Why is 128MB of ram really needed? I can run X, quake2, and be compiling all at once and my system is still perfectly usable even with 64MB of ram. As far as hard drives, I'm getting by just fine with my (IDE)5 gig drive...what am I going to do with the (albeit faster) 20 and 30 gig drives available today? If I had dsl or cable, I might use the space to mirror ftp sites, but I don't have the high speed luxury. Oh, and my viper 330, with it's staggering 4MB of ram, plays quake satisfactorily. Anyway, I seem to have forgotten my original point, so I'm going to take this opportunity to shut up now...
I think it'd be damn cool if a scientist somewhere designed a protien that broke down cellulose. I mean, come on...there are bacteria in the gut of termites that can break it down...how hard would it be to isolate the gene(s) that make the cellulase that these bacteria produce? Ok, fine...I'm just waiting for the day where I can go and take a bite out of a tree and call it lunch...
Merely absorbing food by diffusion and osmosis is not "being alive." Any enclosed semi-permiable membrane can do that. We used some saran-wrap like stuff in my biology lab this semester to demonstrate that there are such things as diffusion gradients (basically, the idea that a solute will move from a higher concentration to a lower one until the two concentrations on either side of the membrane are equal) and that small molecules (i.e. water, CO2, etc) in the environment will travel down its diffusion gradient without using any energy. Since the 'cell' didn't use any energy to equalize it's concentration gradients, it's not alive. Technically, a cell doesn't have to reproduce itself to be considered alive. Take, for example, a neuron (pretty much my de facto example anymore). Once it reaches maturity and beings to function as a neuron should, it does not go through mitosis. Yet it is very much alive, as it has proton pumps that regulate the amount of K+ and P+ in the cell (necessary for signal transmission), it uses energy (neurotransmitters don't just happen), and it communicates with other cells. Anyway, just thought I'd elaborate on your post a bit...sorry about the rant...
Interesting. I guess I had always thought that the cerebellum, not the cerebrum, was in charge of coordination and all of that good stuff. If it is, wouldn't a lack of cerebral tissue not really matter all that much? I agree with you that the spinal cord isn't just a bunch of neurons...IIRC reflexes essentially originate in the spinal cord. But I don't think the spinal cord is quite as advanced as you suggest. Am I wrong? Do you have any research you could show me?
Upon reading the article, I'm considerably less excited than I was before. If a similar device were designed that *didn't* generate it's own signal, but merely transmitted a signal from one neuron to another, then paralysis would be much easier to deal with...
but hey, as it is these could help people with irregular heartbeat and/or damaged cardiac muscle..
Ok, this could be really cool. But is this technology *only* good for muscle contractions? For example, my biology professor is working on figuring out how nerve cells extend themselves in fetuses (feti?) to connect with other neurons in the brain/spinal cord/etc. While I can't see this being overly practical for brain injuries, this little development could make it unnecessary to figure out a way to make neurons in the spinal cord regenerate after an injury.
I know I'd rather have a few of these connected with each other and my spinal cord than wait around for a biochemical breakthrough:)
All 50,000+ people out there are busy looting and making asses of themselves? You know damn well that the media is picking and choosing which footage they want to air...and what would you pick if you were in their shoes? A bunch of people sincerely trying to inhibit what they believe to be a bad thing, or some dumbass kids out trying to be noticed by the tv cameras so they can say they've been on tv? The news channels are out to keep people watching so that they can shove their sponsors' advertising down the viewers' throats when the action dies down a little bit. I think that for a sizeable majority of the protesters, the reason they're there is to block something they think is wrong. More power to them; for the idiots out there that are turning this into an angry riot, knock it the hell off and let the people who really care do what they came to do.
even with the existance of water on any of these planets, wouldn't the extreme gravity hinder the development of advanced eukaryotes?
Hmmm...that's an interesting thought...I know very very little as to the ways of gravity on life, but I'm wondering if, say, a nitrogen-based life form might exist more easily on a high gravity planet like this? Or would any (even unicellular) life form be pretty much imploded by the extreme gravity?
There's no source code to oranges, but do you eat them?
actually, no I don't. If I don't know each and every chemical used to grow the orange, the name of the guy who grew the orange, the NO3 levels of all the soil within 50 miles of the farm (orchard? grove? Someone help me out here) that the orange grew on, and how much sunlight the orange was exposed to as it grew, i won't eat it.
Uhm, how is linux a communist OS? It's built by the people, and only includes what the people want in it. Microsoft is much more communistic in the sense that they, not the users, decide what gets into the OS.
something fairly similar has been done already (dunno if it's on the web, but it's in my intro biology book (Biology, 5th Edition. Campbell.)) with tobacco plants. The neat part is that we can now express the gene in more than one non-native organism. How long until I can get some chloroplats engineered into the membranes of my skin cells?
If I ever saw this test in my child's school, there would be lawsuits within 45 minutes and several injunctions.
The whole lawsuit thing would be a great starting point; maybe if some lawsuits would start flying around, the Kansas board of education would change their minds about evolution. That's an entirely different rant, though. Anyway, since, in public schools, your tax money goes toward their funding, why stop at a lawsuit if they're doing something you don't feel is ethical? I know if some test like that was performed on my children, they turned out "differently" from their peers, and then the school started treating them more abrasively than normal, I'd be the first one to pull my tax money out of the state board of education, as well as the first one to replace my children into either a private school or a homeschooling situation. No WAY are my kids going to be unnecessarily mistreated/abused in their school experience.
First off, I didn't even know there was IE for Solaris...anyway, is IE for solaris any good? Or does it take over your desktop there too? I absolutely hate how IE4 decides it owns your desktop environment, and won't use IE until it quits that dumb behavior (or until I put windows on my hd). Where's the Opera port at in terms of readiness?
"...what kind of benchmarks it achieves (and no, I don't mean how many FPS it gives you when you're fragging in Quake3)."
Isn't that the sort of thing that drives upgrading and all the rest? Really, if all I was doing was compiling code and doing minimal webserving (nevermind that that's exactly what I'm doing, yet I have a k6-2 300), I'd probably be relatively happy with a 1MB video card and a 486DX. My machine compiles code at a speed that's fast enough for me, so, if I'm looking for benchmarks that have nothing to do with FPS, why would I want to spend all the money on excessive hardware?
heh...so it's probably not available from my college bookstore?;)
anyway, It was just an idea....I think it would be neat if we quit cloning and spent some more time working on isolating the gene(s) that are responsible for mental disorders, multiple schlerosis, alzheimers, etc. From there, we could use our knowledge of genetics that we obtained from cloning to splice non-disease genes in place of the ones that do cause disease...
Maybe I missed the mark with my point. What I'm thinking is yay, we can clone. Now that we have that much knowledge of DNA and how it works and how to grow random organisms with it, let's focus our attention on altering dna at the gamete stage so that we can ultimately overcome genes that are at least semi-responsible (not like they just up and happen...environment plays a factor too) for any of the mental disorders. Playing god? Yeah, but hey, if it benefits us then I'm all for it!:P
Hmm..this is interesting. However, in light of what's happening to Dolly the sheep (i.e. premature aging), I'd tend to want to play around more with genetic expression. This, I think, is a more beneficial and/or cool way to spend time and money. This is sort of a lame example, in the sense that it doesn't do anything benificial to the plant, but my biology book has a picture of a plant expressing the firefly's light gene...it's a big tobacco plant that's glowing yellow:) Anyway, there are more practical uses for this sort of thing; I know I'd for one like to spend a lot of time manipulating genes that control mental disorders. With only 4 nitrogenous bases in DNA, I can't believe it would be too dificult (once you figured out the respective base sequences) to isolate, say, the depression gene(s) and rearrange their sequences such that you eliminate the genetic predisposition to the depression, and make them immune to chickenpox in the process!
I do have to agree that most current televisions do suck pretty badly as computer monitors. That's pretty obvious. But with things like high definiton tv's, which could actually display an image at a reasonable resolution, that may change. The only other thing that would need changing to make consoles catch up to PC's are upgradeable systems...I know I sure would like a faster cdrom and a more capable video card in my playstation. Yeah, they'll come w/ playstation2, but I have wanted better console performance (and an hdtv;) for a lot longer than playstation2 has been forthcoming.
Some people, heck, MOST people will *forever* need to have their hands held when it comes to computing. It's not that big a deal to them. They don't care to comb the depths, and learn the ins and outs. They have other talents, and other interests.
I'll take issue with that last sentence...I, for one, am known by my friends as the only person they know that runs Linux. They also seem to think all I do is compile my kernel (they have no real idea what that means, as a general rule). Yes, I do love to tinker with my computer, but I also have other interests; I'm currently a sophomore psychology student at (bleh) the University of North Dakota. I also crave knowledge in the fields of genetics, evolution, cell biology, and theology. Aside from other interests, I have other hobbies too! I love flying my r/c plane, baseball, model railroading, etc.
Yep, I'm a nerd. But I *do* have a life outside of computers. Don't generalize an entire culture of people based on what you know about a few of them.
So do people with glaucoma, etc.
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Ok, I've just about had enough with everyone saying that drugs are bad (mmmkay?), only 'idiots' use drugs, and that Darwinianism will take effect and all these evil, bad drug users will die out because they are stupid etc.
That being said, I'm wondering how many people realize that the entire original reasoning behind using any sort of mood altering chemical was to allieviate pain or make life better for a person in some way (i.e. the use of marijuana for the relief of pain caused by glaucoma)? This "drugs are bad because they will ruin your life" attitude makes me wonder how society came to accept the overuse and abuse of these otherwise helpful chemicals as a common practice. Is the real problem the bad evil awful chemicals themselves or the society that has allowed misuse of them to become such a problem?
Perhaps it's because I'm among the second most lame group of people in the world, but sometimes I enjoy saying 'nee' to anyone and everyone I see...occasionally I'll ride my holygrailesque horse to class.
is it because I'm hopelessly lame or because Monty Python is the funniest group of people on earth and I'm a bit impressionable yet?
Beavis and Butthead were different from South Park in the sense that all their show had was stupid music videos interjected into boring and alltogether stupid plots.
South Park (particularly the movie), on the other hand, has a little bit of reality in it. It exposes and makes fun of all the inconsistancies in our society (i.e. it's ok to let your kids see tons of senseless violence and killing, but the minute someone says a 'naughty' word (isn't the whole idea of swearing a dumb concept anyway?) or takes their shirt off, then that media has warped their fragile little minds;)
I do have to agree with you though...the Simpsons are the best:)
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Why is 128MB of ram really needed? I can run X, quake2, and be compiling all at once and my system is still perfectly usable even with 64MB of ram. As far as hard drives, I'm getting by just fine with my (IDE)5 gig drive...what am I going to do with the (albeit faster) 20 and 30 gig drives available today? If I had dsl or cable, I might use the space to mirror ftp sites, but I don't have the high speed luxury. Oh, and my viper 330, with it's staggering 4MB of ram, plays quake satisfactorily. Anyway, I seem to have forgotten my original point, so I'm going to take this opportunity to shut up now...
Technically, a cell doesn't have to reproduce itself to be considered alive. Take, for example, a neuron (pretty much my de facto example anymore). Once it reaches maturity and beings to function as a neuron should, it does not go through mitosis. Yet it is very much alive, as it has proton pumps that regulate the amount of K+ and P+ in the cell (necessary for signal transmission), it uses energy (neurotransmitters don't just happen), and it communicates with other cells.
Anyway, just thought I'd elaborate on your post a bit...sorry about the rant...
but hey, as it is these could help people with irregular heartbeat and/or damaged cardiac muscle..
I know I'd rather have a few of these connected with each other and my spinal cord than wait around for a biochemical breakthrough :)
All 50,000+ people out there are busy looting and making asses of themselves? You know damn well that the media is picking and choosing which footage they want to air...and what would you pick if you were in their shoes? A bunch of people sincerely trying to inhibit what they believe to be a bad thing, or some dumbass kids out trying to be noticed by the tv cameras so they can say they've been on tv? The news channels are out to keep people watching so that they can shove their sponsors' advertising down the viewers' throats when the action dies down a little bit. I think that for a sizeable majority of the protesters, the reason they're there is to block something they think is wrong. More power to them; for the idiots out there that are turning this into an angry riot, knock it the hell off and let the people who really care do what they came to do.
Hmmm...that's an interesting thought...I know very very little as to the ways of gravity on life, but I'm wondering if, say, a nitrogen-based life form might exist more easily on a high gravity planet like this? Or would any (even unicellular) life form be pretty much imploded by the extreme gravity?
actually, no I don't. If I don't know each and every chemical used to grow the orange, the name of the guy who grew the orange, the NO3 levels of all the soil within 50 miles of the farm (orchard? grove? Someone help me out here) that the orange grew on, and how much sunlight the orange was exposed to as it grew, i won't eat it.
Sorry...I was thinking more along the lines of socialism. my bad.
Uhm, how is linux a communist OS? It's built by the people, and only includes what the people want in it. Microsoft is much more communistic in the sense that they, not the users, decide what gets into the OS.
I'd rather use IE than netscape, but I'll be damned if I sacrifice the yummy unix goodness of my box for it.
something fairly similar has been done already (dunno if it's on the web, but it's in my intro biology book (Biology, 5th Edition. Campbell.)) with tobacco plants. The neat part is that we can now express the gene in more than one non-native organism. How long until I can get some chloroplats engineered into the membranes of my skin cells?
The whole lawsuit thing would be a great starting point; maybe if some lawsuits would start flying around, the Kansas board of education would change their minds about evolution. That's an entirely different rant, though. Anyway, since, in public schools, your tax money goes toward their funding, why stop at a lawsuit if they're doing something you don't feel is ethical? I know if some test like that was performed on my children, they turned out "differently" from their peers, and then the school started treating them more abrasively than normal, I'd be the first one to pull my tax money out of the state board of education, as well as the first one to replace my children into either a private school or a homeschooling situation. No WAY are my kids going to be unnecessarily mistreated/abused in their school experience.
First off, I didn't even know there was IE for Solaris...anyway, is IE for solaris any good? Or does it take over your desktop there too? I absolutely hate how IE4 decides it owns your desktop environment, and won't use IE until it quits that dumb behavior (or until I put windows on my hd).
Where's the Opera port at in terms of readiness?
Isn't that the sort of thing that drives upgrading and all the rest? Really, if all I was doing was compiling code and doing minimal webserving (nevermind that that's exactly what I'm doing, yet I have a k6-2 300), I'd probably be relatively happy with a 1MB video card and a 486DX. My machine compiles code at a speed that's fast enough for me, so, if I'm looking for benchmarks that have nothing to do with FPS, why would I want to spend all the money on excessive hardware?
anyway, It was just an idea....I think it would be neat if we quit cloning and spent some more time working on isolating the gene(s) that are responsible for mental disorders, multiple schlerosis, alzheimers, etc. From there, we could use our knowledge of genetics that we obtained from cloning to splice non-disease genes in place of the ones that do cause disease...
just my $0.02
Maybe I missed the mark with my point. What I'm thinking is yay, we can clone. Now that we have that much knowledge of DNA and how it works and how to grow random organisms with it, let's focus our attention on altering dna at the gamete stage so that we can ultimately overcome genes that are at least semi-responsible (not like they just up and happen...environment plays a factor too) for any of the mental disorders. Playing god? Yeah, but hey, if it benefits us then I'm all for it! :P
Hmm..this is interesting. However, in light of what's happening to Dolly the sheep (i.e. premature aging), I'd tend to want to play around more with genetic expression. This, I think, is a more beneficial and/or cool way to spend time and money. This is sort of a lame example, in the sense that it doesn't do anything benificial to the plant, but my biology book has a picture of a plant expressing the firefly's light gene...it's a big tobacco plant that's glowing yellow :) Anyway, there are more practical uses for this sort of thing; I know I'd for one like to spend a lot of time manipulating genes that control mental disorders. With only 4 nitrogenous bases in DNA, I can't believe it would be too dificult (once you figured out the respective base sequences) to isolate, say, the depression gene(s) and rearrange their sequences such that you eliminate the genetic predisposition to the depression, and make them immune to chickenpox in the process!
I do have to agree that most current televisions do suck pretty badly as computer monitors. That's pretty obvious. But with things like high definiton tv's, which could actually display an image at a reasonable resolution, that may change. The only other thing that would need changing to make consoles catch up to PC's are upgradeable systems...I know I sure would like a faster cdrom and a more capable video card in my playstation. Yeah, they'll come w/ playstation2, but I have wanted better console performance (and an hdtv ;) for a lot longer than playstation2 has been forthcoming.
I'll take issue with that last sentence...I, for one, am known by my friends as the only person they know that runs Linux. They also seem to think all I do is compile my kernel (they have no real idea what that means, as a general rule). Yes, I do love to tinker with my computer, but I also have other interests; I'm currently a sophomore psychology student at (bleh) the University of North Dakota. I also crave knowledge in the fields of genetics, evolution, cell biology, and theology. Aside from other interests, I have other hobbies too! I love flying my r/c plane, baseball, model railroading, etc.
Yep, I'm a nerd. But I *do* have a life outside of computers. Don't generalize an entire culture of people based on what you know about a few of them.
That being said, I'm wondering how many people realize that the entire original reasoning behind using any sort of mood altering chemical was to allieviate pain or make life better for a person in some way (i.e. the use of marijuana for the relief of pain caused by glaucoma)? This "drugs are bad because they will ruin your life" attitude makes me wonder how society came to accept the overuse and abuse of these otherwise helpful chemicals as a common practice. Is the real problem the bad evil awful chemicals themselves or the society that has allowed misuse of them to become such a problem?
Hey, even the Roman Empire fell....
is it because I'm hopelessly lame or because Monty Python is the funniest group of people on earth and I'm a bit impressionable yet?
South Park (particularly the movie), on the other hand, has a little bit of reality in it. It exposes and makes fun of all the inconsistancies in our society (i.e. it's ok to let your kids see tons of senseless violence and killing, but the minute someone says a 'naughty' word (isn't the whole idea of swearing a dumb concept anyway?) or takes their shirt off, then that media has warped their fragile little minds ;)
I do have to agree with you though...the Simpsons are the best :)