Many of the opponents of embryonic stem cell research would say that the difference is that one is an accident victim, the other a murder victim.
Ok, but adult murder victims would also be harvested for organs, if processed in time. It's just that usually once the paramedics get there, all the organs are toast. Murderers tend not to call 911.
Motorcycle accident victims have the unique feature that they often go brain-dead from massive head trauma (especially in no-helmet states), leaving everything else intact (and alive). This makes them great for harvesting organs.. so much so that they're often called "donor-cycles".:)
The only thing I have heard is opposition to killing people in order to heal other people.
What, if any, is the difference between harvesting a liver/heart/kidney from a motorcycle accident victim and harvesting stem cells from aborted fetuses?
It's not like women are going to have extra abortions to support research!
True, but it would be powerful evidence that a mind, ie. intelligence was needed to create this artificial life. If intelligent humans did manage to create life from the elements, it would be highly unreasonable to assume, as many do today, that natural life came about by any means that did not also require intelligent input.
Proving that it is *possible* to design life isn't the same thing as proving that it is the *only* way to create it.
Dumping a pile of chemicals that resemble the theorized "primordial soup" into a jar and shaking it - well if that worked, that would prove that no thought or design was required.
It may be possible to design life, and it may be possible to create life accidentally. Humans have been unable to make either approach work yet - or rule either approach out - so the only thing we can do is keep an open mind.
There is however a long complex "food chain" of other manufacturers (organisms) that do in fact supply these companies with the subassemblies that are then made into computers. Mankind as a whole has learned to take the elements of the earth and used them to build computers and a lot of other things. Life as a whole does this also, only on a much higher, complex level.
I guess I don't like the analogy then, since the definition for creating life seems to require more than the definition of creating a computer. If we applied the same analogy, Dell would have to only use non-computer parts to build computers; transistors and capacitors would be ok, but CD-ROM drives would not.
Everybody will readily admit that the computers that Dell turns out are designed. However, there are many who are unwilling to admit that the living computers are likely also designed.
Man, my "thinly-disguised religious doctrine" alarm is going off. Many people have solid beliefs about the origin of life. Fine, good - but we're not talking about how life evolved years ago. We're talking about whether we can create life today.
Some people have theories about abiogenesis (life from not-life) - and this work today is on the way to testing whether life from not-life is possible. It isn't the final word on the subject, and much more work will have to be done. Some day we'll either create life from not-life, or run out of ideas on how to do it.
And here's the best part - even if humans are able to create life, that doesn't mean that whatever method we use is the one originally used for life on Earth.:)
That isn't building a computer from scratch. It's only an assembly job.
Then nobody has ever built a computer from scratch using your definition. IBM and Dell don't mine copper or silicon. Even the earliest computers used purchased copper, not copper ore (or mining rights to copper ore!).
The article is talking about causing life to exist where there was none - taking non-living chemicals and making a living being, instead of the normal process of a living being being created by another living being. After that step has been achieved, then people can start to wholly design a living being from scratch like you're talking about, instead of making knock-offs.
How is an infrared camera worse then a visible light camera system they were using before?
Infrared cameras normally see through clothes. Do you want the government taking (black and white) photos of you driving naked?
Sony had a camera a little while back that would let you activate "night vision" (infrared) even during daytime. The result was a bunch of people taking videos of people appearing nude on the tape (details and all) while actually being clothed in real life.
Maybe LinkedIn or some other "more trustworthy" business-oriented social network site will help address the spam problem, by only letting you communicate with people who are in your "circle of trust".
The spam I get on Myspace is from spammers inviting me to be their friend.
If you can communicate with someone (even just to ask to be added to someone's "circle of trust") then you will receive spam over that channel.
I don't see one post in this thread railing against "science," fallacists.
I guess "I'm sick and tired of the freewheeling science geeks" was only against scientists, not science itself. My mistake.
Yes, yes, anyone against creating black holes on earth or propping nearly-useless edifices above everyone's head hates polio vaccines and automobile engines. Great argument!
Both vaccine research and automobiles were described as dangerous and useless in the beginning (Don't toy with nature, you're going to kill us all! Who needs horseless carriages when we have horses?), just as you describe black holes and space elevators now, so I figure it a valid comparison.
If you want your life and property under yet another constant threat, buy your own planet and move there. [...] Seriously, get off this planet.
Duh, that's why we're building a space elevator!
I'm sick and tired of the freewheeling science geeks that find new ways to put us all at risk with their useless toys, generation after generation.
Yeah, germ theory, that polio vaccine, seat belts, and global communications (like the internet) are evil. Those bastards./sarcasm
Nobody but a selfish minority is interested in anyone making black holes in particle accelerators, building doomsday devices or suspending lethal pieces of engineering above everyone's heads.
You seem to think that the scientists building these things are either suicidal or incompetent (unable to assess the risks). I'd argue the people doing this advanced, risky thinks are smarter than either of us.
As for a "selfish minority" endangering the rest of the populace - no. The major threats to human life are heart disease and cancer (>50% of deaths in the US), automobiles (40k deaths/year), and other humans (homicide/suicide/police/military). New methods of space travel/delivery? Not so much.
You seem to really hate science for some reason. Arguing a project is risky is one thing; namecalling is just blind prejudice.
I didn't mean for this to be a controversial statement, just a bit of history. If you have some first hand knowledge of the situation that differs from my first-hand knowledge, by all means please share.
Thanks for these links, they do make it clear that the phone came with a transformer that utilized the second pair, and that it was standard to do so with these phones. Learn something new every day.
What bugged me was the phrase "we remember that the yellow/black pair was connected to a transformer" made it seem like this was standard practice regardless of whether these phones were installed, which hasn't been the case in my experience.
And for those of us who pre-date RJ11 (and residences where people often had multiple lines), we remember that the yellow/black pair was connected to a transformer which provided DC voltage to do things such as power the light-bulbs in, say, a Trimline handset.
That's not what that article says at all..
The first Trimline models used incandescent dial lights powered by a power transformer plugged into a standard 120VAC outlet. The bulky transformer and the need for a conveniently-placed 120-volt outlet was criticized by many consumers, and Western Electric subsequently redesigned the Trimline to use a green LED backlit dial powered by current from the phone line.
Two models - one which had to plug into a nearby outlet, and one that used the 48V from the phone line itself. Nothing about a power transformer running on an additional pair.
Although if I had the first model, I'd cut the transformer cord and do just that - run the power over an unused line - which is possible what some people did.
I've used phone lines as speaker wire before for whole-house audio; there are lots of crazy uses for unused lines.
Interesting, I've never seen this. It does seem to be Sweden specific:
When all sockets on a line are connected in parallel only the lower pins on a Swedish Standard plug (middle connectors on RJ-plugs) are used. This configuration was earlier not allowed due to Swedish law prohibiting the possibility of eavesdropping on a telephone line (and possibly also to limit each household's load on the exchange)
In the US, eavesdropping (wiretapping) is illegal, but there's no provision to design systems to prevent eavesdropping, as this wiring system seems to be setup to do.
In case anyone is wondering, the reason there are four wires in every wall socket is because the telephones are daisy-chained together -- two of the wires just continue to the next wall socket
I'm really trying to figure out what you're talking about, and where you got the idea that the second pair is for daisy-chaining.
The red/green (or blue/blue-white) pair is for the first phone line; the yellow/black (or orange/orange-white) pair is for the second phone line. See the RJ11/14/25 standard.
Standard RJ11/14/25 jacks and plugs can support up to 3 lines on up to 6 wires. These days, some houses just use RJ45 throughout the house, which means 4 lines are possible (8 wires).
Many phone lines are run in a star pattern from the network box, not daisy-chained at all. Where multiple jacks are connected to the same wire run, the red is connected to the red, black to black, etc. There's no crossover between the two pairs.
You mentioned text editing, quick question: can you also use the iPhone together with a bluetooth keyboard, say with a Stowaway Bluetooth Keyboard? Thanks!
The only Bluetooth device supported on the iPhone is headsets. Someone might make keyboards work in the future, but it doesn't today.
Or you want to wait 2 months for Apple drop the price by a third, thus punishing the early adopters that did their beta testing and protheletizing for them. Thanks again Apple! That will be the most expensive $200 you ever get out of me.
Guess what? The computer/phone/TV/game you buy today will be cheaper tomorrow! Technology gets better/cheaper/faster as time passes. News at 11.
I bought a Motorola Razr when they were $500 or so (I spent 450 lev, about $275). Now they give them away.
I bought the $599 iPhone on launch day (4 hours in line, 20 hours to activate, lol). I knew that it would be cheaper and more available in a few months, but I thought the phone was worth the price they sold it at, so I bought it.
When they stop making changes and start introducing only gradual improvements (like when the video iPod simply came out in a model with more storage) that's the time to go grab it. Based on their past performance though, I'd suggest waiting until then.
The flaw in that logic (and all the similar "technology gets cheaper/better as time goes on, news at 11" type logic) is that by waiting, you don't have use the device in the meantime.
If your needs are already being met, then don't buy it. If your needs aren't being met, then buy it, regardless of whether or not better/cheaper stuff will be here a year from now.
It's ridiculous that this story repeats with every price drop for everything ("Product X lowered its price now that it's been on the market a few months!"), but I guess it sells ads.
Also, what happens when Apple pushes out an update that disables this hack. If the developers can't come up with a new hack in time, what happens to all the people who paid for the original hack that no longer works?
They don't install the new firmware. We've had two firmware updates so far (1.01 and 1.02) and they're completely optional to install. As far as I know, all firmware updates through Apple for all their devices have been optional.
The reason locking came about is that telcos were subsidising phones. That $30 locked phone you've got? Cost $45 and would retail for $90. They make their money back over the years on call charges.
The contract with $175 termination fee already covers the cost of the phone. They already have a legal recourse to collect the money. Locking the phone is just spiteful.
I have no idea how people bought these phones, but if Apple required you to sign a form promising not to use anything but AT&T for six months, then you wouldn't really be able to claim independence from the lock-in agreement.
I went in, swiped my credit card, and walked out with an iPhone. No contracts at point of sale.
At the iTunes activation, I'll admit that I didn't read the legal crap. But if you never activate your phone with Apple/AT&T through iTunes (and there are software hacks to do so), then you're not breaking any contracts, since you haven't agreed to any.
Do people really expect lifelong relationships? I thought one where supposed to get a lot back, if one doesn't one might rather quit it immediatly.
He mentioned alimony and "first few years" - in other words, things were presumably good, he married her, and *then* she changed and they split. So yes, he did expect a lifelong relationship (that's what marriage is supposed to be). It's a very common story.
For example, if the metric is the number of tickets closed per day, IT members would have no incentive to fix problems preventively. Notice some weird messages in a log file? Well, there's no ticket, so no sense wasting time to figure out what's wrong, unless a user complains.
Solution: create your own ticket describing the weird messages, then close it with the results of your investigation.
Dear God. How exactly would a magnetic field contain neutral photons ? They will generate zero flux and will not interact with the field at all.
Is this the kind of basic physics that the average student would understand in their mandatory class?
The fact that protons are positive, electrons are negative, and neutrons are.. you know.. neutral and therefore not affected by magnetic fields.. yes, I learned that in about 6th grade.
The whole discussion above clearly shows a domain when modern operating systems have failed: information management. Living the definition of information to the applications creates the kinds of problems discussed above.
The solution is the following: Operating systems should define a mechanism for defining information types, including conceptual and physical details.
In other words, O/Ses should provide, by default, not a filesystem, but a database. If Unix came with a database by default, no such problems like the above would exist.
Hans Reiser argues much the same - that file systems should basically be usable as databases - and also explains why they previously have not been (such as 512-byte minimum allocation structures). BeOS had a database filesystem, strong metadata on files and strong typing of files (example: MP3 files had their ID3 tags in the resource fork), but it failed as a commercial product.
One problem with the OS defining file data structure is that all progress then depends on the OS. The first time an application needs to do something that wasn't anticipated by the OS, they're going to make their own structure and pack it into the existing structure - and you're back at square one.
The old Netscape 4.x software also used Unix mailbox (mbox) files; it just also had index files. I'm not sure about current versions. mbox plus index was/is a popular storage format - mbox because it was simple, with added indexes for speed.
Maildir is my preferred format - each message is a separate plain text file, which means no locking issues, and simultaneous access from multiple machines. You can just tar the directory up if you want to move it, or cat all the files together if you want mbox back. You can use maildir with mutt (and lots of other software).
Slashdot Mirror
Ok, but adult murder victims would also be harvested for organs, if processed in time. It's just that usually once the paramedics get there, all the organs are toast. Murderers tend not to call 911.
Motorcycle accident victims have the unique feature that they often go brain-dead from massive head trauma (especially in no-helmet states), leaving everything else intact (and alive). This makes them great for harvesting organs.. so much so that they're often called "donor-cycles".
What, if any, is the difference between harvesting a liver/heart/kidney from a motorcycle accident victim and harvesting stem cells from aborted fetuses?
It's not like women are going to have extra abortions to support research!
Proving that it is *possible* to design life isn't the same thing as proving that it is the *only* way to create it.
Dumping a pile of chemicals that resemble the theorized "primordial soup" into a jar and shaking it - well if that worked, that would prove that no thought or design was required.
It may be possible to design life, and it may be possible to create life accidentally. Humans have been unable to make either approach work yet - or rule either approach out - so the only thing we can do is keep an open mind.
I guess I don't like the analogy then, since the definition for creating life seems to require more than the definition of creating a computer. If we applied the same analogy, Dell would have to only use non-computer parts to build computers; transistors and capacitors would be ok, but CD-ROM drives would not.
Man, my "thinly-disguised religious doctrine" alarm is going off. Many people have solid beliefs about the origin of life. Fine, good - but we're not talking about how life evolved years ago. We're talking about whether we can create life today.
Some people have theories about abiogenesis (life from not-life) - and this work today is on the way to testing whether life from not-life is possible. It isn't the final word on the subject, and much more work will have to be done. Some day we'll either create life from not-life, or run out of ideas on how to do it.
And here's the best part - even if humans are able to create life, that doesn't mean that whatever method we use is the one originally used for life on Earth.
Then nobody has ever built a computer from scratch using your definition. IBM and Dell don't mine copper or silicon. Even the earliest computers used purchased copper, not copper ore (or mining rights to copper ore!).
The article is talking about causing life to exist where there was none - taking non-living chemicals and making a living being, instead of the normal process of a living being being created by another living being. After that step has been achieved, then people can start to wholly design a living being from scratch like you're talking about, instead of making knock-offs.
Infrared cameras normally see through clothes. Do you want the government taking (black and white) photos of you driving naked?
Sony had a camera a little while back that would let you activate "night vision" (infrared) even during daytime. The result was a bunch of people taking videos of people appearing nude on the tape (details and all) while actually being clothed in real life.
The spam I get on Myspace is from spammers inviting me to be their friend.
If you can communicate with someone (even just to ask to be added to someone's "circle of trust") then you will receive spam over that channel.
I guess "I'm sick and tired of the freewheeling science geeks" was only against scientists, not science itself. My mistake.
Both vaccine research and automobiles were described as dangerous and useless in the beginning (Don't toy with nature, you're going to kill us all! Who needs horseless carriages when we have horses?), just as you describe black holes and space elevators now, so I figure it a valid comparison.
Duh, that's why we're building a space elevator!
Yeah, germ theory, that polio vaccine, seat belts, and global communications (like the internet) are evil. Those bastards.
You seem to think that the scientists building these things are either suicidal or incompetent (unable to assess the risks). I'd argue the people doing this advanced, risky thinks are smarter than either of us.
As for a "selfish minority" endangering the rest of the populace - no. The major threats to human life are heart disease and cancer (>50% of deaths in the US), automobiles (40k deaths/year), and other humans (homicide/suicide/police/military). New methods of space travel/delivery? Not so much.
You seem to really hate science for some reason. Arguing a project is risky is one thing; namecalling is just blind prejudice.
Thanks for these links, they do make it clear that the phone came with a transformer that utilized the second pair, and that it was standard to do so with these phones. Learn something new every day.
What bugged me was the phrase "we remember that the yellow/black pair was connected to a transformer" made it seem like this was standard practice regardless of whether these phones were installed, which hasn't been the case in my experience.
That's not what that article says at all..
Two models - one which had to plug into a nearby outlet, and one that used the 48V from the phone line itself. Nothing about a power transformer running on an additional pair.
Although if I had the first model, I'd cut the transformer cord and do just that - run the power over an unused line - which is possible what some people did.
I've used phone lines as speaker wire before for whole-house audio; there are lots of crazy uses for unused lines.
In the US, eavesdropping (wiretapping) is illegal, but there's no provision to design systems to prevent eavesdropping, as this wiring system seems to be setup to do.
I'm really trying to figure out what you're talking about, and where you got the idea that the second pair is for daisy-chaining.
The red/green (or blue/blue-white) pair is for the first phone line; the yellow/black (or orange/orange-white) pair is for the second phone line. See the RJ11/14/25 standard.
Standard RJ11/14/25 jacks and plugs can support up to 3 lines on up to 6 wires. These days, some houses just use RJ45 throughout the house, which means 4 lines are possible (8 wires).
Many phone lines are run in a star pattern from the network box, not daisy-chained at all. Where multiple jacks are connected to the same wire run, the red is connected to the red, black to black, etc. There's no crossover between the two pairs.
Then Leibniz would've gotten credit.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gottfried_Leibniz#Calculus
The only Bluetooth device supported on the iPhone is headsets. Someone might make keyboards work in the future, but it doesn't today.
Guess what? The computer/phone/TV/game you buy today will be cheaper tomorrow! Technology gets better/cheaper/faster as time passes. News at 11.
I bought a Motorola Razr when they were $500 or so (I spent 450 lev, about $275). Now they give them away.
I bought the $599 iPhone on launch day (4 hours in line, 20 hours to activate, lol). I knew that it would be cheaper and more available in a few months, but I thought the phone was worth the price they sold it at, so I bought it.
The flaw in that logic (and all the similar "technology gets cheaper/better as time goes on, news at 11" type logic) is that by waiting, you don't have use the device in the meantime.
If your needs are already being met, then don't buy it.
If your needs aren't being met, then buy it, regardless of whether or not better/cheaper stuff will be here a year from now.
It's ridiculous that this story repeats with every price drop for everything ("Product X lowered its price now that it's been on the market a few months!"), but I guess it sells ads.
They don't install the new firmware. We've had two firmware updates so far (1.01 and 1.02) and they're completely optional to install. As far as I know, all firmware updates through Apple for all their devices have been optional.
The contract with $175 termination fee already covers the cost of the phone. They already have a legal recourse to collect the money. Locking the phone is just spiteful.
I went in, swiped my credit card, and walked out with an iPhone. No contracts at point of sale.
At the iTunes activation, I'll admit that I didn't read the legal crap. But if you never activate your phone with Apple/AT&T through iTunes (and there are software hacks to do so), then you're not breaking any contracts, since you haven't agreed to any.
He mentioned alimony and "first few years" - in other words, things were presumably good, he married her, and *then* she changed and they split. So yes, he did expect a lifelong relationship (that's what marriage is supposed to be). It's a very common story.
Solution: create your own ticket describing the weird messages, then close it with the results of your investigation.
The fact that protons are positive, electrons are negative, and neutrons are.. you know.. neutral and therefore not affected by magnetic fields.. yes, I learned that in about 6th grade.
Hans Reiser argues much the same - that file systems should basically be usable as databases - and also explains why they previously have not been (such as 512-byte minimum allocation structures). BeOS had a database filesystem, strong metadata on files and strong typing of files (example: MP3 files had their ID3 tags in the resource fork), but it failed as a commercial product.
One problem with the OS defining file data structure is that all progress then depends on the OS. The first time an application needs to do something that wasn't anticipated by the OS, they're going to make their own structure and pack it into the existing structure - and you're back at square one.
The old Netscape 4.x software also used Unix mailbox (mbox) files; it just also had index files. I'm not sure about current versions. mbox plus index was/is a popular storage format - mbox because it was simple, with added indexes for speed.
Maildir is my preferred format - each message is a separate plain text file, which means no locking issues, and simultaneous access from multiple machines. You can just tar the directory up if you want to move it, or cat all the files together if you want mbox back. You can use maildir with mutt (and lots of other software).