This one does work for a short period. After that the organism adjusts its immune responce and there is no more effect.
Which organism are you speaking of? There is not causative agent of eczema (as far as anyone knows, though bacteria are known to cause a flareup, but it is autoimmune/atypical allergy (no IgE)), and if the organism you are speaking of is you, then you are slightly misinformed. Tacrolimus is also your for long term treatment with prednisone or cyclosporine etc... for organ transplants (liver and kidney)and works pretty well (read:years). It is not degraded (induced or repressed)be the liver microsomal system (P450/CYP3A4).
Sorry to hear about your problems with tacrolimus but the drug itself has been on the market since 93 in the US, though I am not sure how/when it was given the green light to be used topically for skin conditions.
Insightful....I doubt it. Presumptuous is more along the lines of your comment. You could say you have evidence to the contrary. The fact that he was at the company 4+ years and was able to move, somewhat, in positions says that he was doing at least better than his peers. So i'd say your assessment if completely baseless.
What a terribly defeatist attitude. Maybe he won't use Vista, I won't. Maybe he will run linux, I do. Maybe he will buy a Mac, I did. Maybe (hopefully) more people will say enough of this crap and get something else. Do you need Windows to:
Browse the web? No.
Check email? No.
Write some papers? No.
Spreadsheets? No.
Taxes? No.
Games? Umm..err..;) (it is better than a couple years ago, most *major* games are at least dual platform)
I would imagine that very few people actually *have* to run Windows. They use it because it comes on the machine they buy, much like the reason they use IE. Those who *have* to, could use some emulator (hardware or software) or virtualization program.
Maybe people will realize that it doesn't have to be so bad and move past the MS monopoly. Don't accept the status quo if you can help it, and when it comes to computers, we can help it.
Talk to me when XBL has a billion downloads...
Apple iTunes downloads passes 1 billion songs
(Disclaimer: I use and like both itunes and XBL, but saying that something that just hit 10m downloads is more popular than something that just passed 1b is ridiculous.)
And not only that, talk to me when those 1 billion downloads are paid downloads. AFAIK, Apple only counts the stuff they sell as a download, but I am not 100%.
Yes, you have it completely right, and the headline for this story is completely wrong because of the addition of the word "now". They are saying they can't find sharks below the depth of n-thousand feet, and that 70% of the ocean is > n-thousand feet. They postulate that sharks have not been able to populate these depths for whatever reason.
The bad news for the sharks comes simply from the idea that they have nowhere to go. They can't go deeper to avoid fishing/environmental issues caused by or exacerbated by humans.
There is only one possible solution for them, the feared land shark!. Who knew SNL was so prophetic?
To be honest, I tried to find some data on how many people who have iPods use the iTMS, but to no avail. I would guess that most people with iPods (>50%) don't use the iTMS, nor do they use any music store. My iPod is filled with mostly ripped CD's, and yes some d/l stuff from back in the day. I may have purchased... checks....66 songs (2 albums + single purchases), but to put it in perspective I have about 5k songs in my library.
I think Apple says the iPod is better, and I think consumers agree (for the most part***). I have never heard anyone say, "Man, if only the RIO had better music store integration I would buy it."
That said as a user, I think the integration is part of what makes the iPod better.
But all in all, the store is mostly a bone to the users (where you can pick up the latest and greatest (or nor so greatest) quick and cheap and fast, immediate gratification, and a compromise to the industry as an answer to the question "where is the music coming from and how can we get a piece of that"
***Also, at this stage of the argument, one can also ask are people using the iPod because it is the best or best known? The old Windows analogy of why do you keep using windows, b/c that is what everyone else uses.
They would have much more clients on iTMS if they just offered FairPlay or whatchmacallit to the other manufacturers... They already profit big, and they could be profiting bigger -- and they are blind for not seeing something so obvious.
Would they? In may iPod market share was 87.3%. That represents 32+million iPods in 2005 of the total 36.6 million sold. So, Apple is missing out on 4.6 million mp3 player sales. Of those how many people wouldn't buy strictly because it is Apple? How many of those would use the iTMS? Let's say 100% of those 4.6 million people were allowed to use iTMS. How much more money would that leave for Apple?
ZERO because Apple makes at most.04 So again, let's say Apple makes 0.04*4.6million*10(songs) (saying all of those 4.6 million bought 10 songs over the lifetime of the product). That gives us $1.84M. How does that compare with margins on iPod? Let's do the same comparison. 4.6M*299*0.19 = $261M (this would be the same $$ if Apple convinced just 32.2K of those 4.6M to buy an iPod and buy 0 songs from iTMS. (The latter assumes the avg price for an iPod across the board is $299 and all iPods are selling equally well by %)
Which would you rather do? Try to increase sales by 32k or try to convince 4.2 million people to buy 10 songs from your store, or 2.1 to buy 20, or 1.05 to by 40 etc.....
(note: I also did not address the licensing fees Apple may retain because that involves far too much speculation about terms, pricing etc...)
For some people "too much" food might be just enough to nourish them. It's not widely reported, but lots of dieting fat people die and/or suffer severe health problems from malnutrition every year. Still fat, yet starved of required nutrients.
What you state, while true, is not entirely accurate. There are a significant portion of obese people who are malnourished but this is due mostly to the poor quality of food they consume. Also, it is not just dieting fat people. Non-dieting obese people are often malnourished for the same reasons. Finally, I haven't read any reports in any of the medical journals where an obese/super obese etc.. person has died from malnutrition. That is unless you are talking in the general sense where malnutrition == hyperkalemia, hyperphoshatemia, hypernatremia, hypoalbuminemia which can be associated edema and heart failure secondary to renal disease, HTN, CHF etc....
Also note that I don't disagree with you, I am not sure this will end up as being a major cause of obesity (more likely lifestyle changes in the west over the past 40 years), but if it will help a small portion of people, I think it is great news, and a welcomed addition to the body of scientific knowledge.
Do they have gapless playback and ReplayGain support yet?
I am pretty sure the answer is no for gapless playback. From what I understand, the standard mp3 codec doesn't support it, but AAC can. Apple doesn't support it, the iRiver does, IIRC, and some guys have a hacked up mp3 codec/firmware that supports it. Also, Sony players will do it if you use ATRAC...So as you see this gapless playback seems to have been not a big priority for many companies, and I personally haven't heard many people complaining.;)
ReplayGain, no. It is a proposed standard. If I understand the concept, the iPod, as well as iTunes uses something equivalent called "Soundcheck"
I, to see what would happen, went to urge.com. It is just a pic that says "Urge, coming soon", (which if you think about, is funny in and of itself) but the page source (and the bottom of the page) has this:
2005 MTV Networks. MTV, URGE and all related titles and logos are trademarks of MTV Networks, a division of Viacom International Inc.
So it seems the brand, at least legally, belongs to MTV and Viacom, unless I am reading too much into it.
G4TVs first mistake was getting rid of the thoughtful shows like Call for Help and the Screensavers, and all the smart people who were on those shows. They replaced those smart people with stupid people with very little technical background. I would like to actually learn something about computers or games on TV, but that channel just went downhill after G4TV took over.
I couldn't agree with you more. They took a pretty good geek channel and made it suck. Like you say, they took the people who knew what they were doing, and replaced them with pretty faces, who know dickall about tech. The channel can't die fast enough
That is a good point that I neglected to mention. The problem with the flu virus is they (the vaccination) specifically targets the hemagglutinins (the H of H#N#). Those are particularly subject (by definition) to antigen shifts (major changes in the neuraminidase or hemagglutinin (or both) without a change in subtype) and drifts (small changes in neuraminidase and hemagglutinin without changing subtype).
Also, a problem with influenza (A, B, and C) is they are segmented viruses. Now that I think about it all the major segmented viruses are RNA viruses. This makes their mutation rate even higher than your run of the mill - no dna repair mechanism needed - viruses. Segmented viruses have no restraints on reassembly so they are prone to rearrangement that facilitates further mutation.
In short, this is a n exception to the rule, and a case where re-vaccination is considered the norm.
Thanks for pointing that out, especially in this discussion.
In my almost professional (not quite finished with med school) opinion, the answer would be no. Think of all the vaccinations we have to date, and how few (if any) mutations there have been that have evaded vaccinations.
The immune system is different from antibiotics because it will kill all of the critters. There is also a systemic response, fever, sequestering copper and iron, lowering blood glucose levels etc...ABs do this (not in entirety)...and AB have the side effect of killing your natural flora as well, which can predispose you to secondary infections (see C. difficile in people on broad spectrum AB)
Vaccinations contain attenuated/dead/non-virulent organisms, with their full complement (not an immuno joke...though it could be) of surface proteins, glycoproteins, etc... Your body will recognize several of these sites as foreign and produce antibodies to them. This aids their destruction through phagocytosis, and other nasty things like membrane attack complexes.
It would take something tantamount to a complex change of presentation for some organism to avoid a vaccination.
Here are the current physician points of interest being batted about on this topic:
Avian Flu Deaths Linked to Tamiflu Resistance:
Advise patients who ask that the H5N1 strain of avian flu - while seen as having the potential to spark a human pandemic - is so far mostly confined to birds and shows little sign of being able to cause widespread disease in humans.
Note that this study shows that the H5N1 virus, when it does infect humans, can develop resistance to the antiviral drug Tamiflu (oseltamivir) with fatal consequences.
Advise patients that this study suggests stockpiling Tamiflu may not be appropriate, and inappropriate or inadequate use of the drug may lead to resistance; such improper use is likely without medical guidance.
Note that accompanying editorials to this study suggest that the public health perspective clearly indicates that a physician has an obligation not to prescribe Tamiflu for stockpiling- a position that is tantamount to a prohibition against prescribing it. (my emphasis)
Two patients from Vietnam, 18 and 13, that died to to compications from avian influenza were recently shown to harbor oseltamivir (Tamiflu) resistant strains fo the virus. The 13 year old female was give 75mg doses at the first symptoms of the infections, keeping the virus in check for approx. 3 days. She succumbed several days later. The 18 year old was given a full 14 day treatment with oseltamivir, died, and replicating virus was still isolated from her.
.....physicians should decline any request for a prescription for the purpose of stockpiling oseltamivir....
As a side not to all of this, the other drug is Relenza (zanamivir). It is great, with one downside. Currenty prearation is inhalation delivery. Which means if you are in respiratory distress, say like you have bird flu, or ARDS or similar, the delivery method is not the best.
Amen! Praise be to FSM.
From the book of Noodle Ch. 3 verse 17-19
Anyone arrogant enough to reject the verdict of the judge or of the priest who represents the FSM your God must be put to death at the hands of the few pirates that are left, perhaps corellating well with the rise of global warming. Such evil must be purged....At the wrath of the FSM of hosts the land quakes, and the people are like fuel for fire; No man spares his brother, each devours the flesh of his neighbor, or a delicious noodley appendage, whilst the friend of the noodle can rest his weary feet in pirate heaven with the stripper factory and beer volcano.
Seriously good idea. Everyone wins. Too bad more people can't take it seriously....
Fanning the flames of the rat race to get a job so you can afford to put your kids in daycare is one of the silliest logical exercises I have ever seen people engage in.
I am a geek. I am a nerd. I play video games. I am not a "gamer". TechTV was a great all around nerd channel. They had gamer stuff, they have home audio stuff, they had anime, gear reviews, tech news/commentary. Their target demo seemed more inclusive, IMO. If I remember correctly, no one that I knew watched G4. Even my friends who were gamers. Now we have a network G4TechTV, that seems to have a very low age target demographic, and they have lost the general sense of geekiness, for a more gamer oriented approach. Take note of the professional, but still none too pleased ex-hosts. This niche in a niche business model - insert Apple joke.:here:. - is just too limiting, IMO.
This seems to be the role of NK Cells. Natural Killer cells seem to be on "tumor patrol"
Source: Biochimica et Biophysica Acta, 865: 329-240, 1986
"Moreover, the efficacy of the different host defense mechanisms in destroying malignant cells may depend upon the extent of tumor burden, immunogenicity and site of tumor growth. For example, certain immune and nonimmune mechanisms may prove effective in destroying circulating tumor cells even though they might exert only a limited effect against the extravascular primary neoplasm. This may be attributed to the observation that unlike the cells within a solid tumor, tumor cells enter the circulation as single cells or small clumps and are, therefore, highly accessible and more vulnerable to destruction by immune and non-immune defense mechanisms." pg. 214
"most tumor cells that enter the circulation are destroyed during the first 24 h and only a few cells succeed to extravasate and develop into metastatic foci in the organ parenchyma." pg. 214
Also, the incidence of spontaneous malignant lymphomas was reported to be increased in NK-deficient mice carrying the beige mutation. In contrast, the relatively low incidence of tumor development in athymic nude mice that exhibit high NK cell-mediated cytotoxicity suggested that a T cell-independent mechanism may be operative in immunosurveillance." pg. 214
NK cells express receptors to IL-2 (interleukin 2) and can proliferate in response to T cell mitogens and IL-2." pg. 215
NK cells originate in the bone marrow and exhibit a characteristic organ distribution, their activity being highest in peripheral blood and then, in descending order, spleen, lymph nodes and bone marrow, and absent in the thymus." pg. 215 ...NK cells and/or their precursors are highly sensitive to treatment in vivo with cyclophosphamide, B-estradiol and Sr. Animals treated with such agents and the beige mouse exhibit low levels of NK cell activity and provide valuable models for studying the in vivo role of NK cells in host defense against neoplasms." pg. 215
Therefore, it was concluded that NK cells serve as a rapidly acting first-line defense mechanism that is involved in the early destructive events following tumor implantation."
This has long been of interest to scientists. See the thing is cancers tend metastasize to the same areas. Example, colon/GI cancer loves to go to the liver. In fact, like you allude to, if you injected mice with tumor cells, the mouse could get cancer, and that cancer would spread in the same pattern that the original (mouse) cancer did. So there was something more going on that the old concept of cancer invades tissue, ruptures a blood vessel and spreads. IF that were the case, one would think it could go anywhere, or at least wherever blood flows. With areas of high perfusion having high rates of metastasis. Not totally the case.
one caveat: people with cancer tend to shed alot of cancer cells into their blood stream, and very little actually stick to metastasize.
In short, it is like a virus, in that it you can give cancer to another creature (virulent) with a sufficient dose (and it is usually high). Different in that it is self contained (viruses use the cells they invade machinery for replication), etc....
(quick answer)
Oh, I don't, know, maybe the new OS they're planning on releasing next year called Windows Vista? Perhaps? The new Internet Explorer? The new Windows Media Player? The new Hotmail? The new MSN Search?
I will try to address this point by point. Microsoft is in this position by their own trappings. They are the proverbial juggernaut corporation and due to many reasons (institutional intertia, sloppy coding, their own success (i.e. thats the way we have always done things..) etc...) they aren't the poster child for a tech company now.
Vista...people were excited about Vista. People were hyping Vista. But this was before its ship date slipped, and slipped and slipped. This was before feature after feature was removed to be added in later. Microsoft set the bar so low with the OS that Apple and their new OS per year seems FTL.
As for IE, and WMP, these are so inextricably linked to the Windows OS, to the average person they are a feature set of said OS and difficult to be looked at separately. Also, as far as IE is concerned, an update is so long overdue for a product that is lacking in the basic features and standards support that has been present in other broswers for at least a year or two, it is hard to get excited about it.
In terms of Hotmail and MSN Search, again they were beaten to the punch, and when I mean beaten, I do not mean by a couple days/months, I mean a year or so.
Refer back to my first point about the trappings of success and the expectations that go along with it. In the case of software, especially for microsoft, it is backwards compatibility, among the many. This makes the company slow, and unable to react quickly to a rapidly changing tech market. It is quite hard to be everything to everyone like MS has painted themselves to be. They have to keep up with all the latest technologies (Bluetooth EDR, WiMax, PCI-Express etc...) and do it with for a hodgepodge of many many hardware vendors. On top of that people expect this to work. I do not envy that. Now my point about Hotmail/MSN Search, everything MS does in this respect is going to be judged against apple and google. Google is churning out software at least as fast as Apple, especially in terms of Search. Now with hotmail, google and GMail has become the standard, IMHO, and when you are down, like MS is now, everything you do is seen a reactionary to your competitors.
MS has is hard now, but it is partly their own fault. Over the next several years we will see the real character of the company come out. We will see if they are still a force of the future, or they will start a long term decline that will continue for at least a decade, maybe more.
I recently had a NASA guy come to speak to my research group at my medical school in Houston. We were talking about the long term effect of micro-gravity on human physiology (round trip to Mars). Anyway he told us that most of the mathematical calculations that the Space Flight Center here in Houston use are the "simple" Newtonian laws of motion. He claimed they were suitable for calculating trajectories to the Moon, Mars, etc...
Slashdot Mirror
Sorry to hear about your problems with tacrolimus but the drug itself has been on the market since 93 in the US, though I am not sure how/when it was given the green light to be used topically for skin conditions.
3/4ths M.D. :)
Insightful....I doubt it. Presumptuous is more along the lines of your comment. You could say you have evidence to the contrary. The fact that he was at the company 4+ years and was able to move, somewhat, in positions says that he was doing at least better than his peers. So i'd say your assessment if completely baseless.
heh.....nice :)
- Browse the web? No.
- Check email? No.
- Write some papers? No.
- Spreadsheets? No.
- Taxes? No.
- Games? Umm..err..
;) (it is better than a couple years ago, most *major* games are at least dual platform)
I would imagine that very few people actually *have* to run Windows. They use it because it comes on the machine they buy, much like the reason they use IE. Those who *have* to, could use some emulator (hardware or software) or virtualization program. Maybe people will realize that it doesn't have to be so bad and move past the MS monopoly. Don't accept the status quo if you can help it, and when it comes to computers, we can help it.And not only that, talk to me when those 1 billion downloads are paid downloads. AFAIK, Apple only counts the stuff they sell as a download, but I am not 100%.
Yes, you have it completely right, and the headline for this story is completely wrong because of the addition of the word "now". They are saying they can't find sharks below the depth of n-thousand feet, and that 70% of the ocean is > n-thousand feet. They postulate that sharks have not been able to populate these depths for whatever reason.
The bad news for the sharks comes simply from the idea that they have nowhere to go. They can't go deeper to avoid fishing/environmental issues caused by or exacerbated by humans.
There is only one possible solution for them, the feared land shark!. Who knew SNL was so prophetic?
To be honest, I tried to find some data on how many people who have iPods use the iTMS, but to no avail. I would guess that most people with iPods (>50%) don't use the iTMS, nor do they use any music store. My iPod is filled with mostly ripped CD's, and yes some d/l stuff from back in the day. I may have purchased... checks....66 songs (2 albums + single purchases), but to put it in perspective I have about 5k songs in my library.
I think Apple says the iPod is better, and I think consumers agree (for the most part***). I have never heard anyone say, "Man, if only the RIO had better music store integration I would buy it."
That said as a user, I think the integration is part of what makes the iPod better. But all in all, the store is mostly a bone to the users (where you can pick up the latest and greatest (or nor so greatest) quick and cheap and fast, immediate gratification, and a compromise to the industry as an answer to the question "where is the music coming from and how can we get a piece of that"
***Also, at this stage of the argument, one can also ask are people using the iPod because it is the best or best known? The old Windows analogy of why do you keep using windows, b/c that is what everyone else uses.Would they? In may iPod market share was 87.3%. That represents 32+million iPods in 2005 of the total 36.6 million sold. So, Apple is missing out on 4.6 million mp3 player sales. Of those how many people wouldn't buy strictly because it is Apple? How many of those would use the iTMS? Let's say 100% of those 4.6 million people were allowed to use iTMS. How much more money would that leave for Apple?
ZERO because Apple makes at most .04 So again, let's say Apple makes 0.04*4.6million*10(songs) (saying all of those 4.6 million bought 10 songs over the lifetime of the product). That gives us $1.84M. How does that compare with margins on iPod? Let's do the same comparison. 4.6M*299*0.19 = $261M (this would be the same $$ if Apple convinced just 32.2K of those 4.6M to buy an iPod and buy 0 songs from iTMS. (The latter assumes the avg price for an iPod across the board is $299 and all iPods are selling equally well by %)
Which would you rather do? Try to increase sales by 32k or try to convince 4.2 million people to buy 10 songs from your store, or 2.1 to buy 20, or 1.05 to by 40 etc.....
(note: I also did not address the licensing fees Apple may retain because that involves far too much speculation about terms, pricing etc...)My guess is that they use an "updated" mp3 decoder...this has been going on forever, at least 5 or 6 years. Check out this from the wayback machine.
I am pretty sure the answer is no for gapless playback. From what I understand, the standard mp3 codec doesn't support it, but AAC can. Apple doesn't support it, the iRiver does, IIRC, and some guys have a hacked up mp3 codec/firmware that supports it. Also, Sony players will do it if you use ATRAC...So as you see this gapless playback seems to have been not a big priority for many companies, and I personally haven't heard many people complaining. ;)
ReplayGain, no. It is a proposed standard. If I understand the concept, the iPod, as well as iTunes uses something equivalent called "Soundcheck"
I, to see what would happen, went to urge.com. It is just a pic that says "Urge, coming soon", (which if you think about, is funny in and of itself) but the page source (and the bottom of the page) has this:
2005 MTV Networks. MTV, URGE and all related titles and logos are trademarks of MTV Networks, a division of Viacom International Inc.So it seems the brand, at least legally, belongs to MTV and Viacom, unless I am reading too much into it.
IIRC, Kevin and Sarah both predate the G4 takeover....
I couldn't agree with you more. They took a pretty good geek channel and made it suck. Like you say, they took the people who knew what they were doing, and replaced them with pretty faces, who know dickall about tech. The channel can't die fast enough
That is a good point that I neglected to mention. The problem with the flu virus is they (the vaccination) specifically targets the hemagglutinins (the H of H#N#). Those are particularly subject (by definition) to antigen shifts (major changes in the neuraminidase or hemagglutinin (or both) without a change in subtype) and drifts (small changes in neuraminidase and hemagglutinin without changing subtype).
Also, a problem with influenza (A, B, and C) is they are segmented viruses. Now that I think about it all the major segmented viruses are RNA viruses. This makes their mutation rate even higher than your run of the mill - no dna repair mechanism needed - viruses. Segmented viruses have no restraints on reassembly so they are prone to rearrangement that facilitates further mutation.
In short, this is a n exception to the rule, and a case where re-vaccination is considered the norm.
Thanks for pointing that out, especially in this discussion.
In my almost professional (not quite finished with med school) opinion, the answer would be no. Think of all the vaccinations we have to date, and how few (if any) mutations there have been that have evaded vaccinations.
The immune system is different from antibiotics because it will kill all of the critters. There is also a systemic response, fever, sequestering copper and iron, lowering blood glucose levels etc...ABs do this (not in entirety)...and AB have the side effect of killing your natural flora as well, which can predispose you to secondary infections (see C. difficile in people on broad spectrum AB)
Vaccinations contain attenuated/dead/non-virulent organisms, with their full complement (not an immuno joke...though it could be) of surface proteins, glycoproteins, etc... Your body will recognize several of these sites as foreign and produce antibodies to them. This aids their destruction through phagocytosis, and other nasty things like membrane attack complexes.
It would take something tantamount to a complex change of presentation for some organism to avoid a vaccination.
Here are the current physician points of interest being batted about on this topic:
Avian Flu Deaths Linked to Tamiflu Resistance:
Two patients from Vietnam, 18 and 13, that died to to compications from avian influenza were recently shown to harbor oseltamivir (Tamiflu) resistant strains fo the virus. The 13 year old female was give 75mg doses at the first symptoms of the infections, keeping the virus in check for approx. 3 days. She succumbed several days later. The 18 year old was given a full 14 day treatment with oseltamivir, died, and replicating virus was still isolated from her.
As a side not to all of this, the other drug is Relenza (zanamivir). It is great, with one downside. Currenty prearation is inhalation delivery. Which means if you are in respiratory distress, say like you have bird flu, or ARDS or similar, the delivery method is not the best.
(Via New England Journal of Medicine De Jong MD et al. Oseltamivir Resistance during Treatment of Influenza A (H5N1) Infection. N Engl J Med 2005;353:2667-72. .)
From the book of Noodle Ch. 3 verse 17-19 So said FSM, so it shall be DONE.
Seriously good idea. Everyone wins. Too bad more people can't take it seriously.... Fanning the flames of the rat race to get a job so you can afford to put your kids in daycare is one of the silliest logical exercises I have ever seen people engage in.
Go blues! Cheers, and good like at Highbury! (I'll burn some karma at the Gunner's expense) --
I am a geek. I am a nerd. I play video games. I am not a "gamer". TechTV was a great all around nerd channel. They had gamer stuff, they have home audio stuff, they had anime, gear reviews, tech news/commentary. Their target demo seemed more inclusive, IMO. If I remember correctly, no one that I knew watched G4. Even my friends who were gamers. Now we have a network G4TechTV, that seems to have a very low age target demographic, and they have lost the general sense of geekiness, for a more gamer oriented approach. Take note of the professional, but still none too pleased ex-hosts. This niche in a niche business model - insert Apple joke .:here:. - is just too limiting, IMO.
btw: ex-Apple employee, so no hard feelings
This has long been of interest to scientists. See the thing is cancers tend metastasize to the same areas. Example, colon/GI cancer loves to go to the liver. In fact, like you allude to, if you injected mice with tumor cells, the mouse could get cancer, and that cancer would spread in the same pattern that the original (mouse) cancer did. So there was something more going on that the old concept of cancer invades tissue, ruptures a blood vessel and spreads. IF that were the case, one would think it could go anywhere, or at least wherever blood flows. With areas of high perfusion having high rates of metastasis. Not totally the case. one caveat: people with cancer tend to shed alot of cancer cells into their blood stream, and very little actually stick to metastasize. In short, it is like a virus, in that it you can give cancer to another creature (virulent) with a sufficient dose (and it is usually high). Different in that it is self contained (viruses use the cells they invade machinery for replication), etc.... (quick answer)
I will try to address this point by point. Microsoft is in this position by their own trappings. They are the proverbial juggernaut corporation and due to many reasons (institutional intertia, sloppy coding, their own success (i.e. thats the way we have always done things..) etc...) they aren't the poster child for a tech company now.
Vista...people were excited about Vista. People were hyping Vista. But this was before its ship date slipped, and slipped and slipped. This was before feature after feature was removed to be added in later. Microsoft set the bar so low with the OS that Apple and their new OS per year seems FTL.
As for IE, and WMP, these are so inextricably linked to the Windows OS, to the average person they are a feature set of said OS and difficult to be looked at separately. Also, as far as IE is concerned, an update is so long overdue for a product that is lacking in the basic features and standards support that has been present in other broswers for at least a year or two, it is hard to get excited about it.
In terms of Hotmail and MSN Search, again they were beaten to the punch, and when I mean beaten, I do not mean by a couple days/months, I mean a year or so. Refer back to my first point about the trappings of success and the expectations that go along with it. In the case of software, especially for microsoft, it is backwards compatibility, among the many. This makes the company slow, and unable to react quickly to a rapidly changing tech market. It is quite hard to be everything to everyone like MS has painted themselves to be. They have to keep up with all the latest technologies (Bluetooth EDR, WiMax, PCI-Express etc...) and do it with for a hodgepodge of many many hardware vendors. On top of that people expect this to work. I do not envy that. Now my point about Hotmail/MSN Search, everything MS does in this respect is going to be judged against apple and google. Google is churning out software at least as fast as Apple, especially in terms of Search. Now with hotmail, google and GMail has become the standard, IMHO, and when you are down, like MS is now, everything you do is seen a reactionary to your competitors.
MS has is hard now, but it is partly their own fault. Over the next several years we will see the real character of the company come out. We will see if they are still a force of the future, or they will start a long term decline that will continue for at least a decade, maybe more.
Cheers!I recently had a NASA guy come to speak to my research group at my medical school in Houston. We were talking about the long term effect of micro-gravity on human physiology (round trip to Mars). Anyway he told us that most of the mathematical calculations that the Space Flight Center here in Houston use are the "simple" Newtonian laws of motion. He claimed they were suitable for calculating trajectories to the Moon, Mars, etc...