All of these observations of having 140,000 genes were made well before ANYTHING had been sequenced, worms, corn, or humans. That was way back in the ancient days of Genetics when geneticists didn't realize how much interaction and recombination there was between genes. Many of the gene estimates came from crude estimates involving antibodies in the early 80s. We knew that we had tens of thousands of antibodies and so they assumed we had oodles of genes to make antibodies. Geneticists realized later that antibodies are coded out about 1/100 as many genes which are have lower than average "quality control standards" than other genes. Antibodies are created from mixing and matching segments of genes.
The more research is published, this phenomenon becomes more and more frequent. So the Central Dogma of Genetics (DNA->RNA->Protien) is slowly breaking down. Genes don't code for just one protein.
Well of course it sends us into Bullshit mode. Anyone who has an honest education and a college degree knows that "action packed" is supposed to be hyphenated.
I think the motivation for the creation of these acts is linked to improvements in database farming techniques.
When I say "Database farming" I mean the process of extracing "higher" information by first building and flushing out a HUGE M-FING database with tons and tons of information about all aspects of the subject that do not necessarily have anything to do with what you're investigating. Then searching on the database for links between the information.
I see this is biochemistry and medicine - researchers setup huge Census statistics or huge DNA databases and then search for links between poverty and shoe size, or DNA marker xxxx and incidence of breast cancer. I see this in economics, in computer science - and heck, what is Google but a way of grepping information out of the internet?
I think the government is beginning to follow this trend - develop huge databases of information about the population at large and then use those databases to find arbitrary links between citizens and "terrorist activities."
If we knew the shoe bomber had checked out these books from the library, had a membership with the NRA, and voted for the third-party candidate... Why shouldn't we search our massive database and look for other people in the population at large that did these activities? Then, we'll have a list of "potential terrorists" which we can, under these acts, start to wiretap, search their usenet posts, follow them and find more information to suspect them of "terrorist activities."
They're constantly refining their searches to get better information, and they want to start with the most broad base imaginable. Information about all of us.
If you create a new life form, do you have the right to destroy it?
Well, as long as that new life form is considered "simple" there's no problem killing it. Create New Bacterium - Kill off new bacterium - OK! Create new euglenoid - kill off new euglenoid - OK! Create new flatworm - Kill off new flatworm - OK! Create new sea-sponge - Kill off new sea-sponge - OK! Create new fish - kill off new fish - OK? Create new cute-fuzzy warm and fluffy mutant kitten - Kill off new cute, fuzzy, warm and fluffy mutant kitten - NO!
My undergrad (Biology) advisor had this most excellent poster on his wall:
(This is what I remember from it... Not an exact quote. But you'll get the gist...)
--Begin Poster--
If Baseball was taught like Biology:
1. Athletes would read about some of the great players in Baseball history. 2. They would listen to lectures about the fundamental concepts of baseball: batting, fielding, pitching, running. 3. Athletes would become involved in group discussions about the rules of baseball and the strategies involved in playing a game. 4. Athletes would assemble for 2-3 hours a week and have "hands-on" experiences with balls and bats in a closed and highly controlled environment. 5. Athletes would learn and practice the techniques of calculating statistics such as the RBI. 6. Then athletes would "take the field" and attempt to play a competitive game against other teams who had limited experience on a baseball field
---End Poster--Begin Rant--
Science is not a body of knowledge, but a methodology of answering questions. Though "the hard facts" are important to understanding Science (like memorizing the carbon atom has 6 electrons) these are simply facts. More and more today we have immediately available facts. I haven't even seen "The Handbook of Physics and Chemistry" in dead-tree format for over 5 years now! We need to realize that since information is readily available, the concepts and methods are important. Instead of pounding in facts, teach students how to become talented information-finders. That type of skill will be more important in "the real world" than knowing the chemicals involved in the Krebs Cycle.
What you have to realize about Egypt, however, is the entire country prefered to be "buzzed" with beer to work, rather than the stimulants (mainly caffiene) that we use today. It is common for phrases in Middle Egyptian Litterature to refer to "happy" and "Hard-Working" men with similar phrases and iconograhs as "Drunk" men. For Example, "The mouth of a perfectly contented man is filled with beer."
Beer wasn't a "get f*cked up" beverage, it was THE beverage. The only other common options were water and wine. Wine was painfully expensive and mainly reserved for the non-working classes.
From Tour Egypt.net "Most likely, the beer was not very intoxicating, nutritious, sweet, without bubbles, and thick..."
Haven't you watched the X-Files?!? It's the BLACK OIL PLAGUE! We know the black oil plague came from space... It's going to infect us all and turn us into part-human-part-aliens.
Yeah - those little Xircom beasts are indescructible. I didn't wash mine, but I was coming home one cold and rainy night... During the process of retrieving all of my junk out of the backseat of my car, I up-ended my laptop case and everything went spilling. I thought I had gathered up everything, but, it being dark and all, I didn't see that my Xircom Realport had fallen out and was laying in the gravel in the rain.
The next morning I drove to work and realized it was gone. I freaked out and drove straight home to find it laying in the gravel driveway and had OBVIOUSLY been run over by my car... on the gravel driveway... in the mud... with the rain.
One can of compressed air and a few good thumps to square it up to fit back into the PCMCIA slot... Darn thing worked without a hitch!
I've been running RH7.x on a Fujitsu Lifebook C-6535 for over 2.5 yr now. As a notebook, it's probably the best, most robust, well-featured notebook I've found. The battery life is excellent, and I've found that replacement/spare batteries ar $20-$50 cheaper than replacement/spare batteries for Gateway/Dell machines. The keyboard is EXCELLENT! Much better than the 15" powerbook keyboard or anything Gateway/Dell has to offer. The only thing I haven't been able to get to work in Linux is the cd-control buttons. I can get the application buttons to launch apps, but the cd player control is out of the question.
Otherwise, I've got a 15" display, 10/100 ethernet, 2 usb, cdr/dvd, no firewire, but keep in mind this notebook is over 2.5yr old!
If I wasn't going to get a 15" Powerbook to replace my Fujitsu, I'd be buying a Fujitsu again.
A post on the discussion forum
on
Baked Apple
·
· Score: 1
Post By: NAG Posted: Mon Feb 03, 2003 8:39 pm I wouldn't give [the link to your pictures of the Baked Apple] to/. unless you want your.Mac site killed.
I vote for NAG as being the reincarnation of Nostradamus.
I have been using VNC for a year now to connect from machines around my campus to my linux desktop. The biggest problem I see is the ability to get to the current state of the desktop computer. VNC is setup to spawn off a new x-session and desktop with each vncserver.
To resolve the problem, VNC reccomends that you connect to the VNC server on your local machine, as well as with remote machines. No matter what they say, the quality is ass and it's slow. Noticibly slow.
Krfb, thankfully, seems to have remedied this problem by creating a bit of KDE software that exports the original X server for remote connections. When you connect, you see your desktop in the exact condition you left it in, not a new X session.
No, no no. We can get rid of the big ads and subscription service and simultaneously generate much more revenue for/. with this email:
Dear Web Administrator
The editors at Slashdot.org are about to link to your site in about 4 hours. You now have three options: 1)You may see you bandwith destroyed as tens of thousands of/.ers destroy all that you have labored to create and may your servers cry. In addition, we will post links to your site several times over the next week. 2)You may pay us a small fee to have us set up a mirror to your site, reducing the immediate hit but only prolonging your pain to the next 24 hours. 3)You may pay us $2000 and not have this story posted. In addition, we will not link to your site for the next 30 days.
Why does the Academy persist in having a "Foreign Language Film" category? In the earlier part of this century when filmmaking was almost exclusively being done by Americans (Hollywood), it made sense to honor a film made by "someone else." No longer does this hold. Lord of the Rings was filmed by an international cast in a foreign country. Harry Potter is a UK film by a UK author. This page says that "This is the thirty-second Academy Award nomination (including nine wins) for France." Why do we persist in having a category for films that aren't in English? Is it the subtitles?
Film is able to cross cultural and lingual boundaries. Why must the Academy persist in maintaing the separation of "English" and "Other" on awards night? Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, which had numerous nominations in 2001 started the trend of recognizing films as films, regardless of language and cast/crew nationality.
I think the Academy honors "Foreign Language Films" because of these false beliefs:
Movies won't make a big box office in America if they have subtitles.
Movies made outside of Hollywood are of inferior quality and marketability.
Americans are too stupid to understand films which portray a cross-cultural perspective.
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is an American institution.
Last year, my SO gave me a Palm Vx. That alone was a kind gesture, but he went into the datebook app and set appointments for every 5 minutes for the next TWO YEARS that said "I love you."
Last thing I heard from developmental biology/biochemistry, they hadn't yet euclidated all of the sub-steps involving thousands of hormones/enzymes/genetic control mechanisms required to turn a tissue into an organ. Sure, we can take some stem cells, hit them with some chemicals and have them start to make kidney cells or neurons or endothelial cells. Convincing these kidney cells to form an organ, however, is a HUGE leap which requires stem cells becoming vascular tissue ( +3 types of cells) and protective sheathing ( +2 types of cells) and accessory nervous/vacular connections ( +2 types of cells). Has anyone made these types of cells? Not that I know about.
Good news is - this type of human-controlled development is possible in C. elegans, a worm. We have sequenced it's entire genome http://www.sanger.ac.uk/Projects/C_elegans/ and more importantly, we know where every single cell in the adult originated from - starting with a 4-cell zygote. PubMed Abstract Link
Maybe in 20 or more years we will have this knowledge for some "higher" animal - Maybe even a vertebrate!
Then we can start to understand human organ development.
Electrically Driven Single Photon Source
Zhiliang Yuan 1, Beata E. Kardynal 1, R. Mark Stevenson 1, Andrew J. Shields 1,Charlene J. Lobo 2, Ken Cooper 2, Neil S. Beattie 3, David A. Ritchie 2, Michael Pepper 3
1 Toshiba Research Europe Limited, Cambridge Research Laboratory, 260 Cambridge Science Park, Milton Road, Cambridge, CB4 0WE, UK.
2 Cavendish Laboratory, University of Cambridge, Madingley Road, Cambridge, CB3 0HE, UK.
3 Toshiba Research Europe Limited, Cambridge Research Laboratory, 260 Cambridge Science Park, Milton Road, Cambridge, CB4 0WE, UK; Cavendish Laboratory, University of Cambridge, Madingley Road, Cambridge, CB3 0HE, UK.
Electroluminescence from a single quantum dot within the intrinsic region of a p-i-n junction is demonstrated to act as an electrically driven single photon source. At low injection currents the dot electroluminescence spectrum reveals a single sharp line due to exciton recombination, while another line due to the biexciton emerges at higher current. The second order correlation function of the diode displays anti-bunching under a DC drive current. Single photon emission is stimulated using sub-nanosecond voltage pulses. These results suggest that semiconductor technology can be used to mass-produce a single photon source for applications in quantum information technology.
-----End Abstract-----
If anyone has access to Science Online (http://www.sciencemag.org) you can download the PDF reprint at this link:
here.
At my workplace sit 6 RS6000 beasts with similarly beastly IBM support contracts handling essencially every aspect of a small college network (1,200 students & 500 faculty/staff/administration). My desktop and personal webserver are both linux (RedHat) machines. I see advantages to both systems. Red Hat has a great diversity of applications to run on servers, while AIX has tight security and time-tested server utilities (i.e. SMIT). Hopefully this merger will not just bring Red Hat onto IBM hardware, but it might also promote development of those server utilities for Linux. Advanced serving utilities would help diminish the idea that "AIX will still run on clients high-end mission critical servers. Linux will run on small to midrange servers." (RobL3)
The road runs both ways, and hopefully we will see some Red Hat/open source applications becoming more AIX-friendly. (Tried installing Python on an AIX machine?)
But the best part - My stock in RedHat jumped 1.61 points today.
Well this is a step in the right direction, I guess. But I was wondering, is there any interest out there for building cases that are actually Footstools/Ottomans?
I've been pondering building my next computer in one of those huge ottomans (with LOTS of fans for airflow) and then taking the matching chair and adapting a table (like they show) for an IR keyboard and mouse. They're on the right track putting ethernet jacks and power outlets in the arm rests. This will catch on with laptop execs, once they ditch the provided net service.
Slashdot Mirror
Ooh - look at that. Awk "Apple" for "Ctrl" and "Option" for "alt" and POOF! Every feature of Opera 6.0 now exists in Safari for the Mac.
They're both still pretty goddamn unstable for OS 10.2.
All of these observations of having 140,000 genes were made well before ANYTHING had been sequenced, worms, corn, or humans. That was way back in the ancient days of Genetics when geneticists didn't realize how much interaction and recombination there was between genes. Many of the gene estimates came from crude estimates involving antibodies in the early 80s. We knew that we had tens of thousands of antibodies and so they assumed we had oodles of genes to make antibodies. Geneticists realized later that antibodies are coded out about 1/100 as many genes which are have lower than average "quality control standards" than other genes. Antibodies are created from mixing and matching segments of genes.
The more research is published, this phenomenon becomes more and more frequent. So the Central Dogma of Genetics (DNA->RNA->Protien) is slowly breaking down. Genes don't code for just one protein.
SUCK! SUCK! SUCK!
Well of course it sends us into Bullshit mode. Anyone who has an honest education and a college degree knows that "action packed" is supposed to be hyphenated.
I hate game reviews with grammatical mistakes.
I think the motivation for the creation of these acts is linked to improvements in database farming techniques.
When I say "Database farming" I mean the process of extracing "higher" information by first building and flushing out a HUGE M-FING database with tons and tons of information about all aspects of the subject that do not necessarily have anything to do with what you're investigating. Then searching on the database for links between the information.
I see this is biochemistry and medicine - researchers setup huge Census statistics or huge DNA databases and then search for links between poverty and shoe size, or DNA marker xxxx and incidence of breast cancer. I see this in economics, in computer science - and heck, what is Google but a way of grepping information out of the internet?
I think the government is beginning to follow this trend - develop huge databases of information about the population at large and then use those databases to find arbitrary links between citizens and "terrorist activities."
If we knew the shoe bomber had checked out these books from the library, had a membership with the NRA, and voted for the third-party candidate... Why shouldn't we search our massive database and look for other people in the population at large that did these activities? Then, we'll have a list of "potential terrorists" which we can, under these acts, start to wiretap, search their usenet posts, follow them and find more information to suspect them of "terrorist activities."
They're constantly refining their searches to get better information, and they want to start with the most broad base imaginable. Information about all of us.
Well, as long as that new life form is considered "simple" there's no problem killing it.
Create New Bacterium - Kill off new bacterium - OK!
Create new euglenoid - kill off new euglenoid - OK!
Create new flatworm - Kill off new flatworm - OK!
Create new sea-sponge - Kill off new sea-sponge - OK!
Create new fish - kill off new fish - OK?
Create new cute-fuzzy warm and fluffy mutant kitten - Kill off new cute, fuzzy, warm and fluffy mutant kitten - NO!
Where should we draw the line?
My undergrad (Biology) advisor had this most excellent poster on his wall:
(This is what I remember from it... Not an exact quote. But you'll get the gist...)
--Begin Poster--
If Baseball was taught like Biology:
1. Athletes would read about some of the great players in Baseball history.
2. They would listen to lectures about the fundamental concepts of baseball: batting, fielding, pitching, running.
3. Athletes would become involved in group discussions about the rules of baseball and the strategies involved in playing a game.
4. Athletes would assemble for 2-3 hours a week and have "hands-on" experiences with balls and bats in a closed and highly controlled environment.
5. Athletes would learn and practice the techniques of calculating statistics such as the RBI.
6. Then athletes would "take the field" and attempt to play a competitive game against other teams who had limited experience on a baseball field
---End Poster--Begin Rant--
Science is not a body of knowledge, but a methodology of answering questions. Though "the hard facts" are important to understanding Science (like memorizing the carbon atom has 6 electrons) these are simply facts. More and more today we have immediately available facts. I haven't even seen "The Handbook of Physics and Chemistry" in dead-tree format for over 5 years now! We need to realize that since information is readily available, the concepts and methods are important. Instead of pounding in facts, teach students how to become talented information-finders. That type of skill will be more important in "the real world" than knowing the chemicals involved in the Krebs Cycle.
What you have to realize about Egypt, however, is the entire country prefered to be "buzzed" with beer to work, rather than the stimulants (mainly caffiene) that we use today. It is common for phrases in Middle Egyptian Litterature to refer to "happy" and "Hard-Working" men with similar phrases and iconograhs as "Drunk" men. For Example, "The mouth of a perfectly contented man is filled with beer."
Beer wasn't a "get f*cked up" beverage, it was THE beverage. The only other common options were water and wine. Wine was painfully expensive and mainly reserved for the non-working classes.
From Tour Egypt.net "Most likely, the beer was not very intoxicating, nutritious, sweet, without bubbles, and thick..."
Haven't you watched the X-Files?!? It's the BLACK OIL PLAGUE! We know the black oil plague came from space... It's going to infect us all and turn us into part-human-part-aliens.
Now THAT's justification for going to war.
Yeah - those little Xircom beasts are indescructible. I didn't wash mine, but I was coming home one cold and rainy night... During the process of retrieving all of my junk out of the backseat of my car, I up-ended my laptop case and everything went spilling. I thought I had gathered up everything, but, it being dark and all, I didn't see that my Xircom Realport had fallen out and was laying in the gravel in the rain.
The next morning I drove to work and realized it was gone. I freaked out and drove straight home to find it laying in the gravel driveway and had OBVIOUSLY been run over by my car... on the gravel driveway... in the mud... with the rain.
One can of compressed air and a few good thumps to square it up to fit back into the PCMCIA slot... Darn thing worked without a hitch!
I've been running RH7.x on a Fujitsu Lifebook C-6535 for over 2.5 yr now. As a notebook, it's probably the best, most robust, well-featured notebook I've found. The battery life is excellent, and I've found that replacement/spare batteries ar $20-$50 cheaper than replacement/spare batteries for Gateway/Dell machines. The keyboard is EXCELLENT! Much better than the 15" powerbook keyboard or anything Gateway/Dell has to offer. The only thing I haven't been able to get to work in Linux is the cd-control buttons. I can get the application buttons to launch apps, but the cd player control is out of the question.
Otherwise, I've got a 15" display, 10/100 ethernet, 2 usb, cdr/dvd, no firewire, but keep in mind this notebook is over 2.5yr old!
If I wasn't going to get a 15" Powerbook to replace my Fujitsu, I'd be buying a Fujitsu again.
http://www.macaddict.com/phpbb2/viewtopic.php?t
I vote for NAG as being the reincarnation of Nostradamus.
You're missing (IMHO) Stephenson's best book: Zodiac.
God is an invention of Man.
So the nature of God is only a shallow mystery.
The deep mystery is the nature of Man.
- - Nanrei Kobori, Abbott of the Temple of the Shining Dragon, Kyoto.
Thank you, oh prolific trolls for giving me something to think about.
Random posting from the Slashdot Meetup in Madison, Wisconsin!!!
-Aetrix
-hurtfulpotato
-zImage
-laweinberger
See you folks later!!
I have been using VNC for a year now to connect from machines around my campus to my linux desktop. The biggest problem I see is the ability to get to the current state of the desktop computer. VNC is setup to spawn off a new x-session and desktop with each vncserver.
To resolve the problem, VNC reccomends that you connect to the VNC server on your local machine, as well as with remote machines. No matter what they say, the quality is ass and it's slow. Noticibly slow.
Krfb, thankfully, seems to have remedied this problem by creating a bit of KDE software that exports the original X server for remote connections. When you connect, you see your desktop in the exact condition you left it in, not a new X session.
Has anyone used KRfb?
No, no no. We can get rid of the big ads and subscription service and simultaneously generate much more revenue for /. with this email:
/.ers destroy all that you have labored to create and may your servers cry. In addition, we will post links to your site several times over the next week.
Dear Web Administrator
The editors at Slashdot.org are about to link to your site in about 4 hours. You now have three options:
1)You may see you bandwith destroyed as tens of thousands of
2)You may pay us a small fee to have us set up a mirror to your site, reducing the immediate hit but only prolonging your pain to the next 24 hours.
3)You may pay us $2000 and not have this story posted. In addition, we will not link to your site for the next 30 days.
Why does the Academy persist in having a "Foreign Language Film" category? In the earlier part of this century when filmmaking was almost exclusively being done by Americans (Hollywood), it made sense to honor a film made by "someone else." No longer does this hold. Lord of the Rings was filmed by an international cast in a foreign country. Harry Potter is a UK film by a UK author. This page says that "This is the thirty-second Academy Award nomination (including nine wins) for France." Why do we persist in having a category for films that aren't in English? Is it the subtitles?
Film is able to cross cultural and lingual boundaries. Why must the Academy persist in maintaing the separation of "English" and "Other" on awards night? Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, which had numerous nominations in 2001 started the trend of recognizing films as films, regardless of language and cast/crew nationality.
I think the Academy honors "Foreign Language Films" because of these false beliefs:
Last year, my SO gave me a Palm Vx. That alone was a kind gesture, but he went into the datebook app and set appointments for every 5 minutes for the next TWO YEARS that said "I love you."
Last thing I heard from developmental biology/biochemistry, they hadn't yet euclidated all of the sub-steps involving thousands of hormones/enzymes/genetic control mechanisms required to turn a tissue into an organ. Sure, we can take some stem cells, hit them with some chemicals and have them start to make kidney cells or neurons or endothelial cells. Convincing these kidney cells to form an organ, however, is a HUGE leap which requires stem cells becoming vascular tissue ( +3 types of cells) and protective sheathing ( +2 types of cells) and accessory nervous/vacular connections ( +2 types of cells). Has anyone made these types of cells? Not that I know about.
Good news is - this type of human-controlled development is possible in C. elegans, a worm. We have sequenced it's entire genome http://www.sanger.ac.uk/Projects/C_elegans/ and more importantly, we know where every single cell in the adult originated from - starting with a 4-cell zygote. PubMed Abstract Link
Maybe in 20 or more years we will have this knowledge for some "higher" animal - Maybe even a vertebrate! Then we can start to understand human organ development.
Here's the Science Magazine Abstract
----Abstract-----
Electrically Driven Single Photon Source
Zhiliang Yuan 1, Beata E. Kardynal 1, R. Mark Stevenson 1, Andrew J. Shields 1,Charlene J. Lobo 2, Ken Cooper 2, Neil S. Beattie 3, David A. Ritchie 2, Michael Pepper 3
1 Toshiba Research Europe Limited, Cambridge Research Laboratory, 260 Cambridge Science Park, Milton Road, Cambridge, CB4 0WE, UK.
2 Cavendish Laboratory, University of Cambridge, Madingley Road, Cambridge, CB3 0HE, UK.
3 Toshiba Research Europe Limited, Cambridge Research Laboratory, 260 Cambridge Science Park, Milton Road, Cambridge, CB4 0WE, UK; Cavendish Laboratory, University of Cambridge, Madingley Road, Cambridge, CB3 0HE, UK.
Electroluminescence from a single quantum dot within the intrinsic region of a p-i-n junction is demonstrated to act as an electrically driven single photon source. At low injection currents the dot electroluminescence spectrum reveals a single sharp line due to exciton recombination, while another line due to the biexciton emerges at higher current. The second order correlation function of the diode displays anti-bunching under a DC drive current. Single photon emission is stimulated using sub-nanosecond voltage pulses. These results suggest that semiconductor technology can be used to mass-produce a single photon source for applications in quantum information technology.
-----End Abstract-----
If anyone has access to Science Online (http://www.sciencemag.org) you can download the PDF reprint at this link: here.
At my workplace sit 6 RS6000 beasts with similarly beastly IBM support contracts handling essencially every aspect of a small college network (1,200 students & 500 faculty/staff/administration). My desktop and personal webserver are both linux (RedHat) machines. I see advantages to both systems. Red Hat has a great diversity of applications to run on servers, while AIX has tight security and time-tested server utilities (i.e. SMIT). Hopefully this merger will not just bring Red Hat onto IBM hardware, but it might also promote development of those server utilities for Linux. Advanced serving utilities would help diminish the idea that "AIX will still run on clients high-end mission critical servers. Linux will run on small to midrange servers." (RobL3)
The road runs both ways, and hopefully we will see some Red Hat/open source applications becoming more AIX-friendly. (Tried installing Python on an AIX machine?)
But the best part - My stock in RedHat jumped 1.61 points today.
X Files Season 1 DVD
X Files Season 2 DVD
X Files Season 3 DVD
X Files Season 4 DVD
So I can watch the new episodes, then afterwards restore my faith in Chris Carter's writing/directing abilities by watching the first four seasons.
Haven't Wallace and Grommit taught us a lesson about the foibles of having technically advanced pants?
Well this is a step in the right direction, I guess. But I was wondering, is there any interest out there for building cases that are actually Footstools/Ottomans?
I've been pondering building my next computer in one of those huge ottomans (with LOTS of fans for airflow) and then taking the matching chair and adapting a table (like they show) for an IR keyboard and mouse. They're on the right track putting ethernet jacks and power outlets in the arm rests. This will catch on with laptop execs, once they ditch the provided net service.
Surfing in style.