at the small scale, gravity is completely irrelevant compared to the other forces.
Scale is relevant. How do you define what is small and what isn't? Electrons are smaller than the earth. They are not small. There may be other particles even smaller, which actually cause electromagnetism and gravity. Then you may find that these subparticles which cause electromagnetism have a much higher concentration than those which cause gravity.
The point is that it is not meaningful (and very inaccurate) to say that gravity is weaker as a force. You can only say that it has a smaller influence when dealing with objects of a certain scale.
Anyone with a good scientific background can see that this article is very flawed. Here are some examples:
Although we think of gravity as strong -- we can get hurt if we fall down -- compared to electromagnetism, gravity is astonishingly weak. It takes the gravity of the whole Earth to hold a pin on a tabletop; a toy magnet can lift it easily.
Ehm, excuse me but doesn't the phrase "comparing apples to oranges" come to mind here? I mean how the hell can you compare two forces with completely causes? It is just as absurd as saying that 1 gram is more than 1 coulomb. Gravity is related to mass, and electromagnetic forces on charge. How can someone compare the mass of the earth with the charge in the atoms in a magnet? They are totally different things.
The notion sounds deceptively simple: besides the familiar three dimensions of space there may be other dimensions, too small to see yet perhaps as large as a millimeter.
Dimensions do not have a size. Objects have sizes in a set of dimensions.
I agree with you that ZDnet is now more Windows focussed, but this is entirely due to market share: Windows has a much larger market (and therefore readership) percentage than Linux. A magazine that has more pages on Windows software has more potential buyers than a magazine that has more articles on Linux
However, having a larger number of articles on Windows is not equivalent to being biased. If tomorrow Linux becomes the dominant platform ZDnet will want the Linux market share as well. Therefore, it is not in their interests to alienate the Linux users by posting biased reports.
I hope that this is a joke in bad taste. If not I will be very dissapointed with the Slashdot editors.
I consider osm to be one of the most significant members of the/. community. Yes he posts offtopic posts, but he posesses a unique sense of humour. On many occasions his various stories and parodies have made me laugh. He is not rude like many other posters, and he is not a spammer. He is just different from most of us. I thought that this is exactly what Slashdot encouraged: individuality.
The thought of being sued for posting off-topic posts frightens me. Those of you who know me are aware that sometimes perform various experiments: I may post something that someone else has already posted or even something from an article to see whether the moderators will notice it. Other times my posts express views that go against the current, in order to stimulate thought from the Slashdot readers. If osm has been sued for posting stories that he has written himself, where will that get me? Lynched?
As for the takeover of the thread that you mention, is this for certain? Have the editors actually checked the IP addresses of all the posters, and were able to determin that it was osm who made all the posts? It seems very unlikely to me.
I see your point of view, but you will allow me to have a different one.
I think that this is not "news for nerds" any more than any other ecological/environmental news story (about earth). Just because it is the environment of another planet under threat I do not find it more interesting than the ecology and environment of our planet. Just because we take earth for granted does not mean that there countless mysteries here, which are just as (if not more) interesting than Europa.
But as I said, you can have your views and I can have mine. This is what Slashdot and freedom of speech is all about.
Well, even though when you outed me I had not been moderated, I am now +3 Insightful. So I win on 3 too, and have indeed proven that/. is being ran by crack addicted moderators.
I think we're more interested in life that has evolved on other planets since it would prove that life is not indiginous only to Earth.
No, it will not "prove" anything. Let me explain.
I see you are turning this into the old religious argument. If we can prove to those stupid Christians that life exists on other planets, then they will run out of arguments for their creationist theories. However to make such a claim is entirely false. The Christians will find a way to interpret their Bible (as they have done so many times in the past in order to cope with new "realities") so that it does not conflict with their beliefs.
As for those logical people who do not believe in God, finding life on another planet will not prove anything. We already know that life does not exist only on Earth. How? By the wonderful science of statistics.
It has been proven that if you take into account: a. the number of planets in the Universe. b. the likelyhood of life appearing on a specific planet (this is calculated using the age of a planet, the elements present on the surface, temperature etc). You will see that the probability of Earth being the only planet with life in the Universe is less than 1E-12.
Let's let Greenpeace and whatever they're called take care of the environment and let NASA send microbes into space.
Yes, I agree with you. NASA are doing their job. I just accuse all of those who think it is just a great story of being biased. Here we are spending out time talking about how to protect (probably non-existant) microbes in Europa, when there are human beings being killed right next to us. Did you ever see a mention of them in Slashdot? Are Eupopan microbes "news for nerds, stuff that matters" and human children not worthy of a mention?
NASA are of course doing a fine thing by showing their concern, so hats off to them. It would be a shame to destroy any potential life without even having discovered it first.
Having said that, it seems a but hypocritical that we as humans, show so much concern about the potential life on a planet so far away (especially when the likelyhood there is life is so small), when we do not give a damn about our own planet. Our waste kills millions of organisms every day, and God knows how many microorganisms (which is what we will find on these planets, if we find anything) are made extinct every day and we don't even know it.
Are alien organisms more important? To they have a greater right to live than earth organisms?
Actually there is a point in a photonic motherboard, but it is not related to this story in any way.
This story talks about advances in optical switching technology. At present, high frequency optical signals need to be converted to electrical signals before being routed. But high frequency electronics are very expensive so it would be much better if it was possible to do the switching without converting from optical to electrical and back to optical.
Minitel had some interesting features, but it was never as good as the Internet
Comparing Minitel to the Internet is like comparing "apples" to "oranges". Minitel is an integrated services network, whereas Internet is a simple computer network.
That's why I was specific in my comparison: it is Minitel Vs the WWW. And the WWW is much newer thing than Minitel.
As for the rest of your nonsense with regards to France, I wonder how someone who reads/. and considers himself an intellectual can be so close-mined: you have read history and you know that Empires have risen and fallen and then risen again etc. And yet you do not have even the slightest doubt that France's time is over? Your short sightedness is incredible.
Let me assure you that France is on the rise. Europe is on the rise with France in its heart. My intergalactic masters have spoken and their message is clear: prepare to be assimilated.
The experiment was to find out: 1. how long it would take (can't win or lose on this one) 2. if anyone would reply (I won there) 3. if the post would get modded up at all (we have to wait for this one)
Last time I did this I won on both b & c (see my posting history, it was something in the Human Genome story). I tried to make it a bit more obvious this time by posting from the origal article but I still managed to get two people to bite.
I agree with this fellow about KDE and such QT-based programs being fully GPL'd. I've read the GPL closely, and it does not make any restrictions of the compilation/linking of a GPL'd program. It DOES restrict non-GPL'd programs from linking with GPL'd libraries/programs, but a -> b does not equal b -> a. Since KDE(a) is linked against QT(b), eveything is good. No proprietary code is linking against a GPL'd program/library. QT is not linking against KDE, so where's the problem? Sure, QT links against LGPL'd libraries, but that's why they're LGPL'd. This license expressely allows proprietary programs to link against an LGPL-licensed program.
However, I this this person should really wake up and just say what everyone knows: They want to make money. They should just admit it. It's their software, and they can do what they want with it. Instead of bitching about it, make another library. Oh, wait, people did - GTK+.
So, just to wrap this up, I'd like to pose you a question. What if someone said that your nice, nifty, Free program, distributed under the GPL, should be proprietary? What if you had hundreds of people downright DEMANDING that you move to a draconian license? You'd be pretty upset, wouldn't you? Because it's your property. It's your blood, sweat, tears, and time. Everyone who is about to flame TrollTech should think about that.
I don't know if you remember but there had been a security competition between Linux and Windows 2000.
I think you are referring to the old ZDNet test. I cannot find references to the article, but ZDNet admitted themselves that the test was unfair.
I think the main complaint was an absence of parity between the two platforms. On one hand, NT had the five service packs applied, which are IMHO fraught with more difficulties to install than rpm'ing 21 patches. MS's service packs are renown for breaking other things from previous packs, and are usually released a long time after the bugs they fix are identified.
I really wouldn't have a problem with this at all, if ZDNet hadn't made the blanket conclusion that NT was easier to secure. That's an overwhelmingly ignorant statement to make.
I do not think you see my point. 100 years ago, people thought that radiation would would cure everything. But it didn't: not then, and not now 100 years later.
Again people are making the same mistake, they say that genetic treatments will cure everything, ignoring other factors such as the environment. I agree that it has very big potential, but we should be more cautious before making such statements.
I really think that the widespread use of genetic engineering can only turn out to be a mistake of the worst kind.
That is a very big accusation for something so new.
Unfortuately, given today's socioeconiomic structure in which corporations have, thanks to America's love-affair with hardcore capitalism, the power to do practically whatever they want to, it seems all but inevitable that serious genetic engineering of humans will begin as soon as possible. After all, there's a lot of profit to be made from it, and in the time it takes an "ethics" council to judge something illegal the corporations will have already done it.
Well, there are already laws in place that put restrictions on the extent of experiments with humans. For example companies need to get explicit licenses to clone human tissue even if it is only for medical purposes. And even if what you describe happens, i.e. someone finds a loophole and does more experiments that they should really be allowed to do, new laws can put in place that will prevent this thing from happening again (even though it has happened once).
What will knowledge of our genome allow us to do?
Primarily it will help us cure disease. I am not prophet though, so I cannot exclude with certainty any scenario including the more far fetched ones you describe. However I am an optimist: the condition of life of the human race have been improving, especially when new technologies are invented, so I have no reason to believe that this particular one will be bad. People were predicting that computers would be our downfall, but so far they have only improved our lives.
As for the corporations being Satan's tool, yes I agree that they can be greedy, but they have brought a lot of innovations. Governments on the other hand are ideal examples of bad management.
So the HGP and Celera have managed to sequence the geonome of a single person. This doesn't really address the fact that there are variations on genetic sequences even those that code for important proteins. Some of these variations cause problems but others don't. Although HGP is attempting to sequence the geonome's of 4 different people in other to get this variation, this doesn't really capture the distributions across different ethnic groups. Getting that is problem that is even larger than sequencing a few geonomes.
Another problem I see is that even if we are able to sequence the genetic code for all the proteins, what are we going to do with them. Identifying genetic diseases before they occur is all well and good but is it really that valuable if all we can tell people right now is that twenty years down the line you're going to get Hunington's disease or someother incurable ailment and die?
The outlook for coming up with effective genetic therapies is pretty bleak. We haven't really been able to treat even the diseases that are purely genetic and are caused by a well defined mutation. With this sort of track record how are we going to do against diseases that are caused by multiple mutations or where different individuals with the disease have different mutations? And this isn't even considering diseases that are caused by interactions between interactions between the gene and environment/history of the individual or disease caused non-genetic inheritance.
It seems like alot of people see genetics as a panacea for all human ills. However this overlooks the fact that the environment is just as important as genetics. In some respects, the attention that whole gene therapy is getting resembles the hype that surrounded radiation in the early 20th century when radiation was going to cure anything and everything.
I am happy every time I see an Open Source project progressing, especially FreeBSD which is a superb OS.
Unfortunately for me it is of limited use: what I need right now is an OS that has IPSEC integrated in the TCP/IP stack which FreeBSD is lacking. I could also use SMP support in order to install it to our gateways but it looks like this will take even longer as it requires an effective re-write as far as I am aware.
a. Some of the projects you mention have not been construed with the same rules as Linux. More precisely vi and gnutella have definetaly not used the "Bazaar" model that you mention.
b. For Linux to become a public company, it first needs to become a company. Now it is not one, only a copyright that L. Torvalds holds.
Slashdot Mirror
at the small scale, gravity is completely irrelevant compared to the other forces.
Scale is relevant. How do you define what is small and what isn't?
Electrons are smaller than the earth. They are not small. There may be other particles even smaller, which actually cause electromagnetism and gravity. Then you may find that these subparticles which cause electromagnetism have a much higher concentration than those which cause gravity.
The point is that it is not meaningful (and very inaccurate) to say that gravity is weaker as a force. You can only say that it has a smaller influence when dealing with objects of a certain scale.
Anyone with a good scientific background can see that this article is very flawed. Here are some examples:
Although we think of gravity as strong -- we can get hurt if we fall down -- compared to electromagnetism, gravity is astonishingly weak. It takes the gravity of the whole Earth to hold a pin on a tabletop; a toy magnet can lift it easily.
Ehm, excuse me but doesn't the phrase "comparing apples to oranges" come to mind here? I mean how the hell can you compare two forces with completely causes? It is just as absurd as saying that 1 gram is more than 1 coulomb.
Gravity is related to mass, and electromagnetic forces on charge. How can someone compare the mass of the earth with the charge in the atoms in a magnet? They are totally different things.
The notion sounds deceptively simple: besides the familiar three dimensions of space there may be other dimensions, too small to see yet perhaps as large as a millimeter.
Dimensions do not have a size. Objects have sizes in a set of dimensions.
I hope Sla
I agree with you that ZDnet is now more Windows focussed, but this is entirely due to market share: Windows has a much larger market (and therefore readership) percentage than Linux. A magazine that has more pages on Windows software has more potential buyers than a magazine that has more articles on Linux
However, having a larger number of articles on Windows is not equivalent to being biased. If tomorrow Linux becomes the dominant platform ZDnet will want the Linux market share as well. Therefore, it is not in their interests to alienate the Linux users by posting biased reports.
Philippe
I hope that this is a joke in bad taste. If not I will be very dissapointed with the Slashdot editors.
/. community. Yes he posts offtopic posts, but he posesses a unique sense of humour. On many occasions his various stories and parodies have made me laugh. He is not rude like many other posters, and he is not a spammer. He is just different from most of us. I thought that this is exactly what Slashdot encouraged: individuality.
I consider osm to be one of the most significant members of the
The thought of being sued for posting off-topic posts frightens me. Those of you who know me are aware that sometimes perform various experiments: I may post something that someone else has already posted or even something from an article to see whether the moderators will notice it. Other times my posts express views that go against the current, in order to stimulate thought from the Slashdot readers. If osm has been sued for posting stories that he has written himself, where will that get me? Lynched?
As for the takeover of the thread that you mention, is this for certain? Have the editors actually checked the IP addresses of all the posters, and were able to determin that it was osm who made all the posts? It seems very unlikely to me.
Je vous embrasse,
Philippe.
I see your point of view, but you will allow me to have a different one.
I think that this is not "news for nerds" any more than any other ecological/environmental news story (about earth). Just because it is the environment of another planet under threat I do not find it more interesting than the ecology and environment of our planet. Just because we take earth for granted does not mean that there countless mysteries here, which are just as (if not more) interesting than Europa.
But as I said, you can have your views and I can have mine. This is what Slashdot and freedom of speech is all about.
Merci.
Well, even though when you outed me I had not been moderated, I am now +3 Insightful. /. is being ran by crack addicted moderators.
So I win on 3 too, and have indeed proven that
Merci,
Philippe.
I think we're more interested in life that has evolved on other planets since it would prove that life is not indiginous only to Earth.
No, it will not "prove" anything. Let me explain.
I see you are turning this into the old religious argument. If we can prove to those stupid Christians that life exists on other planets, then they will run out of arguments for their creationist theories. However to make such a claim is entirely false. The Christians will find a way to interpret their Bible (as they have done so many times in the past in order to cope with new "realities") so that it does not conflict with their beliefs.
As for those logical people who do not believe in God, finding life on another planet will not prove anything. We already know that life does not exist only on Earth. How? By the wonderful science of statistics.
It has been proven that if you take into account:
a. the number of planets in the Universe.
b. the likelyhood of life appearing on a specific planet (this is calculated using the age of a planet, the elements present on the surface, temperature etc).
You will see that the probability of Earth being the only planet with life in the Universe is less than 1E-12.
Let's let Greenpeace and whatever they're called take care of the environment and let NASA send microbes into space.
Yes, I agree with you. NASA are doing their job. I just accuse all of those who think it is just a great story of being biased. Here we are spending out time talking about how to protect (probably non-existant) microbes in Europa, when there are human beings being killed right next to us. Did you ever see a mention of them in Slashdot? Are Eupopan microbes "news for nerds, stuff that matters" and human children not worthy of a mention?
Je vous embrasse,
Philippe
NASA are of course doing a fine thing by showing their concern, so hats off to them. It would be a shame to destroy any potential life without even having discovered it first.
Having said that, it seems a but hypocritical that we as humans, show so much concern about the potential life on a planet so far away (especially when the likelyhood there is life is so small), when we do not give a damn about our own planet. Our waste kills millions of organisms every day, and God knows how many microorganisms (which is what we will find on these planets, if we find anything) are made extinct every day and we don't even know it.
Are alien organisms more important? To they have a greater right to live than earth organisms?
What's the point of a photonic motherboard?
Actually there is a point in a photonic motherboard, but it is not related to this story in any way.
This story talks about advances in optical switching technology. At present, high frequency optical signals need to be converted to electrical signals before being routed. But high frequency electronics are very expensive so it would be much better if it was possible to do the switching without converting from optical to electrical and back to optical.
Philippe
Minitel had some interesting features, but it was never as good as the Internet
/. and considers himself an intellectual can be so close-mined: you have read history and you know that Empires have risen and fallen and then risen again etc. And yet you do not have even the slightest doubt that France's time is over? Your short sightedness is incredible.
Comparing Minitel to the Internet is like comparing "apples" to "oranges". Minitel is an integrated services network, whereas Internet is a simple computer network.
That's why I was specific in my comparison: it is Minitel Vs the WWW. And the WWW is much newer thing than Minitel.
As for the rest of your nonsense with regards to France, I wonder how someone who reads
Let me assure you that France is on the rise. Europe is on the rise with France in its heart. My intergalactic masters have spoken and their message is clear: prepare to be assimilated.
The experiment was to find out:
1. how long it would take (can't win or lose on this one)
2. if anyone would reply (I won there)
3. if the post would get modded up at all (we have to wait for this one)
Last time I did this I won on both b & c (see my posting history, it was something in the Human Genome story). I tried to make it a bit more obvious this time by posting from the origal article but I still managed to get two people to bite.
Je vous embrasse,
Philippe
I agree with this fellow about KDE and such QT-based programs being fully GPL'd. I've read the GPL closely, and it does not make any restrictions of the compilation/linking of a GPL'd program. It DOES restrict non-GPL'd programs from linking with GPL'd libraries/programs, but a -> b does not equal b -> a. Since KDE(a) is linked against QT(b), eveything is good. No proprietary code is linking against a GPL'd program/library. QT is not linking against KDE, so where's the problem? Sure, QT links against LGPL'd libraries, but that's why they're LGPL'd. This license expressely allows proprietary programs to link against an LGPL-licensed program.
However, I this this person should really wake up and just say what everyone knows: They want to make money. They should just admit it. It's their software, and they can do what they want with it. Instead of bitching about it, make another library. Oh, wait, people did - GTK+.
So, just to wrap this up, I'd like to pose you a question. What if someone said that your nice, nifty, Free program, distributed under the GPL, should be proprietary? What if you had hundreds of people downright DEMANDING that you move to a draconian license? You'd be pretty upset, wouldn't you? Because it's your property. It's your blood, sweat, tears, and time. Everyone who is about to flame TrollTech should think about that.
Philippe
P.S.: I have a TrollTech-Free computer.
I don't know if you remember but there had been a security competition between Linux and Windows 2000.
I think you are referring to the old ZDNet test. I cannot find references to the article, but ZDNet admitted themselves that the test was unfair.
I think the main complaint was an absence of parity between the two platforms. On one hand, NT had the five service packs applied, which are IMHO fraught with more difficulties to install than rpm'ing 21 patches. MS's service packs are renown for breaking other things from previous packs, and are usually released a long time after the bugs they fix are identified.
I really wouldn't have a problem with this at all, if ZDNet hadn't made the blanket conclusion that NT was easier to secure. That's an overwhelmingly ignorant statement to make.
I do not think you see my point. 100 years ago, people thought that radiation would would cure everything. But it didn't: not then, and not now 100 years later.
Again people are making the same mistake, they say that genetic treatments will cure everything, ignoring other factors such as the environment. I agree that it has very big potential, but we should be more cautious before making such statements.
Philippe.
I really think that the widespread use of genetic engineering can only turn out to be a mistake of the worst kind.
That is a very big accusation for something so new.
Unfortuately, given today's socioeconiomic structure in which corporations have, thanks to America's love-affair with hardcore capitalism, the power to do practically whatever they want to, it seems all but inevitable that serious genetic engineering of humans will begin as soon as possible. After all, there's a lot of profit to be made from it, and in the time it takes an "ethics" council to judge something illegal the corporations will have already done it.
Well, there are already laws in place that put restrictions on the extent of experiments with humans. For example companies need to get explicit licenses to clone human tissue even if it is only for medical purposes. And even if what you describe happens, i.e. someone finds a loophole and does more experiments that they should really be allowed to do, new laws can put in place that will prevent this thing from happening again (even though it has happened once).
What will knowledge of our genome allow us to do?
Primarily it will help us cure disease. I am not prophet though, so I cannot exclude with certainty any scenario including the more far fetched ones you describe. However I am an optimist: the condition of life of the human race have been improving, especially when new technologies are invented, so I have no reason to believe that this particular one will be bad. People were predicting that computers would be our downfall, but so far they have only improved our lives.
As for the corporations being Satan's tool, yes I agree that they can be greedy, but they have brought a lot of innovations. Governments on the other hand are ideal examples of bad management.
Je vous embrasse,
Philippe Garnier.
So the HGP and Celera have managed to sequence the geonome of a single person. This doesn't really address the fact that there are variations on genetic sequences even those that code for important proteins. Some of these variations cause problems but others don't. Although HGP is attempting to sequence the geonome's of 4 different people in other to get this variation, this doesn't really capture the distributions across different ethnic groups. Getting that is problem that is even larger than sequencing a few geonomes.
Another problem I see is that even if we are able to sequence the genetic code for all the proteins, what are we going to do with them. Identifying genetic diseases before they occur is all well and good but is it really that valuable if all we can tell people right now is that twenty years down the line you're going to get Hunington's disease or someother incurable ailment and die?
The outlook for coming up with effective genetic therapies is pretty bleak. We haven't really been able to treat even the diseases that are purely genetic and are caused by a well defined mutation. With this sort of track record how are we going to do against diseases that are caused by multiple mutations or where different individuals with the disease have different mutations? And this isn't even considering diseases that are caused by interactions between interactions between the gene and environment/history of the individual or disease caused non-genetic inheritance.
It seems like alot of people see genetics as a panacea for all human ills. However this overlooks the fact that the environment is just as important as genetics. In some respects, the attention that whole gene therapy is getting resembles the hype that surrounded radiation in the early 20th century when radiation was going to cure anything and everything.
You are obsolutely right. I was confusing with OpenBSD.
I am happy every time I see an Open Source project progressing, especially FreeBSD which is a superb OS.
Unfortunately for me it is of limited use: what I need right now is an OS that has IPSEC integrated in the TCP/IP stack which FreeBSD is lacking. I could also use SMP support in order to install it to our gateways but it looks like this will take even longer as it requires an effective re-write as far as I am aware.
Merci,
Philipe
I need to correct you on two points:
a. Some of the projects you mention have not been construed with the same rules as Linux. More precisely vi and gnutella have definetaly not used the "Bazaar" model that you mention.
b. For Linux to become a public company, it first needs to become a company. Now it is not one, only a copyright that L. Torvalds holds.
Merci,
Philippe Garnier