>...the Mennonites _are_ Xtians, tolerated for their differences in the US because they are considered harmless and quaint.
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Er, I could be wrong, it does happen on occasion, but i think he could be referring to himself(as an atheist, I guess) not being harassed, etc. *by* the Mennonites.
The "ratcheting-up" idea makes sense, until you examine life from a pure biochemical point of view, specifically focusing on what's called "irreducible complexity".
A structure is considered to be 'irreducibly complex' if it works in such a way that it could not have possibly been built onto one piece at a time, improving its functioning as it builds, because every part in it, *must* be in place for it to function at all. A structure composed in such a way so must be generated all at once, or else it does nothing at all.
One such example:
The chemical process by which a cell is able to detect light and transmit a signal, a retinal cell for example, takes about 2 pages of an average-sized book to describe, and it has been examined and determined to have a structure that cannot be subtracted from and still function at all, and so could -not- have been constructed one molecule at a time; the chain has no function at all until it is completely assembled.
If you're referring to the experiment where someone tossed a bunch of chemicals that they thought should be similar to the "primordial soup" composition, then zapped it a bunch of times, and produced an amino acid, realistically, the results aren't that useful, since 1) they had to use a mechanism of some sort to "save" the amino acid, since that environment, ironically, tends to decompose the amino acid as quickly as it forms it, and 2) it produced the same *single* amino acid repeatedly, not showing any signs of diversifying its products, as would be required for some sort of life. Oh, damn, that was way too long. My bad.
Probably not. My one beef with my otherwise flawless (IMHO) Visor is that the Palm OS is in ROM, so screwing with the OS is pretty much out of the question, 'cept patch updates installed in RAM.
>With 8 meg ROM and 2 meg RAM, how can you add your own 'stuff' to the box, other than data.
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I think that must've been a typo, I think it's supposed to be 8meg RAM, 2meg flash ROM. I could be wrong, but I think 8mb rom would just be ridiculous.
Interesting idea, is designer-colored blood possible? That'd be neato, although it would probably make people more likely to cut themselves on purpose to show off.
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With a few optional attachments, this could become something eerily similar to a FuFme unit.
>...the Mennonites _are_ Xtians, tolerated for their differences in the US because they are considered harmless and quaint.
--
Er, I could be wrong, it does happen on occasion, but i think he could be referring to himself(as an atheist, I guess) not being harassed, etc. *by* the Mennonites.
>Can you tell I used to be a Hospital Corpsman in the US Navy? :-)
Yes, from the lack of a sense of humor. Does the Navy surgically remove them from enlistees, or what?
1), I was kidding.
2)I wasn't referring to a complete replacement, rather, a supplementation to add a tint.
The "ratcheting-up" idea makes sense, until you examine life from a pure biochemical point of view, specifically focusing on what's called "irreducible complexity".
A structure is considered to be 'irreducibly complex' if it works in such a way that it could not have possibly been built onto one piece at a time, improving its functioning as it builds, because every part in it, *must* be in place for it to function at all. A structure composed in such a way so must be generated all at once, or else it does nothing at all.
One such example:
The chemical process by which a cell is able to detect light and transmit a signal, a retinal cell for example, takes about 2 pages of an average-sized book to describe, and it has been examined and determined to have a structure that cannot be subtracted from and still function at all, and so could -not- have been constructed one molecule at a time; the chain has no function at all until it is completely assembled.
Dammit, I'm long-winded today. My apologies.
If you're referring to the experiment where someone tossed a bunch of chemicals that they thought should be similar to the "primordial soup" composition, then zapped it a bunch of times, and produced an amino acid, realistically, the results aren't that useful, since
1) they had to use a mechanism of some sort to "save" the amino acid, since that environment, ironically, tends to decompose the amino acid as quickly as it forms it, and
2) it produced the same *single* amino acid repeatedly, not showing any signs of diversifying its products, as would be required for some sort of life.
Oh, damn, that was way too long. My bad.
Not to mention the Visor's memory tweaking that makes it run significantly faster than a palm III. 35% faster, according to my benchmarks, anyway.
I dunno, I personally dig the ridges, they've probably kept me from dropping the damn thing several times, heh.
Probably not. My one beef with my otherwise flawless (IMHO) Visor is that the Palm OS is in ROM, so screwing with the OS is pretty much out of the question, 'cept patch updates installed in RAM.
Not nuts? what would be the point of open-source, etc. if the OS was burnt permanently into ROM?
>With 8 meg ROM and 2 meg RAM, how can you add your own 'stuff' to the box, other than data.
--
I think that must've been a typo, I think it's supposed to be 8meg RAM, 2meg flash ROM. I could be wrong, but I think 8mb rom would just be ridiculous.
Interesting idea, is designer-colored blood possible? That'd be neato, although it would probably make people more likely to cut themselves on purpose to show off.