Yeah, and sites like this didn't exist because newsgroups weren't ruined by spamming and cross-posted porn.
In fact, when the first slashdot-like sites did spring up, I remember not liking them because conferencing belongs (that should be 'belonged', I suppose... sigh) on usenet.
Generally those old comps (although I can't speak for the apple II in particular) didn't 'talk' to the cassette drives - they only listened... which is why you got messages like "press play on tape" - the computer couldn't tell the tape drive to play.
It would make more sense then, that a cassette emulate a modem than a modem emulating a cassette.
But really, I'm just talking out my ass. Correct me if I'm wrong.
Anyways, at least we don't have thunderwood, or fireants, or killer bees. (My current roommate's parents live in houston, I get to hear ALL the stories...)
Anyway, cassettes were about the same speed as modems of the day, which I found quite amusing.
Actually, if I remember correctly, in some cases the computer simply treated the cassette as a recording of modem sounds. There were blank spaces on the tape during which time the computer transmitted sounds to the tape deck, which were ignored by the deck, which simply resumed the playback of prerecorded sounds after the blank area on tape.
They could always go to the Northwest Territories: 1,346,106 km^2, population ~37,360.
And Alaska is over 1.5million SQ KM.....
Yes, but the north-west territories used to be 3.5million square km, until we decided it was too big a few years back, and chopped it in half to create Nunavut.
If someone were to slowly turn themselves into a robot by, for example, slowly (over several years) replacing their biological brain & body with a machine surrogate, at what point would they cease to be 'human'. Would they still be alive and sentient or would they only have the appearance of such?
From the Article: "Stealing is stealing," Oppenheim said. "Those are major, significant networks. This was a student who created a piracy bazaar."
Yes, stealing is stealing.
Stealing is especially stealing when your corporate interests have bought and paid for laws, which are now being used to essentially ruin the lives of (ie: steal the futures of)students who never would have even heard your product had it not been for file-sharing.
I don't agree with most arguments for file-sharing. It is common sense that the artists and lavels should make money for the songs, and there should quickly set up some usable system - a good one does not currently exist. When it does, I and many, many, many people like me will eagerly use it.
But $98 TRILLION??? [choke] That's just stupidly extortionate.
That indeed is the only valid argument that I see for researching these techniques. From a conservation/preservation point of view, however, they are sorely lacking.
And what would you say to those that want to clone the wooly mammoth?
Ressurrecting animals species is a whiz-bang tech demo, but nothing else.
This is a futile exercise. Genetic stochastic effects would drive a small population to extinction. See my response "Re:False dilemna" to jensend's post "False dilemna" below for a further explanation.
No, they do not prevent the success of efforts to prevent species loss via human contribution, but (and this is a big but) they do the following:
Divert monetary flow from said studies/programs
Divert scientific/intellectual participation in said studies/programs
Give firepower to those who view preservation-in-a-jar as a viable way of keeping species 'present'
Ignore or discard the fact that once an animal is removed from a habitat to an artificial setting, neither the animal nor the habitat can ever be truly the same again
And the list goes on and on and on.
Plus, what about loss of genetic information? Without a large enough number of animals of any species, genetic stochastic effects will tend to drive a population to extinction. Several dozen (or even several hundred, depending on the species) animals would have to be cloned for the species to avoid extinction. Sure, we can clone up a couple animals now, but what about 100 years from now? Will the population that we resurrect be a viable, continuing one that far in the future? How about 500 years from now?
And THAT is why the resurrection of animals is a pointless and largely stupid exercise. We should conserve what we have, so that it exists in the wild a thousand years from now.
The problem here is that people think ecology is simple. It's not, at least not when it's done right.
1) Most species are rare. Very few species can be considered to be common. 2) Most species have ALWAYS been and will ALWAYS be rare. 3) Rarity is not something that is special in and of itself. 4) Extinctions have been happening since the dawn of time. 5) If a species is extinct, there's most always a reason for it. What has changed that would allow them to survive now?
Conservation is VERY important, but our time and effort would be much better served by preserving what we have, not trying to undo what we have done. What's done is done. Concentrate on the present.
WE MUST SOLVE THE PROBLEMS THAT CAUSE HUMANS TO DRIVE SPECIES TO EXTINCTION, THEN AND ONLY THEN SHOULD WE WORRY ABOUT SPECIES THAT WE HAVE LOST.
Rabid conservationists, please flame away. I'll reply, don't you worry.
Actually, some of these animals might be vary useful to agriculture. Especially if they can be bread with current stock in some way. I'm not sure how this list was selected. It sounds more like a zoo list than a useful one, but I have no real knowledge here.
Actually, it's probably FAR more important to look at the species we're using for agriculture NOW, instead of trying to bring back extinct species.
We would do a LOT better to introduce at least some measure of diversity into our farms, and our diets, and we would probably profit far more from this than from bringing back some strange-ass species which might one day possibly maybe have some value.
>The telomeres must be restored in the genitals >somehow or the offspring would live shorter than >their parents..
Or they don't shorten in an embrio and in genitals, which I think that's more likely, but I'm just talking out my, um, hat. I hope someone with some facts answers your question.
I would like to qualify this by saying that I am not a human phys person. I am a CS/Ecology person, so I expecte to be corrected if I'm too far off base. That said, I do believe that yes, you are talking out of your, erm, 'hat'.
If telomeres can never be restored, and can only be maintained as you say, it would then imply that if telomeres in an egg cell suffered any damage that shortened them, they could never be repaired.
Logically, over millions of generations, a great deal of telomere-shortening damage must have happened.
Therefore, with no way to re-lengthen telomeres in egg cells, our lives would be shorter than our predecessors by orders of magnitude!
So egg cells must be able to restore their telomere length, at least before they fuse with a sperm cell.
Principal Skinner: "I'm not sad about losing my job, Bart. I'm working on a movie about a magical park where dinosaurs are brought back to life by genetic engineering. We'll call it 'Billy and the Clone-a-saurus'"
Apu: "What? First you take a concept that's already been done, then you give it a name that nobody could possibly ever like..." "... biggest movie ever!... best seller list for six months!..." "...HAVE YOU BEEN LIVING UNDER A ROCK, SIR?....uh...I mean, thank you, come again."
Dilbert said it best... "When virtual reality gets cheaper than dating, the human race is doomed."
Girl at door: "Is Dilbert home?" Dogbert: "He's been in the holodeck since March".
Ahhhh well... you know it's true!;)
One hour in and I'm sick of this already.
on
Strike on Iraq
·
· Score: 1
Well, to the surprise of no one, the war has started, the media is carpet-bombing us with what amount to zero information, and bush's address is playing and nauseum on the networks.
So what do we know so far? A small number of bombs have been dropped on baghdad, and that is all. On the networks I've seen: -speculation about what kind of bomb/s it was/were -speculation about what's next -speculation about this, that and the other -reports on the emotional status of troops on an aircraft carrier -reports on the emotional status of troops on the ground -what kinds of bombs, planes, etc the US and UK have.
So, I mean really how much of that is ACTUAL NEWS? Speculation and emotional status updates are of no real relevance, now are they? And we already know what the arsenal consists of, that's not news either.
One gets the sense that the media has had most of this crap stored up "for release in case of war" - there's really no REAL news on the "news", and it's already driving me nuts.
I just wish they would report NEWS - not filler interspersed with nuggets of news. If there's no news yet, then don't report filler. It's bloody annoying.
We had a baaaaaaad breakup (she cheated and ended our two-year relationship quite evil-ly).
I did some minor tech support for her in the months after. Nothing big. And then I did this...
I get a call from her saying that her computer was completely dead (wouldn't even boot) and that she had a paper worth 50% of her final grade due in the morning. (3rd year university course)...and the professor was a hardass who didn't take kindly to excuses...AND she'd already gotten a one-week extension, so if it wasn't in she'd get a ZERO on it......and would I PLEASE SAVE HER????
So I went through the standards - is it plugged in, what was the last error message, etc. It really sounded like she'd picked up some kind of nasty virus.
So she asked me if I would pleeeeease come over to fix it? There was no one else there who could! Please?
I said no, you're screwed. And hung up.
I later found out from a mutual friend that she failed the course.
Evil of me, I know. But score one for the good guys!:)
Slashdot Mirror
Bull. Canada never had nuclear weapons. There were American weapons & bombers stationed in Canada, but there never were Canadian nuclear bombs.
...It wasn't hard to find. The relevant information is near the bottom of the page.
Nope, you're the one who's lacking in history class.
Canada had nuclear missiles on a number of CF-18 hornets (note: CF = 'Canadian forces').
Here's a link.
Yeah, and sites like this didn't exist because newsgroups weren't ruined by spamming and cross-posted porn.
In fact, when the first slashdot-like sites did spring up, I remember not liking them because conferencing belongs (that should be 'belonged', I suppose... sigh) on usenet.
Yes, yes, I know. This is a shameless plug. Please Humor me.
Angie Nussey is an artist that I really like a lot. Piano, vocals and guitar. Good little jam session every monday night.
Her web site has a bunch of realaudio clips up so you can give her a listen, or order one of her CDs if you feel so inclined.
PS: I am not her, nor do I know her at all really. I just like her music.
Thanks!
Crazy.
Good to know.
Are you sure you don't have that backwards?
Generally those old comps (although I can't speak for the apple II in particular) didn't 'talk' to the cassette drives - they only listened... which is why you got messages like "press play on tape" - the computer couldn't tell the tape drive to play.
It would make more sense then, that a cassette emulate a modem than a modem emulating a cassette.
But really, I'm just talking out my ass. Correct me if I'm wrong.
there are some places in Texas where you need winshieldwipers just to deal with all of the bugs going splat on the windshield
HA!
In parts of the country in spring, we have so many bugs that animals migrate further north TOWARDS the tundra to get away from them...
Anyways, at least we don't have thunderwood, or fireants, or killer bees. (My current roommate's parents live in houston, I get to hear ALL the stories...)
Anyway, cassettes were about the same speed as modems of the day, which I found quite amusing.
Actually, if I remember correctly, in some cases the computer simply treated the cassette as a recording of modem sounds. There were blank spaces on the tape during which time the computer transmitted sounds to the tape deck, which were ignored by the deck, which simply resumed the playback of prerecorded sounds after the blank area on tape.
They could always go to the Northwest Territories: 1,346,106 km^2, population ~37,360.
And Alaska is over 1.5million SQ KM.....
Yes, but the north-west territories used to be 3.5million square km, until we decided it was too big a few years back, and chopped it in half to create Nunavut.
...I'm down with bill gates
I call him money for short
I call him up at home
and make him do my tech support...
Let me put this in perspective:
When confronted by a violent protester, our prime minister strangled the guy himself.
Conversely, Your texan president was nearly killed by a pretzel.
Enough said
You're not a true Canadian! A true Canadian would only be distracted by beer!
And a CANADIAN SLASHDOTTER would be distracted by a beer-puter!
If someone were to slowly turn themselves into a robot by, for example, slowly (over several years) replacing their biological brain & body with a machine surrogate, at what point would they cease to be 'human'. Would they still be alive and sentient or would they only have the appearance of such?
From the Article: "Stealing is stealing," Oppenheim said. "Those are major, significant networks. This was a student who created a piracy bazaar."
Yes, stealing is stealing.
Stealing is especially stealing when your corporate interests have bought and paid for laws, which are now being used to essentially ruin the lives of (ie: steal the futures of)students who never would have even heard your product had it not been for file-sharing.
I don't agree with most arguments for file-sharing. It is common sense that the artists and lavels should make money for the songs, and there should quickly set up some usable system - a good one does not currently exist. When it does, I and many, many, many people like me will eagerly use it.
But $98 TRILLION??? [choke] That's just stupidly extortionate.
April fools day on slashdot sort of blows.
Why don't we all just check out The Onion instead.
It's new today, and at least it's funny.
Here's something interesting.
I think it speaks for itself.
American students abroad told to pretend to be Canadians
At least when we leave our home country, we don't have to worry about being shot in the back by some yahoo with an axe to grind.
That indeed is the only valid argument that I see for researching these techniques. From a conservation/preservation point of view, however, they are sorely lacking.
And what would you say to those that want to clone the wooly mammoth?
Ressurrecting animals species is a whiz-bang tech demo, but nothing else.
This is a futile exercise. Genetic stochastic effects would drive a small population to extinction.
See my response "Re:False dilemna" to jensend's post "False dilemna" below for a further explanation.
And the list goes on and on and on.
Plus, what about loss of genetic information? Without a large enough number of animals of any species, genetic stochastic effects will tend to drive a population to extinction. Several dozen (or even several hundred, depending on the species) animals would have to be cloned for the species to avoid extinction. Sure, we can clone up a couple animals now, but what about 100 years from now? Will the population that we resurrect be a viable, continuing one that far in the future? How about 500 years from now?
And THAT is why the resurrection of animals is a pointless and largely stupid exercise. We should conserve what we have, so that it exists in the wild a thousand years from now.
The problem here is that people think ecology is simple. It's not, at least not when it's done right.
Here are the facts.
1) Most species are rare. Very few species can be considered to be common.
2) Most species have ALWAYS been and will ALWAYS be rare.
3) Rarity is not something that is special in and of itself.
4) Extinctions have been happening since the dawn of time.
5) If a species is extinct, there's most always a reason for it. What has changed that would allow them to survive now?
Conservation is VERY important, but our time and effort would be much better served by preserving what we have, not trying to undo what we have done. What's done is done. Concentrate on the present.
WE MUST SOLVE THE PROBLEMS THAT CAUSE HUMANS TO DRIVE SPECIES TO EXTINCTION, THEN AND ONLY THEN SHOULD WE WORRY ABOUT SPECIES THAT WE HAVE LOST.
Rabid conservationists, please flame away. I'll reply, don't you worry.
Actually, some of these animals might be vary useful to agriculture. Especially if they can be bread with current stock in some way. I'm not sure how this list was selected. It sounds more like a zoo list than a useful one, but I have no real knowledge here.
Actually, it's probably FAR more important to look at the species we're using for agriculture NOW, instead of trying to bring back extinct species.
We would do a LOT better to introduce at least some measure of diversity into our farms, and our diets, and we would probably profit far more from this than from bringing back some strange-ass species which might one day possibly maybe have some value.
>The telomeres must be restored in the genitals
>somehow or the offspring would live shorter than
>their parents..
Or they don't shorten in an embrio and in genitals, which I think that's more likely, but I'm just talking out my, um, hat. I hope someone with some facts answers your question.
I would like to qualify this by saying that I am not a human phys person. I am a CS/Ecology person, so I expecte to be corrected if I'm too far off base. That said, I do believe that yes, you are talking out of your, erm, 'hat'.
If telomeres can never be restored, and can only be maintained as you say, it would then imply that if telomeres in an egg cell suffered any damage that shortened them, they could never be repaired.
Logically, over millions of generations, a great deal of telomere-shortening damage must have happened.
Therefore, with no way to re-lengthen telomeres in egg cells, our lives would be shorter than our predecessors by orders of magnitude!
So egg cells must be able to restore their telomere length, at least before they fuse with a sperm cell.
Principal Skinner: "I'm not sad about losing my job, Bart. I'm working on a movie about a magical park where dinosaurs are brought back to life by genetic engineering. We'll call it 'Billy and the Clone-a-saurus'"
... best seller list for six months!..." "...HAVE YOU BEEN LIVING UNDER A ROCK, SIR?....uh...I mean, thank you, come again."
Apu: "What? First you take a concept that's already been done, then you give it a name that nobody could possibly ever like..." "... biggest movie ever!
Dilbert said it best... "When virtual reality gets cheaper than dating, the human race is doomed."
;)
Girl at door: "Is Dilbert home?"
Dogbert: "He's been in the holodeck since March".
Ahhhh well... you know it's true!
Well, to the surprise of no one, the war has started, the media is carpet-bombing us with what amount to zero information, and bush's address is playing and nauseum on the networks.
So what do we know so far? A small number of bombs have been dropped on baghdad, and that is all. On the networks I've seen:
-speculation about what kind of bomb/s it was/were
-speculation about what's next
-speculation about this, that and the other
-reports on the emotional status of troops on an aircraft carrier
-reports on the emotional status of troops on the ground
-what kinds of bombs, planes, etc the US and UK have.
So, I mean really how much of that is ACTUAL NEWS?
Speculation and emotional status updates are of no real relevance, now are they? And we already know what the arsenal consists of, that's not news either.
One gets the sense that the media has had most of this crap stored up "for release in case of war" - there's really no REAL news on the "news", and it's already driving me nuts.
I just wish they would report NEWS - not filler interspersed with nuggets of news. If there's no news yet, then don't report filler. It's bloody annoying.
We had a baaaaaaad breakup (she cheated and ended our two-year relationship quite evil-ly).
...and the professor was a hardass who didn't take kindly to excuses ...AND she'd already gotten a one-week extension, so if it wasn't in she'd get a ZERO on it... ...and would I PLEASE SAVE HER????
:)
I did some minor tech support for her in the months after. Nothing big. And then I did this...
I get a call from her saying that her computer was completely dead (wouldn't even boot) and that she had a paper worth 50% of her final grade due in the morning. (3rd year university course)
So I went through the standards - is it plugged in, what was the last error message, etc. It really sounded like she'd picked up some kind of nasty virus.
So she asked me if I would pleeeeease come over to fix it? There was no one else there who could! Please?
I said no, you're screwed.
And hung up.
I later found out from a mutual friend that she failed the course.
Evil of me, I know. But score one for the good guys!