Finally, a post that addresses the point of the article! All the bricks-and-mortar stuff is way off topic.
Netflix "watch instantly" is a killer competitor. There is no extra cost! Netflix subscribers are already comfortable managing their queues on line so moving to the viewer is a very low hurdle, something that cannot be said about WalMart. The viewer application is small and works great. One could quibble about resolution but for many things, especially TV shows, it's fine. Also, I wish Netflix would get a *nix application ASAP because their viewer app is the only reason I ever boot windows.
Disclaimer: I have no stock or other interest in Netflix except as a satisfied customer.
data-mine the DNA itself to figure out individual identities. If you merely want to identify people, the whole genome is overkill. In a letter published in the July 28 2006 issue of Science, Lin, Altman and Owen wrote (emphasis added):
Modest numbers of SNPs, especially those statistically independent ones, are as identifiable as social security numbers (1). Twenty statistically independent SNPs from single gene loci could pose more of a privacy threat than 75 SNPs with high LD from multiple gene loci. Even releasing eight SNPs can be risky for individuals with rare alleles, particularly if they are associated with a known phenotype.
SNPs can be typed on a massive scale for much less than $0.05 each.
Thesis: Tech Almost Lost the War Premise: Networked troops are efficient Implementation flaw: Pentagon had too few nodes and a closed architecture Consequence: less networked, less efficient troops.
But the author actually thinks this failure is good, because... Statement: "Besides, a more efficient killing machine is the last thing you want in an insurgency like Iraq." Corollary: we want less efficient, i.e., less networked troops. Conclusion: failed implementation of "tech" is helping win the war.
The post stimulated many comments perhaps because it is so vague.
When I finally joined, driven by curiosity about how slashcode worked for members, it seemed so late that I figured I would always define the "back of the line". Now, seniority has moved my UID ahead of 6 out of 7 users.
Fortunately for all concerned, the/. scoring system is a meritocracy that largely ignores UID. (Though <5 digit UIDs attract attention and inspire a certain respect </smooch>.)
Bonjour Holisticly provide access to ethical communities vis-a-vis client-focused
That's it, just a string of buzzwords, not even grammatical, followed by a link to "learn more". Somebody attended too many marketing or web2.0 presentations. Or maybe they want to put the mystery back in. Turns out, it automagically configures an "instant network". The intro is curious. Does the "ethical community" description mean that security sucks?
Buy.com has a video with a Nokia rep demonstrating the N95 - VERY impressive capabilities. A 5M pixel camera, GPS, and stereo bluetooth are just a few of the features that set it apart from the iPhone. The dual slider that reveals either a keyboard or media player controls is also cool. That said, the unlocked N95 costs $550, which is nearly twice as much as the 4GB iPhone I bought about 2 weeks ago. Moreover, the N95 controls seemed a little chaotic whereas the iPhone is amazingly intuitive - even features like conferencing calls or changing from the bluetooth headset to the regular handset are just simple buttons that appear when you might want them. I know that sounds a little simple-minded but in truth, accessing the features on a phone can be very frustrating. Maybe you should try the N95 out before you buy.
"I felt a great disturbance in the Skype, as if millions of PCs suddenly rebooted and suddenly tried to login. I fear something terrible has happened."
Here is a large collaborative study just published in the New England Journal of Medicine (free text with registration).
The "common gene" hypothesis almost certainly explains disease that "runs in families". The influence of these genetic variants (alleles) tends to be low, so families my have several different susceptibility alleles combining to produce disease. There is another, intriguing hypothesis that may explain the many people with disease who do not have many, or any, susceptibility alleles. This hypothesis suggests that mutations within a single immune cell may allow it to escape normal regulatory mechanisms and produce disease. It is analogous to the cancer mutation theories - some inherited from ancestors, some developed during life. This hypothesis was recently reviewed, link here (not free but you can explore from the abstract).
These two competing/complementary hypotheses constitute a good example of how science moves forward.
I haven't read the details of the study, but here's what's basically going on, from what I can tell so far... X SNIP X The vaccine is actually a virus. Wrong. A poster describing the work is available for download from the company, Bayhill Therapeutics, here. The therapeutic is not a virus but rather a relatively simple, circular DNA (plasmid) of about 3,500 nucleotides with a promoter to drive transcription (make mRNA) and a polyadenylation site to stabilize the mRNA. Otherwise, the DNA has just the minimum to grow and select in bacteria (origin of replication and antibiotic resistance gene that is inactive in humans). Once injected into an animal, such pure DNA is thought to be picked up by specialized phagocytes ("eating cells") that are able to make the encoded protein, albeit at low levels, and trigger immune cells with fragments of the newly made proteins.
What's odd, is that immunization with MBP can provoke an MS-like disease in mice of some strains. An abstract to an open-source paper is here. So exactly how this is working as a therapeutic is (more than a little) obscure.
The article reports the findings from 30 patients - meaning that the trial was testing only whether the therapy was safe. The authors' note that most patients did not progress (to develop worse disease) is only parenthetical, though the information can be used to estimate how many patients will have to be tested to determine efficacy. Frankly, I don't see a solid rational for a therapeutic mechanism, but if it works, great, and we'll learn something about MS and immunology in figuring out how it works.
There is an extremely effective new therapy for MS that blocks immune cells (lymphocytes) from their normal "trafficking" through the brain. Since the lymphocytes are responsible for the neuronal damage that underlies MS, the symptoms of MS did not worsen in the vast majority of the thousands of patients who used the drug. Unfortunately, in a small number of patients, the lymphocytes are also responsible for controlling a virus that is latent in their brain. In some of these patients, the virus became active and some patients died before the cause was recognized. Here is a link to the abstract of a free research paper that summarizes current understanding. I have no financial interest in the success of this drug (generic name = natalizumab, trade name = Tysabri).
Then you should write to your state representative! Your Indiana General Assembly representatives and their contact information are listed here.
If they supported the exception, tell them how "furious" you are. If they opposed the exception, tell them you appreciate their position. And tell them you vote and have a long memory. Unfortunately, Indiana's regulators are in the executive branch under Governor Daniels. You could write to him but he has been willing to give away (practically) public assets to companies (toll road, state lottery, etc.).
It's surprising how responsive and effective legislators can be when they know the public is paying attention.
At the risk of taking a joke seriously, "masonry" is a particularly apt analogy. Indeed, the arrays of oligonucleotides that were used to identify the RNA encoded by DNA (previously thought to be junk) are called "tiling arrays" because they comprise probes to contiguous regions on the DNA molecule (see the description here, at the bottom of the page). The Wikipedia entry doesn't really get to the heart of the tiling array advantage, which is it's agnostic, comprehensive, exhaustive approach to querying DNA transcripts. Previous arrays would only probe regions expected to contain protein-coding genes, for example, so they would not detect transcripts from other regions of the genome (the vast majority). Here is a free, full-text review of the novel challenges that such arrays pose for analysis.
Just drive less now, instead of buying a Prius or whatever. If everybody walked or rode a bike or took mass transit a little more often, we could reduce emissions immediately. Sure, a reduction is senseless consumerism might "wreck" this economy, but it might start a shift to a sustainable economy where people are happier and healthier. And everybody sings "Kumbaya".
I'm white. I'm liberal. I'm not a racist. I thought it was funny. Anyone who was seriously offended by his remarks needs to grow up.
Ditto, ditto, ditto... but then you lost me. If you think it's funny, maybe you're the one who "needs to grow up". I used to listen to Imus in small, very small doses. While briefly funny, the "shock" part of the shock-jock shtick means that eventually the listener is desensitized and absorbs the hate underlying such "jokes". I'm sorry he was fired, but after hearing how many people were honestly and deeply offended by his comments over many years, maybe it was long overdue.
As you note, Vonage is a (relatively) big player and therefore the biggest target for Verizon. Why wouldn't the 2 alternatives you mention, whose offerings seem very much like Vonage's, be soon driven from the business?
My experience with Vonage, about 2 years, has been good. Call quality is very good and availability seems more a question of my ISP than Vonage. I keep a POTS 2nd line but I use Vonage (and an out-of-state business number) for all long distance. The main advantage over Skype is the ability to use regular phones, so you don't have to keep a computer going, buy a special phone, or drag the laptop around the house just to use the telephone. Their no-extra-cost voicemail and caller ID are nice and their call forwarding (to my cell when away from home) is actually very useful.
No wonder Verizon (nee NYNEX) wants them gone - most of the baby Bells have been losers in the competitive market. I did some quick research this morning and I don't think there is an attractive alternative if Vonage is forced to close. (*I don't know nothin' 'bout birthin' Asterisk*). Also, it will probably be tricky to transfer telephone numbers. Any opinions on options?
Re:NeoOffice not as bad as you suggest, IMO
on
OpenOffice 2.2 Released
·
· Score: 2, Informative
My experience with NO has been positive. I used OO.o with X for about 9 months on a dual-core Macbook (and many years on linux). I loaded NeoOffice to use the mac remote for a presentation. It does seem a little slower but it is very usable. I like the ability to switch between apps with the apple-tab (can't do that with OO+X). It was absolutely solid for preparing and presenting a 3 hour lecture with 160 slides, including many data tables, figures, some ppt imports, and some animation. I think I'll stick with NO instead of going back to OO.
I've never understood how anyone could be swayed by a debate at this level.
No? Even when one candidate is practically incoherent? Sure, expectations are low with Bush, but those performances had to shake the confidence of even the most inveterate Republican voter. In normal circumstances, a debate between candidates with more comparable levels of ability, I would be more inclined to agree with you. In this case, the doubts about Bush's ability to think were met with a spectacular and scary confirmation.
Kerry whipped Bush in the first 2 debates. Bush looked pitiful in the first. Honestly, he was so bad that you had to feel a little sorry for him. The second was also a clear Kerry win. The third was close - a toss up or even a narrow Bush win. But by any measure, Kerry gave anyone who was paying attention plenty of good reasons to vote for him.
Slashdot Mirror
Finally, a post that addresses the point of the article! All the bricks-and-mortar stuff is way off topic.
Netflix "watch instantly" is a killer competitor. There is no extra cost! Netflix subscribers are already comfortable managing their queues on line so moving to the viewer is a very low hurdle, something that cannot be said about WalMart. The viewer application is small and works great. One could quibble about resolution but for many things, especially TV shows, it's fine. Also, I wish Netflix would get a *nix application ASAP because their viewer app is the only reason I ever boot windows.
Disclaimer: I have no stock or other interest in Netflix except as a satisfied customer.
SNPs can be typed on a massive scale for much less than $0.05 each.
Thesis: Tech Almost Lost the War
Premise: Networked troops are efficient
Implementation flaw: Pentagon had too few nodes and a closed architecture
Consequence: less networked, less efficient troops.
But the author actually thinks this failure is good, because...
Statement: "Besides, a more efficient killing machine is the last thing you want in an insurgency like Iraq."
Corollary: we want less efficient, i.e., less networked troops.
Conclusion: failed implementation of "tech" is helping win the war.
The post stimulated many comments perhaps because it is so vague.
When I finally joined, driven by curiosity about how slashcode worked for members, it seemed so late that I figured I would always define the "back of the line". Now, seniority has moved my UID ahead of 6 out of 7 users.
/. scoring system is a meritocracy that largely ignores UID. (Though <5 digit UIDs attract attention and inspire a certain respect </smooch>.)
Fortunately for all concerned, the
And what about the morning news shows, for heaven's sake?
That's it, just a string of buzzwords, not even grammatical, followed by a link to "learn more". Somebody attended too many marketing or web2.0 presentations. Or maybe they want to put the mystery back in. Turns out, it automagically configures an "instant network". The intro is curious. Does the "ethical community" description mean that security sucks?
Buy.com has a video with a Nokia rep demonstrating the N95 - VERY impressive capabilities. A 5M pixel camera, GPS, and stereo bluetooth are just a few of the features that set it apart from the iPhone. The dual slider that reveals either a keyboard or media player controls is also cool. That said, the unlocked N95 costs $550, which is nearly twice as much as the 4GB iPhone I bought about 2 weeks ago. Moreover, the N95 controls seemed a little chaotic whereas the iPhone is amazingly intuitive - even features like conferencing calls or changing from the bluetooth headset to the regular handset are just simple buttons that appear when you might want them. I know that sounds a little simple-minded but in truth, accessing the features on a phone can be very frustrating. Maybe you should try the N95 out before you buy.
"I felt a great disturbance in the Skype, as if millions of PCs suddenly rebooted and suddenly tried to login. I fear something terrible has happened."
Apologies to Obi-Wan.
Here is a large collaborative study just published in the New England Journal of Medicine (free text with registration).
The "common gene" hypothesis almost certainly explains disease that "runs in families". The influence of these genetic variants (alleles) tends to be low, so families my have several different susceptibility alleles combining to produce disease. There is another, intriguing hypothesis that may explain the many people with disease who do not have many, or any, susceptibility alleles. This hypothesis suggests that mutations within a single immune cell may allow it to escape normal regulatory mechanisms and produce disease. It is analogous to the cancer mutation theories - some inherited from ancestors, some developed during life. This hypothesis was recently reviewed, link here (not free but you can explore from the abstract).
These two competing/complementary hypotheses constitute a good example of how science moves forward.
X SNIP X
The vaccine is actually a virus. Wrong. A poster describing the work is available for download from the company, Bayhill Therapeutics, here. The therapeutic is not a virus but rather a relatively simple, circular DNA (plasmid) of about 3,500 nucleotides with a promoter to drive transcription (make mRNA) and a polyadenylation site to stabilize the mRNA. Otherwise, the DNA has just the minimum to grow and select in bacteria (origin of replication and antibiotic resistance gene that is inactive in humans). Once injected into an animal, such pure DNA is thought to be picked up by specialized phagocytes ("eating cells") that are able to make the encoded protein, albeit at low levels, and trigger immune cells with fragments of the newly made proteins.
What's odd, is that immunization with MBP can provoke an MS-like disease in mice of some strains. An abstract to an open-source paper is here. So exactly how this is working as a therapeutic is (more than a little) obscure.
The article reports the findings from 30 patients - meaning that the trial was testing only whether the therapy was safe. The authors' note that most patients did not progress (to develop worse disease) is only parenthetical, though the information can be used to estimate how many patients will have to be tested to determine efficacy. Frankly, I don't see a solid rational for a therapeutic mechanism, but if it works, great, and we'll learn something about MS and immunology in figuring out how it works.
There is an extremely effective new therapy for MS that blocks immune cells (lymphocytes) from their normal "trafficking" through the brain. Since the lymphocytes are responsible for the neuronal damage that underlies MS, the symptoms of MS did not worsen in the vast majority of the thousands of patients who used the drug. Unfortunately, in a small number of patients, the lymphocytes are also responsible for controlling a virus that is latent in their brain. In some of these patients, the virus became active and some patients died before the cause was recognized. Here is a link to the abstract of a free research paper that summarizes current understanding. I have no financial interest in the success of this drug (generic name = natalizumab, trade name = Tysabri).
Then you should write to your state representative! Your Indiana General Assembly representatives and their contact information are listed here.
If they supported the exception, tell them how "furious" you are. If they opposed the exception, tell them you appreciate their position. And tell them you vote and have a long memory. Unfortunately, Indiana's regulators are in the executive branch under Governor Daniels. You could write to him but he has been willing to give away (practically) public assets to companies (toll road, state lottery, etc.).
It's surprising how responsive and effective legislators can be when they know the public is paying attention.
At the risk of taking a joke seriously, "masonry" is a particularly apt analogy. Indeed, the arrays of oligonucleotides that were used to identify the RNA encoded by DNA (previously thought to be junk) are called "tiling arrays" because they comprise probes to contiguous regions on the DNA molecule (see the description here, at the bottom of the page). The Wikipedia entry doesn't really get to the heart of the tiling array advantage, which is it's agnostic, comprehensive, exhaustive approach to querying DNA transcripts. Previous arrays would only probe regions expected to contain protein-coding genes, for example, so they would not detect transcripts from other regions of the genome (the vast majority). Here is a free, full-text review of the novel challenges that such arrays pose for analysis.
Just drive less now, instead of buying a Prius or whatever. If everybody walked or rode a bike or took mass transit a little more often, we could reduce emissions immediately. Sure, a reduction is senseless consumerism might "wreck" this economy, but it might start a shift to a sustainable economy where people are happier and healthier. And everybody sings "Kumbaya".
I'm guessing that "Kyoto 2.0" doesn't say anything about moderating speed on the Autobahn (highway).
Ditto, ditto, ditto... but then you lost me. If you think it's funny, maybe you're the one who "needs to grow up". I used to listen to Imus in small, very small doses. While briefly funny, the "shock" part of the shock-jock shtick means that eventually the listener is desensitized and absorbs the hate underlying such "jokes". I'm sorry he was fired, but after hearing how many people were honestly and deeply offended by his comments over many years, maybe it was long overdue.
As you note, Vonage is a (relatively) big player and therefore the biggest target for Verizon. Why wouldn't the 2 alternatives you mention, whose offerings seem very much like Vonage's, be soon driven from the business?
My experience with Vonage, about 2 years, has been good. Call quality is very good and availability seems more a question of my ISP than Vonage. I keep a POTS 2nd line but I use Vonage (and an out-of-state business number) for all long distance. The main advantage over Skype is the ability to use regular phones, so you don't have to keep a computer going, buy a special phone, or drag the laptop around the house just to use the telephone. Their no-extra-cost voicemail and caller ID are nice and their call forwarding (to my cell when away from home) is actually very useful.
No wonder Verizon (nee NYNEX) wants them gone - most of the baby Bells have been losers in the competitive market. I did some quick research this morning and I don't think there is an attractive alternative if Vonage is forced to close. (*I don't know nothin' 'bout birthin' Asterisk*). Also, it will probably be tricky to transfer telephone numbers. Any opinions on options?
My experience with NO has been positive. I used OO.o with X for about 9 months on a dual-core Macbook (and many years on linux). I loaded NeoOffice to use the mac remote for a presentation. It does seem a little slower but it is very usable. I like the ability to switch between apps with the apple-tab (can't do that with OO+X). It was absolutely solid for preparing and presenting a 3 hour lecture with 160 slides, including many data tables, figures, some ppt imports, and some animation. I think I'll stick with NO instead of going back to OO.
Oh no they wouldn't! Or at least they shouldn't. They should say: "The Data Are As They Are."
But seriously, how could data ever constitute a theory?
and also kinda nice.
Law is opinion. When your opinion is shared by the judge, then you win you case. MS was found guilty of a whole slew of anti-comptetitive practices.
There's no ignorance that a little research won't cure. Here's a start: summary of anti-trust suits and objection to the settlement.
No? Even when one candidate is practically incoherent? Sure, expectations are low with Bush, but those performances had to shake the confidence of even the most inveterate Republican voter. In normal circumstances, a debate between candidates with more comparable levels of ability, I would be more inclined to agree with you. In this case, the doubts about Bush's ability to think were met with a spectacular and scary confirmation.
Kerry whipped Bush in the first 2 debates. Bush looked pitiful in the first. Honestly, he was so bad that you had to feel a little sorry for him. The second was also a clear Kerry win. The third was close - a toss up or even a narrow Bush win. But by any measure, Kerry gave anyone who was paying attention plenty of good reasons to vote for him.