Re:I am sure I am not the only one bothered by thi
on
Human-Mouse Hybrids?
·
· Score: 2
What about Mouse life??
i agree with you... but it is society at large that decides that the lives of mice may be forfeited for the betterment of the human condition and of life in general. but i understand your sentiments and can say that a strong focus of science research these days is moving away from animal models to animal cell lines (where possible). we just aren't ready *yet* to move away entirely... i will rejoice the day that we can do detailed simulations on some beowulf cluster, though i fear that day is decades away.
i heartily agree with you that humans are far too selfish about their humanity and the divine rights that humanity seems to bestow upon itself. i'm quite sure that humans are going to fuck up this planet, simply because we are *so* greedy and just don't know when to quit.
i know all about monsanto and their GM seed crops that don't reproduce past 1 generation. the fact they were allowed to get away with that is your *government's* fault. science conducted behind close doors for purely economic gain is where the capitalist system breaks down the worst IMHO.
all science knowledge should be public, and unpatentable, forever.
as for experimenting upon ourselves, we do! usually only for demo type purposes though... the human genome published by celera was from their CSO, craig venter.
Evolution produces only things that work because it has the patience and method to sift through options as numerous as all the organisms that have lived.
you don't really understand evolution, do you? evolution works *damn slowly*, my friend, and is random and clumsy besides. it just has the numbers and the *time*.
as for making things that work, evolution also brought you the bubonic plague, tuberculosis, cholera, malaria, smallpox, polio, ebola, i could go on... half of these no longer exist in the western world, thanks to science. not to mention the doubling of life expectancy in the past few centuries thanks to things like antibiotics and antiseptis and various other more esoteric medical marvels. you will likely live an extra 40 years than your great great great grandfather thanks to science.
The most compassionate thing you (scientists) can do for the human race (and all of the living kingdom, for that matter) is to stop fucking with the laws that brought you here.
evolution is not a "law", it is a lottery. noone is trying to subvert evolution, it will always be operating upon us. we can however, improve the human condition and the quality of life for all.
the most compassionate thing we can do is prioritise the preservation of life and the balance of living things above such petty things as money, material wealth, and geographical and racial boundaries.
Re:I am sure I am not the only one bothered by thi
on
Human-Mouse Hybrids?
·
· Score: 2
"you should have more faith in us to do what is right" Are you kidding? The Nazi's said the same line.
actually, the scientists/doctors that experimented on jews during the war were under duress by hitler's government to the tune of "you will be shot unless..."
agent orange was a derivative of a class of chemicals used for pest control. a *government* decided to use it for military reasons.
the lack of proper human trials could have avoided the repercussions of thalidomide.
diet pill addicts? huh? that's a social problem of personal image and the fast-food lifestyle.
I agree with you that articles like this always make them as sensational and outrageous as possible, but to suggest that "we" are supposed to trust "you" is as arrogant as it is naive.
idealist perhaps... but what is wrong with idealism? the willingness of people to expouse uneducated opinion as pseudo-fact (about 90% of/. these days) astounds me constantly. sometimes all one can do sometimes is to appeal to one's fellow wo/man that science operates for the greater good. these days, the engendering of public support to do anything (invade country for oil) needs an ad campaign (president bush) backed by a legion of spin doctors (mainstream US press).
There are a large number of scientists that strongly disagree with this type of research.
not as many as you may think, and from experience, they are almost always pushing some religious agenda.
For the record, I'm an atheist, and someone that has been fascinated and in love with the scientific process since I was a child. This isn't an anti-science rant, it's a humanist response to what is a stunningly uneducated comment, IMHO. I'm not talking about education as in your degree, which you seem to feel the need to mention, but in common sense education.
you should sign up for a part-time science degree!
you didn't pick up on the liberal use of cynicism?? i know how the damn system works, and it shits me that the same level of public rigour doesn't apply to issues that are far less encumbered by layers of scientific complexity.
the problem with our cathode-ray-fed society is that most people are either stupid or lazy and don't care about anything until it affects them.
Re:I am sure I am not the only one bothered by thi
on
Human-Mouse Hybrids?
·
· Score: 1
He's probably trying to boycott something.
yeah, capitalism.;-)
Re:I am sure I am not the only one bothered by thi
on
Human-Mouse Hybrids?
·
· Score: 5, Interesting
...what we should be working on
as a PhD-level biochemist/molecular biologist, i can tell you that seemingly pointless experiments such as these provide the necessary knowledge, or building blocks if you will, for us to understand the very complex process of growth and development. it's impossible to know to fix things if you don't know how they work and why they're broken.
you, the public, should know that any form of experimentation on any living thing with a backbone and a nervous system is *highly* regulated, as in many forms to fill out, a review committee, certification of the researcher following compulsory courses, etc.
it is unfortunate that the mainstream press *always* focus on the "freakish" aspect of science research, and not the "big picture". the bottom line is that in order for us to tackle the "big" issues in science and medicine, we need to experiment on living things. full stop, underline. of course i agree that there is an ethical aspect to certain areas of research that should not be neglected, but right now the ethical bar is being set way too low because of uninformed, negative spin on the part of the press.
we have been "genetically engineering" bacteria for over 20 years with no complaints nor public profile, and that research has directly and indirectly contributed immensely to various gene therapies and diagnostics, and to the mechanisms of viral and bacterial disease. the second that genetic engineering (improvement) of foodstuffs is mentioned, bang! alarm bells! when in fact, the bacterial and viral genetic engineering of the past 2 decades has posed a far greater risk of something going "wrong" or of some malevolent person engineering a super-ebola with a one week latency period (in which case we'd all be fucked big time). genetic engineering of food has the potential to solve or at least lessen the ongoing starvation of millions (while we continue to worry about whether we should upgrade to the latest video card...).
now take stem cell research. so what, stem cells. science operating the way it does, the vast majority of stem cells come from people who've died and/or aborted foetuses, not living creatures or "stem cell factories". i know, sounds icky, but stem cells are hugely important in terms of their scientific value and potential outcomes to mankind. and let's face it, once dead, a person's bone marrow is of no use to anyone else, right?
what society needs is some perspective. bush and gov can spin the ensuing iraq invasion in such a manner that many americans think it's kindof OK to *invade* a country and kill thousands of people for the sole reason that bush doesn't like their leader. if thousands of lives of living, breathing people can be wasted for oil, then why should we not make use of those passed away by natural causes to help the living? you.. your sister... your mother... your neighbour...
to be a scientist is to revere life and the process of living above all else. you should have more faith in us to do what is right. better yet, inform yourself about the issue or ask a friendly neighbourhood science pal and thrash out the real issues.
yeah, my definition of "type" in the context used was pretty vague i guess. image and audio file formats (and almost anything for which high compression is an implicit goal) are pretty much moving targets all of the time, so i'll suitably exclude them from my intended meaning;-)
in the office arena though, it'd be nice to have everyone play nice over a single, standardised file format or XML schema, and then compete on application implementation.
but sure, i basically agree, though if you abstract your definition of "file formats" to mean "information formats" then there's quite a few standard file formats around: htmlbrowsers, httphttp clients, smtpemail clients, etc
memento -- it *was* him -- guy pierce's character was the one who killed his wife. we find this out only at the very end (chronological start) of the movie. he then proceeds to invent a murderer to give himself something to do for the rest of his life.
i think the best we can hope for is for from MS is a not too perversely convoluted XML file format. en lieu of an existing standard XML schema for office documents (that MS is willing to adopt), the ensuing MS word XML format will become the de facto standard, whether anyone likes it or not.
once this figurative pig has flown we should place our faith in some inspired individual or company to embrace the MS "standard", deconvolute and extend it, and submit it to the ISO.
i find it hard to believe that MS will go about implementing filters for other, virtually unheard-of word processor file formats. besides, it is better i think to have a single file format for any given file "type" and then to have many competing implementations of the application which uses it, aux HTML and browsers.
i too thoroughly recommend the logitech Z-560's. i bought some 2 days ago and am thrilled. prior to my purchase i'd spent days combing the net for reviews of computers speakers in your price range, and the praise for the quality and value of these speakers is universally glowing.
perhaps the best review i can direct you to is this one - a comparison of 13 4.1/5.1 systems around your price range. it really helped me.
as long as the emitted "natural voice" didn't "speak" with an american accent and employ such grammatical travesties as "most everyone" instead of "almost everyone", "already" used in the present tense, "write me" instead of "write to me", etc..
antibiotics were one of the most significant advancements of the 20th century. i studied the genetic mechanisms of the tranferral of bacterial antibiotic resistence as part of my postgrad and can add a few comments.
it's true that the overuse of antibiotics as placebos is a part of the problem, but what the article fails to mention is that not taking an entire prescription, or taking tablets irregularly, can be just as bad or worse. in these cases, because the full dosage/regimen is not followed, bugs get to "acclimatise" to a much lower dosage of the drug, which aids the evolution of resistance genes.
bacteria have a pretty damn nifty mechanism ("integrons") by which they can transfer genes encoding antibacterial resistance (amongst other things) to other bacteria. this, combined with the high rate of genetic evolution in bacteria, and the improper use of antibiotics, allows bacteria to develop resistance to new antibiotics very rapidly.
the moral of the story: don't ask for or take antibiotics unless you're really sick! you have an extremely efficient and adaptive immune system which works better the more it's used, so use it! and don't forget than big pharma companies *want* you to take antibiotics, and *want* doctors to prescribe them, even for stupid people with the flu (a virus).
If you are a refugee from say, Afghanistan, and you arrive on Australian shores in a beat up boat with hundreds of others, expect to be placed in a detention centre - situated in the beautiful desert of Woomera, which was an area used for nuclear bomb testing and military practice in the 1950s....by the US military, incidentally. thanks for that.
What are you talking about? The USSR invaded countries that tried to implement a political system that it didn't like.
huh? the US is just about to invade a country whose political system it doesn't like.
you europeans are not alone in thinking that the present US administration is bordering on tyranny - many/most australians feel the same way. it is scary when any country says publically that it is prepared to ignore the United Nations.
you have some incredibly ignorant, right-wing views, my friend. i suggest travelling outside the US and reading some books instead of swallowing CNN and US propaganda.
i lived in denmark for 6 months - it describes itself as a "socialist democracy", which could be best paraphrased as "we look after the people first". seriously, you do not see the poverty and crummy state of civil infrastructure that are commonplace in certain parts of the states, you just don't. everyone has automatic access to health care, noone starves on the streets, violent crime is incredibly low. how is that bad?
the US spends more money on defense than the next 9 in the top ten list combined. i would think that equitable access to healthcare is more important than having the most bombs, wouldn't you agree?
# Debian is impossible for stupid people to use. This dramatically increases the ratio of smart people to stupid people on the newsgroups.
well that's patently untrue. i have to work with stupid people who use debian.
in my experience, the debian demographic is most strongly represented by 2 idiotypes: those who are in the older bracket who know their shit but are totally elitist about it, and those in their teens or early twenties who think they know it all and who really cut their teeth on redhat or mandrake and switched because of religious indoctrination. both groups cling to towing the debian line with a religious fervour rarely seen outside the middle east.
just get the fucking job done ffs. use whatever you find easiest. please don't give us the "debian is better" line because i've had to use both mandrake and debian, as servers, side-by-side for several years and there is ***no*** difference in stability. debian just takes (much) longer to install.
I think the reason people aren't getting excited about Parrot is that it hasn't had any significant progress.
not true. a recent post to perlmonks and to slashdot announced that parrot is currently able to parse and run a large subset of perl6, as well as a subset of python, ruby, and can also do some interpretation of java.class files. this is hardly 'insignificant' progress...
But Perl, for instance, considers "12" and 12 to be pretty much equivalent.
that's also untrue -- in perl5, one could be forgiven for thinking that there is no semantic difference between strings and numbers, though there is, it's just hidden beneath a layer of DWIM-ery (do what i mean).
in perl6/parrot however, there are discete types for strings, numbers, booleans, floats, named object types, etc. perl6 also has a declarative syntax to indicate type, eg:
my int $expected_release = 2003;
my str $lang_name = "perl6";
hypothesise( $lang_name, $expected_release );
sub hypothesise ( str $lang, int $year ) {
print "$lang is expected to be out in $year";
}
so, ruby, python, and perl6 will not be so different after all, and your concerns about their interaction on type semantics grounds, are unfounded.
IMO, parrot is an excellent concept, and its execution is coming along just fine, albeit not as fast as it could be. but good things take time.
a language agnostic runtime for dynamic languages is a *fantastic idea* and benefits everyone who uses those languages.
everything these days is gravitating towards higher and higher levels of abstraction these days; in the case of languages, it's in the form of virtual machines/runtimes. who wants the individually brilliant scripting languages to languish in fractured and bickering ego-groups against the.net and java (marketing) onslaught?
this is big news folks... isolating a particular type of stem cell is approaching the level of finding a holy grail. while differentiation, the process by which stem cells (which can become theoretically any type of cell) actually become a differentiated cell-type (eg a muscle cell, or an adipocyte, a fat cell) is poorly understood, isolating (and then being able to maintain and grow) a neural stem cell line is a big step (well, it was when i was doing my undergrad circa 5 years ago..).
not true. check out some spec scores... "real" workstations (where "real" often just means "real expensive") only become truly faster once you're spending *big* money. a cluster of PCs these days will outperform anything, $ for $, on any CPU-intensive task, and IMHO, are The Way To Go.
empirically, we have low-end (dual) IBM p620's and p660's, and for our (CPU-intensive) applications, they are slower than most of my teams' desktops, whilst managing to be over an order of magnitude more expensive per unit.
actually no, the parent post wasn't correct... the correct verb is to garnishee one's wages, referring to the legal diversion of (some of) one's paycheck as recompense for a default in due payment to a debtor.
i haven't seen the book around my regular sydney bookshop, but then i generally tend to linger in the ora section... but i will certainly seek this one out.
to those who would say that perl is useless and unmaintainable beyond your basic 2K-line shopping cart application - i have 125K-lines of OO mod_perl app (not counting any CPAN modules!) which would argue otherwise. i would say that this app is *more* maintainable than its java equivalent by virtue of the fact that perl is so much more expressive (and therefore easy to grok) than java (which is exceedingly verbose and clumsy IMHO). and while the running footprint for this app is large (~25meg/process), it does a hell of work and request/response times are still very good (though i would kill to be able to dynamically unload large, rarely-used modules in perl as easy as it is to dynamically load them).
Slashdot Mirror
What about Mouse life??
i agree with you... but it is society at large that decides that the lives of mice may be forfeited for the betterment of the human condition and of life in general. but i understand your sentiments and can say that a strong focus of science research these days is moving away from animal models to animal cell lines (where possible). we just aren't ready *yet* to move away entirely... i will rejoice the day that we can do detailed simulations on some beowulf cluster, though i fear that day is decades away.
i heartily agree with you that humans are far too selfish about their humanity and the divine rights that humanity seems to bestow upon itself.
i'm quite sure that humans are going to fuck up this planet, simply because we are *so* greedy and just don't know when to quit.
i know all about monsanto and their GM seed crops that don't reproduce past 1 generation. the fact they were allowed to get away with that is your *government's* fault. science conducted behind close doors for purely economic gain is where the capitalist system breaks down the worst IMHO.
all science knowledge should be public, and unpatentable, forever.
as for experimenting upon ourselves, we do! usually only for demo type purposes though... the human genome published by celera was from their CSO, craig venter.
cheers, matt
Evolution produces only things that work because it has the patience and method to sift through options as numerous as all the organisms that have lived.
you don't really understand evolution, do you? evolution works *damn slowly*, my friend, and is random and clumsy besides. it just has the numbers and the *time*.
as for making things that work, evolution also brought you the bubonic plague, tuberculosis, cholera, malaria, smallpox, polio, ebola, i could go on... half of these no longer exist in the western world, thanks to science. not to mention the doubling of life expectancy in the past few centuries thanks to things like antibiotics and antiseptis and various other more esoteric medical marvels. you will likely live an extra 40 years than your great great great grandfather thanks to science.
The most compassionate thing you (scientists) can do for the human race (and all of the living kingdom, for that matter) is to stop fucking with the laws that brought you here.
evolution is not a "law", it is a lottery. noone is trying to subvert evolution, it will always be operating upon us. we can however, improve the human condition and the quality of life for all.
the most compassionate thing we can do is prioritise the preservation of life and the balance of living things above such petty things as money, material wealth, and geographical and racial boundaries.
actually, the scientists/doctors that experimented on jews during the war were under duress by hitler's government to the tune of "you will be shot unless..."
agent orange was a derivative of a class of chemicals used for pest control. a *government* decided to use it for military reasons.
the lack of proper human trials could have avoided the repercussions of thalidomide.
diet pill addicts? huh? that's a social problem of personal image and the fast-food lifestyle.
idealist perhaps... but what is wrong with idealism? the willingness of people to expouse uneducated opinion as pseudo-fact (about 90% of
these days, the engendering of public support to do anything (invade country for oil) needs an ad campaign (president bush) backed by a legion of spin doctors (mainstream US press).
not as many as you may think, and from experience, they are almost always pushing some religious agenda.
For the record, I'm an atheist, and someone that has been fascinated and in love with the scientific process since I was a child. This isn't an anti-science rant, it's a humanist response to what is a stunningly uneducated comment, IMHO. I'm not talking about education as in your degree, which you seem to feel the need to mention, but in common sense education.
you should sign up for a part-time science degree!
you didn't pick up on the liberal use of cynicism?? i know how the damn system works, and it shits me that the same level of public rigour doesn't apply to issues that are far less encumbered by layers of scientific complexity.
the problem with our cathode-ray-fed society is that most people are either stupid or lazy and don't care about anything until it affects them.
He's probably trying to boycott something.
;-)
yeah, capitalism.
...what we should be working on
as a PhD-level biochemist/molecular biologist, i can tell you that seemingly pointless experiments such as these provide the necessary knowledge, or building blocks if you will, for us to understand the very complex process of growth and development. it's impossible to know to fix things if you don't know how they work and why they're broken.
you, the public, should know that any form of experimentation on any living thing with a backbone and a nervous system is *highly* regulated, as in many forms to fill out, a review committee, certification of the researcher following compulsory courses, etc.
it is unfortunate that the mainstream press *always* focus on the "freakish" aspect of science research, and not the "big picture". the bottom line is that in order for us to tackle the "big" issues in science and medicine, we need to experiment on living things. full stop, underline. of course i agree that there is an ethical aspect to certain areas of research that should not be neglected, but right now the ethical bar is being set way too low because of uninformed, negative spin on the part of the press.
we have been "genetically engineering" bacteria for over 20 years with no complaints nor public profile, and that research has directly and indirectly contributed immensely to various gene therapies and diagnostics, and to the mechanisms of viral and bacterial disease. the second that genetic engineering (improvement) of foodstuffs is mentioned, bang! alarm bells! when in fact, the bacterial and viral genetic engineering of the past 2 decades has posed a far greater risk of something going "wrong" or of some malevolent person engineering a super-ebola with a one week latency period (in which case we'd all be fucked big time). genetic engineering of food has the potential to solve or at least lessen the ongoing starvation of millions (while we continue to worry about whether we should upgrade to the latest video card...).
now take stem cell research. so what, stem cells. science operating the way it does, the vast majority of stem cells come from people who've died and/or aborted foetuses, not living creatures or "stem cell factories". i know, sounds icky, but stem cells are hugely important in terms of their scientific value and potential outcomes to mankind. and let's face it, once dead, a person's bone marrow is of no use to anyone else, right?
what society needs is some perspective. bush and gov can spin the ensuing iraq invasion in such a manner that many americans think it's kindof OK to *invade* a country and kill thousands of people for the sole reason that bush doesn't like their leader. if thousands of lives of living, breathing people can be wasted for oil, then why should we not make use of those passed away by natural causes to help the living? you.. your sister... your mother... your neighbour...
to be a scientist is to revere life and the process of living above all else. you should have more faith in us to do what is right. better yet, inform yourself about the issue or ask a friendly neighbourhood science pal and thrash out the real issues.
obviously, this is an issue close to my heart...
grrr lameness filter
yeah, my definition of "type" in the context used was pretty vague i guess. image and audio file formats (and almost anything for which high compression is an implicit goal) are pretty much moving targets all of the time, so i'll suitably exclude them from my intended meaning
in the office arena though, it'd be nice to have everyone play nice over a single, standardised file format or XML schema, and then compete on application implementation.
but sure, i basically agree, though if you abstract your definition of "file formats" to mean "information formats" then there's quite a few standard file formats around: htmlbrowsers, httphttp clients, smtpemail clients, etc
cheers, matt
memento -- it *was* him -- guy pierce's character was the one who killed his wife. we find this out only at the very end (chronological start) of the movie. he then proceeds to invent a murderer to give himself something to do for the rest of his life.
actually, without the hint it could several others: memento, fight club, ...
oh come on, that's easy without the hint. the usual suspects.
i think the best we can hope for is for from MS is a not too perversely convoluted XML file format. en lieu of an existing standard XML schema for office documents (that MS is willing to adopt), the ensuing MS word XML format will become the de facto standard, whether anyone likes it or not.
once this figurative pig has flown we should place our faith in some inspired individual or company to embrace the MS "standard", deconvolute and extend it, and submit it to the ISO.
i find it hard to believe that MS will go about implementing filters for other, virtually unheard-of word processor file formats. besides, it is better i think to have a single file format for any given file "type" and then to have many competing implementations of the application which uses it, aux HTML and browsers.
i too thoroughly recommend the logitech Z-560's. i bought some 2 days ago and am thrilled. prior to my purchase i'd spent days combing the net for reviews of computers speakers in your price range, and the praise for the quality and value of these speakers is universally glowing.
perhaps the best review i can direct you to is this one - a comparison of 13 4.1/5.1 systems around your price range. it really helped me.
cheers from oz
as long as the emitted "natural voice" didn't "speak" with an american accent and employ such grammatical travesties as "most everyone" instead of "almost everyone", "already" used in the present tense, "write me" instead of "write to me", etc..
correct.
antibiotics were one of the most significant advancements of the 20th century. i studied the genetic mechanisms of the tranferral of bacterial antibiotic resistence as part of my postgrad and can add a few comments.
it's true that the overuse of antibiotics as placebos is a part of the problem, but what the article fails to mention is that not taking an entire prescription, or taking tablets irregularly, can be just as bad or worse. in these cases, because the full dosage/regimen is not followed, bugs get to "acclimatise" to a much lower dosage of the drug, which aids the evolution of resistance genes.
bacteria have a pretty damn nifty mechanism ("integrons") by which they can transfer genes encoding antibacterial resistance (amongst other things) to other bacteria. this, combined with the high rate of genetic evolution in bacteria, and the improper use of antibiotics, allows bacteria to develop resistance to new antibiotics very rapidly.
the moral of the story: don't ask for or take antibiotics unless you're really sick! you have an extremely efficient and adaptive immune system which works better the more it's used, so use it! and don't forget than big pharma companies *want* you to take antibiotics, and *want* doctors to prescribe them, even for stupid people with the flu (a virus).
matt
If you are a refugee from say, Afghanistan, and you arrive on Australian shores in a beat up boat with hundreds of others, expect to be placed in a detention centre - situated in the beautiful desert of Woomera, which was an area used for nuclear bomb testing and military practice in the 1950s. ...by the US military, incidentally. thanks for that.
the Hurd workaround to 1Gb ext2 partitions: a 1 gig partition for each of / and /usr, and a 78gig fat32 partition for data.
huh? the US is just about to invade a country whose political system it doesn't like.
you europeans are not alone in thinking that the present US administration is bordering on tyranny - many/most australians feel the same way. it is scary when any country says publically that it is prepared to ignore the United Nations.
my AU$0.02
you have some incredibly ignorant, right-wing views, my friend. i suggest travelling outside the US and reading some books instead of swallowing CNN and US propaganda.
i lived in denmark for 6 months - it describes itself as a "socialist democracy", which could be best paraphrased as "we look after the people first". seriously, you do not see the poverty and crummy state of civil infrastructure that are commonplace in certain parts of the states, you just don't. everyone has automatic access to health care, noone starves on the streets, violent crime is incredibly low. how is that bad?
the US spends more money on defense than the next 9 in the top ten list combined. i would think that equitable access to healthcare is more important than having the most bombs, wouldn't you agree?
well that's patently untrue. i have to work with stupid people who use debian.
in my experience, the debian demographic is most strongly represented by 2 idiotypes: those who are in the older bracket who know their shit but are totally elitist about it, and those in their teens or early twenties who think they know it all and who really cut their teeth on redhat or mandrake and switched because of religious indoctrination. both groups cling to towing the debian line with a religious fervour rarely seen outside the middle east.
just get the fucking job done ffs. use whatever you find easiest. please don't give us the "debian is better" line because i've had to use both mandrake and debian, as servers, side-by-side for several years and there is ***no*** difference in stability. debian just takes (much) longer to install.
not true. a recent post to perlmonks and to slashdot announced that parrot is currently able to parse and run a large subset of perl6, as well as a subset of python, ruby, and can also do some interpretation of java
that's also untrue -- in perl5, one could be forgiven for thinking that there is no semantic difference between strings and numbers, though there is, it's just hidden beneath a layer of DWIM-ery (do what i mean).
in perl6/parrot however, there are discete types for strings, numbers, booleans, floats, named object types, etc. perl6 also has a declarative syntax to indicate type, eg:
my int $expected_release = 2003;
my str $lang_name = "perl6";
hypothesise( $lang_name, $expected_release );
sub hypothesise ( str $lang, int $year ) {
print "$lang is expected to be out in $year";
}
so, ruby, python, and perl6 will not be so different after all, and your concerns about their interaction on type semantics grounds, are unfounded.
IMO, parrot is an excellent concept, and its execution is coming along just fine, albeit not as fast as it could be. but good things take time.
a language agnostic runtime for dynamic languages is a *fantastic idea* and benefits everyone who uses those languages.
everything these days is gravitating towards higher and higher levels of abstraction these days; in the case of languages, it's in the form of virtual machines/runtimes. who wants the individually brilliant scripting languages to languish in fractured and bickering ego-groups against the
...that human beings broke the 640Kb memory barrier...
hopefully, you'll someday be able to pick up 2x256Mb BRIMMs (BRain-Inserted Memory Modules) to increase your small and outdated BRAM (BRAin Memory).
this is big news folks... isolating a particular type of stem cell is approaching the level of finding a holy grail. while differentiation, the process by which stem cells (which can become theoretically any type of cell) actually become a differentiated cell-type (eg a muscle cell, or an adipocyte, a fat cell) is poorly understood, isolating (and then being able to maintain and grow) a neural stem cell line is a big step (well, it was when i was doing my undergrad circa 5 years ago..).
go the green and gold.
not true. check out some spec scores... "real" workstations (where "real" often just means "real expensive") only become truly faster once you're spending *big* money. a cluster of PCs these days will outperform anything, $ for $, on any CPU-intensive task, and IMHO, are The Way To Go.
empirically, we have low-end (dual) IBM p620's and p660's, and for our (CPU-intensive) applications, they are slower than most of my teams' desktops, whilst managing to be over an order of magnitude more expensive per unit.
matt
actually no, the parent post wasn't correct... the correct verb is to garnishee one's wages, referring to the legal diversion of (some of) one's paycheck as recompense for a default in due payment to a debtor.
i haven't seen the book around my regular sydney bookshop, but then i generally tend to linger in the ora section... but i will certainly seek this one out.
to those who would say that perl is useless and unmaintainable beyond your basic 2K-line shopping cart application - i have 125K-lines of OO mod_perl app (not counting any CPAN modules!) which would argue otherwise. i would say that this app is *more* maintainable than its java equivalent by virtue of the fact that perl is so much more expressive (and therefore easy to grok) than java (which is exceedingly verbose and clumsy IMHO). and while the running footprint for this app is large (~25meg/process), it does a hell of work and request/response times are still very good (though i would kill to be able to dynamically unload large, rarely-used modules in perl as easy as it is to dynamically load them).
matt