Yeah, it is STUPID (potholes) but I was referring to politicians trying to avoid spending money fixing/maintaining something they are supposed to fix/maintain (roads). I was merely producing an excuse a politician might use to try to avoid doing something, while at the same time using it as an excuse to cut taxes some more because "we no longer need that service".
What the fu..?? It doesn't HAVE to be 100% efficient. It doesn't HAVE to recover all the energy. Only a fraction is good enough. Does tapping the power of braking come off as 100% efficient? No. It HELPS. You tap this source and that source and in the end, you need less plugin power OR in a hybrid you can get by with a smaller engine/generator because it doesn't have to carry quite the same electrical load to replenish the batteries.
Sheesh. Infernal combustion engines are FAR from efficient, yet we still find them useful. Solar power is FAR from 100% efficient, yet it is still useful. It is even useful if you only use a small panel or two to reduce your dependency on the grid by a fraction of a percent.
Efficiency needing to be 100%, or close to it, is NOT a reason to reject anything that doesn't reach that unobtainable goal. Every little bit helps.
Harness it for electric/hybrid cars. They already harness the energy of braking, so add a vibration harnessing mechanism too.
But then again, if this became widely available, counties/states could use it as an excuse NOT to fix potholes and cracks in the roads and highways. Doing so would reduce the energy-efficiency of cars.
We could go back to cobblestones and brick roads. Retro-classic, esthetically pleasing roads with energy production for cars as a side effect.
has led me to quit buying CDs/music. I don't buy it anymore. Really. I have what I have and am content with that and will not buy another music CD in my lifetime. I accept compilations and copies from a friend or two now and again but that is pretty much it.
I haven't bought ANY M$ software of any kind since I bought my first PC (a top-of-the-line 486DX-33 in its day) for similar reasons. I don't like the behavior or politics of the producer of the product, so I don't friggin' give them ANY money at all.
They need me more than I need them (speaking as a generic "consumer"). Take that simple fact to heart and live by it. Realise that you really don't NEED to buy any CD or software package. You may WANT to but you do not NEED to and, in fact, you can get by very well if you simply refuse to spend your money on the crap. Spend it on more worthwhile alternatives, blockade giving them blood money. Make them find a new line of work or reform.
The "bi-ness" was intended as a generic/broad term. My company is actually Purdue right now so I am not directly involved in gene therapy-type research as of yet - I went from molecular bio to structural bio right now. My NEXT trick may hopefully be more medically applied. I'm personally interested in the molec bio of aging.
I AM in the bi-ness so I am not talking out my ass. The degree of fine control I refer to is in the future (but not as far as YOU seem to think). Everything comes to faster than you or others of similar bent tend to think. Cloning is a fine example. It was impossible and far into the future until Dolly came along and literally suprised everyone (you too perhaps?).
My wife has run a transgenic/gene knockout facility and I am a molecular biologist. Fine tuned tinkering is a ways off but not so far out of sight that I can't even imagine it. It is closer than you imagine.
In any case, gene therapy and other types of manipulation are doable now, with various levels of success. It is just starting out but is developing fast. With the virtual completion of the human genome project and rapid advances in the human proteome project, tinkering at the edges is closer than you believe. It may not be spectacular but it is coming soon(ish). I expect that there will most certainly be some solid capability developed within my lifetime. It would suprise me if this was not the case. Germline engineering is by nature EASIER than other forms of engineering. A few manipulations produces organismic changes vs piddling with a few somatic cells here and there.
I'm not against change. Change CAN be good but it is not automatically good. This is true in software like it is with anything else. It is true that if something isn't broken, it shouldn't be fixed. If something works well as is, there is no reason to change it.
There are changes that are totally arbitrary and cavalier. Some changes in the linux kernel fall into this catagory. Some changes, perhaps memory management is an example, get changed for no real reason other than "what the hell?". This is not a valid reason.
Only change something if it REALLY makes sense and improves the end product. Simply fulfilling someone's idea of "elegance" is not a reason. Trying something new just because is not a reason. As a rule, if changes are to be made for improvement then they should be restricted as much as possible to avoid collateral damage (spuriously breaking applications) that need not really happen.
I just want developers to be circumspect and not simply do something because they can. Don't change something simply to scratch an itch. Also, balancing the end result against the cost (even if software you use isn't financially costly, there can still be a substantial cost to breaking it due to some change in lib x). It is not always as simple as recompiling the app - and the app may be critical to a certain population of users.
The workaround is only partially effective. you will still run into (at least) the incredibly annoying message about there being no "wineserver-socket" filey-thing. You will still have to manually rm -rf the damn thing after/before every individual run of winex to get your app working. So, if you use winex to install a game and don't start the game from the install screen (if it has such an option) then you will first have to go to the.transgaming directory and rm -rf the wineserver-socket dir and then try to run your game. After you close out, you will need to do this again next time you want to fire up winex.
They could at least add a cleanup script to the release to delete this damn thing as a matter of course at before actually starting wineserver.
Re:glibc 2.3.2 issues are fixed with 3.0
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Winex 3.0 Released
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· Score: 1
And yet, I still get the same problems with MDK 9.1, glibc-3.2.2, that I got with the pre-release.
This problem only occurs in 9.1 and affects ALL wine versions, even those prior to 3.0. The problem goes away with pre glibc-3.2.2 distros (I still have 9.0 floating around).
The most annoying manifestation of this problem is the damnable wine-socket error message that requires a manual "rm -rf" to fix every time you try to start wine(x).
Don't get excited, still "broken"
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Winex 3.0 Released
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· Score: 3, Insightful
with any distro using glibc-3.2.2 (which is just about any new distro release). If you are using older distros, you may be happy and fine with it but if you use RH 9.0 or Mandrake 9.1 (or any other 3.2.2-based distro) you will not be pleased.
This isn't a winex problem, but a problem that affects ALL wine variants whether from WineHQ, Codeweavers, or Transgaming. The glibc developers have happily gone off and broken software everyone uses (again) for no real good reason. I imagine they change things here and there just so they have something to do or simply to try something to see how it works. LEAVE IT THE FUCK ALONE! IF IT AIN'T BROKE DON'T FRICKIN' TOUCH IT!
Err...no. MOST mutations are detrimental. I defy you to find any evolutionary benefit served by Down's Syndrome, or Myesthenia Gravis, or ALS, or... There are none and when you get to the point of being able to finely manipulate human DNA, it doesn't matter anyway because if you need to do something to gain survival value due to some new situation, you could simply code it and and do it and not have to go through a major die-off/selection process the way it has worked since life began, you can skip that part and go right to fix.
I'll take genetic engineering and germline engineering to eliminate disease and disability, thank you. You can choose not to, but you don't get to choose for me. I didn't give you that power over me.
We are ALL transgenics. Where do you think your mitochondria came from? In plants, where do you think chloroplasts came from? Your DNA is heavily populated with viral DNA and virus-like DNA that is not simply "junk" DNA. Some of that viral DNA actually serves a useful function in our biology now.
Mitochondria are the remnant of an ancient bacteria that long ago formed a comensural, then symbiotic relationship with a host cell. Both the cell proper and the mitochondria gain benefit from the association and now are inseparably intertwined into a larger macro-organism we call ourselves.
This sort of mixing and cutting and pasting has been going on since life first formed on this planet. There is no eukaryotic organism that can be truly claimed to NOT be a transgenic to some degree. There is nothing especially spooky or "wrong" with transgenics. It is merely an irrational emotional response to something most people really do not understand.
We couldn't make a black hole if we really wanted to. The energy in common cosmic rays striking atoms in our upper atmosphere are orders of magnitude greater than the energy we are capable of pumping into any conceived accelerator. Since nature isn't creating Earth-swallowing black holes every day, it isn't going to happen from our playing around.
Grey goo isn't possible either as the premise that drives it isn't possible.
Humans have been conducting genetic experiments since they first evolved and developed agriculture. Also, much of the genetic exchange we can do in the lab has parallels in nature as well...between species, not just within species, so our tinkering there isn't going to end the world either. Just be cautious, but it is not reasonable nor will it happen that this avenue of research will end.
Germline genetic engineering WILL happen, like it or not. You will never convince everyone that it is better for them to produce defective children than to fix it, germline, and remove the problem "forever". Sorry, but if it were possible to cure sickle cell anemia via genetic engineering, be it somatic or germline, then it is worth it because the protection from malaria doesn't (any longer, given our large disconnect from evolutionary processes) make up for the pain and disease it causes...plus there are better ways to beat malaria via biotech.
Human cloning WILL occur if and when it becomes really possible. It cannot be stopped. Someone, somewhere WILL do it and then it is out of the bottle. You don't get to declare the cloned offspring inhuman/nonhuman and banish them.
Science and the scientific process just happens and it is bigger than any country, any people, anyone's personal morality.
The grey goo nonsense is overblown and a nonissue. If this sort of calamity were possible, then it would have already happened in nature because some form of bacteria would have done it by now. THEY are capable of breaking down rock and other materials into building blocks to replicate themselves. THEY are autonomous and have their own energy supply.
Do a bit more research and you will find that there are solid arguments deconstructing the grey goo goobledigook and makes it go away.
Nuke research can lead to bombs that can kill most humans and other life on the planet, in theory (though not in practice). But it also leads to medical research that we all depend on. It leads to a nice way to generate power. It leads to deep space probes. It leads to the solving of crystal structures in structural biology. It leads to improvements in materials research.
All that good stuff isn't enough, however, to make up for the fact that you can make a juicy bomb too so we should never have gone down that path - and we wouldn't have all I mention above, nor would we have anything close to the understanding of the atomic world that we currently have.
Scientists decide if "public" fears are unfounded. The public, by nature, is not equipped to make judgements that are not clouded by irrationality and religious bias.
As it is, some of the best US scientists ARE leaving the country for superior countries due to unreasonable restrictions on embryonic stem cell research. I too would leave the instant my research became sacrificed to irrationality, religious bias, and ignorance...and the research would continue elsewhere. This is reality. You restrict research here, and it will move elsewhere where the people and/or governments are not as myopic or irrational. All that would happen if the US or UK blocked certain avenues of research because of irrational, vague, and knee-jerk fears is that the research and the best scientist would move elsewhere. You would see a brain drain the likes you've never imagined. You would throw scientific and technical leadership away, giving it to others with more advanced reasoning capabilities and rational policies.
You not only cannot put Genies back into bottles, you cannot even prevent bottles from being opened to release the Genie. Someone somewhere WILL open the bottle and then you are screwed in every possible way for being blind and timid.
As a scientist I would not, and will not, stand for restrictions on my research based on ridiculous fears...particularly from the general public. That kind of fear-based nonsense would stop vaccine research, gene therapy research, nuclear research (without which there would be no deep space probes, no viable power generation that can work ANYWHERE on Earth or off), and a host of other areas of research.
He can restrict himself, I wont let his fears, nor the fears of an ignorant public prevent my research. I have no interest in killing or destroying and would not do something with a viable danger without proper protections, but do the research I will if I judge it to have value.
Oh please. The Federal Reserve is a direct outgrowth of the central bank which was championed and created by none other than Alexander Hamilton, a famed FOUNDING-FRICKIN'-FATHER. If he didn't know what was legal and illegal vis a vis the Constitution, then NO ONE does. If one of the preiminenant members of the FOUNDERS is wrong, then the Constitution itself is wrong.
Take off the aluminum foil hat, wash your hair, have a beer and relax. No conspiracies, sorry. Just a bunch of little crimes here and there to further personal wealth or power. Nothing more, nothing less, and nothing different than ANY point in history...doesn't mean the perps don't deserve to be hunted down and jailed but there you have it.
Yes you can because nanoscale objects are not waiting for we humans to invent. They already exist. Nanoscale pollutants produced by internal combustion in semis, autos, and power plants are known harmful pollutants. They include carbon-sulphur compounds, buckyballs, buckytubes, etc.
Technically, a virus is a nanoscale object and inhaling the wrong type of that class of object is also hazardous. This doesn't mean that nanotech research should stop, but it does mean that before anything made intentionally (vs the plethora of unintentional or naturally occurring) is released for wide use, its hazards must be well catalogued. If a nice buckyball-based nanotool can be inhaled and cause the very same problems that they do when they derive from diesel engines, then they need to be regulated.
I could have told you we were headed for another Dark Ages upon Ws election/appointment/annointing to the presidency. All his Bible-thumping, hallaleuiah, praise JAY-SUS bullshit is the epitome of Dark Ages. Don't think, just read the Bible and accept JAY-SUS as your savior or go to the rack.
Science and technology is only useful in the ways it can further Godly-government control of evil individuals who would violate tenants of the 10 Commandments.
One thing I found especially telling...official US Govt spokesperson (this morning in my local paper from an AP source) indicated that the US would help Iraqi's recover the looted antiquities from their museums. The key hilarity was in the Jesus/Bible-thumper mushy-words in which they were described as artifacts dating back 10,000 years or more. At-frickin'-least! Some of the artefacts go backwards up to 40,000 years but that would violate the fantasy that the world was created 10,000 years ago - and this is central to GW's fantasy world belief system. This IS the Dark Ages alright.
Afterall, it is so much more important than giving the innocent civilians hurt in the multitude of crossfires (regardless of whether or not it is because Saddam and buddies planted their weapons in civil neighborhoods or not). The internet clearly should sit at the top of the list of things to fix. The best way to make the Iraqi's friends is to give them DSL, etc. Then, that teenager who got both his legs blown off while he and his father sat down for breakfast (due to an errant bomb) can forget that his Dad is dead and he no longer has legs can browse ebay and download mp3s. There, all better.
DSL and cable are NOT the answer. They are fine if you live in a city but if you are rural you are SOL. Satellite is NOT a real option. Pricey and limited in usefulness. The only option left for rural individuals is powerline.
I frickin' want a broadband connection that doesn't break the bank and doesn't suffer major latency issues. I see no option but some form of powerline transmission. Wireless is not an option for most rural people.
I believe that you can avoid it if you compile your own kernel and include a few extra gsecurity items like totally randomizing your IP IDs, randomize TCP source ports, randomize RPC XIDs, and select altered Ping IDs. It may just be selecting randomize IP IDs...or am I way off base here? I recall this topic on slashdot some weeks back and recall that something along the lines of what I list above was a fix.
I can't address the first part but perhaps I misunderstand the second? If I hold Ctrl and then run the cursor over a series of cells (columns, rows, mix of each) I can select any combination of nonadjacent elements.
Were you referring to something else?
As for calc, I have generally used kspread or, on occassion, gnumeric, to do my analyses and then used yet another app like xmgrace to plot out the data with error bars (since SO/OO calc wont do error bars, kchart is too clumsy and weak and wont do error bars, and gnumeric lacks any charting function whatsoever).
My only real complaint/problem with OO/SO is as a researcher, I cannot use it. I need to make heavy use of citations and references. OO/SO doesn't do bibliographies and references the way that Lyx can (linux-side) or the way Wordperfect and M$ Word can on the Mac/Doze side (via 3rd party apps like EndNote).
I have been finishing up my dissertation. I HAD to use Lyx because I exclusively use linux and nothing else can handle the references.
If you are a researcher you need to be able to easily navigate your bibliography database(s) to find the references you need and then insert them into your text. At the end, when you produce the printed copy, those references have to be formatted into any of a half-dozen or more styles (ie, "text text text (Thomas and Eckes 1992). text text" or numeric in the order cited OR alphabetically). The reference pages need to be autogenerated to match the style required (journals and thesis offices all have different requirements) by your target. This is simple with Lyx w/bibtex and a bibliography frontend like the excellent pybliographic or using Word with EndNote. This is not really doable with OO/SO.
When/if it becomes possible to do this with OO/SO then I will happily use it instead of Lyx which, while powerful, is a bit too complex and unintuitive for my taste (I LIKE to see what my output will look like BEFORE I generate it in some form. I like seeing how it is formatted as I am working on it, not after the fact).
Other than this critical (for me and any other researcher of any type) shortcoming, OO/SO is quite good...just slow to get up and running. Note to Sun and the OO developers: the modularity that users called for wasn't so much so that they could only install this or that package, ie the wordprocessor OR the spreadsheet, etc, it was in the hopes of speeding the whole thing up. The original monolithic StarOffice was fine with all its components but the problem was that to start just the wordprocessor EVERYTHING else was loaded up too leading to a very slow startup. I don't see that the speed of starting has changed much (if at all) since the components have been "separated".
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Yeah, it is STUPID (potholes) but I was referring to politicians trying to avoid spending money fixing/maintaining something they are supposed to fix/maintain (roads). I was merely producing an excuse a politician might use to try to avoid doing something, while at the same time using it as an excuse to cut taxes some more because "we no longer need that service".
So...when IS it a bad idea to use OO?
Really, I'm curious.
What the fu..?? It doesn't HAVE to be 100% efficient. It doesn't HAVE to recover all the energy. Only a fraction is good enough. Does tapping the power of braking come off as 100% efficient? No. It HELPS. You tap this source and that source and in the end, you need less plugin power OR in a hybrid you can get by with a smaller engine/generator because it doesn't have to carry quite the same electrical load to replenish the batteries.
Sheesh. Infernal combustion engines are FAR from efficient, yet we still find them useful. Solar power is FAR from 100% efficient, yet it is still useful. It is even useful if you only use a small panel or two to reduce your dependency on the grid by a fraction of a percent.
Efficiency needing to be 100%, or close to it, is NOT a reason to reject anything that doesn't reach that unobtainable goal. Every little bit helps.
Harness it for electric/hybrid cars. They already harness the energy of braking, so add a vibration harnessing mechanism too.
But then again, if this became widely available, counties/states could use it as an excuse NOT to fix potholes and cracks in the roads and highways. Doing so would reduce the energy-efficiency of cars.
We could go back to cobblestones and brick roads. Retro-classic, esthetically pleasing roads with energy production for cars as a side effect.
has led me to quit buying CDs/music. I don't buy it anymore. Really. I have what I have and am content with that and will not buy another music CD in my lifetime. I accept compilations and copies from a friend or two now and again but that is pretty much it.
I haven't bought ANY M$ software of any kind since I bought my first PC (a top-of-the-line 486DX-33 in its day) for similar reasons. I don't like the behavior or politics of the producer of the product, so I don't friggin' give them ANY money at all.
They need me more than I need them (speaking as a generic "consumer"). Take that simple fact to heart and live by it. Realise that you really don't NEED to buy any CD or software package. You may WANT to but you do not NEED to and, in fact, you can get by very well if you simply refuse to spend your money on the crap. Spend it on more worthwhile alternatives, blockade giving them blood money. Make them find a new line of work or reform.
The "bi-ness" was intended as a generic/broad term. My company is actually Purdue right now so I am not directly involved in gene therapy-type research as of yet - I went from molecular bio to structural bio right now. My NEXT trick may hopefully be more medically applied. I'm personally interested in the molec bio of aging.
I AM in the bi-ness so I am not talking out my ass. The degree of fine control I refer to is in the future (but not as far as YOU seem to think). Everything comes to faster than you or others of similar bent tend to think. Cloning is a fine example. It was impossible and far into the future until Dolly came along and literally suprised everyone (you too perhaps?).
My wife has run a transgenic/gene knockout facility and I am a molecular biologist. Fine tuned tinkering is a ways off but not so far out of sight that I can't even imagine it. It is closer than you imagine.
In any case, gene therapy and other types of manipulation are doable now, with various levels of success. It is just starting out but is developing fast. With the virtual completion of the human genome project and rapid advances in the human proteome project, tinkering at the edges is closer than you believe. It may not be spectacular but it is coming soon(ish). I expect that there will most certainly be some solid capability developed within my lifetime. It would suprise me if this was not the case. Germline engineering is by nature EASIER than other forms of engineering. A few manipulations produces organismic changes vs piddling with a few somatic cells here and there.
I'm not against change. Change CAN be good but it is not automatically good. This is true in software like it is with anything else. It is true that if something isn't broken, it shouldn't be fixed. If something works well as is, there is no reason to change it.
There are changes that are totally arbitrary and cavalier. Some changes in the linux kernel fall into this catagory. Some changes, perhaps memory management is an example, get changed for no real reason other than "what the hell?". This is not a valid reason.
Only change something if it REALLY makes sense and improves the end product. Simply fulfilling someone's idea of "elegance" is not a reason. Trying something new just because is not a reason. As a rule, if changes are to be made for improvement then they should be restricted as much as possible to avoid collateral damage (spuriously breaking applications) that need not really happen.
I just want developers to be circumspect and not simply do something because they can. Don't change something simply to scratch an itch. Also, balancing the end result against the cost (even if software you use isn't financially costly, there can still be a substantial cost to breaking it due to some change in lib x). It is not always as simple as recompiling the app - and the app may be critical to a certain population of users.
The workaround is only partially effective. you will still run into (at least) the incredibly annoying message about there being no "wineserver-socket" filey-thing. You will still have to manually rm -rf the damn thing after/before every individual run of winex to get your app working. So, if you use winex to install a game and don't start the game from the install screen (if it has such an option) then you will first have to go to the .transgaming directory and rm -rf the wineserver-socket dir and then try to run your game. After you close out, you will need to do this again next time you want to fire up winex.
They could at least add a cleanup script to the release to delete this damn thing as a matter of course at before actually starting wineserver.
And yet, I still get the same problems with MDK 9.1, glibc-3.2.2, that I got with the pre-release.
This problem only occurs in 9.1 and affects ALL wine versions, even those prior to 3.0. The problem goes away with pre glibc-3.2.2 distros (I still have 9.0 floating around).
The most annoying manifestation of this problem is the damnable wine-socket error message that requires a manual "rm -rf" to fix every time you try to start wine(x).
with any distro using glibc-3.2.2 (which is just about any new distro release). If you are using older distros, you may be happy and fine with it but if you use RH 9.0 or Mandrake 9.1 (or any other 3.2.2-based distro) you will not be pleased.
This isn't a winex problem, but a problem that affects ALL wine variants whether from WineHQ, Codeweavers, or Transgaming. The glibc developers have happily gone off and broken software everyone uses (again) for no real good reason. I imagine they change things here and there just so they have something to do or simply to try something to see how it works. LEAVE IT THE FUCK ALONE! IF IT AIN'T BROKE DON'T FRICKIN' TOUCH IT!
Sheesh.
Err...no. MOST mutations are detrimental. I defy you to find any evolutionary benefit served by Down's Syndrome, or Myesthenia Gravis, or ALS, or... There are none and when you get to the point of being able to finely manipulate human DNA, it doesn't matter anyway because if you need to do something to gain survival value due to some new situation, you could simply code it and and do it and not have to go through a major die-off/selection process the way it has worked since life began, you can skip that part and go right to fix.
I'll take genetic engineering and germline engineering to eliminate disease and disability, thank you. You can choose not to, but you don't get to choose for me. I didn't give you that power over me.
We are ALL transgenics. Where do you think your mitochondria came from? In plants, where do you think chloroplasts came from? Your DNA is heavily populated with viral DNA and virus-like DNA that is not simply "junk" DNA. Some of that viral DNA actually serves a useful function in our biology now.
Mitochondria are the remnant of an ancient bacteria that long ago formed a comensural, then symbiotic relationship with a host cell. Both the cell proper and the mitochondria gain benefit from the association and now are inseparably intertwined into a larger macro-organism we call ourselves.
This sort of mixing and cutting and pasting has been going on since life first formed on this planet. There is no eukaryotic organism that can be truly claimed to NOT be a transgenic to some degree. There is nothing especially spooky or "wrong" with transgenics. It is merely an irrational emotional response to something most people really do not understand.
We couldn't make a black hole if we really wanted to. The energy in common cosmic rays striking atoms in our upper atmosphere are orders of magnitude greater than the energy we are capable of pumping into any conceived accelerator. Since nature isn't creating Earth-swallowing black holes every day, it isn't going to happen from our playing around.
Grey goo isn't possible either as the premise that drives it isn't possible.
Humans have been conducting genetic experiments since they first evolved and developed agriculture. Also, much of the genetic exchange we can do in the lab has parallels in nature as well...between species, not just within species, so our tinkering there isn't going to end the world either. Just be cautious, but it is not reasonable nor will it happen that this avenue of research will end.
Germline genetic engineering WILL happen, like it or not. You will never convince everyone that it is better for them to produce defective children than to fix it, germline, and remove the problem "forever". Sorry, but if it were possible to cure sickle cell anemia via genetic engineering, be it somatic or germline, then it is worth it because the protection from malaria doesn't (any longer, given our large disconnect from evolutionary processes) make up for the pain and disease it causes...plus there are better ways to beat malaria via biotech.
Human cloning WILL occur if and when it becomes really possible. It cannot be stopped. Someone, somewhere WILL do it and then it is out of the bottle. You don't get to declare the cloned offspring inhuman/nonhuman and banish them.
Science and the scientific process just happens and it is bigger than any country, any people, anyone's personal morality.
The grey goo nonsense is overblown and a nonissue. If this sort of calamity were possible, then it would have already happened in nature because some form of bacteria would have done it by now. THEY are capable of breaking down rock and other materials into building blocks to replicate themselves. THEY are autonomous and have their own energy supply.
Do a bit more research and you will find that there are solid arguments deconstructing the grey goo goobledigook and makes it go away.
Nuke research can lead to bombs that can kill most humans and other life on the planet, in theory (though not in practice). But it also leads to medical research that we all depend on. It leads to a nice way to generate power. It leads to deep space probes. It leads to the solving of crystal structures in structural biology. It leads to improvements in materials research.
All that good stuff isn't enough, however, to make up for the fact that you can make a juicy bomb too so we should never have gone down that path - and we wouldn't have all I mention above, nor would we have anything close to the understanding of the atomic world that we currently have.
Scientists decide if "public" fears are unfounded. The public, by nature, is not equipped to make judgements that are not clouded by irrationality and religious bias.
As it is, some of the best US scientists ARE leaving the country for superior countries due to unreasonable restrictions on embryonic stem cell research. I too would leave the instant my research became sacrificed to irrationality, religious bias, and ignorance...and the research would continue elsewhere. This is reality. You restrict research here, and it will move elsewhere where the people and/or governments are not as myopic or irrational. All that would happen if the US or UK blocked certain avenues of research because of irrational, vague, and knee-jerk fears is that the research and the best scientist would move elsewhere. You would see a brain drain the likes you've never imagined. You would throw scientific and technical leadership away, giving it to others with more advanced reasoning capabilities and rational policies.
You not only cannot put Genies back into bottles, you cannot even prevent bottles from being opened to release the Genie. Someone somewhere WILL open the bottle and then you are screwed in every possible way for being blind and timid.
As a scientist I would not, and will not, stand for restrictions on my research based on ridiculous fears...particularly from the general public. That kind of fear-based nonsense would stop vaccine research, gene therapy research, nuclear research (without which there would be no deep space probes, no viable power generation that can work ANYWHERE on Earth or off), and a host of other areas of research.
He can restrict himself, I wont let his fears, nor the fears of an ignorant public prevent my research. I have no interest in killing or destroying and would not do something with a viable danger without proper protections, but do the research I will if I judge it to have value.
Oh please. The Federal Reserve is a direct outgrowth of the central bank which was championed and created by none other than Alexander Hamilton, a famed FOUNDING-FRICKIN'-FATHER. If he didn't know what was legal and illegal vis a vis the Constitution, then NO ONE does. If one of the preiminenant members of the FOUNDERS is wrong, then the Constitution itself is wrong.
Take off the aluminum foil hat, wash your hair, have a beer and relax. No conspiracies, sorry. Just a bunch of little crimes here and there to further personal wealth or power. Nothing more, nothing less, and nothing different than ANY point in history...doesn't mean the perps don't deserve to be hunted down and jailed but there you have it.
Yes you can because nanoscale objects are not waiting for we humans to invent. They already exist. Nanoscale pollutants produced by internal combustion in semis, autos, and power plants are known harmful pollutants. They include carbon-sulphur compounds, buckyballs, buckytubes, etc.
Technically, a virus is a nanoscale object and inhaling the wrong type of that class of object is also hazardous. This doesn't mean that nanotech research should stop, but it does mean that before anything made intentionally (vs the plethora of unintentional or naturally occurring) is released for wide use, its hazards must be well catalogued. If a nice buckyball-based nanotool can be inhaled and cause the very same problems that they do when they derive from diesel engines, then they need to be regulated.
I could have told you we were headed for another Dark Ages upon Ws election/appointment/annointing to the presidency. All his Bible-thumping, hallaleuiah, praise JAY-SUS bullshit is the epitome of Dark Ages. Don't think, just read the Bible and accept JAY-SUS as your savior or go to the rack.
Science and technology is only useful in the ways it can further Godly-government control of evil individuals who would violate tenants of the 10 Commandments.
One thing I found especially telling...official US Govt spokesperson (this morning in my local paper from an AP source) indicated that the US would help Iraqi's recover the looted antiquities from their museums. The key hilarity was in the Jesus/Bible-thumper mushy-words in which they were described as artifacts dating back 10,000 years or more. At-frickin'-least! Some of the artefacts go backwards up to 40,000 years but that would violate the fantasy that the world was created 10,000 years ago - and this is central to GW's fantasy world belief system. This IS the Dark Ages alright.
Afterall, it is so much more important than giving the innocent civilians hurt in the multitude of crossfires (regardless of whether or not it is because Saddam and buddies planted their weapons in civil neighborhoods or not). The internet clearly should sit at the top of the list of things to fix. The best way to make the Iraqi's friends is to give them DSL, etc. Then, that teenager who got both his legs blown off while he and his father sat down for breakfast (due to an errant bomb) can forget that his Dad is dead and he no longer has legs can browse ebay and download mp3s. There, all better.
DSL and cable are NOT the answer. They are fine if you live in a city but if you are rural you are SOL. Satellite is NOT a real option. Pricey and limited in usefulness. The only option left for rural individuals is powerline.
I frickin' want a broadband connection that doesn't break the bank and doesn't suffer major latency issues. I see no option but some form of powerline transmission. Wireless is not an option for most rural people.
I believe that you can avoid it if you compile your own kernel and include a few extra gsecurity items like totally randomizing your IP IDs, randomize TCP source ports, randomize RPC XIDs, and select altered Ping IDs. It may just be selecting randomize IP IDs...or am I way off base here? I recall this topic on slashdot some weeks back and recall that something along the lines of what I list above was a fix.
I can't address the first part but perhaps I misunderstand the second? If I hold Ctrl and then run the cursor over a series of cells (columns, rows, mix of each) I can select any combination of nonadjacent elements.
Were you referring to something else?
As for calc, I have generally used kspread or, on occassion, gnumeric, to do my analyses and then used yet another app like xmgrace to plot out the data with error bars (since SO/OO calc wont do error bars, kchart is too clumsy and weak and wont do error bars, and gnumeric lacks any charting function whatsoever).
My only real complaint/problem with OO/SO is as a researcher, I cannot use it. I need to make heavy use of citations and references. OO/SO doesn't do bibliographies and references the way that Lyx can (linux-side) or the way Wordperfect and M$ Word can on the Mac/Doze side (via 3rd party apps like EndNote).
I have been finishing up my dissertation. I HAD to use Lyx because I exclusively use linux and nothing else can handle the references.
If you are a researcher you need to be able to easily navigate your bibliography database(s) to find the references you need and then insert them into your text. At the end, when you produce the printed copy, those references have to be formatted into any of a half-dozen or more styles (ie, "text text text (Thomas and Eckes 1992). text text" or numeric in the order cited OR alphabetically). The reference pages need to be autogenerated to match the style required (journals and thesis offices all have different requirements) by your target. This is simple with Lyx w/bibtex and a bibliography frontend like the excellent pybliographic or using Word with EndNote. This is not really doable with OO/SO.
When/if it becomes possible to do this with OO/SO then I will happily use it instead of Lyx which, while powerful, is a bit too complex and unintuitive for my taste (I LIKE to see what my output will look like BEFORE I generate it in some form. I like seeing how it is formatted as I am working on it, not after the fact).
Other than this critical (for me and any other researcher of any type) shortcoming, OO/SO is quite good...just slow to get up and running. Note to Sun and the OO developers: the modularity that users called for wasn't so much so that they could only install this or that package, ie the wordprocessor OR the spreadsheet, etc, it was in the hopes of speeding the whole thing up. The original monolithic StarOffice was fine with all its components but the problem was that to start just the wordprocessor EVERYTHING else was loaded up too leading to a very slow startup. I don't see that the speed of starting has changed much (if at all) since the components have been "separated".