Well, it was not that algo but something very similar. Thank you for the link, next time I have to implement something like that I'll keep this one in mind:-
Well, as far as I am concerned if they do this smart, they can even exclude wrongly spelled names. For a database search on names we did "degradation" on phonetics. For example "muller" and "müller" and "muler" (yes, german program...don't kill me for that) would become "muler". Quite a simple algo was behind it and it worked very well (That means, the client was satisfied). If they included such algo's, then even misspelling would be catched. Yes, technically there are just hash-codes, I know...
You should really give the guy a break! Even if "The Sims" is quite old, some people (like me) do not have the time to play a lot of games. I have holiday the next week and I hope to check out some games lying around for ages...for once that I have time (For example I have Age of Empires 2 lying around which is very old: Never played it...no time...will check it out this week)
Hehe, your sig matches well with your comment, by the way.
Where in my argument was I not clear? I agree that the first paragraph may be misleading because of the fact that I say that time in the IT world goes very fast. TCO by renting might get very low (low TCO = it doesn't cost very much) in case where software has a high version cycle and you need the support of every new feature.
Most software isn't that way. My example was for "Joe-Loser-Family-Computer-Owner" (Yes, that's me!) using Office 97, the category in which most end user software falls. I say the TCO is very low in the "Buy-Once-Use-Often", scenario depicted and I calculate the TCO (over 4 years) on a basis of 4 computers running a rented Office for 4 years. 350EUR (bought) < 940EUR (rented)....In what way is my reasoning illogical? Buying and keeping a long time results in a low TCO. That's all.
On a side note, I see you do not work for a huge company where everything goes over comany policy. Your company is probably one of the few that doesn't mind getting resumes in.RTF? Microsoft has already taken us the freedom of choice in document formats. Heck, I still would be using Wordperfect 5.1 for DOS, if I didn't get.DOC,.XLS and.PPT in a contiunous flood. Right now everything goes well, since most companies stick with 97. How long will it take that big companies convert to 2000 and everyone will *have* to follow for the sake of compatibilty. You know, you just don't say to some partner of some huge consulting group: "Oh, please send it in Word 97, because we don't support Word 2000". Believe me he will look at you with a dull unbelieving expression. I agree that you office setup is very reasonable, but it will probably only be usable in small offices...and as long as there are no queues forming in front of those few workstations. Besides, I fear for intercompatibility between Office 2000 and Office 97....I have had some nightmares with Office 97 vs. Office 95
Ehm, my post was sarcasm... Really, I'm in no way a pay-per-view fanatic. However never forget that *if* an industry is able to leverage some service/product as "better" (even if it has drawbacks), we might as well be forced to use it after a while. Those marketing/advertisment guys can be quite ingenious.
That's where pay-per-view drops in: I already see the commercials: "You're at work? You can't be there: the 'big game' for your enjoyment on HTDV, more real than in the stadium, and only for 9.99$" (in very small letters...pay per view, taxes not included, MPAA decriptor not included, may only be seen by one person at a time.)
IANAE (I am not an Economist), but if you have higher initial cost and lower expenses afterwards, you win in the long run over a constant higher expense. Note that "the long run" is obviously more than a couple of years, so in IT, thinking that way is probably very dangerous, but consider the following real-world example:
If I recall correctly my dad bought Office 97 when it came out for 350EUR (not very sure), but we are happy with it and we already use it for 4 years. So technically a subscription to Office would need to be less than 7.3EUR/month to be competitve. Service packs were freely downloadable for Office 97. Consider then that all four PC's in our house have he same Office on it (which is illegal, considering EULA), it lowers TCO even more. Every year that I use this Office 97 longer will be pure gain for me. If I had a subscription, even if it only were 5 EUR/month..over 4 years, for 4 computers it would be 5EUR*12(month)*4(years)*4(computers) = 960 EUR total cost. Ouch! And that only to do a bit accounting, an homework and presentations for school? Not to forget that I didn't have to update any machine in order to keep running Office 97, something which would not be guaranteed to be the case with subscription based software.
You also claim also that companies can choose whether they upgrade or not... Sure, theoretically that is true, but consider this: your business is not alone. Your company is likely to communicate with other businesses: the day your CEO recieves an Office 2000 document and he cannot open it because your company has adopted Office 97 as a standard, what is he going to do? He is not going to mail back to the other CEO to remail it in a compatible format, but he is going to call you and tell you that the IT material is outdated and it needs to get upgraded.
(Oh, yeah, and "weather" is the thing outside like rain and snow and sunshine...what you mean is "whether")
Ehm, it was available for free download a long time ago and/. covered it... a quick search would have told you that .
It didn't work because of me using a SCSI-only system. Seems that it is fixed now and I'll be glad to give it another shot.
And a month for getting the "news" on slashdot is not that long, I mean...*who* actually visits the QNX website regularly and cares to report new upgrades?
Now, I know this probably is not the place to ask, but I would need the sym53c500 module for my PCMCIA SCSI card....Doesn't seem to be supported since 2.2.14...At least I don't manage to compile a tarball that I found for 2.2.14 under kernel 2.4.1 (Which doesn't surprise anyone)
I really use my SCSI card quite a lot, and a link would be most helpfull. I really get fed up dual booting W9x to backup my data:-(
Yes, I know...offtopic, sorry...
I know nobody will read this by now, but Psion has emulators for some of their machines: check out http://www.psion.com/downloads/pc/"> http://www.psion.com/downloads/pc/
Now I'll take the risk for a "me too" post. I completely agree. I have a simple Psion Siena (Little brother of the Psion 3) and it suits all my needs. Someone gave it to me for helping him with his computer troubles.
I especially like the spreadsheet function which is what I nearly use all the time. The "database" (ahum, how dare I say it) is terrible: anything than a simple table is impossible.
Since I'm a coder I looked at OPL. It is a BASIC-like laguage and you can have a lot of fun with PEEK and POKE;-) Reminds me my BASIC days. The PDF's documentation is good and is easily downloadable from somewhere on the psion site. (Sorry, no link, I'm at work right now) I wrote some small tools that I needed, but programming for this thing is nearly impossible for larger projects. Any PDA development platform should come with an emulator for a full-grown PC: "develop on PC and deploy on PDA" (I saw this "slogan" somewhere in previous comments)
I saw the Revo (a workmate has it) and was very impressed. Most of my workmates have Palms, which are very flashy (Play Simcity during meetings!), but I think they come with too few standard software....yes I miss the spreadsheet! I saw you could buy some, but I was spoiled by Psion....So there is no way that I'll buy a Palm. Pricing is about the same for the Revo and and a "nicer Palm", and except for Grafitti, it offers nearly nothing more (actually less).
The thing is, subscriptions are just being realistic - if you pretend that you're still going to be using those P3's running Office xxxx in 5 years time, you're wrong.
You think as a technology worker...of course you will have a P-IX or an AMD-Superlon in 5 years. Not everyone will, believe me. For instance our family computer (home usage) is a Pentium Pro 200 running NT4 that is 5 years old and we happily surf, wordprocess and 'spreadsheet 'on it. Damnit, with a Voodoo2 it even plays Halflife and Unreal very well at 800x600. I only did three major upgrades over those 5 years: a Voodoo2, more RAM and an ISDN adapter.
Now you may argue that I'm a computer geek that takes pride in runnnig older systems in todays usage...(which is absolutely true, I munched up a P166 for my sis so that she could do her dactlyography exercises). But let's go to my professional field: one of my clients is a government institution. Their old IT system (until 1999) was based on a Novell Server with plain XT's...as it did since 1987! For Y2K they got shiny new P-II-350's and a funky little server. Remember : Government institution + I did my job right: they *will* use these babies in 5 years. Heck they will use them in 10 years if they can!
Everything depends so much on your needs. And if you choose a computer based on your current needs plus a certain margin (for normal users power +25%, for power users +50%, for graphic users +100% or more) you can keep your computer for a great amount of time.
Oh, something I want to vent too: you talk about TCO for businesses. Now, your arguments may stand, but it should not be mandatory over the internet (like.NET?) Why? A technical reason would be low-bandwith connections but I see another issue: what about financial institutions? They don't want a connection to the internet, they don't want their documents on internet servers. With the security history of Microsoft, I don't think financial institution will trust this kind of option. For normal businesses (who don't really have critical data...hmmm, sounds weird to me) it could be a cost-saving approach, but for businesses where data == hard money forget it: they prefer to have full control and everything inhouse on servers with triple backup tape.
Well, with a huge vacuum-cleaner spaceship like in Space Quest V:-)
Re:Genetic Engineering and Ubermensch
on
Spidergoats
·
· Score: 1
Now, well...let me get bitchy then:
Human activity is interfering with nature.
Interference with nature is natrural. (Cows producing methane, trees producing oxygen, etc...)
Thus human activity is natural. (Not surprising)
Up to this point point you agree don't you? Let's go on:
Genertical engineering is a human activity (you can't deny than, since we are doing it!)
Human activity is natural (see previous logic)
Thus Genetical engineering is natural!
Ouch! Your own logic fails because you use two different ways to measure "interference with nature". As long as we don't touch "the code of life" manually everything is right in your eyes, but it is not as soon as we start touching the interesting bits of nature.
Don't forget that 30 years ago transplanting a heart from a "dead" body to a heal a sick body was considered "playing god". Now it is routine...
Of couse I know that there are some dangers in fiddeling around with genetical code, but then...we won't ever know what benefits it will bring to humankind if we don't! Times change my friend, and our kids will think we were silly thinking that genetical engineering was unethical.
Genetic Engineering and Ubermensch
on
Spidergoats
·
· Score: 1
Ignace, you're exaggerating way too much.
You find that the intereference of man with his environment is a natural thing. I agree, it is natural for every living creature to interfere with its environment: cows produce methane, some bacteria create peniccilin, trees create oxygen. This is all part of the balance in the environment.
Man, however created specific breeds of species to suit his own needs. These breeds woudn't survive "normally" or if they did they'd adapt fast enough (on an evolutionary scale) back to a more "wilde-nature-efficient" form. For example, don't you think that in "the wild", dogs like Labradors and Shepherds have more chances of survival than those bitchy poodles and chiuwawas? I think that if we let all dogs lose and did not feed them, we would pretty soon see appear a Wolf-like dog again.
We chanced other species over centuries and centuries, and it isn't "natural" because we let them f*ck normally. To say it in computer terms: up until now, we tweaked the kernel of life by changing the compilation parameters, genetical engineering will allow us to change the code in the kernel. I know we will get some coredumps sooner or later, but I think those will be a lesser evil against the benefits we can get out of it.
Oh, and as for the Ubermench? I'd like to see my kids be perfect: I have bad sight, genetic tendencies to alcoholism, bad skin and no sex-appeal. Well, if I could correct all of those bad traits of me in my kids, I'd gladly do. They'll be much more happy than me. You don't need an Adolf Hitler to propagate an Ubermench. Any parent would want a perfect kid, and will probably embrace genetical engineering on their progeniture if it were legal. We'll get enough ubermenschen fast enough that way. But all those ubermenschen will still be different from the other ubermenschen since each pair of parent will have a different view on "perfection".
Actually I think that a todays Hitler would have a hard time inflicting his "perfect-human" vision on this eventual followers. He would have to promote artificial insemination of all females with genetically altered fetuses. Now, it is one thing to follow a leader,...but how many women would volunteer to carry such babies? (I mean that standardized ubermensch you described)
Besides, I like brunettes with brown eyes better.
Yeah, I know that of course. But imagine you were spider-woman, what would be the better choice: tying him up and get away with all his money, or tying him up and well, suck that other thing empty?
Re-Re:Bring em on those steaks!
on
Spidergoats
·
· Score: 1
I did ask for it, I know;-)
1) I want white roses for my funeral in 10-15 years when I die from Creutzfeld-Jacob. Please remember it because I won't;-) I hope my mom made a nice juicy steak for dinner today! (Sidenote 1: Chicken huh? Does the word "Dioxine" ring a bell. Sidenote 2: Lamb? This means baby-sheep! You child murderer!;-) )
2)
A) I did not talk about the economical implications, nor about issues of Intellectual Property and Patenting and the things Capitalistic Corporations just love. Not that I don't care, but I think that eventual usefull findings should be used in favor of the whole humanity. Patenting Genetically Engineered species should not be possible, and the fact it is possible in most countries just shows how greedy humans are!
B) Hmm, I get your point, but natural selection is not anymore part of human life. Consider our cattle: If it gets sick and we have a cure, we heal them. If we can't we kill them and (hopefully) burn them. Natural selection my *ss! We did the selection on basis of our concepts of "Good" and "Bad". As for human natural selection: that has gone a long time ago. Natural selection is based on the fact that many kids will be born and only the strongest survive. (read: the others die) Now, how low has child-mortality dropped in our "civilised" countries? How many kids does a woman carry in her lifetime? Two, three and all stay alive: if they have a heart-malformation or so....no problem we have surgery to "repair" them even tough they are very likely to give those malformations over to their own kids. Only third-world countries still have real "natural selection".
Face it my friend: we have taken control a long time ago! If we lose control by creating something that will destroy us, then let it be that way: your cherished natural selection will be back in place faster than you can say "human extinction".
Well, the chicks you talk about are not cold-blooded, but cold-hearted! What do you want a spider-chick for? She'll tie you up in her web, and suck your wallet empty;-)
Bring em on those steaks!
on
Spidergoats
·
· Score: 2
Ha! I'm European and I like my european steaks juicy and red! The risk of contracting the new variant of Creutzfeld-Jacob is so small, that I have more chance of winning the lottery...and I don't even play! Seriously: the probability that I get throath cancer because I smoke cigars is way higher than getting senile too early.
I really didn't change my eating habits because of some media-hype that will calm down in some months.
On a side note: I'm not really concerned with Genetical Engineering either. If you look at it technically, it's just as if the animal/plant mutated naturally. We woudn't even know if a natural plant was in some way mutated.
Besides, we didn't start genetic engineering right now: we did it for centuries by selectively breeding animals/plants with the characteristics we liked. Or were you convinced that it is natural for a cow to give milk all year long? Genetical Engineering has been here all the time, we just do it in labs now.
Re:Yes, but what about the goats?
on
Spidergoats
·
· Score: 1
Chicken = Bird = Warmblooded...
Birds are warmblooded and as far as I know their body temperature varies from species to species but is constant within a species (some have a body temperature of over 42 degrees celcius)
I don't have link but consider this: coldblooded animals like fish and reptiles are very inactive if the temperature of the environment is low: they conserve their energy by keeping immobile if possible. Birds on the other hand do fly on cold winter day: flying is "hard work" for a bird and thus they must be warmblooded.
Slashdot Mirror
Well, it was not that algo but something very similar. Thank you for the link, next time I have to implement something like that I'll keep this one in mind :-
Yes, technically there are just hash-codes.
"they", not "there"...of course, I need to use that preview button, sorry.
Well, as far as I am concerned if they do this smart, they can even exclude wrongly spelled names. For a database search on names we did "degradation" on phonetics. For example "muller" and "müller" and "muler" (yes, german program...don't kill me for that) would become "muler". Quite a simple algo was behind it and it worked very well (That means, the client was satisfied). If they included such algo's, then even misspelling would be catched. Yes, technically there are just hash-codes, I know...
I have holiday the next week and I hope to check out some games lying around for ages...for once that I have time (For example I have Age of Empires 2 lying around which is very old: Never played it...no time...will check it out this week)
Hehe, your sig matches well with your comment, by the way.
I just tried some bogus userid/password combinations. After 3 trials I found one:
user=12345678
password=12345678
Enjoy!
Most software isn't that way. My example was for "Joe-Loser-Family-Computer-Owner" (Yes, that's me!) using Office 97, the category in which most end user software falls. I say the TCO is very low in the "Buy-Once-Use-Often", scenario depicted and I calculate the TCO (over 4 years) on a basis of 4 computers running a rented Office for 4 years. 350EUR (bought) < 940EUR (rented)....In what way is my reasoning illogical? Buying and keeping a long time results in a low TCO. That's all.
On a side note, I see you do not work for a huge company where everything goes over comany policy. Your company is probably one of the few that doesn't mind getting resumes in .RTF? Microsoft has already taken us the freedom of choice in document formats. Heck, I still would be using Wordperfect 5.1 for DOS, if I didn't get .DOC, .XLS and .PPT in a contiunous flood. Right now everything goes well, since most companies stick with 97. How long will it take that big companies convert to 2000 and everyone will *have* to follow for the sake of compatibilty. You know, you just don't say to some partner of some huge consulting group: "Oh, please send it in Word 97, because we don't support Word 2000". Believe me he will look at you with a dull unbelieving expression.
I agree that you office setup is very reasonable, but it will probably only be usable in small offices...and as long as there are no queues forming in front of those few workstations. Besides, I fear for intercompatibility between Office 2000 and Office 97....I have had some nightmares with Office 97 vs. Office 95
Ehm, my post was sarcasm... Really, I'm in no way a pay-per-view fanatic. However never forget that *if* an industry is able to leverage some service/product as "better" (even if it has drawbacks), we might as well be forced to use it after a while. Those marketing/advertisment guys can be quite ingenious.
That's where pay-per-view drops in: I already see the commercials: "You're at work? You can't be there: the 'big game' for your enjoyment on HTDV, more real than in the stadium, and only for 9.99$" (in very small letters...pay per view, taxes not included, MPAA decriptor not included, may only be seen by one person at a time.)
If I recall correctly my dad bought Office 97 when it came out for 350EUR (not very sure), but we are happy with it and we already use it for 4 years. So technically a subscription to Office would need to be less than 7.3EUR/month to be competitve. Service packs were freely downloadable for Office 97. Consider then that all four PC's in our house have he same Office on it (which is illegal, considering EULA), it lowers TCO even more. Every year that I use this Office 97 longer will be pure gain for me. If I had a subscription, even if it only were 5 EUR/month..over 4 years, for 4 computers it would be 5EUR*12(month)*4(years)*4(computers) = 960 EUR total cost. Ouch! And that only to do a bit accounting, an homework and presentations for school? Not to forget that I didn't have to update any machine in order to keep running Office 97, something which would not be guaranteed to be the case with subscription based software.
You also claim also that companies can choose whether they upgrade or not... Sure, theoretically that is true, but consider this: your business is not alone. Your company is likely to communicate with other businesses: the day your CEO recieves an Office 2000 document and he cannot open it because your company has adopted Office 97 as a standard, what is he going to do? He is not going to mail back to the other CEO to remail it in a compatible format, but he is going to call you and tell you that the IT material is outdated and it needs to get upgraded.
(Oh, yeah, and "weather" is the thing outside like rain and snow and sunshine...what you mean is "whether")
It didn't work because of me using a SCSI-only system. Seems that it is fixed now and I'll be glad to give it another shot.
And a month for getting the "news" on slashdot is not that long, I mean...*who* actually visits the QNX website regularly and cares to report new upgrades?
Oh, and /. *is* my grapevine ;-)
Now, I know this probably is not the place to ask, but I would need the sym53c500 module for my PCMCIA SCSI card....Doesn't seem to be supported since 2.2.14...At least I don't manage to compile a tarball that I found for 2.2.14 under kernel 2.4.1 (Which doesn't surprise anyone) :-(
I really use my SCSI card quite a lot, and a link would be most helpfull. I really get fed up dual booting W9x to backup my data
Yes, I know...offtopic, sorry...
I know nobody will read this by now, but Psion has emulators for some of their machines: check out http://www.psion.com/downloads/pc/"> http://www.psion.com/downloads/pc/
Not to forget to mention we found sugar in space.
Organic molecules seem to be very common in space.
I especially like the spreadsheet function which is what I nearly use all the time. The "database" (ahum, how dare I say it) is terrible: anything than a simple table is impossible.
Since I'm a coder I looked at OPL. It is a BASIC-like laguage and you can have a lot of fun with PEEK and POKE ;-) Reminds me my BASIC days. The PDF's documentation is good and is easily downloadable from somewhere on the psion site. (Sorry, no link, I'm at work right now)
I wrote some small tools that I needed, but programming for this thing is nearly impossible for larger projects. Any PDA development platform should come with an emulator for a full-grown PC: "develop on PC and deploy on PDA" (I saw this "slogan" somewhere in previous comments)
I saw the Revo (a workmate has it) and was very impressed. Most of my workmates have Palms, which are very flashy (Play Simcity during meetings!), but I think they come with too few standard software....yes I miss the spreadsheet! I saw you could buy some, but I was spoiled by Psion....So there is no way that I'll buy a Palm. Pricing is about the same for the Revo and and a "nicer Palm", and except for Grafitti, it offers nearly nothing more (actually less).
You think as a technology worker...of course you will have a P-IX or an AMD-Superlon in 5 years. Not everyone will, believe me.
For instance our family computer (home usage) is a Pentium Pro 200 running NT4 that is 5 years old and we happily surf, wordprocess and 'spreadsheet 'on it. Damnit, with a Voodoo2 it even plays Halflife and Unreal very well at 800x600. I only did three major upgrades over those 5 years: a Voodoo2, more RAM and an ISDN adapter.
Now you may argue that I'm a computer geek that takes pride in runnnig older systems in todays usage...(which is absolutely true, I munched up a P166 for my sis so that she could do her dactlyography exercises). But let's go to my professional field: one of my clients is a government institution. Their old IT system (until 1999) was based on a Novell Server with plain XT's...as it did since 1987! For Y2K they got shiny new P-II-350's and a funky little server. Remember : Government institution + I did my job right: they *will* use these babies in 5 years. Heck they will use them in 10 years if they can!
Everything depends so much on your needs. And if you choose a computer based on your current needs plus a certain margin (for normal users power +25%, for power users +50%, for graphic users +100% or more) you can keep your computer for a great amount of time.
Oh, something I want to vent too: you talk about TCO for businesses. Now, your arguments may stand, but it should not be mandatory over the internet (like .NET?) Why? A technical reason would be low-bandwith connections but I see another issue: what about financial institutions? They don't want a connection to the internet, they don't want their documents on internet servers. With the security history of Microsoft, I don't think financial institution will trust this kind of option. For normal businesses (who don't really have critical data...hmmm, sounds weird to me) it could be a cost-saving approach, but for businesses where data == hard money forget it: they prefer to have full control and everything inhouse on servers with triple backup tape.
Well, it's a guess... The probability of winning that T-Shirt is extremely low, oh well it's the participating that counts anyway ;-)
Now we just need an assembler written in perl! Everyone knows that will be the more elegant code ;-)
Well, with a huge vacuum-cleaner spaceship like in Space Quest V :-)
- Human activity is interfering with nature.
- Interference with nature is natrural. (Cows producing methane, trees producing oxygen, etc...)
- Thus human activity is natural. (Not surprising)
Up to this point point you agree don't you? Let's go on:- Genertical engineering is a human activity (you can't deny than, since we are doing it!)
- Human activity is natural (see previous logic)
- Thus Genetical engineering is natural!
Ouch! Your own logic fails because you use two different ways to measure "interference with nature". As long as we don't touch "the code of life" manually everything is right in your eyes, but it is not as soon as we start touching the interesting bits of nature.Don't forget that 30 years ago transplanting a heart from a "dead" body to a heal a sick body was considered "playing god". Now it is routine...
Of couse I know that there are some dangers in fiddeling around with genetical code, but then...we won't ever know what benefits it will bring to humankind if we don't!
Times change my friend, and our kids will think we were silly thinking that genetical engineering was unethical.
You find that the intereference of man with his environment is a natural thing. I agree, it is natural for every living creature to interfere with its environment: cows produce methane, some bacteria create peniccilin, trees create oxygen. This is all part of the balance in the environment.
Man, however created specific breeds of species to suit his own needs. These breeds woudn't survive "normally" or if they did they'd adapt fast enough (on an evolutionary scale) back to a more "wilde-nature-efficient" form.
For example, don't you think that in "the wild", dogs like Labradors and Shepherds have more chances of survival than those bitchy poodles and chiuwawas? I think that if we let all dogs lose and did not feed them, we would pretty soon see appear a Wolf-like dog again.
We chanced other species over centuries and centuries, and it isn't "natural" because we let them f*ck normally. To say it in computer terms: up until now, we tweaked the kernel of life by changing the compilation parameters, genetical engineering will allow us to change the code in the kernel. I know we will get some coredumps sooner or later, but I think those will be a lesser evil against the benefits we can get out of it.
Oh, and as for the Ubermench? I'd like to see my kids be perfect: I have bad sight, genetic tendencies to alcoholism, bad skin and no sex-appeal. Well, if I could correct all of those bad traits of me in my kids, I'd gladly do. They'll be much more happy than me.
You don't need an Adolf Hitler to propagate an Ubermench. Any parent would want a perfect kid, and will probably embrace genetical engineering on their progeniture if it were legal. We'll get enough ubermenschen fast enough that way. But all those ubermenschen will still be different from the other ubermenschen since each pair of parent will have a different view on "perfection".
Actually I think that a todays Hitler would have a hard time inflicting his "perfect-human" vision on this eventual followers. He would have to promote artificial insemination of all females with genetically altered fetuses. Now, it is one thing to follow a leader,...but how many women would volunteer to carry such babies? (I mean that standardized ubermensch you described)
Besides, I like brunettes with brown eyes better.
Yeah, I know that of course. But imagine you were spider-woman, what would be the better choice: tying him up and get away with all his money, or tying him up and well, suck that other thing empty?
1) I want white roses for my funeral in 10-15 years when I die from Creutzfeld-Jacob. Please remember it because I won't
I hope my mom made a nice juicy steak for dinner today! (Sidenote 1: Chicken huh? Does the word "Dioxine" ring a bell. Sidenote 2: Lamb? This means baby-sheep! You child murderer!
2)
A) I did not talk about the economical implications, nor about issues of Intellectual Property and Patenting and the things Capitalistic Corporations just love. Not that I don't care, but I think that eventual usefull findings should be used in favor of the whole humanity. Patenting Genetically Engineered species should not be possible, and the fact it is possible in most countries just shows how greedy humans are!
B) Hmm, I get your point, but natural selection is not anymore part of human life. Consider our cattle: If it gets sick and we have a cure, we heal them. If we can't we kill them and (hopefully) burn them. Natural selection my *ss! We did the selection on basis of our concepts of "Good" and "Bad".
As for human natural selection: that has gone a long time ago. Natural selection is based on the fact that many kids will be born and only the strongest survive. (read: the others die) Now, how low has child-mortality dropped in our "civilised" countries? How many kids does a woman carry in her lifetime? Two, three and all stay alive: if they have a heart-malformation or so....no problem we have surgery to "repair" them even tough they are very likely to give those malformations over to their own kids. Only third-world countries still have real "natural selection".
Face it my friend: we have taken control a long time ago! If we lose control by creating something that will destroy us, then let it be that way: your cherished natural selection will be back in place faster than you can say "human extinction".
Well, the chicks you talk about are not cold-blooded, but cold-hearted! What do you want a spider-chick for? She'll tie you up in her web, and suck your wallet empty ;-)
I really didn't change my eating habits because of some media-hype that will calm down in some months.
On a side note: I'm not really concerned with Genetical Engineering either. If you look at it technically, it's just as if the animal/plant mutated naturally. We woudn't even know if a natural plant was in some way mutated.
Besides, we didn't start genetic engineering right now: we did it for centuries by selectively breeding animals/plants with the characteristics we liked. Or were you convinced that it is natural for a cow to give milk all year long? Genetical Engineering has been here all the time, we just do it in labs now.
Chicken = Bird = Warmblooded...
Birds are warmblooded and as far as I know their body temperature varies from species to species but is constant within a species (some have a body temperature of over 42 degrees celcius)
I don't have link but consider this: coldblooded animals like fish and reptiles are very inactive if the temperature of the environment is low: they conserve their energy by keeping immobile if possible. Birds on the other hand do fly on cold winter day: flying is "hard work" for a bird and thus they must be warmblooded.