects, and this gets him both some software and hardware experience in one go, and he can see three-dimensional results of his programming.
I can understand how he'd consider 95 a high point, at least in terms of excitement. It was a bit of a cultural phenomenon and extremely popular. It was the first widely-adopted even-your-grandma-can-use-it OS. They had taken Windows beyond a glorified file manager, and it was used by lay-people and techies. There was a zeitgeist around it that I haven't really felt until OS X in the last few years. I'd count that as a high point.
I did programming and consulting and ended up growing very tired it. While this was only 6 years after college, my main interest through life had been computers, and I had been making money (full time in the summers) doing programming/IT since I was halfway through high school.
Luckily, there was no one depending on me once I reached that point of dissatisfaction, so I packed up and went to grad school to study biology. Turns out though, I'm doing more programming now when I left my old job. And I love it. I plan on returning to programming once I finish, but I'm going to stay in the sciences.
For me, I needed a new domain in which to apply my skills. I didn't care about defense or telecommunications. But I love scientific research. So my advice would be to look for a job in a domain that you can actually enjoy. It'll give you the chance to learn something new, and you'll be more invested in the output you produce. It may turn out that it's not IT that you're put out with, but the specific situation you're in.
So my advice, since you have the family, is to try not to make a wholesale change like going back to school. Try to find a job at a company whose goal is more in tune with your own personal interests. You might be surprised at how much a difference that can make.
That's thinking a bit short term. If their terms are met like they were hoping, it means that they're not cut out of emerging media outlets. That's going to be an important point in the next couple of decades as people shift their content viewing to legitimate online venues and away from traditional television.
Here are some facts about orexin to supplement the article. It's a neuropeptide that is endogenous in the mamallian brain (probably outside of mammals, but I've never checked). It was discovered about 10 years ago, and the original biological function described for it was increasing feeding, hence the name orexin (although many scientists prefer the name hypocretin). It's also been shown to subserve the reward system in the brain as a modulating agent.
All which leads me to the question, how could this effect eating disorders and addiction? It's been shown that blocking the orexin system decreases relapse to drugs in animal models. Could artificially increasing the levels of orexin in the brain support the development or maintenance of drug abuse? Could it have similar effects on eating? It is interesting (and makes sense) that it only affected drowsy monkeys, as orexin seems to support the maintenance of wakefulness, so it's possible that there's a ceiling effect to orexin. Still, I'd be wary of longterm exposure to non-natural levels.
The pathways for fear memories are different than for, say, declarative or procedural memory. Optimally, a treatment option would target fear reconsolidation while not touching other types of memory.
They did that experiment (it's in the Science manuscript). The effect was non-specific when they tested for memory of two different tastes.
The most famous research in this territory is the study of Phineas Gage. He had his prefrontal cortex removed due to a work injury--a dynamite tamper went straight through his skull. Everyone was amazed because he didn't even pass out and seemed to be fine. His memories were completely intact. It was considered a miracle.
What happened afterwards, though, was less then happy. He had been one of the most respected men in town, considered a good guy by everyone who knew him. Post-accident, he became a gambling, womanizer with an angry disposition. It's there that we started learning about the function of the prefrontal cortex. If there's any part of the brain that could be considered the seat of personality, that would be it. Look of executive functioning on wikipedia (it's not a bad starting article) for what prefrontal cortex seems to be involved in.
First off, you're comparing memory retention to memory formation, two very different processes. From a research point-of-view, their finding is quite significant (and IAANeuroscientist, with my area being electrophysiological studies of memory systems and how they are impaired by alcohol). Specifically, they've identified a protein that seems to be essential for the long-term maintenance of memories in cortex.
As a mentioned elsewhere, this finding probably won't help much therapeutically, as it is too far-reaching. What's really needed for treatment of memory-based pathologies is something that erases a memory (or prevents a memory from being restored) when it is accessed so that you can target specific memories, and there's evidence that it might be feasible.
I'm going to have to disagree with you here. There are some cases where "accepting and coping" isn't an option. And I'm not talking about an in "Eternal Sunshine"-my-girlfriend-broke-up-with-me-and-I'm-r eally-sad type of way. I'm talking about cases where, because of bugs in the fear machinery, people's brains are in an error state that "coping with" can't reverse. Just as cells have normal parameters for homeostasis in which everything functions correctly, so do mental processes. In severe cases, we're not talking about just the psyschological realm. We're talking about gene transcription, protein levels, etc, that are outside of their normal boundaries, and that type of problem isn't easily (or even not so easily) helped by cognitive therapy and coping alone.
Exactly. It's interesting, no question, but not necessarily practical.
In order for something like this to be practical, it needs to disrupt reconsolidation. That is, as the theory goes, when a memory is accessed, there is an active process to "re-store" that memory. What would be needed in this treatment is some agent (whether pharmacological or electric or magnetic or whatever) that blocks the reconsolidation process. Then in a clinical setting, that treatment would be delivered, a doctor would guide one through the memory recollection process, and the memory would be "lost" after being accessed. That's the idea, anyway. There may be a few other memories lost in the process, but it would probably be worth it for people having flashback-based episodes (or possibly even addiction), but it's wouldn't be a whitewashing like this ZIP-based method.
Ya see, that's the danger of growing up in an anti-learning culture.
And, according to one news article I saw, republished one of the support documents with their own logo, passing it off as their own work.