I am all for the EU decision vis a vis M$. Hooray! Kill the bastards, etc. As for De Beers and diamonds...don't get me started. Diamonds are plentiful. They are NOT worth what is paid for them as they come a dime a dozen. What De Beers and the rest of the cartel do is create an artificial scarcity of diamonds totally at odds with reality so they can charge loads of money for a frickin rock. To do this, they also setup a monstrous situation in Africa for those who live around, or work in, the diamond mines.
How's about the EU (and USA) get together and eliminate the diamond monopoly which is artificially and improperly limiting the amount of otherwise plentiful diamonds and creating, as a direct result, a very bad humanitarian problem for those in Africa who live around the mines?
If you want to deal with a commodity that is truly valuable due to a very real scarcity, then you should deal with metals like platinum, titanium, gold, and the like. Get out of the frickin' rock collecting business.
Oh contrare. I am nearly 100% linux/OSS using. My primary document/productivity apps are OO or Lyx. I do not use any windows apps except tax preparation software and games. Of the two, the games is the biggest software load I am willing to pay for. I DO pay for games, and have no problem paying for a game I want and believe I will like. If they were available for linux I would buy them instead of the windoze version. I would buy tax software for linux too if it were available. As most of either class do not work well, if at all, under wine(X), I have to reboot to doze when I need or want to use either.
The biggest problem I have seen (and saw it for Loki too, of which I was a paying customer) is the titles and the timing. First off, there were big name games, highly anticipated when announced and then heavily bought when available in the windoze world. With Loki, I was willing to wait a bit for a game to get ported but there was virtually no advance notice on what was going to be ported. I wanted game X ASAP because it was hot, highly anticipated, and I read and saw good things about it. I would wait and wait to see if Loki would announce anything wrt game X porting only to hear/read absolutely nothing. In the meantime they would release ports of "ancient" games of yesteryear that I either already had in windoze or was simply not interested in at all. The BIG titles never came. I could have waited until retirement for any really desireable game to appear. The only big game they gave advanced notice on was _Deus Ex_ but Loki croaked before they went anywhere with it - it was the exception, advanced warning-wise, not the rule. Meanwhile the windoze users marched on from one fantastic game to the next while we Loki/linux users hoped blindly for some porting of SOME of them. Nope. Ultimately I would buy the game for doze and just reboot to play because I could never count on a version being available for linux...ever. Hell, only recently has a Medal of Honor: Allied Assault native linux binary become available. This after I have already played the game plus all its followups on doze. Sheesh.
Now iD Software seems to have the system down nicely. They release a packaged windoze version and supply for free a linux binary for download. You buy the game and download the binary and play on linux natively. Their early problems with linux boxed sales, I believe, was that it was too early. There were not enough users to truly support the cost of boxed linux versions. I am not certain that the situation has yet changed enough to do so now either, though it approaches.
Once desktop linux has more of a presense in the workplace, and then by extension, in the home space, there will be more of a ready market to tap for linux-native games. You cannot create a game market before you have have a viable purchasing population in the target platform. You also need the tools. OpenAL and OpenSDS were/are great things and perhaps should be pushed more strongly to allow for easier cross-os development. If only the OpenGL group were a bit faster with improvements, OpenGL would be able to provide everything M$ hypes about Direct3D.
I do not think that the linux games problem is one of linux users not being willing to pay. There is some software that flatout doesn't work in the OSS model. Tax prep software and heavy hitting games are perhaps the major types that don't and cannot. If they were available for linux in a timely manner and in a spit and polish form, people would buy them...but not to the extent of windoze users buying windoze games. Yet. The market size just isn't there yet. Give it a bit of time but don't totally give up on it.
Now I am compelled to take measures to ensure that no potentially illegal activities (corporate) are able to be hidden by this DRM nonsense. I will have to bring a digital camera into my workplace as soon as I start running into unprintable emails, documents, etc. As soon as I get any document with an expiration/self-destruct date. I will start taking steps to ensure that all such items are "documented" via digital photography, if need be, so that I can safely be a whistleblower as required. I will not, under any circumstances, EVER be party to illegal activities by any corporation for the sake of money. I will not be party to unethical activity of any kind. If I come across such, I am compelled to blow the whistle and if M$ and other corporations feel the need to try to cover their unacceptable, illegal, unethical behavior via DRM crap, then I WILL sidestep it one way or another. I am honor-bound to do no less.
On a personal note, it is automatic that I will never ever again purchase any system that contains a phoenix bios chip in it. Old or DRM-enabled new, phoenix has ceased to exist as far as my money is concerned.
Your take on the appointee is correct, with the exception of your use of "mother fucker". I believe you meant "motherfucker". One word.
I somewhat suspect that the motherfucker moniker is in error as I do not think Babs Bush would accept the cock of such a cowardly, pencil-necked, pathetic sloppy drunk cokehead as Shrub. His BROTHERS, on the other hand...I think it is likely a fact that Shrub is a "brotherfucker".
We have/have had close enough to infinite time for the point to be irrelevant. BILLIONS of years and 100s of billions of galaxies, each filled with 100s of billions of stars. Plenty of occurances, plenty of time.
Another point. Chirality. There isn't even a fully random set of aminos, sugars, etc. They are predominantly chiral. They are not a random mishmash of left and right handed aminos or sugars. They are the kind we use and, presumably, all other life in the universe. The aminos available are plentiful. The nucleic acids are plentiful. It is all there and in huge amounts (throughout the visable universe). There is no mystery here, no magic. Just chance and inevitability. Life is inevitable from simple precursors.
I don't care what car it is. I am fully capable of repairing/replacing ANY vacuum hose, fuel line, fuel filter, oil filter, fan belt, battery, etc. When I really feel like getting dirty, I can replace gaskets. I have also been known to replace dead halogen lamps (gasp!) on modern cars.
Would I try to do major service? No, because I don't have the time nor inclination to deal with that big a headache (I have personally replaced the engine in my chevy blazer - that's the biggest deal I was willing to deal with. Later, I replaced the intake manifold and carburator). I do demand the right to access all parts of MY car. It is MINE. If I want to look under the hood and do nothing, then that is what I damn well WILL do. If I want to replace hoses, filters, fix wires (done that too) then I WILL do that and will not allow some snot-nosed geeks at some criminal car company to prevent me. They lost control of all aspects of the vehicle when I purchased it. They will NOT force me to use their criminally overpriced service. They will not force me to put up with their LYING about what's wrong so they can do crap that doesn't need doing.
In short, when a car company makes it so that I cannot access my cars guts, then I wont buy their piece of crap.
I have two words for you: Deinococcus radiodurans.
OK, I have another: cockroaches.
Plenty more where that came from. Each of them more evolutionarily/biologically robust than humans.
We've been around for a fraction of the time that either of these organisms (and most others). Me thinks it is still too early to be sticking some Super Crown on our heads. When we are actively spreading around the galaxy (just to Mars doesn't really count), particularly when we have people "out there" who can cut the chord with both Sol and Earth entirely...then you have an argument in our favor. Until then, we are just extinction fodder, likely at our own hands. Cockroaches, ants, termites, bacteria, fungi, etc, will be dancing on our fossils.
You do NOT need to find ALL of today's chemicals of life (on earth), from all the amino acids, to all the nucleic acids, in order to get the precursors of life. All you need are some basics. Once, by chance, they polymerize into a form that self-replicates, that's all you need. From that point on, you have the only thing needed for more complex life to form.
There is more than simply adenine in space. There is more than just one or two amino acids in interstellar space. There are also a LOT more than must the 20 _standard_ amino acids or the A(T/U)GC bases available for use in proteins and genetic material as well. We, today, use a particular subset of these.
As for self-replicating RNA, I do not say that you can throw all the precursors into a test tube and viola! Self replicating RNA. You CAN get such given enough time (billions of years), energy (thermal, UV), and repeat occurances (billions and billions of galaxies, each containing many billions of stars, covering a timespan of billions of years).
It should be no mystery to the organism on planet x that it exists on planet x as if it was just inexplicably "created" perfectly for it to exists. C'mon. Billions of stars, billions of planets...chance absolutely assures not just one instance, but MANY instances of random chance leading to life. There is no mystery here, just huge blocks of time, huge numbers of potential sites, and plentiful precursor molecules available.
Given enough time and separate instances, then even an infintesimal chance for event x to occur assures without question that x WILL occur. That is what life is.
It most likely went down. Into the rocks (locked up forever in the rock crystalline structures), into subsurface ice, into aquifers where the pressure and temperature are high enough to sustain liquid water.
The ONLY reason we have liquid water available to us on earth is because we have a very active geochemical cycle. Water is "lost" into the mantle at subduction zones and seep into cracks. Some is lost by becoming chemically locked up in rocks. Some is lost as vapor to space. That dumped into the mantle is recycled to the surface via volcanic activity.
Also, earth's gravity is substantially higher than Mars' so the atmospheric pressure is sustained (though we lose atmosphere to space all the time) and rejuvenated via an active geochemical cycle, and this atmospheric pressure allows for stable liquid water.
Mars has no major, active geochemical cycle. It likely retains enough heat from the core deep down in the crust to sustain liquid water (and possible extremophile organisms) - where pressures are also higher. As for atmosphere, without a constant geochemical cycle to keep it replenished AND with a low gravity, its atmosphere is lost virtually irretrievably to space and into becoming chemically locked up in rocks (most of the oxygen on Mars is locked up in rocks).
Ahem. _The_RNA_World_. Get it. Read it. Accept it. I worked with the authors during a lab rotation at the University of Utah.
Points to keep in mind: amino acids and nucleic acids are abundant in the universe. They form naturally in the interstellar medium. They are detected in nebulae all over the sky. They are part of the basic building blocks that exist all over the universe.
Next point: there are numerous other helpful items in nature that lead to SELF ORGANIZATION. Self organization is an area of scientific study if you are inclined.
Next point: there are various scaffolds available that can act as substrates for projected proto lifeforms (self-replicating nucleic acids, RNA molecules).
All life involves is basic chemistry that exists everywhere in nature, abiotic and biotic.
Combine all the above naturally occurring elements and you have all that is needed to produce, ultimately, life from non-life. Life is not magic. It is ultimately about self-replicating, sustained, chemical reactions.
It is possible to derive self-replicating RNA molecules. Once such a molecule exists, it is subject to evolution, plain and simple. There are no "buts", there are not "wait a minutes". Once you have a self-replicating ANYTHING, it is immediately subject to evolutionary forces. Given time and range(and we are talking BILLIONS of years here and a virtually infinite sized universe) you have plenty of time and opportunity to evolve virtually any type of possible lifeform. No magic. Just plain old chance, chemistry, and evolution. All plain logic and mathematical simplicity.
It took something like a billion years for life to evolve on earth into a form that is recognizable as life. A billion years is a LONG time. It is much longer than you imagine, much longer than you CAN imagine. You cannot take in that amount of time and really get a grasp on what it really means. A billion years is a long-frickin'-time. Time enough.
Until after i actually see the crap they promise. I'll stick with AMD and superior add-on/pcmcia cards that have native linux support.
Intel is pschizo. They "support" linux, they don't support linux. They say one thing, do another. They are, in a sense, merely Bill Gates' and M$'s Poodle.
Boycott Intel until they pull their multiple personality head out of their anal sphincter and actually go OS neutral the way a CPU maker SHOULD be.
when "Skywalker Ranch" and George Lucas was mentioned in relation to wine was _Boone's Farm_. This series of "wines" just seems the closest approximation to a wine I would expect from Lucas via a "Skywalker Ranch". Sugary, sweet, childish, not appropriate for mature adults. Yep, just like most of the Star Wars movies since the first one.
Skywalker Ranch Special Childish Reserve Apple Wine.
I'm not interested in it anyway. I am interested in a fallback gameplaying OS for when wine or winex can't cut the mustard. My copy of a copy of a win98 CD is no longer useable (too many scratches and bad bits). I'm not about to PAY for windoze (never have...except once when I was young, stupid, and bought my first and only prebuilt computer: a superfast 486DX-33!).
Since I can't download the source and compile it into a working (free) copy of a backup gameplaying OS, I'm not interested anyway.
Good crap, what a bunch of cowardly anonymous unscientific minds on this one!
Two things, deal with them: There is the THEORY of evolution that addresses the HOW (not the whether/if). Then there is the FACT of evolution. That is it. There is FACT (evolution DOES occur, both micro and macro (there's no difference but one of degree). This is uncontested in the REAL world (where scientists and the scientifically literate dwell). Then there is the THEORY about how it occurs: punctuated equilibrium, simple gradualism, neodarwinism.
Another thing to deal with as reality. A scientific THEORY is NOT a minor thing. It is just short of a LAW. There's atomic THEORY, for instance. Do you have a problem with that? There's quantum THEORY. Problem with that? Actually, the theory aspect of evolution studies is JUST as well backed up and solid as is atomic theory.
Toss your bible away, it is not a factual, blow-by-blow account of much of anything. It is loaded with metaphor, parable, and cultural history as seen through the colored glasses of many different religious customs and social customs. It is NOT a cookbook. Deal with it.
Wont pay that much for a laptop. This is like the bad ole days when just about ANY laptop cost an arm and leg.
It's obsolete within minutes of acquiring it, cannot be upgraded in any real way. No way would I cough up a lung for such a laptop. I DO need a laptop with a decent graphics card in it, one that can handle some OpenGL for my job (and sure, I would play a few lower end games to blow time at an airport or on an plane) but this is overkill for too little.
I am looking at Element Computer laptops. They have a "No Windows" policy and will sell you a nifty computer or laptop sans winders. They even have a really cool tablet-type laptop. I am holding out for a newer iteration that they say will have a 3D capable video card.
The organic-based displays come out. Flexible, brighter than LCD, superior to plasma (no burn-in).
OK, OK, I'll wait until the organic displays are around for a while and their price reaches non-astronomical levels. That should be in about 7-8+ years from now assuming a soonish release.
And how, exactly, does use of electronic voting machines prevent the a similar person registering their dog to vote?
The "paper ballots aren't secure" nonsense is, well, nonsense. They CAN be secure. VERY secure. It isn't rocket-frickin'-science. Hell, we had VERY secure nuclear key codes, printed on plasticized paper (gasp! PAPER!?) in our bomber aircraft. Those that weren't loaded on the planes existed in secure safes and lock boxes. No one got to them. No one tampered with them. If they had, it would have been evident. You don't simply use padlocks, you use safe locks/tags. They are tamper-proof. You use many eyes (in the nuclear military we had the two-man rule...no one by themselves were EVER allowed to be with a nuke. You had to be in two man teams.). You use an observer from each political party represented on the ballot or some similar scheme. It really isn't that hard.
hacking into the voting computers. It's the insiders with an agenda that I am concerned about. The ONLY way to get around this is with a voter-verifiable paper trail AND taking the vote counting away from corporations that create the machines and putting the counting where it belongs: citizen groups.
Diebold and ALL the other commercial vote machine vendors are heavy Republican donors and, particularly in the case of Diebold, run by individuals devoted to getting Republicans elected and Bush elected (I can't say "re-elected" as he didn't get elected in the first place). THESE criminals have the means and motive to taint the vote...in secret! They are in control of the machines and the vote tallies. They cannot be trusted, given how openly partisan they are.
It is NOT the random outside hacker we need to worry about that much (sure, protect against it), it is the machine makers and vote counters themselves that have to be protected against. Ask yourself this: Why is it that EVERY vendor of voting machines are so adamantly opposed to any paper trail possibility? Why are they so strenous in their arguments against it? Because it would queer their ability to tamper with the vote tallies.
Voter-verifiable paper trail. It's the only way to be sure.
No I did not opt out of the SSN giveaway. That horse has left the barn. It left a LONG time ago when I was too young and dumb to know better. Hell, I used to have my SSN on my checks. I used to have to add the SSN to cash checks, etc. That was before the problem of identity theft came up. That was before the internet was anything more than an experiment and the sum total of "online experience" was direct dialup to a BBS. Some of my privacy was also improperly (and criminally) given to a third party by my previous university/employer as they fell for "felony impersonating an officer" by a Scientology-associated P.I. It is too late for some things. Yet much is left to protect and to continue protecting.
I am much more protective of my privacy now, including what many might consider innocuous items. It is getting to the point vis a vis privacy invasion/violation by corporations and the government that I have even entertained the idea of acquiring a false identity specifically to hide behind as a means of protecting my privacy. We'll see...if Bush is re-elected, Asscrack, er, I mean Ashcroft continues pushing for civil liberty violating laws (and getting them passed), and Congress continues seeing fit to give corporations whatever the hell they want then I may more than entertain the idea.
When are you moving to New Hampshire? [freestateproject.org]
Heh. Never. Libertarian is codeword for private property worship at the expense of EVERYTHING else. What it means in practice is wildlife destruction (in the name of private property), habitat destruction (in the name of private property), destruction of historical landmarks, buildings, etc (in the name of private property), and the destruction of neighborhoods (It is MY private property so I can turn my yard into a junkyard if I want to, even though it degrades the value of the property of all my neighbors, pollutes the stream that happens to cross my yard, etc...in the name of private property).
Private property rights do not exist except as a social fiction generally agreed upon by any given society. Ask those peoples that were closer to nature (and the "natural state" than ANY white european has been for millennia)...native americans, or australian aborigines, or any of many other such peoples. They did not hold to the concept of private property. The idea of private property is a recent fiction, not an inborn fact.
Dump the over-the-top private property worship (I have no problem with reasonable
private property rights, but it is way beyond the pale when they are taken to the point of there being no public land, no protected wilderness, no protected anything.
My privacy protection is a matter of principle and it thus not affected by money. I don't give a whup if someone offers me money for certain, key private information tidbits, I wont give it. Is it because I am "deviant"? No. I am pretty frickin' average, all told, but on PRINCIPLE my privacy is MINE, absolutely, and I will not give it out or sell it off to a government or a corporation or a group of busybodies.
Just wait. This research will no doubt lead to more privacy erosion on the principle that if you do not want to give up the information, then you must be hiding something bad (the result that the perception or fact that one is deviant from the norm making one more reluctant to release private information). This CAN and will be used as a means of eroding privacy. "You MUST be hiding something if you wont give it up freely. Take him away!". Patriot Act v3.0 would be about right to explicitly work from this angle.
Not THAT ironic. Originally in England (Dark Ages), Knights were NOT the stereotypic emblems of virtue and all things virtuous. Originally, they were often (usually) quite corrupt. Many were outright criminals who were knighted to bring their criminal ways into the service of the King.
It is in perfect keeping with the REAL ancient British Knight tradition to bring a criminal such as Gates into the Knight fold. He has good historic company. Birds of a feather.
Slashdot Mirror
I am all for the EU decision vis a vis M$. Hooray! Kill the bastards, etc. As for De Beers and diamonds...don't get me started. Diamonds are plentiful. They are NOT worth what is paid for them as they come a dime a dozen. What De Beers and the rest of the cartel do is create an artificial scarcity of diamonds totally at odds with reality so they can charge loads of money for a frickin rock. To do this, they also setup a monstrous situation in Africa for those who live around, or work in, the diamond mines.
How's about the EU (and USA) get together and eliminate the diamond monopoly which is artificially and improperly limiting the amount of otherwise plentiful diamonds and creating, as a direct result, a very bad humanitarian problem for those in Africa who live around the mines?
If you want to deal with a commodity that is truly valuable due to a very real scarcity, then you should deal with metals like platinum, titanium, gold, and the like. Get out of the frickin' rock collecting business.
Oh contrare. I am nearly 100% linux/OSS using. My primary document/productivity apps are OO or Lyx. I do not use any windows apps except tax preparation software and games. Of the two, the games is the biggest software load I am willing to pay for. I DO pay for games, and have no problem paying for a game I want and believe I will like. If they were available for linux I would buy them instead of the windoze version. I would buy tax software for linux too if it were available. As most of either class do not work well, if at all, under wine(X), I have to reboot to doze when I need or want to use either.
The biggest problem I have seen (and saw it for Loki too, of which I was a paying customer) is the titles and the timing. First off, there were big name games, highly anticipated when announced and then heavily bought when available in the windoze world. With Loki, I was willing to wait a bit for a game to get ported but there was virtually no advance notice on what was going to be ported. I wanted game X ASAP because it was hot, highly anticipated, and I read and saw good things about it. I would wait and wait to see if Loki would announce anything wrt game X porting only to hear/read absolutely nothing. In the meantime they would release ports of "ancient" games of yesteryear that I either already had in windoze or was simply not interested in at all. The BIG titles never came. I could have waited until retirement for any really desireable game to appear. The only big game they gave advanced notice on was _Deus Ex_ but Loki croaked before they went anywhere with it - it was the exception, advanced warning-wise, not the rule. Meanwhile the windoze users marched on from one fantastic game to the next while we Loki/linux users hoped blindly for some porting of SOME of them. Nope. Ultimately I would buy the game for doze and just reboot to play because I could never count on a version being available for linux...ever. Hell, only recently has a Medal of Honor: Allied Assault native linux binary become available. This after I have already played the game plus all its followups on doze. Sheesh.
Now iD Software seems to have the system down nicely. They release a packaged windoze version and supply for free a linux binary for download. You buy the game and download the binary and play on linux natively. Their early problems with linux boxed sales, I believe, was that it was too early. There were not enough users to truly support the cost of boxed linux versions. I am not certain that the situation has yet changed enough to do so now either, though it approaches.
Once desktop linux has more of a presense in the workplace, and then by extension, in the home space, there will be more of a ready market to tap for linux-native games. You cannot create a game market before you have have a viable purchasing population in the target platform. You also need the tools. OpenAL and OpenSDS were/are great things and perhaps should be pushed more strongly to allow for easier cross-os development. If only the OpenGL group were a bit faster with improvements, OpenGL would be able to provide everything M$ hypes about Direct3D.
I do not think that the linux games problem is one of linux users not being willing to pay. There is some software that flatout doesn't work in the OSS model. Tax prep software and heavy hitting games are perhaps the major types that don't and cannot. If they were available for linux in a timely manner and in a spit and polish form, people would buy them...but not to the extent of windoze users buying windoze games. Yet. The market size just isn't there yet. Give it a bit of time but don't totally give up on it.
Now I am compelled to take measures to ensure that no potentially illegal activities (corporate) are able to be hidden by this DRM nonsense. I will have to bring a digital camera into my workplace as soon as I start running into unprintable emails, documents, etc. As soon as I get any document with an expiration/self-destruct date. I will start taking steps to ensure that all such items are "documented" via digital photography, if need be, so that I can safely be a whistleblower as required. I will not, under any circumstances, EVER be party to illegal activities by any corporation for the sake of money. I will not be party to unethical activity of any kind. If I come across such, I am compelled to blow the whistle and if M$ and other corporations feel the need to try to cover their unacceptable, illegal, unethical behavior via DRM crap, then I WILL sidestep it one way or another. I am honor-bound to do no less.
On a personal note, it is automatic that I will never ever again purchase any system that contains a phoenix bios chip in it. Old or DRM-enabled new, phoenix has ceased to exist as far as my money is concerned.
Your take on the appointee is correct, with the exception of your use of "mother fucker". I believe you meant "motherfucker". One word.
I somewhat suspect that the motherfucker moniker is in error as I do not think Babs Bush would accept the cock of such a cowardly, pencil-necked, pathetic sloppy drunk cokehead as Shrub. His BROTHERS, on the other hand...I think it is likely a fact that Shrub is a "brotherfucker".
We have/have had close enough to infinite time for the point to be irrelevant. BILLIONS of years and 100s of billions of galaxies, each filled with 100s of billions of stars. Plenty of occurances, plenty of time.
Another point. Chirality. There isn't even a fully random set of aminos, sugars, etc. They are predominantly chiral. They are not a random mishmash of left and right handed aminos or sugars. They are the kind we use and, presumably, all other life in the universe. The aminos available are plentiful. The nucleic acids are plentiful. It is all there and in huge amounts (throughout the visable universe). There is no mystery here, no magic. Just chance and inevitability. Life is inevitable from simple precursors.
I don't care what car it is. I am fully capable of repairing/replacing ANY vacuum hose, fuel line, fuel filter, oil filter, fan belt, battery, etc. When I really feel like getting dirty, I can replace gaskets. I have also been known to replace dead halogen lamps (gasp!) on modern cars.
Would I try to do major service? No, because I don't have the time nor inclination to deal with that big a headache (I have personally replaced the engine in my chevy blazer - that's the biggest deal I was willing to deal with. Later, I replaced the intake manifold and carburator). I do demand the right to access all parts of MY car. It is MINE. If I want to look under the hood and do nothing, then that is what I damn well WILL do. If I want to replace hoses, filters, fix wires (done that too) then I WILL do that and will not allow some snot-nosed geeks at some criminal car company to prevent me. They lost control of all aspects of the vehicle when I purchased it. They will NOT force me to use their criminally overpriced service. They will not force me to put up with their LYING about what's wrong so they can do crap that doesn't need doing.
In short, when a car company makes it so that I cannot access my cars guts, then I wont buy their piece of crap.
I have two words for you: Deinococcus radiodurans.
OK, I have another: cockroaches.
Plenty more where that came from. Each of them more evolutionarily/biologically robust than humans.
We've been around for a fraction of the time that either of these organisms (and most others). Me thinks it is still too early to be sticking some Super Crown on our heads. When we are actively spreading around the galaxy (just to Mars doesn't really count), particularly when we have people "out there" who can cut the chord with both Sol and Earth entirely...then you have an argument in our favor. Until then, we are just extinction fodder, likely at our own hands. Cockroaches, ants, termites, bacteria, fungi, etc, will be dancing on our fossils.
You do NOT need to find ALL of today's chemicals of life (on earth), from all the amino acids, to all the nucleic acids, in order to get the precursors of life. All you need are some basics. Once, by chance, they polymerize into a form that self-replicates, that's all you need. From that point on, you have the only thing needed for more complex life to form.
There is more than simply adenine in space. There is more than just one or two amino acids in interstellar space. There are also a LOT more than must the 20 _standard_ amino acids or the A(T/U)GC bases available for use in proteins and genetic material as well. We, today, use a particular subset of these.
As for self-replicating RNA, I do not say that you can throw all the precursors into a test tube and viola! Self replicating RNA. You CAN get such given enough time (billions of years), energy (thermal, UV), and repeat occurances (billions and billions of galaxies, each containing many billions of stars, covering a timespan of billions of years).
It should be no mystery to the organism on planet x that it exists on planet x as if it was just inexplicably "created" perfectly for it to exists. C'mon. Billions of stars, billions of planets...chance absolutely assures not just one instance, but MANY instances of random chance leading to life. There is no mystery here, just huge blocks of time, huge numbers of potential sites, and plentiful precursor molecules available.
Given enough time and separate instances, then even an infintesimal chance for event x to occur assures without question that x WILL occur. That is what life is.
It most likely went down. Into the rocks (locked up forever in the rock crystalline structures), into subsurface ice, into aquifers where the pressure and temperature are high enough to sustain liquid water.
The ONLY reason we have liquid water available to us on earth is because we have a very active geochemical cycle. Water is "lost" into the mantle at subduction zones and seep into cracks. Some is lost by becoming chemically locked up in rocks. Some is lost as vapor to space. That dumped into the mantle is recycled to the surface via volcanic activity.
Also, earth's gravity is substantially higher than Mars' so the atmospheric pressure is sustained (though we lose atmosphere to space all the time) and rejuvenated via an active geochemical cycle, and this atmospheric pressure allows for stable liquid water.
Mars has no major, active geochemical cycle. It likely retains enough heat from the core deep down in the crust to sustain liquid water (and possible extremophile organisms) - where pressures are also higher. As for atmosphere, without a constant geochemical cycle to keep it replenished AND with a low gravity, its atmosphere is lost virtually irretrievably to space and into becoming chemically locked up in rocks (most of the oxygen on Mars is locked up in rocks).
Ahem. _The_RNA_World_. Get it. Read it. Accept it. I worked with the authors during a lab rotation at the University of Utah.
Points to keep in mind: amino acids and nucleic acids are abundant in the universe. They form naturally in the interstellar medium. They are detected in nebulae all over the sky. They are part of the basic building blocks that exist all over the universe.
Next point: there are numerous other helpful items in nature that lead to SELF ORGANIZATION. Self organization is an area of scientific study if you are inclined.
Next point: there are various scaffolds available that can act as substrates for projected proto lifeforms (self-replicating nucleic acids, RNA molecules).
All life involves is basic chemistry that exists everywhere in nature, abiotic and biotic.
Combine all the above naturally occurring elements and you have all that is needed to produce, ultimately, life from non-life. Life is not magic. It is ultimately about self-replicating, sustained, chemical reactions.
It is possible to derive self-replicating RNA molecules. Once such a molecule exists, it is subject to evolution, plain and simple. There are no "buts", there are not "wait a minutes". Once you have a self-replicating ANYTHING, it is immediately subject to evolutionary forces. Given time and range(and we are talking BILLIONS of years here and a virtually infinite sized universe) you have plenty of time and opportunity to evolve virtually any type of possible lifeform. No magic. Just plain old chance, chemistry, and evolution. All plain logic and mathematical simplicity.
It took something like a billion years for life to evolve on earth into a form that is recognizable as life. A billion years is a LONG time. It is much longer than you imagine, much longer than you CAN imagine. You cannot take in that amount of time and really get a grasp on what it really means. A billion years is a long-frickin'-time. Time enough.
Until after i actually see the crap they promise. I'll stick with AMD and superior add-on/pcmcia cards that have native linux support.
Intel is pschizo. They "support" linux, they don't support linux. They say one thing, do another. They are, in a sense, merely Bill Gates' and M$'s Poodle.
Boycott Intel until they pull their multiple personality head out of their anal sphincter and actually go OS neutral the way a CPU maker SHOULD be.
when "Skywalker Ranch" and George Lucas was mentioned in relation to wine was _Boone's Farm_. This series of "wines" just seems the closest approximation to a wine I would expect from Lucas via a "Skywalker Ranch". Sugary, sweet, childish, not appropriate for mature adults. Yep, just like most of the Star Wars movies since the first one.
Skywalker Ranch Special Childish Reserve Apple Wine.
That means that NASA can start putting cool mudflaps on future rovers. You know, those flaps with the naked ladies on 'em? R-r-r-r-r baby!
There is no divine power anywhere. I'm content with that fact of reality. You should get square with it too...or show me the indisputable proof.
I study mutation for a living. You know absolutely nothing and have nothing worthwhile to say about it. Go back to your cave.
I'm not interested in it anyway. I am interested in a fallback gameplaying OS for when wine or winex can't cut the mustard. My copy of a copy of a win98 CD is no longer useable (too many scratches and bad bits). I'm not about to PAY for windoze (never have...except once when I was young, stupid, and bought my first and only prebuilt computer: a superfast 486DX-33!).
Since I can't download the source and compile it into a working (free) copy of a backup gameplaying OS, I'm not interested anyway.
Good crap, what a bunch of cowardly anonymous unscientific minds on this one!
Two things, deal with them: There is the THEORY of evolution that addresses the HOW (not the whether/if). Then there is the FACT of evolution. That is it. There is FACT (evolution DOES occur, both micro and macro (there's no difference but one of degree). This is uncontested in the REAL world (where scientists and the scientifically literate dwell). Then there is the THEORY about how it occurs: punctuated equilibrium, simple gradualism, neodarwinism.
Another thing to deal with as reality. A scientific THEORY is NOT a minor thing. It is just short of a LAW. There's atomic THEORY, for instance. Do you have a problem with that? There's quantum THEORY. Problem with that? Actually, the theory aspect of evolution studies is JUST as well backed up and solid as is atomic theory.
Toss your bible away, it is not a factual, blow-by-blow account of much of anything. It is loaded with metaphor, parable, and cultural history as seen through the colored glasses of many different religious customs and social customs. It is NOT a cookbook. Deal with it.
Wont pay that much for a laptop. This is like the bad ole days when just about ANY laptop cost an arm and leg.
It's obsolete within minutes of acquiring it, cannot be upgraded in any real way. No way would I cough up a lung for such a laptop. I DO need a laptop with a decent graphics card in it, one that can handle some OpenGL for my job (and sure, I would play a few lower end games to blow time at an airport or on an plane) but this is overkill for too little.
I am looking at Element Computer laptops. They have a "No Windows" policy and will sell you a nifty computer or laptop sans winders. They even have a really cool tablet-type laptop. I am holding out for a newer iteration that they say will have a 3D capable video card.
The organic-based displays come out. Flexible, brighter than LCD, superior to plasma (no burn-in).
OK, OK, I'll wait until the organic displays are around for a while and their price reaches non-astronomical levels. That should be in about 7-8+ years from now assuming a soonish release.
And how, exactly, does use of electronic voting machines prevent the a similar person registering their dog to vote?
The "paper ballots aren't secure" nonsense is, well, nonsense. They CAN be secure. VERY secure. It isn't rocket-frickin'-science. Hell, we had VERY secure nuclear key codes, printed on plasticized paper (gasp! PAPER!?) in our bomber aircraft. Those that weren't loaded on the planes existed in secure safes and lock boxes. No one got to them. No one tampered with them. If they had, it would have been evident. You don't simply use padlocks, you use safe locks/tags. They are tamper-proof. You use many eyes (in the nuclear military we had the two-man rule...no one by themselves were EVER allowed to be with a nuke. You had to be in two man teams.). You use an observer from each political party represented on the ballot or some similar scheme. It really isn't that hard.
hacking into the voting computers. It's the insiders with an agenda that I am concerned about. The ONLY way to get around this is with a voter-verifiable paper trail AND taking the vote counting away from corporations that create the machines and putting the counting where it belongs: citizen groups.
Diebold and ALL the other commercial vote machine vendors are heavy Republican donors and, particularly in the case of Diebold, run by individuals devoted to getting Republicans elected and Bush elected (I can't say "re-elected" as he didn't get elected in the first place). THESE criminals have the means and motive to taint the vote...in secret! They are in control of the machines and the vote tallies. They cannot be trusted, given how openly partisan they are.
It is NOT the random outside hacker we need to worry about that much (sure, protect against it), it is the machine makers and vote counters themselves that have to be protected against. Ask yourself this: Why is it that EVERY vendor of voting machines are so adamantly opposed to any paper trail possibility? Why are they so strenous in their arguments against it? Because it would queer their ability to tamper with the vote tallies.
Voter-verifiable paper trail. It's the only way to be sure.
No I did not opt out of the SSN giveaway. That horse has left the barn. It left a LONG time ago when I was too young and dumb to know better. Hell, I used to have my SSN on my checks. I used to have to add the SSN to cash checks, etc. That was before the problem of identity theft came up. That was before the internet was anything more than an experiment and the sum total of "online experience" was direct dialup to a BBS. Some of my privacy was also improperly (and criminally) given to a third party by my previous university/employer as they fell for "felony impersonating an officer" by a Scientology-associated P.I. It is too late for some things. Yet much is left to protect and to continue protecting.
I am much more protective of my privacy now, including what many might consider innocuous items. It is getting to the point vis a vis privacy invasion/violation by corporations and the government that I have even entertained the idea of acquiring a false identity specifically to hide behind as a means of protecting my privacy. We'll see...if Bush is re-elected, Asscrack, er, I mean Ashcroft continues pushing for civil liberty violating laws (and getting them passed), and Congress continues seeing fit to give corporations whatever the hell they want then I may more than entertain the idea.
Answer your question?
When are you moving to New Hampshire? [freestateproject.org]
Heh. Never. Libertarian is codeword for private property worship at the expense of EVERYTHING else. What it means in practice is wildlife destruction (in the name of private property), habitat destruction (in the name of private property), destruction of historical landmarks, buildings, etc (in the name of private property), and the destruction of neighborhoods (It is MY private property so I can turn my yard into a junkyard if I want to, even though it degrades the value of the property of all my neighbors, pollutes the stream that happens to cross my yard, etc...in the name of private property).
Private property rights do not exist except as a social fiction generally agreed upon by any given society. Ask those peoples that were closer to nature (and the "natural state" than ANY white european has been for millennia)...native americans, or australian aborigines, or any of many other such peoples. They did not hold to the concept of private property. The idea of private property is a recent fiction, not an inborn fact.
Dump the over-the-top private property worship (I have no problem with reasonable
private property rights, but it is way beyond the pale when they are taken to the point of there being no public land, no protected wilderness, no protected anything.My privacy protection is a matter of principle and it thus not affected by money. I don't give a whup if someone offers me money for certain, key private information tidbits, I wont give it. Is it because I am "deviant"? No. I am pretty frickin' average, all told, but on PRINCIPLE my privacy is MINE, absolutely, and I will not give it out or sell it off to a government or a corporation or a group of busybodies.
Just wait. This research will no doubt lead to more privacy erosion on the principle that if you do not want to give up the information, then you must be hiding something bad (the result that the perception or fact that one is deviant from the norm making one more reluctant to release private information). This CAN and will be used as a means of eroding privacy. "You MUST be hiding something if you wont give it up freely. Take him away!". Patriot Act v3.0 would be about right to explicitly work from this angle.
Does SCO actually have the money to spare for a bounty? Surely, if they have to pay this out it will put them deeply into the red.
Not THAT ironic. Originally in England (Dark Ages), Knights were NOT the stereotypic emblems of virtue and all things virtuous. Originally, they were often (usually) quite corrupt. Many were outright criminals who were knighted to bring their criminal ways into the service of the King.
It is in perfect keeping with the REAL ancient British Knight tradition to bring a criminal such as Gates into the Knight fold. He has good historic company. Birds of a feather.