So the hapless doofi who've spent years thinking a) magnets can heal them and b) phones can give them cancer must be delighted with this new headset; it'll fix those brain tumours right up.
D'you think it's coincidence that the company who came up with this is called Aura?
Gee, the EU took someone into their fold for money? Who would have thunk it? I've read ESA's press release several times now, and while I came across references to "international cooperation", "common interest" and the like, no reference was made at all to money. You're probably just overly focussed on the subject because ofitscloseness tohome.
People can bitch about Iraq, Vietnam, Korea, etc. all they want, but they pale in comparison the magnitude of what China did in simply the last 3 decades. If we were only to deal with countries with impeccable human rights records, we'd all sit alone in our rooms. Or are you suggesting that China's worse than the rest, so it's okay to deal with (for example) the right-wing tyrranies that the US has been propping up for those self-same decades because they're not as bad as China?
Your problem (and that of a lot of others here) is that you think your way is the only way of doing things. Bill Clinton's policy on North Korea was working quite well until Bush's asinine "axis of evil" speech, which turned the DPRK from a country heading towards normalisation back into a paranoid rogue state. How does China's record over the past five years compare with the previous fifteen? And how much of that improvement is down to US posturing, and how much to increased contact with the rest of the world?
I live in Dublin, Ireland, and it's slowly becoming a cosmopolitan city, home at the moment to Chinese people that number in their thousands. Would the world be better off if we told these people to fuck off, that their evil communist leaders were such bastards that we weren't going to let them into the country until it was a Shining Beacon of Democracy?
Oh, and to everyone who's fond of mentioning the Marshall plan: here's your chance to get your money back. Gradually phase out GPS and use Gailileo instead. In the long run, you'll save billions.
I am a little shocked by your statement: "reasonably satisfied with one big, happy world-except-America."
I'm not sure whether you're taking what I said out of context or whether I was just unclear in what I said. But allow me to elucidate...
When I talk of a "world except America", I'm not talking about a world without America. Most of the world perceives the US as slave to multinationals and willing to fuck over whomever it deems necessary to maximise the profit of those corporations, be it US citizens foreigners, foreign nations or even continents. I confess to a certain amount of sypathy for that attitude myself. But everyone (everyone) I know who has "anti-american" feelings has great respect for American people, american technology, american cultu^H^H^H^H^H cinema and many other aspects of The American Way. We laughed as you demonstrated in 2000 that you didn't give a damn about democracy, but I'm sure I'm not the only one who was bitterly disappointed, too. Many sneer as you rip up your constitution one article at a time, but many, many more would love to see you decide that you really are interested in freedom, after all.
All anti-American sentiment (faith-based initiatives such as al Quaeda aside) is focussed solely on your government and its foreign policy. And those hugely fat bastards with camcorders who think that all foreigners speak English if you shout loudly enough.
That's exactly the sort of question the US media asks. And if you read my post again, you'll notice that nowhere did I say that china was better than the US (but seeing as you asked, I prefer chinese movies to the vast majority of the American films I've seen).
I'd be delighted - and indeed would dance a little jig - if the US were to say suddenly "okay, GPS is now under the control of the UN". But until they do, I'll do the next best thing, and celebrate a project that's a civilian operation that encompasses not just the EU but China (and probably more in future), and will serve not just as a safeguard against the whims of a single nation, but will serve to make that single nation's system more accurate and reliable for all users, be they from the EU, the US, China or Freedonia.
Any time I've seen Galileo mentioned in the US media, it's been treated as some sort of anti-US measure; it isn't.
Well, it isn't totally an anti-US measure. We just don't like the idea of a system on which our lives increasingly depend being under the control of a foreign military. Doesn't really matter who that military is; any system where you can find yourself suddenly lost at the whim of some general half a world away is a system to be avoided. And as the Iraq war is showing, the US is increasingly cagey (cagy? How do you spell that damn word?) about others using its system in time of war. And that time of war looks like it's going to extend indefinitely.
<anti-US bit> Of course, the advent of Chinese involvement is, I hope a sign of things to come. Kyoto and others have shown that disaster doesn't necessarily follow when the US says 'no', and that the best attitude the world can have may well be "fuck 'em, and carry on regardless".
I'd love to see one big happy world, but in its absence I'm reasonably satisfied with one big, happy world-except-America. </anti-US>
I speak now in my capacity as former book-buyer for a Dublin science fiction bookshop (up to about five years ago). I'm by no means an authority, but this is my experience, fwiw...
The slide is now about fifteen years long. It has literally killed at least six promising careers I personally know of I've no doubt that talented writers have fallen by the wayside due to beancounters and short-sighted editors. This has always been the case, and always will be. But I was never under the impression while working in the bookshop that there was any dearth of new talent. It'd take me a whole day to go through Ingram's monthly catalogue of new stuff, and even though we devoted a significant amount of shelfspace to books, for the vast majority of titles I only had two copies of anything more than three months old, and even then I didn't have enough space to accommodate everything. The majority of these would've been Asimov et al - he can take up decent chunk of a shelf by himself - but there were enough new titles every month that I never questioned that there might be a lack of new authors.
The more pockets occupied by Star Wars/Trek tie-ins, the fewer for real ones Again, I'm speaking as a buyer in a sci-fi store, so my experience doesn't necessarily reflect that of regular bookshops. But I imagine all bookshops pay attention to their customers, and if enough people berate them stocking the latest Buffy/Babylon 5 crossover novel instead of the latest Bujold, Card or Robinson, then the shops will pay attention. And if they don't, there's always the internet.
Heinlein began writing only because it was the best and only hope he saw of paying off his mortgage. Look at what Heinlein wasn't up against. The internet, cable television... in fact, forget everything else; if Heinlein was up against three hundred channels of crap beamed directly into the houses of everyone who instead picked up a novel, he'd probably have ended up flipping burgers. This isn't a reflection of attitudes towards science fiction as opposed to fantasy; it happens in every genre. And television's pernicious influence dwarfs the effect of fewer SF books in the rack of the corner shop, to my mind.
Basically, volume is king, and no amount of wishing 'tweren't so isn't going to change that. What is? Well, the internet. Get people reading ebooks. I'm speaking here as a sort of ebook zealot, but there are payment systems on the way - be they micropayments or something else - that'll allow readers to interact directly with the authors, and pay those authors directly. The perfect solution may not be there now, but you can rest assured that it's on the way, as whoever comes up with a Cunning Plan will probably end up vewy, vewy rich out of it.
"My genre has always had its ups and downs, but this is by far its worst, longest downswing. Sales are down, magazines are languishing, our stars are aging and not being replaced. And the reason is depressingly clear: Those few readers who haven't defected to Tolkienesque fantasy cling only to Star Trek, Star Wars, and other Sci Fi franchises."
There are two different points here; I'll address each separately.
1. Sales are down. BFD. Just because the slide is a bit longer than average is no reason to panic. Granted, it's a couple of years since I picked up fiction (Lois McMaster Bujold excepted), but Robinson is harping on like there hasn't been a good book in a decade. I'm not the only one who could name six or seven authors who are truly excellent and still writing. Just because sales are down doesn't mean the fiction is there; it just means people are diverting their attention elsewhere. Which brings me to point two...
There is, I suspect, no relation between the increase in media-driven novels and 'proper' ones. People who read Star Trek novels aren't interested in proper SF; I suspect the same holds true for other franchises. If there is a problem with these books, it's that they're included in SF totals, making the SF book industry look healthier than it is.
Robinson's point seems to be that there's a feedback loop between space exploration and SF; I personally have my doubts. I've not doubt whatsoever that SF does indeed foster an interest in space, but is the reverse true? I sort of doubt it.
SF isn't in decline. Quality SF as a percentage of teh total volume of merchandising masquerading as product may be, but so what? Just buy the good stuff, and leave the crap to the trekkies. Or buffyites. Or whatever.
I wouldn't say he'd started to ramble; I'd say he turned into a blathering nutcase.
My broad rule for Heinlein: If it's bigger than - or written after - I Will Fear No Evil - it's unreadable in ways only someone struggling through Hubbard's dekalogy would understand. If it's written before that, then if it's a kids' book it's good, if it's a short story it's probably great, and if it's The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, it's one of the finest science fiction novels around.
Well, I've read the article. I've read Scientific American's version. I've read a few other ones google referenced. And I still haven't a fucking clue why silk is so strong.
Am I getting dumber, or are these science article getting more opaque?
"becuase of proteins with various properties" me arse.
Will it be open source? My guess is 'yes'. Two reasons:
THey'll want business to use it. And businesses will be unwilling to use anything that they suspect has a backdoor. The source'd have to be visible for them to trust it
It's being done by three governments, not one. That makes it a lot harder for any, ahem, idiosyncratic code to make it in, and again, OSS is the best way of ensuring this.
Will they simply steal OSS and release it with few changes without honoring the gpl? How do you know microsoft isn't doing that right now? I'm not suggesting that they are, but there seems to be a prevalent attitude during this discussion that china=evil, japan/rok=irrelevent, USA=land of free (if not Free). Japan and ROK are both WTO members, and China really wants to be. It's unlikely they're going to contravene those rules without good reason. Besides, if it's open source, the question goes away.
Will it be in other languages and availabe to foreigners? Who cares? Seriously. If you've got Linux, BSD and Windows, you're more or less covered. Again, if it's open source, etc, etc
These People, etc I guess we'll have to just hope that they act honorably, just like all American companies do.
The highlight of this article, as far as I'm concerned, is the poll "Is your boss an idiot?" When I checked it a few hours ago, 51% said yes, 49% no. Now that the superior-to-all-bosses/. crew gets to vote, what are the odds that by the end of the day CNN will find that 90% of bosses are idiots?
As for the article, it's short, lightweight filler. It could've been funny if a little substance went into it. As it it's it's only a few apocryphal anecdotes, some of which shouldn't even be in there. IMO.
Disclosure: I'm a slasdot reader, so I voted 'yes'.
I suppose that the reason they called it a 'dot com' phenomenon is that it was around then that the internet reached critical mass among users; there were enough to make business viable, and - like spam - inane memes had no problem finding an audience.
Of course, the internet is perfect for memes like 'all your base' to flourish; it takes no effort to forward an url to everyone you know; I'm sure I'm not the only one who knows at least one individual who regularly sent messages where the To: field was longer than the rest of the message combined. A swift (and usually repeated) larting usually took care of these eventually, but in a lot of cases that just meant that their list was transferred to Bcc: instead.
Two things that I noticed around that time that didn't make the list: The warning about GoodTimes, and the now-legendary one-line email that you had to scroll through eight metres of crap and and a myriad '>>>>>' of variable length in order to read 'Check it out!!!!!!!!!' followed by an asinine url that leaves you wondering why the fuck anyone'd want to send it in the first place, let alone forward it to the universe.
Of course,/. is no place to talk about the motes in the eyes of others; just consider the linux clusters of natalieportman.cx.
Can you see the conversation between a doctor and a nerd about this?
Doctor: Now, Poindexter, I've just set this PDA up... PDA: Thump... thump... thump... Doctor: And I'm giving it to you. PDA: Kathump...kathump...kathump... Doctor: As well as the regular functions, it's got a few more... PDA: KathumpKathumpKathump Doctor:It records your heartbeat, for instance PDA: KathumpityKathumpityKathumpity Doctor: Oh. 180? That can't be right. It musn't work. Here, take this stopwatch, and sms me with your pulse every half an hour. PDA: Beeeeeeeeeeeeeeep
Why not just get Uri Geller in to sense whether they're telling the truth? Time and again lie detectors have proved to be - at best - slightly better than waving chickens when it comes to accuracy. Yet all Liberty can say is "I'm not persuaded this works".
after landing, the plane went out with its mates, got royally pissed, and managed an altercation with the local constabulary.
Yet another slur on we humble Irish. At least, that's the way I'm going to take it. I'll just point out two things... a) s/royally/republicanically b) s/constabulary/gardai.
Typical bloody yank. Not only assumes that Irish stereotypes are correct, but confuses us with the Brits at the same time.
Actually, I'm a punctuated equilibrium kind of guy myself; however, I don't think that negates my argument that evolution is a process of small, incremental changes.
Remember, when you're talking about deep time, you're talking about events that occur over inconceivably huge timeframes. You used the word 'suddenly', but in geological terms, 'suddenly' can mean hundreds of thousands or millions of years. Radical change can come about in these brief periods, but that change is only one of timeframe and (usually) catastrophe; the mechanism of evolution doesn't change. Beasties still undergo evolution one random mutation at a time. There may be one critical mutation that changes our morphing buddy, but that once change is standing on the shoulders of many, many dwarves.
With regard to the distinction between reproduction and mutation, I'm not sure what you mean. In order for mutations to be passed on, obviously the mutated creature must reproduce. Any offspring can, of course, inherit two sets of mutations and thus be quite different for either parent - and more so from grandparents - but those changes are still incremental in that it's improbable in the extreme for any one creature to mutate to such a degree that it's still a) potent and b) alive. I'm sure massive mutations do happen, and given the length of time life's been around, it's possible that some of the recipients were the better for it. But I can't imagine that that number is sufficiently high to be statistically relevent.
For more on the interpretation of time in such matters, you can do far worse than to read In Search of Deep Time by Henry Gee. Punctuated Equilibrium as a theory was brought to the world by Niles Elderedge and Stephen Jay Gould; check out Elderedge's Time Frames for more.
It's easier to swallow than the idea of a chimp and a gorilla getting it on. Especially when you consider that gorillas are so poorly endowed when compared to their chimp cousins. To paraphrase Samuel L. Jackson, that'd have to be one charming mother-fuckin' ape.
For Darwin's sake, people. Evolution is a continuum; species don't magically transform from one to another. However long ago chimps and gorillas genetic company, it was a sufficiently short time ago (cosmically speaking) that there could well be variants around; especially when you consider how inaccessable areas like the Congo are for interlopers. They could cheerfully wander, undisturbed, for hundreds of millennia.
One of the reasons that Creationists still hold such pernicious sway is that they can point at news reports (and even the odd paleontologist) who make sweeping statements that a few minutes' thought would tell you is silly. I can't say for certain that a chimp/gorilla hybrid is impossible, but it's certainly unlikely, especially given the alternatives.
I was once young and foolish, like you (assuming you're young). But then I grew up, and realised that my PDA was good for so much more than Tetris and passwords. Since i started reading books, I've realised that the medium doesn't matter; it's the book itself that's important. Since I started using my PDAs for reading, I've gone through so much stuff that was otherwise unattainable, it's unbelievable. This year, I've read (amongst others) the works of Mark Twain and Emma Goldman, the Federalist Papers, George Orwell, Plutarch, Madame Bovary... many, many more. And did I regret that I was reading from a wee screen that scrolled up as I read? Not a bit of it. I just found them (usually on Project Gutenberg), downloaded them and read them. Often the were texts that weren't immediately available in dead-tree form.
Before the PDA, I carried around a rucksack everywhere. This always contained a couple of books, an organiser, occasionally a gameboy, and basically a load of stuff that now all hangs from my belt in one compact, Tungsten-shaped form.
I love books. I still buy them by the shitload. But to dismiss electronic versions as being somehow inferior is as dumb as complaining that CDs take the quality out of music.
You're right, though; having a personal library is plain cool. But what would be cooler would be an instantly searchable library, where you could find that quote or that reference instantly. Imagine whipping out your tungsten, typing in a phrase and querying your server that contains hundreds of texts. You find the one you want, and within seconds it's available for reading, quoting or beaming to others.
Much, much better than a big old room full of books that you won't let anyone borrow cos you're afraid you'll never see them again (for the record: I've bought six copies of the Warrior's Apprentice. Not sure whether I have one now).
There are two points to be made here, methinks: 1. Scientists may know/now/ how the universe started and will end, but in a lot of the details - and possible the final outcomes - they're almost certainly wrong. A few short years ago we know exactly how Jupiter was formed; then Galileo dropped a probe into the atmosphere, and suddenly more questions arose. Now no-one knows why its atmosphere or its winds are the way they are. Science is littered with such examples; particularly cosmology. How recently is it that we didn't even know gamma ray bursts existed? There'll always be stuff we haven't accounted for, so theories will always be based on incomplete data.
Which brings me nicely to point two: supposing our Brainiacs are right? That's hardly the mystery taken out of everything; questions abound, and always will. Maybe when we're all in our Vorlon-like encounter suits we'll have a decent understanding of the part of the universe that we can see; before then, there'll always be questions.
"The acquisition of Ximian was an all-cash transaction and is not expected to have a material effect on Novell's financial statements in the current fiscal year"
Linux: it's free as in speech, not free as in Ximian.
Slashdot Mirror
So the hapless doofi who've spent years thinking a) magnets can heal them and b) phones can give them cancer must be delighted with this new headset; it'll fix those brain tumours right up.
D'you think it's coincidence that the company who came up with this is called Aura?
Gee, the EU took someone into their fold for money? Who would have thunk it?
I've read ESA's press release several times now, and while I came across references to "international cooperation", "common interest" and the like, no reference was made at all to money. You're probably just overly focussed on the subject because of its closeness to home.
People can bitch about Iraq, Vietnam, Korea, etc. all they want, but they pale in comparison the magnitude of what China did in simply the last 3 decades.
If we were only to deal with countries with impeccable human rights records, we'd all sit alone in our rooms. Or are you suggesting that China's worse than the rest, so it's okay to deal with (for example) the right-wing tyrranies that the US has been propping up for those self-same decades because they're not as bad as China?
Your problem (and that of a lot of others here) is that you think your way is the only way of doing things. Bill Clinton's policy on North Korea was working quite well until Bush's asinine "axis of evil" speech, which turned the DPRK from a country heading towards normalisation back into a paranoid rogue state. How does China's record over the past five years compare with the previous fifteen? And how much of that improvement is down to US posturing, and how much to increased contact with the rest of the world?
I live in Dublin, Ireland, and it's slowly becoming a cosmopolitan city, home at the moment to Chinese people that number in their thousands. Would the world be better off if we told these people to fuck off, that their evil communist leaders were such bastards that we weren't going to let them into the country until it was a Shining Beacon of Democracy?
Oh, and to everyone who's fond of mentioning the Marshall plan: here's your chance to get your money back. Gradually phase out GPS and use Gailileo instead. In the long run, you'll save billions.
I am a little shocked by your statement: "reasonably satisfied with one big, happy world-except-America."
I'm not sure whether you're taking what I said out of context or whether I was just unclear in what I said. But allow me to elucidate...
When I talk of a "world except America", I'm not talking about a world without America. Most of the world perceives the US as slave to multinationals and willing to fuck over whomever it deems necessary to maximise the profit of those corporations, be it US citizens foreigners, foreign nations or even continents. I confess to a certain amount of sypathy for that attitude myself. But everyone (everyone) I know who has "anti-american" feelings has great respect for American people, american technology, american cultu^H^H^H^H^H cinema and many other aspects of The American Way. We laughed as you demonstrated in 2000 that you didn't give a damn about democracy, but I'm sure I'm not the only one who was bitterly disappointed, too. Many sneer as you rip up your constitution one article at a time, but many, many more would love to see you decide that you really are interested in freedom, after all.
All anti-American sentiment (faith-based initiatives such as al Quaeda aside) is focussed solely on your government and its foreign policy. And those hugely fat bastards with camcorders who think that all foreigners speak English if you shout loudly enough.
That's exactly the sort of question the US media asks. And if you read my post again, you'll notice that nowhere did I say that china was better than the US (but seeing as you asked, I prefer chinese movies to the vast majority of the American films I've seen).
I'd be delighted - and indeed would dance a little jig - if the US were to say suddenly "okay, GPS is now under the control of the UN". But until they do, I'll do the next best thing, and celebrate a project that's a civilian operation that encompasses not just the EU but China (and probably more in future), and will serve not just as a safeguard against the whims of a single nation, but will serve to make that single nation's system more accurate and reliable for all users, be they from the EU, the US, China or Freedonia.
Any time I've seen Galileo mentioned in the US media, it's been treated as some sort of anti-US measure; it isn't.
Well, it isn't totally an anti-US measure. We just don't like the idea of a system on which our lives increasingly depend being under the control of a foreign military. Doesn't really matter who that military is; any system where you can find yourself suddenly lost at the whim of some general half a world away is a system to be avoided. And as the Iraq war is showing, the US is increasingly cagey (cagy? How do you spell that damn word?) about others using its system in time of war. And that time of war looks like it's going to extend indefinitely.
<anti-US bit>
Of course, the advent of Chinese involvement is, I hope a sign of things to come. Kyoto and others have shown that disaster doesn't necessarily follow when the US says 'no', and that the best attitude the world can have may well be "fuck 'em, and carry on regardless".
I'd love to see one big happy world, but in its absence I'm reasonably satisfied with one big, happy world-except-America.
</anti-US>
let the flames begin...
I hear they're looking for a sysadmin to fine-tune their system so it doesn't happen again.
I speak now in my capacity as former book-buyer for a Dublin science fiction bookshop (up to about five years ago). I'm by no means an authority, but this is my experience, fwiw...
The slide is now about fifteen years long. It has literally killed at least six promising careers I personally know of
I've no doubt that talented writers have fallen by the wayside due to beancounters and short-sighted editors. This has always been the case, and always will be. But I was never under the impression while working in the bookshop that there was any dearth of new talent. It'd take me a whole day to go through Ingram's monthly catalogue of new stuff, and even though we devoted a significant amount of shelfspace to books, for the vast majority of titles I only had two copies of anything more than three months old, and even then I didn't have enough space to accommodate everything. The majority of these would've been Asimov et al - he can take up decent chunk of a shelf by himself - but there were enough new titles every month that I never questioned that there might be a lack of new authors.
The more pockets occupied by Star Wars/Trek tie-ins, the fewer for real ones
Again, I'm speaking as a buyer in a sci-fi store, so my experience doesn't necessarily reflect that of regular bookshops. But I imagine all bookshops pay attention to their customers, and if enough people berate them stocking the latest Buffy/Babylon 5 crossover novel instead of the latest Bujold, Card or Robinson, then the shops will pay attention. And if they don't, there's always the internet.
Heinlein began writing only because it was the best and only hope he saw of paying off his mortgage.
Look at what Heinlein wasn't up against. The internet, cable television... in fact, forget everything else; if Heinlein was up against three hundred channels of crap beamed directly into the houses of everyone who instead picked up a novel, he'd probably have ended up flipping burgers. This isn't a reflection of attitudes towards science fiction as opposed to fantasy; it happens in every genre. And television's pernicious influence dwarfs the effect of fewer SF books in the rack of the corner shop, to my mind.
Basically, volume is king, and no amount of wishing 'tweren't so isn't going to change that. What is? Well, the internet. Get people reading ebooks. I'm speaking here as a sort of ebook zealot, but there are payment systems on the way - be they micropayments or something else - that'll allow readers to interact directly with the authors, and pay those authors directly. The perfect solution may not be there now, but you can rest assured that it's on the way, as whoever comes up with a Cunning Plan will probably end up vewy, vewy rich out of it.
"My genre has always had its ups and downs, but this is by far its worst, longest downswing. Sales are down, magazines are languishing, our stars are aging and not being replaced. And the reason is depressingly clear: Those few readers who haven't defected to Tolkienesque fantasy cling only to Star Trek, Star Wars, and other Sci Fi franchises."
There are two different points here; I'll address each separately.
1. Sales are down. BFD. Just because the slide is a bit longer than average is no reason to panic. Granted, it's a couple of years since I picked up fiction (Lois McMaster Bujold excepted), but Robinson is harping on like there hasn't been a good book in a decade. I'm not the only one who could name six or seven authors who are truly excellent and still writing. Just because sales are down doesn't mean the fiction is there; it just means people are diverting their attention elsewhere. Which brings me to point two...
There is, I suspect, no relation between the increase in media-driven novels and 'proper' ones. People who read Star Trek novels aren't interested in proper SF; I suspect the same holds true for other franchises. If there is a problem with these books, it's that they're included in SF totals, making the SF book industry look healthier than it is.
Robinson's point seems to be that there's a feedback loop between space exploration and SF; I personally have my doubts. I've not doubt whatsoever that SF does indeed foster an interest in space, but is the reverse true? I sort of doubt it.
SF isn't in decline. Quality SF as a percentage of teh total volume of merchandising masquerading as product may be, but so what? Just buy the good stuff, and leave the crap to the trekkies. Or buffyites. Or whatever.
I wouldn't say he'd started to ramble; I'd say he turned into a blathering nutcase.
My broad rule for Heinlein: If it's bigger than - or written after - I Will Fear No Evil - it's unreadable in ways only someone struggling through Hubbard's dekalogy would understand. If it's written before that, then if it's a kids' book it's good, if it's a short story it's probably great, and if it's The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, it's one of the finest science fiction novels around.
Must do up a flowchart.
Well, I've read the article. I've read Scientific American's version. I've read a few other ones google referenced. And I still haven't a fucking clue why silk is so strong.
Am I getting dumber, or are these science article getting more opaque?
"becuase of proteins with various properties" me arse.
My guess is 'yes'. Two reasons:
THey'll want business to use it. And businesses will be unwilling to use anything that they suspect has a backdoor. The source'd have to be visible for them to trust it
It's being done by three governments, not one. That makes it a lot harder for any, ahem, idiosyncratic code to make it in, and again, OSS is the best way of ensuring this.
Will they simply steal OSS and release it with few changes without honoring the gpl?
How do you know microsoft isn't doing that right now? I'm not suggesting that they are, but there seems to be a prevalent attitude during this discussion that china=evil, japan/rok=irrelevent, USA=land of free (if not Free). Japan and ROK are both WTO members, and China really wants to be. It's unlikely they're going to contravene those rules without good reason. Besides, if it's open source, the question goes away.
Will it be in other languages and availabe to foreigners?
Who cares? Seriously. If you've got Linux, BSD and Windows, you're more or less covered. Again, if it's open source, etc, etc
These People, etc
I guess we'll have to just hope that they act honorably, just like all American companies do.
The highlight of this article, as far as I'm concerned, is the poll "Is your boss an idiot?" When I checked it a few hours ago, 51% said yes, 49% no. Now that the superior-to-all-bosses /. crew gets to vote, what are the odds that by the end of the day CNN will find that 90% of bosses are idiots?
As for the article, it's short, lightweight filler. It could've been funny if a little substance went into it. As it it's it's only a few apocryphal anecdotes, some of which shouldn't even be in there. IMO.
Disclosure: I'm a slasdot reader, so I voted 'yes'.
I suppose that the reason they called it a 'dot com' phenomenon is that it was around then that the internet reached critical mass among users; there were enough to make business viable, and - like spam - inane memes had no problem finding an audience.
/. is no place to talk about the motes in the eyes of others; just consider the linux clusters of natalieportman.cx .
Of course, the internet is perfect for memes like 'all your base' to flourish; it takes no effort to forward an url to everyone you know; I'm sure I'm not the only one who knows at least one individual who regularly sent messages where the To: field was longer than the rest of the message combined. A swift (and usually repeated) larting usually took care of these eventually, but in a lot of cases that just meant that their list was transferred to Bcc: instead.
Two things that I noticed around that time that didn't make the list: The warning about GoodTimes, and the now-legendary one-line email that you had to scroll through eight metres of crap and and a myriad '>>>>>' of variable length in order to read 'Check it out!!!!!!!!!' followed by an asinine url that leaves you wondering why the fuck anyone'd want to send it in the first place, let alone forward it to the universe.
Of course,
What the hell is a 'grit' anyway?
Just to clarify for the rest of you who may have been wondering:
Yes, 'all' probably includes Monty Python
Yes, 'all' probably includes those naught Dennis Potter plays and series
Yes, 'all' probably includes Faulty Towers.
I've only one question: d'you think it includes The Omega Factor? I'd love to see that again.
I'll probably turn out okay for her. Remember: the last time anyone was found to have rigged an election, you made him president.
Can you see the conversation between a doctor and a nerd about this?
Doctor: Now, Poindexter, I've just set this PDA up...
PDA: Thump... thump... thump...
Doctor: And I'm giving it to you.
PDA: Kathump...kathump...kathump...
Doctor: As well as the regular functions, it's got a few more...
PDA: KathumpKathumpKathump
Doctor:It records your heartbeat, for instance
PDA: KathumpityKathumpityKathumpity
Doctor: Oh. 180? That can't be right. It musn't work. Here, take this stopwatch, and sms me with your pulse every half an hour.
PDA: Beeeeeeeeeeeeeeep
Why not just get Uri Geller in to sense whether they're telling the truth? Time and again lie detectors have proved to be - at best - slightly better than waving chickens when it comes to accuracy. Yet all Liberty can say is "I'm not persuaded this works".
after landing, the plane went out with its mates, got royally pissed, and managed an altercation with the local constabulary.
Yet another slur on we humble Irish. At least, that's the way I'm going to take it. I'll just point out two things...
a) s/royally/republicanically
b) s/constabulary/gardai.
Typical bloody yank. Not only assumes that Irish stereotypes are correct, but confuses us with the Brits at the same time.
This assumes it's the male gorilla and female chimp
It wasn't an assumption; the CNN report mentioned that the mitochondrial dna was chimp-like; this implies a female chimp.
Actually, I'm a punctuated equilibrium kind of guy myself; however, I don't think that negates my argument that evolution is a process of small, incremental changes.
Remember, when you're talking about deep time, you're talking about events that occur over inconceivably huge timeframes. You used the word 'suddenly', but in geological terms, 'suddenly' can mean hundreds of thousands or millions of years. Radical change can come about in these brief periods, but that change is only one of timeframe and (usually) catastrophe; the mechanism of evolution doesn't change. Beasties still undergo evolution one random mutation at a time. There may be one critical mutation that changes our morphing buddy, but that once change is standing on the shoulders of many, many dwarves.
With regard to the distinction between reproduction and mutation, I'm not sure what you mean. In order for mutations to be passed on, obviously the mutated creature must reproduce. Any offspring can, of course, inherit two sets of mutations and thus be quite different for either parent - and more so from grandparents - but those changes are still incremental in that it's improbable in the extreme for any one creature to mutate to such a degree that it's still a) potent and b) alive. I'm sure massive mutations do happen, and given the length of time life's been around, it's possible that some of the recipients were the better for it. But I can't imagine that that number is sufficiently high to be statistically relevent.
For more on the interpretation of time in such matters, you can do far worse than to read In Search of Deep Time by Henry Gee. Punctuated Equilibrium as a theory was brought to the world by Niles Elderedge and Stephen Jay Gould; check out Elderedge's Time Frames for more.
It's easier to swallow than the idea of a chimp and a gorilla getting it on.
Especially when you consider that gorillas are so poorly endowed when compared to their chimp cousins. To paraphrase Samuel L. Jackson, that'd have to be one charming mother-fuckin' ape.
For Darwin's sake, people. Evolution is a continuum; species don't magically transform from one to another. However long ago chimps and gorillas genetic company, it was a sufficiently short time ago (cosmically speaking) that there could well be variants around; especially when you consider how inaccessable areas like the Congo are for interlopers. They could cheerfully wander, undisturbed, for hundreds of millennia.
One of the reasons that Creationists still hold such pernicious sway is that they can point at news reports (and even the odd paleontologist) who make sweeping statements that a few minutes' thought would tell you is silly. I can't say for certain that a chimp/gorilla hybrid is impossible, but it's certainly unlikely, especially given the alternatives.
I believe Dogbert said it best: "Pah!"
I was once young and foolish, like you (assuming you're young). But then I grew up, and realised that my PDA was good for so much more than Tetris and passwords.
Since i started reading books, I've realised that the medium doesn't matter; it's the book itself that's important. Since I started using my PDAs for reading, I've gone through so much stuff that was otherwise unattainable, it's unbelievable. This year, I've read (amongst others) the works of Mark Twain and Emma Goldman, the Federalist Papers, George Orwell, Plutarch, Madame Bovary... many, many more. And did I regret that I was reading from a wee screen that scrolled up as I read? Not a bit of it. I just found them (usually on Project Gutenberg), downloaded them and read them. Often the were texts that weren't immediately available in dead-tree form.
Before the PDA, I carried around a rucksack everywhere. This always contained a couple of books, an organiser, occasionally a gameboy, and basically a load of stuff that now all hangs from my belt in one compact, Tungsten-shaped form.
I love books. I still buy them by the shitload. But to dismiss electronic versions as being somehow inferior is as dumb as complaining that CDs take the quality out of music.
You're right, though; having a personal library is plain cool. But what would be cooler would be an instantly searchable library, where you could find that quote or that reference instantly. Imagine whipping out your tungsten, typing in a phrase and querying your server that contains hundreds of texts. You find the one you want, and within seconds it's available for reading, quoting or beaming to others.
Much, much better than a big old room full of books that you won't let anyone borrow cos you're afraid you'll never see them again (for the record: I've bought six copies of the Warrior's Apprentice. Not sure whether I have one now).
a) It's in Christian Science Monitor
b) It's about skimming over the water.
Chances are, Jesus features in the answer.
There are two points to be made here, methinks: /now/ how the universe started and will end, but in a lot of the details - and possible the final outcomes - they're almost certainly wrong. A few short years ago we know exactly how Jupiter was formed; then Galileo dropped a probe into the atmosphere, and suddenly more questions arose. Now no-one knows why its atmosphere or its winds are the way they are. Science is littered with such examples; particularly cosmology. How recently is it that we didn't even know gamma ray bursts existed? There'll always be stuff we haven't accounted for, so theories will always be based on incomplete data.
1. Scientists may know
Which brings me nicely to point two: supposing our Brainiacs are right? That's hardly the mystery taken out of everything; questions abound, and always will. Maybe when we're all in our Vorlon-like encounter suits we'll have a decent understanding of the part of the universe that we can see; before then, there'll always be questions.
What was the amount involved ?
"The acquisition of Ximian was an all-cash transaction and is not expected to have a material effect on Novell's financial statements in the current fiscal year"
Linux: it's free as in speech, not free as in Ximian.