DVD playback works just fine on my Pismo under OS X 10.2. The Pismo is a bronze keyboard 400 MHz G3 powerbook with firewire. Generally the Pismo and the Lombard are lumped together and perform equally well. I jumped from 10.0 to 10.2, so I don't know how 10.1 worked.
Not necessarily. For instance, you could train the network on small sections of Shakespeare (the training set), where the words have been randomized. The network will try to rearrange the words to produce the real work. If you train the network on all 37 plays, you may get a network that can rearrange a totally different set of random words (the testing set) into something similar to the style of Shakespeare. Similarly, you could do the same thing with 1,000 different poets and you might get a machine that rearranges words into poetry, not necessarily in the style of any one poet, but in a way unique to itself. This is the beauty of neural networks (and the bane), choosing the right dataset is critical. The other beauty (and bane) is that no one knows if this is possible for a neural network to actually do.
exactly what I thought. In a sense the poems are just mixing words through breeding (much like you breed dogs to get shiny fur). What it doesn't do is mutate the words, or the way words are chosen, over time which would allow some movement in the "gene pool". As it stands, the poems can never get better than what was initially in the pot to begin with. Training a neural network poem generator would be interesting, but more easily accomplished by training it on a dataset of Norton's Anthology of Poetry. Furthermore, you'd probably get better results.
It could be possible to take an artificial life approach where instead of words in poems shifting, phrase forms (noun, adverb, verb, noun) could shift and the words and the forms get randomly "mutated" over time. Sounds like fun.
AB: What is your current opinion on the need for a primitive reducing atmosphere for pre-biotic life to take hold 3.5 to 3.8 billion years ago?
SM: I have not found an alternative to disprove the need for a primitive reducing atmosphere.
This statement, taken directly from the topic article, shows exactly how defunct Stanley Miller is. There was no reducing atmosphere. 70 years ago Oparin and Urey thought there was. The review article I quoted illuminates the doubt that is currently being shed on the reducing atmosphere theory. A reducing atmosphere contains high energy molecules (NH3 and CH4) that condence with relative ease into stable organic molecules because the start with so much extra energy. An oxidizing atmosphere contains low energy molecules (N2 and CO2) that do nothing chemically!
The work quoted in topic article was completed 50 years ago and was based on the assumption of a primitive reducing atmosphere. Since then Miller has sticked to his guns- all of the work he's done since has similarly been under the assumption of a reducing or nutral atmosphere. In reality, we currently believe that primitive earth actually had an oxidizing atmosphere which is wholely unreactive. Wachterhauser's and Sagan's work is much more up to date with current beliefs. All Miller really means to us now is a spark to get people thinking about prebiotic chemistry (50 years ago)- his individual ideas are dinosaurs.
For more information on Miller and prebiotic Earth, here is a quotation from an Angew. Chem. review article by Kay Severin called Hot Stones or Cold Soup? New Investigations on the Endogenous Origin of Organic Compounds on Earth (Angew. Chem. Int. Ed 2000, 39, No. 20). It pretty much sums up the Miller reactions, why they're wrong, and what people think now:
"The most famous experiment... was carried out almost fifty years ago by Stanley L. Miller, at that time a PhD student in the group of Harold Urey in Chicago. Miller was able to show that electric discharges in an atmosphere of methane, ammonia, hydrogen, and water led to the formation of significant amounts of various amino acids. Experiments of this kind were repeated in numerous variants. If reducing gases were employed mixtures of organic compounds of low molecular weight could be detected in many cases. This has led to the popular idea that the primordial ocean resembled a nutritious soup.
"But the possibility that earth once had a reducing atmosphere is questioned. A well known argument against it is the high photolability of methane and ammonia. Because a shielding layer of ozone was missing a high concentration of these gases is believed to be unlikely. Furthermore, several other results point to a neutral atmosphere of CO2 and N2. Given the fact that the atmosphere was based on an unproductive mixture of CO2 and N2 the nutritional value of the primordial ocean drops significantly.
"An alternative scenario has been propagated for several years by [Gunter] Wachterhauser. Instead of a primordial soup he favors hot minerals as the place where organic molecules were initially built as life subsequently emerged. Especially sulfur-containing minerals like pyrite are proposed to have acted as an energy source and catalyst both under the extreme conditions found in hydrothermal or volcanic vents."
Basically, primordial soup syntheses (like Miller's reactions) are out and hot rock syntheses are in. These hot rock procedures have much much much lower yields, but people are slowly figuring out how to build amino acids through them. For instance, people, headed by Wachterhauser, have figured out how to carbon fixate (condense) carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide into organic building blocks for amino acids. For instance, in early 2000, Chen and Bahnemann were able to convert CO2 and water to small organics (acetaldehyde, ethanol, acetic acid) at high pressures and temperatures. Similarly, people have figured out how to take amino acids and convert them into peptides under high temperature and pressure situations.
However, to date no one has been able to actually make an amino acid through these techniques. As a result, the proof that amino acids were delivered by comets or meteorites (true fact, this is not an x-file) and now space dust, becomes much more appealing. Once the building blocks arrived on Earth, these hot rock syntheses could have taken over.
Recent research suggests that there is an excess of L-amino acids (the specific enantiomer used in life-proteins) found in space, suggesting that the chiral specific process involving circular polarized light (mentioned in the article) could have lead to the amino acids that were found on the Murchison (and other meteorites).
From the article: Recently it has been discovered that an excess of L-amino acids is present in the Murchison and Murray meteorites indicating that a preference for L-amino acids existed in solar system material before there was life on Earth. This supports an idea, first proposed by Rubenstein et al. (1983, Nature 306, 118), for an extraterrestrial origin for homochirality.
In this model the action of circular polarized light on interstellar chiral molecules introduced a left handed excess into molecules in the material from which the solar system formed....
If our own solar system formed in such a region of high circular polarization, it could have led to the excess of L-amino acids which we see in meteorites and to the homochirality of biological molecules. It is possible that without such a process operating it would not be possible for life to start. This may have implications for the frequency of occurrence of life in the universe.
What about Final Fantasy series or Chrono Cross? IMHO they are some of the best RPGs currently released. The PC versions of the Final Fantasy series apparently had poor game control. I think it's true that console games are poor for mouse oriented gaming (RTS, adventure, strategy), but they seem to be a perfectly fine medium for RPGs.
I need a program that can: 1) accept text anywhere on a page 2) accept tables anywhere on a page 3) draw text/graphs 4) use multiple memo pages sequentially.
The default paint program for my Clie accepts text and drawings, but does not create tables or use pages like a memo pad. Do you know of a program that does at least three of these four?
jesus, normally my notes are just from lab meetings or when I give presenations. I only take one class a semester to "further" my education. I want stuff searchable and legible, not to fill my brain with every detail of what my boss wants for next month.
Whether I'm in class or at work, I take a lot of my notes by hand. This is primarily because I need to draw tables, write equations, or draw diagrams (I'm a visual learner) for my notes, or when I'm explaining a concept to someone else. One of the things I've always wanted my PDA to do is take text notes (memos) alongside drawings over multiple pages (i.e. a merging of a painting program with a memo program). I want this because I want my notes to be searchable and legible, but also be able to contain tables and hand drawings. The searchable note taking function takes care of half of this- now if only it would automatically transform my crappy handwriting to text so that it's legible. Of course, I'd rather if my PDA just did it because I don't want to lay down 2k to replace my paper note books.
It would be really interesting to have self cleaning monitors. Everyone seems to forget to clean the fingerprint and sneeze crud off of them. Of course, there are no windows anywhere near my cubicle, so glass that uses UV to break down grime is out of the question.
wtf are you talking about? Remember when Kings Quest I was 14 5.25 inch floppies? I have an old Microsoft Office install for the Mac that was well over 30 3.5 inch floppies.
Actually, in 1932, during the what would be the height of the great depression, President Hoover finally got off his ass and started distributing food, clothing, money for rent and medical bills, and movie tickets. Apparently, entertainment was seen as vital to the well being of the people (Muscio, Giuliana; Hollywood's New Deal; 1997). Obviously, BestBuy is running on the same platform and compact discs are similarly necessary for every day life.
Analysts expect downloading of Internet music files to lead to another year of declining sales after U.S. music shipments slumped 10.3 percent in 2001.
Which was in no way affected by the recession we're still seeing in many states. The reason why they only dropped 10% is because of internet advertizement.
However, recent research suggests that there is an excess of L-amino acids (the specific enantiomer used in life-proteins) in amino acids found in space, which further suggests that the shuttling of amino acids from space via meteorites and comets could have led to pre-biotic proteins on planet Earth.
From the article: Recently it has been discovered that an excess of L-amino acids is present in the Murchison and Murray meteorites indicating that a preference for L-amino acids existed in solar system material before there was life on Earth. This supports an idea, first proposed by Rubenstein et al. (1983, Nature 306, 118), for an extraterrestrial origin for homochirality.
In this model the action of circular polarized light on interstellar chiral molecules introduced a left handed excess into molecules in the material from which the solar system formed....
If our own solar system formed in such a region of high circular polarization, it could have led to the excess of L-amino acids which we see in meteorites and to the homochirality of biological molecules. It is possible that without such a process operating it would not be possible for life to start. This may have implications for the frequency of occurrence of life in the universe.
Nope. The point is gone. Proteins are just lots of amino acids, connected by single bonds. The hard part is getting all those constituent atoms to form into the relatively complex amino acids.
As a protein/organic chemist, I say to you: why don't you try making that single bond? It's quite hard when you don't have a ribosome to do all the work for you.
Stanley Miller has been making amino acids (granted, the wrong way) since 1955. And he didn't even have his doctorate yet. Raw amino acids are easy- what's difficult is selecting the proper stereochemistry (amino acids have mirror images which are chemically identical but structurally different- life only uses one of the two mirror images (enantiomers)). If you condense the wrong enantiomer, or both enantiomers simultaneously, you get garbage out. Same problem with nucleic acids to DNA. In the end, this report is plagued with the same problems that Stanley Miller faced in 1955, sorry kids, deep space (or almost every other non-biological natural chemical synthesis) doesn't care about symmetry.
If you're interested in a brief history of Miller, why he's wrong, and what we think now, see my other post.
For more information on Miller and prebiotic Earth, here is a quotation from an Angew. Chem. review article by Kay Severin called Hot Stones or Cold Soup? New Investigations on the Endogenous Origin of Organic Compounds on Earth (Angew. Chem. Int. Ed 2000, 39, No. 20). It pretty much sums up the Miller reactions, why they're wrong, and what people think now:
"The most famous experiment... was carried out almost fifty years ago by Stanley L. Miller, at that time a PhD student in the group of Harold Urey in Chicago. Miller was able to show that electric discharges in an atmosphere of methane, ammonia, hydrogen, and water led to the formation of significant amounts of various amino acids. Experiments of this kind were repeated in numerous variants. If reducing gases were employed mixtures of organic compounds of low molecular weight could be detected in many cases. This has led to the popular idea that the primordial ocean resembled a nutritious soup.
"But the possibility that earth once had a reducing atmosphere is questioned. A well known argument against it is the high photolability of methane and ammonia. Because a shielding layer of ozone was missing a high concentration of these gases is believed to be unlikely. Furthermore, several other results point to a neutral atmosphere of CO2 and N2. Given the fact that the atmosphere was based on an unproductive mixture of CO2 and N2 the nutritional value of the primordial ocean drops significantly.
"An alternative scenario has been propagated for several years by [Gunter] Wachterhauser. Instead of a primordial soup he favors hot minerals as the place where organic molecules were initially built as life subsequently emerged. Especially sulfur-containing minerals like pyrite are proposed to have acted as an energy source and catalyst both under the extreme conditions found in hydrothermal or volcanic vents."
Basically, primordial soup syntheses (like Miller's reactions) are out and hot rock syntheses are in. These hot rock procedures have much much much lower yields, but people are slowly figuring out how to build amino acids through them. For instance, people, headed by Wachterhauser, have figured out how to carbon fixate (condense) carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide into organic building blocks for amino acids. For instance, in early 2000, Chen and Bahnemann were able to convert CO2 and water to small organics (acetaldehyde, ethanol, acetic acid) at high pressures and temperatures. Similarly, people have figured out how to take amino acids and convert them into peptides under high temperature and pressure situations.
However, to date no one has been able to actually make an amino acid through these techniques. As a result, the proof that amino acids were delivered by comets or meteorites (true fact, this is not an x-file) and now space dust, becomes much more appealing. Once the building blocks arrived on Earth, these hot rock syntheses could have taken over.
This is kind of off topic, but you know, in truth I only listen to normal radio in the car. I wonder, with the increase of cars sporting built in computers/internet, will internet radio find a larger audience? How difficult would it be to build a modem with a soundcard and a crappy LCD panel designed specifically for internet radio? Imagine being able to listen to the same station as you drive from Boston to LA.
Further more, RedHat has determined that the desktop is not profitable. In fact, even server side linux is not really profitable, but desktop linux is much worse. The only reason (money wise) to release a desktop version is for name recognition. In this respect, Mandrake walks a very dangerous line, but I expect them to push a server solution shortly after they finish their marketing.
Paying for the club is not a donation, people. You are not "giving" your money to anyone, you're paying for a product. Linux-Mandrake is effectively SHAREWARE. You can try it out for free, but if you use the product you are expected to pay for it. That's why at the bottom of the Mandrake download disclaimer page you have to click "I'm already a member of the Club or plan on registering soon".
So you know, I am a card carrying member of the Mandrake club, and I am because I use their software, no other reason.
What I find far more scary is that if this were to be passed, software vendors would stop telling people that their software was buggy, in the hopes of hiding it. This was exactly the same tactic Microsoft took when releasing the XP patch- they didn't instantly recall their product, they sat on the bug for two weeks while the rest of the world floundered. Microsoft did this just for marketing- imagine if someone was also planning on pressing charges! More extensive laws will obviously just intensify this problem.
Another curiousity- consider for profit companies, hired by either the government or opposing vendors, whose soul purpose is to exploit software in as many ways as they can, to make sure the American people are "safe".
Slashdot Mirror
DVD playback works just fine on my Pismo under OS X 10.2. The Pismo is a bronze keyboard 400 MHz G3 powerbook with firewire. Generally the Pismo and the Lombard are lumped together and perform equally well. I jumped from 10.0 to 10.2, so I don't know how 10.1 worked.
Not necessarily. For instance, you could train the network on small sections of Shakespeare (the training set), where the words have been randomized. The network will try to rearrange the words to produce the real work. If you train the network on all 37 plays, you may get a network that can rearrange a totally different set of random words (the testing set) into something similar to the style of Shakespeare. Similarly, you could do the same thing with 1,000 different poets and you might get a machine that rearranges words into poetry, not necessarily in the style of any one poet, but in a way unique to itself. This is the beauty of neural networks (and the bane), choosing the right dataset is critical. The other beauty (and bane) is that no one knows if this is possible for a neural network to actually do.
exactly what I thought. In a sense the poems are just mixing words through breeding (much like you breed dogs to get shiny fur). What it doesn't do is mutate the words, or the way words are chosen, over time which would allow some movement in the "gene pool". As it stands, the poems can never get better than what was initially in the pot to begin with. Training a neural network poem generator would be interesting, but more easily accomplished by training it on a dataset of Norton's Anthology of Poetry. Furthermore, you'd probably get better results.
It could be possible to take an artificial life approach where instead of words in poems shifting, phrase forms (noun, adverb, verb, noun) could shift and the words and the forms get randomly "mutated" over time. Sounds like fun.
AB: What is your current opinion on the need for a primitive reducing atmosphere for pre-biotic life to take hold 3.5 to 3.8 billion years ago?
SM: I have not found an alternative to disprove the need for a primitive reducing atmosphere.
This statement, taken directly from the topic article, shows exactly how defunct Stanley Miller is. There was no reducing atmosphere. 70 years ago Oparin and Urey thought there was. The review article I quoted illuminates the doubt that is currently being shed on the reducing atmosphere theory. A reducing atmosphere contains high energy molecules (NH3 and CH4) that condence with relative ease into stable organic molecules because the start with so much extra energy. An oxidizing atmosphere contains low energy molecules (N2 and CO2) that do nothing chemically!
The work quoted in topic article was completed 50 years ago and was based on the assumption of a primitive reducing atmosphere. Since then Miller has sticked to his guns- all of the work he's done since has similarly been under the assumption of a reducing or nutral atmosphere. In reality, we currently believe that primitive earth actually had an oxidizing atmosphere which is wholely unreactive. Wachterhauser's and Sagan's work is much more up to date with current beliefs. All Miller really means to us now is a spark to get people thinking about prebiotic chemistry (50 years ago)- his individual ideas are dinosaurs.
For more information on Miller and prebiotic Earth, here is a quotation from an Angew. Chem. review article by Kay Severin called Hot Stones or Cold Soup? New Investigations on the Endogenous Origin of Organic Compounds on Earth (Angew. Chem. Int. Ed 2000, 39, No. 20). It pretty much sums up the Miller reactions, why they're wrong, and what people think now:
... was carried out almost fifty years ago by Stanley L. Miller, at that time a PhD student in the group of Harold Urey in Chicago. Miller was able to show that electric discharges in an atmosphere of methane, ammonia, hydrogen, and water led to the formation of significant amounts of various amino acids. Experiments of this kind were repeated in numerous variants. If reducing gases were employed mixtures of organic compounds of low molecular weight could be detected in many cases. This has led to the popular idea that the primordial ocean resembled a nutritious soup.
"The most famous experiment
"But the possibility that earth once had a reducing atmosphere is questioned. A well known argument against it is the high photolability of methane and ammonia. Because a shielding layer of ozone was missing a high concentration of these gases is believed to be unlikely. Furthermore, several other results point to a neutral atmosphere of CO2 and N2. Given the fact that the atmosphere was based on an unproductive mixture of CO2 and N2 the nutritional value of the primordial ocean drops significantly.
"An alternative scenario has been propagated for several years by [Gunter] Wachterhauser. Instead of a primordial soup he favors hot minerals as the place where organic molecules were initially built as life subsequently emerged. Especially sulfur-containing minerals like pyrite are proposed to have acted as an energy source and catalyst both under the extreme conditions found in hydrothermal or volcanic vents."
Basically, primordial soup syntheses (like Miller's reactions) are out and hot rock syntheses are in. These hot rock procedures have much much much lower yields, but people are slowly figuring out how to build amino acids through them. For instance, people, headed by Wachterhauser, have figured out how to carbon fixate (condense) carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide into organic building blocks for amino acids. For instance, in early 2000, Chen and Bahnemann were able to convert CO2 and water to small organics (acetaldehyde, ethanol, acetic acid) at high pressures and temperatures. Similarly, people have figured out how to take amino acids and convert them into peptides under high temperature and pressure situations.
However, to date no one has been able to actually make an amino acid through these techniques. As a result, the proof that amino acids were delivered by comets or meteorites (true fact, this is not an x-file) and now space dust, becomes much more appealing. Once the building blocks arrived on Earth, these hot rock syntheses could have taken over.
This isn't funny. We need a +1 DISTURBING modifier for GW jokes.
Recent research suggests that there is an excess of L-amino acids (the specific enantiomer used in life-proteins) found in space, suggesting that the chiral specific process involving circular polarized light (mentioned in the article) could have lead to the amino acids that were found on the Murchison (and other meteorites).
...
From the article:
Recently it has been discovered that an excess of L-amino acids is present in the Murchison and Murray meteorites indicating that a preference for L-amino acids existed in solar system material before there was life on Earth. This supports an idea, first proposed by Rubenstein et al. (1983, Nature 306, 118), for an extraterrestrial origin for homochirality.
In this model the action of circular polarized light on interstellar chiral molecules introduced a left handed excess into molecules in the material from which the solar system formed.
If our own solar system formed in such a region of high circular polarization, it could have led to the excess of L-amino acids which we see in meteorites and to the homochirality of biological molecules. It is possible that without such a process operating it would not be possible for life to start. This may have implications for the frequency of occurrence of life in the universe.
sounds like BeOS...
* 1 distribution
* 1 GUI
* could be installed through Windows
* on a local Windows drive
The reason why Linux on the desktop hasn't taken off is the same reason why BeOS never took off- because Microsoft won't PC distributors install it.
What about Final Fantasy series or Chrono Cross? IMHO they are some of the best RPGs currently released. The PC versions of the Final Fantasy series apparently had poor game control. I think it's true that console games are poor for mouse oriented gaming (RTS, adventure, strategy), but they seem to be a perfectly fine medium for RPGs.
I need a program that can:
1) accept text anywhere on a page
2) accept tables anywhere on a page
3) draw text/graphs
4) use multiple memo pages sequentially.
The default paint program for my Clie accepts text and drawings, but does not create tables or use pages like a memo pad. Do you know of a program that does at least three of these four?
jesus, normally my notes are just from lab meetings or when I give presenations. I only take one class a semester to "further" my education. I want stuff searchable and legible, not to fill my brain with every detail of what my boss wants for next month.
Whether I'm in class or at work, I take a lot of my notes by hand. This is primarily because I need to draw tables, write equations, or draw diagrams (I'm a visual learner) for my notes, or when I'm explaining a concept to someone else. One of the things I've always wanted my PDA to do is take text notes (memos) alongside drawings over multiple pages (i.e. a merging of a painting program with a memo program). I want this because I want my notes to be searchable and legible, but also be able to contain tables and hand drawings. The searchable note taking function takes care of half of this- now if only it would automatically transform my crappy handwriting to text so that it's legible. Of course, I'd rather if my PDA just did it because I don't want to lay down 2k to replace my paper note books.
It would be really interesting to have self cleaning monitors. Everyone seems to forget to clean the fingerprint and sneeze crud off of them. Of course, there are no windows anywhere near my cubicle, so glass that uses UV to break down grime is out of the question.
7+ CDs is a lot of swapping.
wtf are you talking about? Remember when Kings Quest I was 14 5.25 inch floppies? I have an old Microsoft Office install for the Mac that was well over 30 3.5 inch floppies.
Actually, in 1932, during the what would be the height of the great depression, President Hoover finally got off his ass and started distributing food, clothing, money for rent and medical bills, and movie tickets. Apparently, entertainment was seen as vital to the well being of the people (Muscio, Giuliana; Hollywood's New Deal; 1997). Obviously, BestBuy is running on the same platform and compact discs are similarly necessary for every day life.
Analysts expect downloading of Internet music files to lead to another year of declining sales after U.S. music shipments slumped 10.3 percent in 2001.
Which was in no way affected by the recession we're still seeing in many states. The reason why they only dropped 10% is because of internet advertizement.
However, recent research suggests that there is an excess of L-amino acids (the specific enantiomer used in life-proteins) in amino acids found in space, which further suggests that the shuttling of amino acids from space via meteorites and comets could have led to pre-biotic proteins on planet Earth.
...
From the article:
Recently it has been discovered that an excess of L-amino acids is present in the Murchison and Murray meteorites indicating that a preference for L-amino acids existed in solar system material before there was life on Earth. This supports an idea, first proposed by Rubenstein et al. (1983, Nature 306, 118), for an extraterrestrial origin for homochirality.
In this model the action of circular polarized light on interstellar chiral molecules introduced a left handed excess into molecules in the material from which the solar system formed.
If our own solar system formed in such a region of high circular polarization, it could have led to the excess of L-amino acids which we see in meteorites and to the homochirality of biological molecules. It is possible that without such a process operating it would not be possible for life to start. This may have implications for the frequency of occurrence of life in the universe.
Nope. The point is gone. Proteins are just lots of amino acids, connected by single bonds. The hard part is getting all those constituent atoms to form into the relatively complex amino acids.
As a protein/organic chemist, I say to you: why don't you try making that single bond? It's quite hard when you don't have a ribosome to do all the work for you.
Stanley Miller has been making amino acids (granted, the wrong way) since 1955. And he didn't even have his doctorate yet. Raw amino acids are easy- what's difficult is selecting the proper stereochemistry (amino acids have mirror images which are chemically identical but structurally different- life only uses one of the two mirror images (enantiomers)). If you condense the wrong enantiomer, or both enantiomers simultaneously, you get garbage out. Same problem with nucleic acids to DNA. In the end, this report is plagued with the same problems that Stanley Miller faced in 1955, sorry kids, deep space (or almost every other non-biological natural chemical synthesis) doesn't care about symmetry.
If you're interested in a brief history of Miller, why he's wrong, and what we think now, see my other post.
For more information on Miller and prebiotic Earth, here is a quotation from an Angew. Chem. review article by Kay Severin called Hot Stones or Cold Soup? New Investigations on the Endogenous Origin of Organic Compounds on Earth (Angew. Chem. Int. Ed 2000, 39, No. 20). It pretty much sums up the Miller reactions, why they're wrong, and what people think now:
... was carried out almost fifty years ago by Stanley L. Miller, at that time a PhD student in the group of Harold Urey in Chicago. Miller was able to show that electric discharges in an atmosphere of methane, ammonia, hydrogen, and water led to the formation of significant amounts of various amino acids. Experiments of this kind were repeated in numerous variants. If reducing gases were employed mixtures of organic compounds of low molecular weight could be detected in many cases. This has led to the popular idea that the primordial ocean resembled a nutritious soup.
"The most famous experiment
"But the possibility that earth once had a reducing atmosphere is questioned. A well known argument against it is the high photolability of methane and ammonia. Because a shielding layer of ozone was missing a high concentration of these gases is believed to be unlikely. Furthermore, several other results point to a neutral atmosphere of CO2 and N2. Given the fact that the atmosphere was based on an unproductive mixture of CO2 and N2 the nutritional value of the primordial ocean drops significantly.
"An alternative scenario has been propagated for several years by [Gunter] Wachterhauser. Instead of a primordial soup he favors hot minerals as the place where organic molecules were initially built as life subsequently emerged. Especially sulfur-containing minerals like pyrite are proposed to have acted as an energy source and catalyst both under the extreme conditions found in hydrothermal or volcanic vents."
Basically, primordial soup syntheses (like Miller's reactions) are out and hot rock syntheses are in. These hot rock procedures have much much much lower yields, but people are slowly figuring out how to build amino acids through them. For instance, people, headed by Wachterhauser, have figured out how to carbon fixate (condense) carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide into organic building blocks for amino acids. For instance, in early 2000, Chen and Bahnemann were able to convert CO2 and water to small organics (acetaldehyde, ethanol, acetic acid) at high pressures and temperatures. Similarly, people have figured out how to take amino acids and convert them into peptides under high temperature and pressure situations.
However, to date no one has been able to actually make an amino acid through these techniques. As a result, the proof that amino acids were delivered by comets or meteorites (true fact, this is not an x-file) and now space dust, becomes much more appealing. Once the building blocks arrived on Earth, these hot rock syntheses could have taken over.
This is kind of off topic, but you know, in truth I only listen to normal radio in the car. I wonder, with the increase of cars sporting built in computers/internet, will internet radio find a larger audience? How difficult would it be to build a modem with a soundcard and a crappy LCD panel designed specifically for internet radio? Imagine being able to listen to the same station as you drive from Boston to LA.
Further more, RedHat has determined that the desktop is not profitable. In fact, even server side linux is not really profitable, but desktop linux is much worse. The only reason (money wise) to release a desktop version is for name recognition. In this respect, Mandrake walks a very dangerous line, but I expect them to push a server solution shortly after they finish their marketing.
Paying for the club is not a donation, people. You are not "giving" your money to anyone, you're paying for a product. Linux-Mandrake is effectively SHAREWARE. You can try it out for free, but if you use the product you are expected to pay for it. That's why at the bottom of the Mandrake download disclaimer page you have to click "I'm already a member of the Club or plan on registering soon".
So you know, I am a card carrying member of the Mandrake club, and I am because I use their software, no other reason.
Buy them. Mandrake needs the cash.
| sed -e 's/needs/deserves/g'
In case you have never used OS/2 and you are interested in what it looked like (as I was), this essay is chock full of screenshots.
What I find far more scary is that if this were to be passed, software vendors would stop telling people that their software was buggy, in the hopes of hiding it. This was exactly the same tactic Microsoft took when releasing the XP patch- they didn't instantly recall their product, they sat on the bug for two weeks while the rest of the world floundered. Microsoft did this just for marketing- imagine if someone was also planning on pressing charges! More extensive laws will obviously just intensify this problem.
Another curiousity- consider for profit companies, hired by either the government or opposing vendors, whose soul purpose is to exploit software in as many ways as they can, to make sure the American people are "safe".