My family runs a large citrus nursery that's been around for about 50 years. All of our trees are budded/grafted, which we do for a few reasons: disease resistance, growth control (dwarfing rootstock so trees can grow comfortably in a large pot) and resiliance/suitability to our climate. The vast majority of citrus trees in peoples backyards in South Australia are from the same few budwood trees. Quite freaky when you think about it, but they're not all genetically identical. Take this story for example:
About five years ago we started growing a new variety of Lime that was becoming popular thanks to celebrity chefs - the Kaffir. The variety was new to Australia and there are different strains of it. One has large, pale and smooth-edged leaves and no thorns and the other has typically dark green citrus leaves that are small with serrated edges and huge bastard thorns. We found that the latter was the better variety because the smaller, darker leaves contained more volatile oils - which are the things that make them good and tasty in cooking.
Now the point of all this is, is that over the next couple of years we built up our stock levels by taking buds from existing plants and using them to create new ones (like cellular division.) When we started selling them we tore our arms and faces to shreds on the thorns when moving them (never seen thorns like them!). But one day, we were watering the trees and my grandpa spotted out of the corner of his eye one that had no thorns - the bud that it grew from was what's called a sport - a mutation. We looked through the few thousand other trees but couldn't find any others like it so we took that one tree aside and put it under lock and key and gave it all the attention it needed. We took buds from it and grew about 50 other trees, then took buds from them and repeated the process until we had a big enough stock of trees to sell.
That mutation was literally a 1 in a billion chance - a bud is where the leaf grows out of the stem. Think how many leaves are on your average citrus tree, then multiply that by a few hundred (number of budwood source trees) and then multiply that by three or four (number of years of collecting budwood before it appeared) then factor in failure rates for buds to take to the rootstock and the tree surviving to maturity, etc. and finally, that the mutation was for really tiny thorns and nothing else.
We don't sell the bastard thorny variety anymore, that chance mutation is what we have propagated and sell now - it has the best of both original strains we considered growing - no/insignifcant thorns and leaves that are full of flavour.
If that isn't a brilliant example of evolution/survival of the fittest then I don't know what is. I also don't know what this has to do with tomacco, which is equally cool (grafting tomato to tobacco would most-definately be easier said than done.)
I work about 50m away from the finish line and I think it was nice and sunny today. Well, it was when I looked out the window in the morning. I should have gone down to the tents in Victoria Square at lunch to have a look. I gather they'll still be going for a few days yet so I'll make a point to go have a look tomorrow.
Hey! Look what's on the top of this stack of CD's next to my keyboard - Maya Personal Learning Edition 4.5 for OS X and Win32!
Crikey! I must have gone forwards in time last year when the Alias|Wavefront people couldn't give enough of these CD's and t-shirts (basically been my clothing for 1/2 of the year) away at AGDC!
The only big news here is that it's the free edition of the latest version of Maya - 5. Only useful if you want to learn it.
Re:Origin (Horatio Hornblower)
on
Skittlebrau
·
· Score: 1
Speaking of Hornblower, the Poms made an excellent TV series about him. Highly recommended viewing!
I didn't know it was fiction - I was under the impression he was a historical figure (that probably shows my ignorance of history and/or failure to pay attention to the credits.) If books are always better than the screenplay then I'm probably in for a real treat when I get around to reading them!
This is all according to my brain, which sometimes muddles things up, so I could be completely wrong:
They did design the Pyramid3D - of which actual cards were produced and publicly demoed. The chip was manufactured by ST Microelectronics and had basic 'pixel shader' functionality - rather ahead of its time.
I remember reading about how it was to be demoed at Assembly one year (even offered as a prize?) and downloading a PDF about it from the manufacturer along with a demo video.
Umm... in SA we don't drink VB because we hate Vics. You either drink West End or Coopers. People who think they're too cool for SA drink other brands, but I guess Southwark is acceptable since it's the same mob as West End (which is like rust compared to a Coopers)
CI Host is an evil company. I can't stress that enough. How a company that operates in the manner in which they do is allowed to continue is beyond me.
Last year I had an account with HostDepartment, which was working very well for me. One day I was told by a friend that something bad had happened to my site. I looked at it and panicked, CI Host had hijacked HostDepartment's domains or something and were telling everyone that they owed them money and had gone out of business.
HostDepartment are an equally bad company too, steer clear of them. For more information, see the very first news & views article on my website.
Heh, this reminds me of the Seinfeld repeat that was on the other night - the one where they're doing the thing with talking to the elderly and Kramer and Newman are selling old records.
Kramer and Newman are in the record store and the bloke behind the counter offers them a lousy price and Newman starts speaking aloud to him everything that Kramer is saying to him. The clincher is: "You emit a foul and unpleasant odour."
Is it possible that the bloke behind the counter was taking creatine? Might explain why Kramer and Newman got their arses kicked. =]
This is cool. Obviously, the people who are bagging it Just Don't Get It.
Modern OS's don't let you touch the hardware... they do a lot of the work for you. With oldskool stuff you had to talk to the hardware, play with it, whip it, etc. to do stuff. Really the most fun way to code!
This could actually turn out to be a dandy little platform for demos... especially with that FPGA graphics chip.
I think I'll have to buy one.
Re:Where do I sign up?!?
on
Assembly '03
·
· Score: 1
I don't know about tons of them, but when I tuned into Assembly TV last night there was a hottie on camera doing an interview =]
Beer is good, beer is great. We all know it, and here are some of the reasons why - I really can't put into words why, it just is:
An icy cold one is a great way to relax and refresh yourself after a hard day's work.
Having a quiet one down the pub with a couple of mates. (I don't know what the female equivalent of this is.)
Having a beer with your dad or brother.
A beer with your lunch or dinner. Beer goes well with pretty much any dish.
There's so many beers to try.
Getting shitfaced.
Hrmm... there's many more positives to beer. Beer really is a social drink... it's the man's drink. Beer and pubs go together well.
Contrary to the article though, beer can be fattening... you have to remember that you're only going to put on weight if Ein != Eout - the body processes sugars and carbohydrates are broken down into sugars before being processed - that's why carbohydrates are a long-term energy source and sugary things like fruit and chocolate are short-term energy sources.
Six schooners have enough energy to run your average male for day. So drink in moderation and make sure to keep up the exercise and maintain a balanced diet. (And fat people wonder why they're fat when they eat McDonalds everyday and drive or take the lift everywhere!)
Finally, an article where my signature is at home! =] --
I recently purchased myself a suit, it is properly fitted for me. Consequently it is very comfortable to wear and I enjoy wearing it with a tie. Another advantage is that girls like men in suits. =]
One thing that I have found is that the combination of the shirt collar and tie encourage me to sit with correct posture, otherwise I can feel them cutting into my throat. This is a good thing.
Of course, you could always wear a 'clip-on' tie or bow-tie (how come I only see doctors wear them?) which also have certain personal safety benefits - like not having to worry about being killed/maimed if it gets caught in a shredder =]
Sure, processing power is a crucial part of it, but it's only necessary for advancing the state-of-the-art in computer graphics.
In each movie that Pixar takes, it takes about 8 hours to render each frame (or so I've read in numerous locations) and you can see that with the increasingly "less-computery" look of their movies as processing power has increased for each one.
This brings me to the point that I'm intending on making: the realism of the graphics is not what makes a great movie, it's the quality of the story and all that. I saw Toy Story again the other week and it looks so dated now compared to say Monsters Inc. It was still a thoroughly entertaining movie though because it was a good story.
I love CG films, but I admit that the main reason I love seeing them is to see what new effects and advancements have been made, which is why Pixar films are so great to me.. they're always advancing the state-of-the-art.
Damnit, now I've just contradicted the original point I was trying to make! Hrmm... BRING ON THE CG FILMS!
I get the feeling that this system was invented by ravers just so they can continue to do their crazy dancing while they drive.
The plus side of it for them is that they can use to to flash their lights and stuff, thereby simulating the experience of being at a rave.
But then, what would I know? I'm just saying this because I watched a video of a rave yesterday and I was freaked out by some of the people. (I also loved the visualisers they had running behind the DJ's) I should go to one sometime.
Isn't the onus on trademark holders to enforce the trademark consistently in order to prevent it from becoming a generic term?
I'm sure pretty much everyone who reads Slasdot would agree that Spam is indeed a generic term now. Everyone now associates Spam with unsolicited commerical email rather than a tin of disgusting, highly-processed, gelatinous meat.
Probably because modern software takes into account things like DPI and aspect ratio when rendering text.
Ever heard of using the 'Print Layout' view? Or even 'Print Preview'?
I have a 21" monitor running at 2048x768 with the DPI set to 130. It's physically large enough to view an entire A4 sheet, and almost perfectly calibrated too. Whenever I type up a document I do it in Print Layout view and I get on paper exactly what I see on screen.
You can still do that on the 'weird' laptop screen, the only thing is that you won't have the 'resolution' or clarity that I do.
To me, Debian is simple and elegant. I don't use Linux for a desktop system at all anymore, I use OS X and Windows. Why do I use OS X? Because it's simple and elegant. Windows isn't exactly that, but it's a lot more so than your average Linux desktop. (I'm talking Win2K, not XP here.)
I do, however, use Debian on a couple of servers. I used to use RedHat because you could pretty much install it and use it, but when I needed to modify something - like add a new module to Apache - it would all turn to shit. Eventually I tried out Debian because I'd heard ravings about apt. There was no going back.
After I purchased an iBook I came to appreciate form and functionality more than the intricacies of how things work. Sure, it's not as powerful as my friends Toshiba, but it does the job whilst being smaller, quieter, lighter and longer-lasting on a battery charge than his. I'm sick to death of fucking with drivers in Windows, etc. I just want things to work, and to work simply so I can get on with being productive. Microsoft try to do it, but it just doesn't work. (Look at XP or MSN Messenger 6 - meant to look simple and nice, but horribly cluttered and confusing.) Apple know how to do it. Same with Debian.
I see Debain being to Linux distributions as Apple is to PC's and Ferrari is to cars - a small, niche player, producing quality products for those who appreciate the finer things in life.
Slashdot Mirror
I can't wait until Maddox gives this thing the sort of treatment he gave the Segway. =]
How to Render the Segway Obsolete
it was a computer error, computer error.
weapons of mass destruction.
we flunked.
Heh, I remember those old monolith demos. funky loops.
My family runs a large citrus nursery that's been around for about 50 years. All of our trees are budded/grafted, which we do for a few reasons: disease resistance, growth control (dwarfing rootstock so trees can grow comfortably in a large pot) and resiliance/suitability to our climate. The vast majority of citrus trees in peoples backyards in South Australia are from the same few budwood trees. Quite freaky when you think about it, but they're not all genetically identical. Take this story for example:
About five years ago we started growing a new variety of Lime that was becoming popular thanks to celebrity chefs - the Kaffir. The variety was new to Australia and there are different strains of it. One has large, pale and smooth-edged leaves and no thorns and the other has typically dark green citrus leaves that are small with serrated edges and huge bastard thorns. We found that the latter was the better variety because the smaller, darker leaves contained more volatile oils - which are the things that make them good and tasty in cooking.
Now the point of all this is, is that over the next couple of years we built up our stock levels by taking buds from existing plants and using them to create new ones (like cellular division.) When we started selling them we tore our arms and faces to shreds on the thorns when moving them (never seen thorns like them!). But one day, we were watering the trees and my grandpa spotted out of the corner of his eye one that had no thorns - the bud that it grew from was what's called a sport - a mutation. We looked through the few thousand other trees but couldn't find any others like it so we took that one tree aside and put it under lock and key and gave it all the attention it needed. We took buds from it and grew about 50 other trees, then took buds from them and repeated the process until we had a big enough stock of trees to sell.
That mutation was literally a 1 in a billion chance - a bud is where the leaf grows out of the stem. Think how many leaves are on your average citrus tree, then multiply that by a few hundred (number of budwood source trees) and then multiply that by three or four (number of years of collecting budwood before it appeared) then factor in failure rates for buds to take to the rootstock and the tree surviving to maturity, etc. and finally, that the mutation was for really tiny thorns and nothing else.
We don't sell the bastard thorny variety anymore, that chance mutation is what we have propagated and sell now - it has the best of both original strains we considered growing - no/insignifcant thorns and leaves that are full of flavour.
If that isn't a brilliant example of evolution/survival of the fittest then I don't know what is. I also don't know what this has to do with tomacco, which is equally cool (grafting tomato to tobacco would most-definately be easier said than done.)
I work about 50m away from the finish line and I think it was nice and sunny today. Well, it was when I looked out the window in the morning. I should have gone down to the tents in Victoria Square at lunch to have a look. I gather they'll still be going for a few days yet so I'll make a point to go have a look tomorrow.
Hey! Look what's on the top of this stack of CD's next to my keyboard - Maya Personal Learning Edition 4.5 for OS X and Win32!
Crikey! I must have gone forwards in time last year when the Alias|Wavefront people couldn't give enough of these CD's and t-shirts (basically been my clothing for 1/2 of the year) away at AGDC!
The only big news here is that it's the free edition of the latest version of Maya - 5. Only useful if you want to learn it.
Speaking of Hornblower, the Poms made an excellent TV series about him. Highly recommended viewing!
I didn't know it was fiction - I was under the impression he was a historical figure (that probably shows my ignorance of history and/or failure to pay attention to the credits.) If books are always better than the screenplay then I'm probably in for a real treat when I get around to reading them!
Q: How many phones do Nokia sell each year?
A: Millions
Q: How many of their phones explode each year?
A: 1 or 2
Q: How many cars are sold each year?
A: Millions
Q: How many people die on the roads each year?
A: Thousands
Conclusion: You have a greater chance of dying in a car crash than having your mobile phone explode.
So? Everybody knows Atari sux! Amiga kicks ass! =]
This is all according to my brain, which sometimes muddles things up, so I could be completely wrong:
They did design the Pyramid3D - of which actual cards were produced and publicly demoed. The chip was manufactured by ST Microelectronics and had basic 'pixel shader' functionality - rather ahead of its time.
I remember reading about how it was to be demoed at Assembly one year (even offered as a prize?) and downloading a PDF about it from the manufacturer along with a demo video.
Umm... in SA we don't drink VB because we hate Vics. You either drink West End or Coopers. People who think they're too cool for SA drink other brands, but I guess Southwark is acceptable since it's the same mob as West End (which is like rust compared to a Coopers)
CI Host is an evil company. I can't stress that enough. How a company that operates in the manner in which they do is allowed to continue is beyond me.
Last year I had an account with HostDepartment, which was working very well for me. One day I was told by a friend that something bad had happened to my site. I looked at it and panicked, CI Host had hijacked HostDepartment's domains or something and were telling everyone that they owed them money and had gone out of business.
HostDepartment are an equally bad company too, steer clear of them. For more information, see the very first news & views article on my website.
Americans are the people who spell things stupidly: color (colour), nite (night), tire (tyre), check (cheque), liter (litre), center (centre), etc.
Therefore it's only reasonable to conclude that they have stupid grammar. =]
Heh, this reminds me of the Seinfeld repeat that was on the other night - the one where they're doing the thing with talking to the elderly and Kramer and Newman are selling old records.
Kramer and Newman are in the record store and the bloke behind the counter offers them a lousy price and Newman starts speaking aloud to him everything that Kramer is saying to him. The clincher is: "You emit a foul and unpleasant odour."
Is it possible that the bloke behind the counter was taking creatine? Might explain why Kramer and Newman got their arses kicked. =]
This is cool. Obviously, the people who are bagging it Just Don't Get It.
Modern OS's don't let you touch the hardware... they do a lot of the work for you. With oldskool stuff you had to talk to the hardware, play with it, whip it, etc. to do stuff. Really the most fun way to code!
This could actually turn out to be a dandy little platform for demos... especially with that FPGA graphics chip.
I think I'll have to buy one.
I don't know about tons of them, but when I tuned into Assembly TV last night there was a hottie on camera doing an interview =]
You're only saying that because you either don't like beer or can't hold your piss.
Hrmm... there's many more positives to beer. Beer really is a social drink... it's the man's drink. Beer and pubs go together well.
Contrary to the article though, beer can be fattening... you have to remember that you're only going to put on weight if Ein != Eout - the body processes sugars and carbohydrates are broken down into sugars before being processed - that's why carbohydrates are a long-term energy source and sugary things like fruit and chocolate are short-term energy sources.
Six schooners have enough energy to run your average male for day. So drink in moderation and make sure to keep up the exercise and maintain a balanced diet. (And fat people wonder why they're fat when they eat McDonalds everyday and drive or take the lift everywhere!)
Finally, an article where my signature is at home! =]
--
I recently purchased myself a suit, it is properly fitted for me. Consequently it is very comfortable to wear and I enjoy wearing it with a tie. Another advantage is that girls like men in suits. =]
One thing that I have found is that the combination of the shirt collar and tie encourage me to sit with correct posture, otherwise I can feel them cutting into my throat. This is a good thing.
Of course, you could always wear a 'clip-on' tie or bow-tie (how come I only see doctors wear them?) which also have certain personal safety benefits - like not having to worry about being killed/maimed if it gets caught in a shredder =]
Sure, processing power is a crucial part of it, but it's only necessary for advancing the state-of-the-art in computer graphics.
In each movie that Pixar takes, it takes about 8 hours to render each frame (or so I've read in numerous locations) and you can see that with the increasingly "less-computery" look of their movies as processing power has increased for each one.
This brings me to the point that I'm intending on making: the realism of the graphics is not what makes a great movie, it's the quality of the story and all that. I saw Toy Story again the other week and it looks so dated now compared to say Monsters Inc. It was still a thoroughly entertaining movie though because it was a good story.
I love CG films, but I admit that the main reason I love seeing them is to see what new effects and advancements have been made, which is why Pixar films are so great to me.. they're always advancing the state-of-the-art.
Damnit, now I've just contradicted the original point I was trying to make! Hrmm... BRING ON THE CG FILMS!
I get the feeling that this system was invented by ravers just so they can continue to do their crazy dancing while they drive.
The plus side of it for them is that they can use to to flash their lights and stuff, thereby simulating the experience of being at a rave.
But then, what would I know? I'm just saying this because I watched a video of a rave yesterday and I was freaked out by some of the people. (I also loved the visualisers they had running behind the DJ's) I should go to one sometime.
Isn't the onus on trademark holders to enforce the trademark consistently in order to prevent it from becoming a generic term?
I'm sure pretty much everyone who reads Slasdot would agree that Spam is indeed a generic term now. Everyone now associates Spam with unsolicited commerical email rather than a tin of disgusting, highly-processed, gelatinous meat.
Probably because modern software takes into account things like DPI and aspect ratio when rendering text.
Ever heard of using the 'Print Layout' view? Or even 'Print Preview'?
I have a 21" monitor running at 2048x768 with the DPI set to 130. It's physically large enough to view an entire A4 sheet, and almost perfectly calibrated too. Whenever I type up a document I do it in Print Layout view and I get on paper exactly what I see on screen.
You can still do that on the 'weird' laptop screen, the only thing is that you won't have the 'resolution' or clarity that I do.
So it is still indeed WSYIWYG.
To me, Debian is simple and elegant. I don't use Linux for a desktop system at all anymore, I use OS X and Windows. Why do I use OS X? Because it's simple and elegant. Windows isn't exactly that, but it's a lot more so than your average Linux desktop. (I'm talking Win2K, not XP here.)
I do, however, use Debian on a couple of servers. I used to use RedHat because you could pretty much install it and use it, but when I needed to modify something - like add a new module to Apache - it would all turn to shit. Eventually I tried out Debian because I'd heard ravings about apt. There was no going back.
After I purchased an iBook I came to appreciate form and functionality more than the intricacies of how things work. Sure, it's not as powerful as my friends Toshiba, but it does the job whilst being smaller, quieter, lighter and longer-lasting on a battery charge than his. I'm sick to death of fucking with drivers in Windows, etc. I just want things to work, and to work simply so I can get on with being productive. Microsoft try to do it, but it just doesn't work. (Look at XP or MSN Messenger 6 - meant to look simple and nice, but horribly cluttered and confusing.) Apple know how to do it. Same with Debian.
I see Debain being to Linux distributions as Apple is to PC's and Ferrari is to cars - a small, niche player, producing quality products for those who appreciate the finer things in life.
Wasn't NT4 the last version of Windows to be available on platforms other than x86? I know I have a CD-ROM containing it around here somewhere.
I think it was available on PPC and Alpha and maybe a couple of other architectures.
I've never seen Windows on anything other than an x86 - is there anyone out there who's seen it on the other platforms it was available for?
(Also, good-riddance. No USB support. Ughh.)
Nothing says the start of summer like some paperback science fiction.
And nothing says the middle of winter like burning some paperback science fiction for warmth.