I think PC users should boycott Intel because of this kind of B.S. Clearly they have decided that they can't do it based on technology in the marketplace, so have decided to try to do it by strongarming the end user. It's baloney and hurts all PC users.
I realized, that you had systematically missed the point, by substituting the concept of variation (differences amongst individuals) for the concept of diversity (the range of different types of creatures in existence)
It is not a matter of substitution, rather looking at the cause. Variation is what leads to diversity. The fact that variation is the mechanism that permits adaptation and also can have other side effects leads to the conclusion that diversity is not necessarily primarily adaptive in origin.
While we do not see whales living in caves we certainly see non-adaptive diversity in nature. Specialtion of house mice on different Pacific islands is a common example - the environments and therefore selective pressures are presumably the same. Yet the mice have very different genetic content between populations. Yes, the mice will still be adapted to their environment. But none the less there is non-adaptive diversity. And lots of it too, because many species can live in a given niche.
As far as the definition of evolution, I give up. I've given you citations and sound fundamental philisophical resaoning as to why the correct view is that evolution is change in genetic population. I don't have anything else.
Yohah v. Athlon comparisons are not really applicable here. These are 4 way server parts with different operating requirements and characteristics than desktop applications.
the fundamental point that genetic drift alone can't explain any of the key observations about life
Alone, no. But adaptive change falls far short of explaining diversity too. Let's look at some of your points:
-> The diversity is (to a good first approximation) perfectly adaptive
Adaptive variation is in fact much less than non-adaptive variation - and it MUST work that way because an organism cannot predict what kind of variation will turn out to be adaptive in advance. Variation due to genetic combination can be favorable, neutral or unfavorable from a survival point of view, and a lot of variations must be emprically tested to end up with a favorable variation. The result is in fact opposite to your point - to a first order all variation is random, non-adaptive. Only later does the environment categorize the variation. Unfavorable variations will be eliminated from the gene pool by selection, and favorable ones will survive, but neutral variation will also survive.
Since this variation leads to speciation the conclusion is inevitable that non-adaptive change leads to more speciation than adaptive change. This is borne out by what we know of the history of life - there is far more speciation and variation than can be explained by mere adaptation.
-> It is optimal, in the sense that permuting the diversity in any way (e.g. hanging giraffes from cave roofs) would destroy one or more of the points above.
I have NEVER seen any biologically rigorous claims that variations in genetic populations gives anything close to optimal. Look at the human body - it is full of design flaws that keep doctors plenty busy. Nature is pragmatic, not optimal - it produces organisms that are 'good enough' to reproduce.
your definition.. has no explanatory value whatsoever
My definition is superior in explanatory value because it is measurable. Genetic analysis can confirm precisely and quantitatively changes in allele distribution. Your meaning ("adaptive" change) is much worse because it requires somebody to figure out if what a change is and if it is adaptive or not - and if you think about it that really is hard to determine rigorously and measure quantitatively. In the sciences this subjectivity is anathema. Starting with measurable facts you can then build quantitative theories. Start with subjectivity and you will make more subjectivity.
Statistical genetics, biophysics and biochemistry is replacing the old descriptive biology. It is a trend for the better because it is injecting rigor into the science. It is also the anvil on which creationism is being beaten flat.
But if you are STILL paying the same amount in taxes as if you just moved into a house that you have been living in for over 10+ years you are horribly managing your personal finances.
I wasn't born yesterday, and I resent people who seem to think I was based on incomplete information and assumption. You forgot to mention the fact that many states have low income limits or property value limits (at least low compared to my or my fathers situation) on homestead tax provisions. Because of these limitations neither my father or I qualify for homestead provisions.
evolution isn't just change, it's adaptive change.
Sorry, that is just not correct. Evolution is NOT defined in modern biology as adaptive change. Your basic premise is wrong, making your arguments specious.
Here's a link to a relevant page in a decent online Biology text. Give is a look.
Yeah, I hear you. I did the calculation based on current assesed value. My father is living in a house he bought for $15,000 in 1955. He now pays $7,000 per year in real estate taxes - so I'd guess he has paid 10-15 times the original purchase price in taxes. Factor in mortgage interest and it's probably 5 - 8x.
My experience has been that you maximize turnover by sending the movies back as soon as possible. If you send back 1 or two movies they will ship back 1 or two shipped immediately. If you send in 3 movies you will usually get 2 movies shipped back next day, or sometimes you will get 3 movies shipped back immediately. More than three movies - same answer as 3 movies, most of the time. HOWEVER if you send in four or more once in a while you will get back more then 3 - not often, but it has happened to me. Now the weekend appears to be a special case - if you return 2 movies Friday, and three Saturday, Netflix will get all 5 on Monday - and sometimes they will send out 5 the same day - always at least 3.
Now once in a while the computer gets pissed and doesn't acknowledge the return, and you have to wait 6 days to file a shipping problem - then blammo it gets found. Or the computer decides to ship from the other side of the country. But that is why I have a slightly higher membership level than I might otherwise need so this kind of punshment doesn't throw off my schedule.
I am a heavy Netfix renter (up to 8 per week), and while I am sure they are throttling me, I don't really care. I watch Netflix DVDs several nights of the week, and also other members of my family watch Netflix DVDs. The service is still great, with a very wide selection and rapid delivery of the material I want. If I feel I need more DVD's I'll just move to a higher membership level. I am not compulsive enough to be frustrated by not getting immediate delivery of new releases - there is so much older material in the catalog that there is plenty for me to watch.
People who are complaining about the throttling don't realize the basic economics of the service, and the fact NetFlix has to make money to stay in business. Personally I want them to stay in business because I like thier service as it currently works, even with the throttling. It is still fast, convenient, economical and the selection is great.
If I had any complaint it would be about the condition of the disks - there was a period of time I was getting perhaps 15% disks that were acutally cracked or had splits in the plastic that made them unplayable. However this has improved a lot since the start of the year and I have had had only one bad disk in the past 50 or so, so perhaps they have improved their QA.
Well, no, but evolution (at least as it is defined in the current vernacular) is the mechanism by which speciation occurs. It is interesting that in Darwin's time evolution meant something rather different, and he never or rarely used the term to describe his theory.
So the evolution of adaptive traits is not the same thing as speciation, and, as I said before, it is natural selection, not genetic drift, which drives evolution.
Changes in the statistics of the presence of genes in a population over time is evolution. Speciation occurs as a result of this. Mutation and sampling error are the causes. Sampling error can be random (genetic drift) or due to natural selection. In large populations genetic drift tends to be slow, but in relatively small isolated populations it can be a very large factor leading to rapid changes in the statistics of the gene pool and eventually speciation.
There are many studies of such populations in absence of at least known natural selection factors that show evolution (changes in gene distibution statistics). While genetic drift is a stochastic process, an allele is truth state, and eventually it will propagate throughout the population, or disappear completely. The power of genetic drift effects can be seen in a striking example in the human race - every living human has mitochondrial DNA originating from a single female. There are many other examples of human populations (where natural selection is generally not a factor) that for one reason or another are genetically isolated and are quite divergent in their genetic statistics.
The evidence is pretty clear that genetic drift is an important cause of evolution. Some feel it is mre important than natural selection.
If you plan to use random drift for that, you'll have a heck of a time explaining why things consistently "randomly drift" in the right direction.
That is challenged quite widely. Natural selection is one mechanism for speciation, others like random genetic drift in isolated populations are often viewed to be more important in modern theory.
The concept that the idea of rapid change is a revolutionary attack on Darwinism is poppycock.
Darwin's thesis is in two parts - that evolution occurs, and that the mechanism is natural selection. The first part is not under any scientific debate. The second part, the proposal that natural selection is the mechanism has been understood to be not the best mechanism for the process of evolution has been understood for nearly 100 years. Darwin did not understand genes, genetics, nor the mechanisms of genetic drift that occur within populations. This knowedge postdates Darwin's original work.
The understanding of evolutionary mechanism works at the level of genes, and populations whereas Darwinism was concerned mainly with species.
This view of the mechanism of evolution is widely misunderstood in the creationistic and anti-evolution communities, and ignorant articles often appear trying to discredit evolution based on a fundamental misappropriation of the topic.
It's a shame that this sort of article was published on Slashdot - it shows a great ignorance of the topic.
I an EMP pulse weapon, sort of a Taser on steriods would be the way to do this. That way the the cops could see if the coast was clear before trigging the device.
I am not knocking the profession, but touting it as being more desirable than programming is nuts. The fact is that the median salary for a plubmer in the US is $36,000. That is not comparable to what a software developer gets.
THere is no silver bullet for what you describe other than sound development practices. The best results in this area are acheived by teams who are constantly refining their processes based on lessons learned in previous software iterations.
And spend the day cleaning out other people's shit? I don't think so. Not to mention that the pay is NOT as good as programming, and programming skills can be leveraged into better jobs. I did a career chance from another engineering field into programming - after 3 years of coding I am now a JOAT leading both a development team and a research team. of
In 10 years all the programming jobs will be outsourced to India/China
Not hardly. Outsourcing is slowing down.
The safe rule: get a great education, heavy on the math, develop your writing skills and the world is your oyster. Even though I never had a formal course in computer science I can solve problems none of the computer science people I work with can touch because of the math I can do.
My employer had all of it's products written in VB6, and when.Net came out learned a hard lesson about dealing with Microsoft. Rather than porting to.Net we are now a Java shop.
Someone who has coded in VB.Net for years would be a far better choice for a Managed C++.Net project than someone who has programmed in C++ on another platform for years.
Does anyone else see the problem with this?.Net is so platform specific that most of what you learn is non-portable.
The Java language IS a syntax specification, and a quite elegant one at that. The library stuff is however what gives it great flexibilty - the libraries are far more well integrated than the potpourri that you get from sites like CPAN, making a logical whole that is unrivaled.
Slashdot Mirror
Since they've no way of detecting the rotation of an electron
M ott/index2.htm
So how does this work then?
http://www.staibinstruments.com/english/products/
Embrace
Extinguish
????
Profit!!!
I think PC users should boycott Intel because of this kind of B.S. Clearly they have decided that they can't do it based on technology in the marketplace, so have decided to try to do it by strongarming the end user. It's baloney and hurts all PC users.
I realized, that you had systematically missed the point, by substituting the concept of variation (differences amongst individuals) for the concept of diversity (the range of different types of creatures in existence)
It is not a matter of substitution, rather looking at the cause. Variation is what leads to diversity. The fact that variation is the mechanism that permits adaptation and also can have other side effects leads to the conclusion that diversity is not necessarily primarily adaptive in origin.
While we do not see whales living in caves we certainly see non-adaptive diversity in nature. Specialtion of house mice on different Pacific islands is a common example - the environments and therefore selective pressures are presumably the same. Yet the mice have very different genetic content between populations. Yes, the mice will still be adapted to their environment. But none the less there is non-adaptive diversity. And lots of it too, because many species can live in a given niche.
As far as the definition of evolution, I give up. I've given you citations and sound fundamental philisophical resaoning as to why the correct view is that evolution is change in genetic population. I don't have anything else.
Yohah v. Athlon comparisons are not really applicable here. These are 4 way server parts with different operating requirements and characteristics than desktop applications.
the fundamental point that genetic drift alone can't explain any of the key observations about life
.. has no explanatory value whatsoever
Alone, no. But adaptive change falls far short of explaining diversity too. Let's look at some of your points:
-> The diversity is (to a good first approximation) perfectly adaptive
Adaptive variation is in fact much less than non-adaptive variation - and it MUST work that way because an organism cannot predict what kind of variation will turn out to be adaptive in advance. Variation due to genetic combination can be favorable, neutral or unfavorable from a survival point of view, and a lot of variations must be emprically tested to end up with a favorable variation. The result is in fact opposite to your point - to a first order all variation is random, non-adaptive. Only later does the environment categorize the variation. Unfavorable variations will be eliminated from the gene pool by selection, and favorable ones will survive, but neutral variation will also survive.
Since this variation leads to speciation the conclusion is inevitable that non-adaptive change leads to more speciation than adaptive change. This is borne out by what we know of the history of life - there is far more speciation and variation than can be explained by mere adaptation.
-> It is optimal, in the sense that permuting the diversity in any way (e.g. hanging giraffes from cave roofs) would destroy one or more of the points above.
I have NEVER seen any biologically rigorous claims that variations in genetic populations gives anything close to optimal. Look at the human body - it is full of design flaws that keep doctors plenty busy. Nature is pragmatic, not optimal - it produces organisms that are 'good enough' to reproduce.
your definition
My definition is superior in explanatory value because it is measurable. Genetic analysis can confirm precisely and quantitatively changes in allele distribution. Your meaning ("adaptive" change) is much worse because it requires somebody to figure out if what a change is and if it is adaptive or not - and if you think about it that really is hard to determine rigorously and measure quantitatively. In the sciences this subjectivity is anathema. Starting with measurable facts you can then build quantitative theories. Start with subjectivity and you will make more subjectivity.
Statistical genetics, biophysics and biochemistry is replacing the old descriptive biology. It is a trend for the better because it is injecting rigor into the science. It is also the anvil on which creationism is being beaten flat.
But if you are STILL paying the same amount in taxes as if you just moved into a house that you have been living in for over 10+ years you are horribly managing your personal finances.
I wasn't born yesterday, and I resent people who seem to think I was based on incomplete information and assumption. You forgot to mention the fact that many states have low income limits or property value limits (at least low compared to my or my fathers situation) on homestead tax provisions. Because of these limitations neither my father or I qualify for homestead provisions.
evolution isn't just change, it's adaptive change.
P ages/H/Hardy_Weinberg.html#When_the_Hardy-Weinberg _Law_Fails_to_Apply
Sorry, that is just not correct. Evolution is NOT defined in modern biology as adaptive change. Your basic premise is wrong, making your arguments specious.
Here's a link to a relevant page in a decent online Biology text. Give is a look.
http://users.rcn.com/jkimball.ma.ultranet/Biology
Yeah, I hear you. I did the calculation based on current assesed value. My father is living in a house he bought for $15,000 in 1955. He now pays $7,000 per year in real estate taxes - so I'd guess he has paid 10-15 times the original purchase price in taxes. Factor in mortgage interest and it's probably 5 - 8x.
Say what you want the problem is netflix not informing their customers about what they are actually buying.
If you take the time to read the FAQs and terms of use on the web site they acutally do tell you about their throttling practices.
My experience has been that you maximize turnover by sending the movies back as soon as possible. If you send back 1 or two movies they will ship back 1 or two shipped immediately. If you send in 3 movies you will usually get 2 movies shipped back next day, or sometimes you will get 3 movies shipped back immediately. More than three movies - same answer as 3 movies, most of the time. HOWEVER if you send in four or more once in a while you will get back more then 3 - not often, but it has happened to me. Now the weekend appears to be a special case - if you return 2 movies Friday, and three Saturday, Netflix will get all 5 on Monday - and sometimes they will send out 5 the same day - always at least 3.
Now once in a while the computer gets pissed and doesn't acknowledge the return, and you have to wait 6 days to file a shipping problem - then blammo it gets found. Or the computer decides to ship from the other side of the country. But that is why I have a slightly higher membership level than I might otherwise need so this kind of punshment doesn't throw off my schedule.
I am a heavy Netfix renter (up to 8 per week), and while I am sure they are throttling me, I don't really care. I watch Netflix DVDs several nights of the week, and also other members of my family watch Netflix DVDs. The service is still great, with a very wide selection and rapid delivery of the material I want. If I feel I need more DVD's I'll just move to a higher membership level. I am not compulsive enough to be frustrated by not getting immediate delivery of new releases - there is so much older material in the catalog that there is plenty for me to watch.
People who are complaining about the throttling don't realize the basic economics of the service, and the fact NetFlix has to make money to stay in business. Personally I want them to stay in business because I like thier service as it currently works, even with the throttling. It is still fast, convenient, economical and the selection is great.
If I had any complaint it would be about the condition of the disks - there was a period of time I was getting perhaps 15% disks that were acutally cracked or had splits in the plastic that made them unplayable. However this has improved a lot since the start of the year and I have had had only one bad disk in the past 50 or so, so perhaps they have improved their QA.
I wish my tax rate were that low. I'm paying more like 3%.
evolution isn't the same thing as speciation
Well, no, but evolution (at least as it is defined in the current vernacular) is the mechanism by which speciation occurs. It is interesting that in Darwin's time evolution meant something rather different, and he never or rarely used the term to describe his theory.
So the evolution of adaptive traits is not the same thing as speciation, and, as I said before, it is natural selection, not genetic drift, which drives evolution.
Changes in the statistics of the presence of genes in a population over time is evolution. Speciation occurs as a result of this. Mutation and sampling error are the causes. Sampling error can be random (genetic drift) or due to natural selection. In large populations genetic drift tends to be slow, but in relatively small isolated populations it can be a very large factor leading to rapid changes in the statistics of the gene pool and eventually speciation.
There are many studies of such populations in absence of at least known natural selection factors that show evolution (changes in gene distibution statistics). While genetic drift is a stochastic process, an allele is truth state, and eventually it will propagate throughout the population, or disappear completely. The power of genetic drift effects can be seen in a striking example in the human race - every living human has mitochondrial DNA originating from a single female. There are many other examples of human populations (where natural selection is generally not a factor) that for one reason or another are genetically isolated and are quite divergent in their genetic statistics.
The evidence is pretty clear that genetic drift is an important cause of evolution. Some feel it is mre important than natural selection.
Understood by whom? And, more to the point, what alternative do they supposedly posit as a replacement?
http://www.the-scientist.com/2003/11/17/14/1/
If you plan to use random drift for that, you'll have a heck of a time explaining why things consistently "randomly drift" in the right direction.
That is challenged quite widely. Natural selection is one mechanism for speciation, others like random genetic drift in isolated populations are often viewed to be more important in modern theory.
The concept that the idea of rapid change is a revolutionary attack on Darwinism is poppycock.
Darwin's thesis is in two parts - that evolution occurs, and that the mechanism is natural selection. The first part is not under any scientific debate. The second part, the proposal that natural selection is the mechanism has been understood to be not the best mechanism for the process of evolution has been understood for nearly 100 years. Darwin did not understand genes, genetics, nor the mechanisms of genetic drift that occur within populations. This knowedge postdates Darwin's original work.
The understanding of evolutionary mechanism works at the level of genes, and populations whereas Darwinism was concerned mainly with species.
This view of the mechanism of evolution is widely misunderstood in the creationistic and anti-evolution communities, and ignorant articles often appear trying to discredit evolution based on a fundamental misappropriation of the topic.
It's a shame that this sort of article was published on Slashdot - it shows a great ignorance of the topic.
we would likely see some disturbing side effects of using this energy.
Nah. It all ends up as heat anyway. Thermodynamics 101.
I an EMP pulse weapon, sort of a Taser on steriods would be the way to do this. That way the the cops could see if the coast was clear before trigging the device.
I am not knocking the profession, but touting it as being more desirable than programming is nuts. The fact is that the median salary for a plubmer in the US is $36,000. That is not comparable to what a software developer gets.
THere is no silver bullet for what you describe other than sound development practices. The best results in this area are acheived by teams who are constantly refining their processes based on lessons learned in previous software iterations.
Bulletproof code isn't cheap, but it can be done.
become a plumber...
And spend the day cleaning out other people's shit? I don't think so. Not to mention that the pay is NOT as good as programming, and programming skills can be leveraged into better jobs. I did a career chance from another engineering field into programming - after 3 years of coding I am now a JOAT leading both a development team and a research team.
of
In 10 years all the programming jobs will be outsourced to India/China
Not hardly. Outsourcing is slowing down.
The safe rule: get a great education, heavy on the math, develop your writing skills and the world is your oyster. Even though I never had a formal course in computer science I can solve problems none of the computer science people I work with can touch because of the math I can do.
Math is the universal key.
My employer had all of it's products written in VB6, and when .Net came out learned a hard lesson about dealing with Microsoft. Rather than porting to .Net we are now a Java shop.
Someone who has coded in VB.Net for years would be a far better choice for a Managed C++.Net project than someone who has programmed in C++ on another platform for years.
.Net is so platform specific that most of what you learn is non-portable.
Does anyone else see the problem with this?
No, the article is about the programming market in general, and personal experiences w.r.t. .Net programmer demand vs. other programmer jobs.
.Net.
IMHO the article is a crock. In my area J2EE is king, and pays $20K/year more than
The Java language IS a syntax specification, and a quite elegant one at that. The library stuff is however what gives it great flexibilty - the libraries are far more well integrated than the potpourri that you get from sites like CPAN, making a logical whole that is unrivaled.