Once you start down the path to genetic augmentation where does it stop?
Why should it stop? Genetic changes are not necessairily 'better', just different. Many scifi writers envision many variations on the human species, all suited for different environments and tasks.
Can you stop before you lose your humanity?
Depends on what you mean by 'humanity'. When do we stop being compassionate, caring individuals? I'd say that has nothing to do with the particular set of genes that the human species carries. Check the current headlines for an example of a person most people regard as having little 'humanity'. If there are alien species out there, its probably not unlikely that they can act with as little or as much 'humanity' as we do.
If you are refering strictly to a genetic definition of 'human', why does it matter? Maybe some drastic changes from the normal humanoid form will get people to rethink their species-bias (that is, the belief that all humans, even the lowest imbecil are superior to all other animals, simply by virtue of being 'human'). That would be a good thing.
I would even bet that you could get away in many cases without having to increase the power since the drag would be so distributed it wouldn't be measurable.
Or, if it does cause a problem, and the temperature in the building is always 5-10 degrees too high where the programmers cubicles are, you can just do what our building manager does... Nothing.
Interesting idea, and probably not that hard to integrate into modern OO programming languages. The code for the search operation could be built into a class for handling the data. Different kinds of data objects could override the search code if necessary.
The transmitter and receiver part is actually pretty cool, the problem is the ultra-crappy video camera that comes hardwired to the transmitter. One of my 'someday' projects is to cut off the crappy camera and plug in a good one, then see how well it works.
If they put up advertisments with the murky, green hued video that actually comes out of those cameras, no one would buy them.
Note that they have a nice XML interface for writing your own utilities too.
I wrote a program that scans my file library every few days and notifies me of files which have poor ratings, so I can stop sharing them. This is a feature that should be in all P2P clients, IMO, to help keep bad content off the network.
This is obviously a design flaw in the system. Rather than worry so much about having leap seconds to keep the two values semi-syncronized, we should concentrate on putting the moon into an orbit that solves the problem.
Thats what Bitzi is for. Don't download big files without checking what other people have to say about them. And don't give files negative ratings because the metadata (ie, filename) is wrong.
I had one like that. You had to match up three pictures from various pages of the manual. I just copied the bitmaps out of the resource file and set up a program to display the approprate sequence for each page. Much easier than digging up that silly manual all the time.
Are any products using USB dongles yet? Seems like dongles would be a little more popular with USB, since you don't have to worry about passthrough connections.
Re:Bogus Unsubscribe addresses...
on
FTC vs Spammers
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· Score: 4, Funny
It seems that the usual method is to take a master list or lists and generate new lists from it. Any requrest to be taken off 'the mailing list' are honored by removing the names not from the master list, but from the generated list (if it wasn't simply deleted). As a bonus the address identified in the remove request can be marked as 'known live' so that the spammer can make new lists of 'known live' address to sell to other spammers.
Legislation on remove requests is just stupid, there are too many ways around it. Better legislation would simply require that all penis enlargment messages be flagged as such in the headers so users could filter it, with stiff penalties for violators.
Re:Obligatory Bayesian Filtering Plug
on
FTC vs Spammers
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· Score: 1
I'll vote for it. I'm also using POPFile, and even with the low volume of mail I receive it runs around 95% accuracy.
I'd be suprised if anyone writing this has even the slightest idea what NAT or a proxy is, and didn't realize that the wording of this law could be applied to them.
It seems that one could argue that your service provider is providing access for one and only one device, the NAT box. You are not hiding the source of communications from the outside world, the source is clearly marked as the NAT box, the only device for which your service provider is providing service. Anything going to your service provider is understood to come from you or someone you have authorized to use your residential connection.
It doesn't matter what happens to the data once it passes the demark point, any more than it matters how many or where the telephone extensions in your house are located.
If packets start coming out of your NAT box with spoofed source addresses, then it is apparent that you are attempting to hide the source.
I think that if this were to ever go to court the judge would less concerned about how many computers you have in your closet and more concerned about why you are letting terrorist use them.
I commented in the last story that someone ought to get students on campus to put up apache with the directory browsing thing turned on, then have them submit their page to google with some kind of identifiable keyword. Then they could use google as their mp3 search engine.
killing the servers isn't much of a deterrent - the worst that usually happens is loss of the ISP account or connection
It occured to me the other day that this is kind of a battle. The technology is tending toward systems like freenet, where the person receiving the data cannot know where the data originated. Eventually they're going to have to either change copyright laws, or make it illegal to run file sharing software without DRM hooks.
I wonder If we'll start seeing an increase in the popularity of free music in parallel to the increasing popularity of free software?
It sounds like they're saying the angular velocity will increase if the rotation is frictionless.
Yup, thats what they said.
Why won't this phenomenon cancel out at equilibrium amount of friction and keep the object spinning at constant angular momentum forever?
They didn't say it wouldn't. Presumably that is what would happen.
I[t] should also accelerate an object with a small amount of friction but at a slower rate than a frictionless object.
Yup. In their experiment the wire supporting the sphere was applying a counter-torque, it was just small enough that the new force was able to overcome it. By calculating the amount of torque generated by the wire after the number of revolutions made by the ball, they would have the static force generated.
In any case, we're talking about building a perpetual motion machine here and throwing the first law of thermodymics out the window.
Not likely. The kenetic energy of the rotation is probably balanced by a reduction in the net charge on the object. What they've got is basicly a really, really weak electric motor. A charged object in free fall would probably increase its angular momentum until it didn't have any charge left (then gravitational effects would probably eventually bleed all that energy back off again).
What I wonder is if its reversable, so rotation can be converted into a charge on the object.
I, like most people, am interested in sampling music. I download it, sample it, and if I like it, I keep it. If I could pay a buck or three to download non-DRM albums from the copyright holder, I would, happily. I will not, under any circumstances, pay 15 bux for 30-74 minutes of music.
I have no ethical problems with this. Its a boycott without the inconveinance of not having the product.
I have not purchased a new CD in 5 years. I have many CDs of music friends have given me (compilations mostly, which is still legal, AFAIK), an I have many I have picked up second-hand. Perhaps 10-15% of my collection of 2500 songs was downloaded from p2p services, the rest I ripped from legally obtained sources.
I might feel a pang of guilt if my collection was mostly illegal.
I was thinking the same way, however, T cells have a limited lifetime, so any problems they might cause in the body should be limited in scope, presuming they are set up so the don't attack something really critical.
been there, done that. Got lost in a town with a population of 1000. Uh, was I supposed to turn left or right. Wait, where am I going?... Where am I? Damn that pizza smells good...
They also told about the results they got running through things like tires, computers and refregerators. Obviously they get less oil and more carbon, but its not just limited to organic waste.
Several people have pointed out that there will still be a net fuel loss. Well, duh. Its waste into raw materials and fuel, not a perpetual motion machine.
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Once you start down the path to genetic augmentation where does it stop?
Why should it stop? Genetic changes are not necessairily 'better', just different. Many scifi writers envision many variations on the human species, all suited for different environments and tasks.
Can you stop before you lose your humanity?
Depends on what you mean by 'humanity'. When do we stop being compassionate, caring individuals? I'd say that has nothing to do with the particular set of genes that the human species carries. Check the current headlines for an example of a person most people regard as having little 'humanity'. If there are alien species out there, its probably not unlikely that they can act with as little or as much 'humanity' as we do.
If you are refering strictly to a genetic definition of 'human', why does it matter? Maybe some drastic changes from the normal humanoid form will get people to rethink their species-bias (that is, the belief that all humans, even the lowest imbecil are superior to all other animals, simply by virtue of being 'human'). That would be a good thing.
I would even bet that you could get away in many cases without having to increase the power since the drag would be so distributed it wouldn't be measurable.
Or, if it does cause a problem, and the temperature in the building is always 5-10 degrees too high where the programmers cubicles are, you can just do what our building manager does... Nothing.
Interesting idea, and probably not that hard to integrate into modern OO programming languages. The code for the search operation could be built into a class for handling the data. Different kinds of data objects could override the search code if necessary.
you can have my CRT when you can give me a 19+ inch 2Megapixel LCD for the same price.
My code does not word wrap at 80 characters.
Seems to me that the point of the project isn't to rate your songs, but to find new music you are likely to enjoy.
Actually rating the stuff after you've heard it is up to you.
The transmitter and receiver part is actually pretty cool, the problem is the ultra-crappy video camera that comes hardwired to the transmitter. One of my 'someday' projects is to cut off the crappy camera and plug in a good one, then see how well it works.
If they put up advertisments with the murky, green hued video that actually comes out of those cameras, no one would buy them.
Note that they have a nice XML interface for writing your own utilities too.
I wrote a program that scans my file library every few days and notifies me of files which have poor ratings, so I can stop sharing them. This is a feature that should be in all P2P clients, IMO, to help keep bad content off the network.
This is obviously a design flaw in the system. Rather than worry so much about having leap seconds to keep the two values semi-syncronized, we should concentrate on putting the moon into an orbit that solves the problem.
Thats what Bitzi is for. Don't download big files without checking what other people have to say about them. And don't give files negative ratings because the metadata (ie, filename) is wrong.
everybody involved in the production of the movie has been dead for 70 years.
Oh, that doesn't matter, nothing that is not explicitly placed there goes into public domain anymore, not in the US anyway.
I had one like that. You had to match up three pictures from various pages of the manual. I just copied the bitmaps out of the resource file and set up a program to display the approprate sequence for each page. Much easier than digging up that silly manual all the time.
Are any products using USB dongles yet? Seems like dongles would be a little more popular with USB, since you don't have to worry about passthrough connections.
It seems that the usual method is to take a master list or lists and generate new lists from it. Any requrest to be taken off 'the mailing list' are honored by removing the names not from the master list, but from the generated list (if it wasn't simply deleted). As a bonus the address identified in the remove request can be marked as 'known live' so that the spammer can make new lists of 'known live' address to sell to other spammers.
Legislation on remove requests is just stupid, there are too many ways around it. Better legislation would simply require that all penis enlargment messages be flagged as such in the headers so users could filter it, with stiff penalties for violators.
I'll vote for it. I'm also using POPFile, and even with the low volume of mail I receive it runs around 95% accuracy.
Now from what I've seen, the democrats have neither the coffers, the non-electoral power,
Oh, don't worry about that, they're working hard on giving the president dictatorial powers, it won't be long now.
4. Ignorance.
I'd be suprised if anyone writing this has even the slightest idea what NAT or a proxy is, and didn't realize that the wording of this law could be applied to them.
It seems that one could argue that your service provider is providing access for one and only one device, the NAT box. You are not hiding the source of communications from the outside world, the source is clearly marked as the NAT box, the only device for which your service provider is providing service. Anything going to your service provider is understood to come from you or someone you have authorized to use your residential connection.
It doesn't matter what happens to the data once it passes the demark point, any more than it matters how many or where the telephone extensions in your house are located.
If packets start coming out of your NAT box with spoofed source addresses, then it is apparent that you are attempting to hide the source.
I think that if this were to ever go to court the judge would less concerned about how many computers you have in your closet and more concerned about why you are letting terrorist use them.
Either it's a nuisance call [...] or it involves some sort of identity, whether personal or corporate.
Course, it could be a friend calling you from a pay phone out in the middle of nowhere because his ride broke down.
I don't block any calls, but if I don't get ID information I'm more likely to let voicemail pick it up.
I commented in the last story that someone ought to get students on campus to put up apache with the directory browsing thing turned on, then have them submit their page to google with some kind of identifiable keyword. Then they could use google as their mp3 search engine.
killing the servers isn't much of a deterrent - the worst that usually happens is loss of the ISP account or connection
It occured to me the other day that this is kind of a battle. The technology is tending toward systems like freenet, where the person receiving the data cannot know where the data originated. Eventually they're going to have to either change copyright laws, or make it illegal to run file sharing software without DRM hooks.
I wonder If we'll start seeing an increase in the popularity of free music in parallel to the increasing popularity of free software?
It sounds like they're saying the angular velocity will increase if the rotation is frictionless.
Yup, thats what they said.
Why won't this phenomenon cancel out at equilibrium amount of friction and keep the object spinning at constant angular momentum forever?
They didn't say it wouldn't. Presumably that is what would happen.
I[t] should also accelerate an object with a small amount of friction but at a slower rate than a frictionless object.
Yup. In their experiment the wire supporting the sphere was applying a counter-torque, it was just small enough that the new force was able to overcome it. By calculating the amount of torque generated by the wire after the number of revolutions made by the ball, they would have the static force generated.
In any case, we're talking about building a perpetual motion machine here and throwing the first law of thermodymics out the window.
Not likely. The kenetic energy of the rotation is probably balanced by a reduction in the net charge on the object. What they've got is basicly a really, really weak electric motor. A charged object in free fall would probably increase its angular momentum until it didn't have any charge left (then gravitational effects would probably eventually bleed all that energy back off again).
What I wonder is if its reversable, so rotation can be converted into a charge on the object.
I, like most people, am interested in sampling music. I download it, sample it, and if I like it, I keep it. If I could pay a buck or three to download non-DRM albums from the copyright holder, I would, happily. I will not, under any circumstances, pay 15 bux for 30-74 minutes of music.
I have no ethical problems with this. Its a boycott without the inconveinance of not having the product.
I have not purchased a new CD in 5 years. I have many CDs of music friends have given me (compilations mostly, which is still legal, AFAIK), an I have many I have picked up second-hand. Perhaps 10-15% of my collection of 2500 songs was downloaded from p2p services, the rest I ripped from legally obtained sources.
I might feel a pang of guilt if my collection was mostly illegal.
I was thinking the same way, however, T cells have a limited lifetime, so any problems they might cause in the body should be limited in scope, presuming they are set up so the don't attack something really critical.
The gas produced is expensive to store and transport, according to the article, so it makes the most sense to use it to heat the system.
After seeing all the gas refineries flare off, that doesn't suprise me at all.
been there, done that. Got lost in a town with a population of 1000. Uh, was I supposed to turn left or right. Wait, where am I going? ... Where am I? Damn that pizza smells good...
They also told about the results they got running through things like tires, computers and refregerators. Obviously they get less oil and more carbon, but its not just limited to organic waste.
Several people have pointed out that there will still be a net fuel loss. Well, duh. Its waste into raw materials and fuel, not a perpetual motion machine.