As has been said elsewhere, they fluoresce. That means they absorb light of one wavelength (UV in this case) and emit light of another wavelength (green). So they emit light just like fireflies. It's just that they need to absord light first before emitting it; while the luciferase in a firefly gets the energy for its light emission from an oxidation reaction, so it works in the dark.
The protein that creates this fluorescence, GFP (green fluorescent protein) is an all-natural protein found in undersea organisms. Inserting its gene into the zebrafish genome caused no other changes. We can be as sure about that as I can be that you weren't born with two heads (i.e. almost certain, but there are no absolutes in biology).
It's true that you don't find fluorescent zebrafish in the wild, but then I don't see any poodle-wolves or siamese-lions in the wild either. Every domesticated animal has undergone far, far more extensive genetic modifcation than any molecular biologist can even begin to comprehend. To say nothing of domesticated plants. You think corn looked like that when it was a wild plant? You think bananas didn't have seeds? But instead we worry about adding a single harmless gene to an aquarium fish?
If they're such an abusive, closed monopoly, you must still be using them, right? A company with 3% market share is not, by any absurd stretch, a monopoly. Porsche is not a monopoly because only they make Porsches. (Duh.)
OTOH, a company with 95% market share IS a monopoly, and thanks to some brave progressive politicians in the 1890s and 1900s (TR and others), they have to play by different rules to ensure that their monopoly does not hurt consumers. So yes, all you have to do is shout (i.e. demonstrate in court) "monopolist". Why do I have to tell this to a four-digiter? You're obviously not a 12-year-old troll.
NASA has data that is deteriating before it can be analized
I'll bet those NASA engineers are happy about that data deteriorating before it can be analized. Yeow, just the thought of terabyte upon terabyte of CDs or magnetic tape getting analized by skinny little NASA geeks makes my own anus hurt in sympathy.
It's how their measured. World Bank calculates GDP in local currency and then converts to US dollars using that year's average exchange rate. CIA uses purchasing power parity (PPP), which basically creates a new currency exchange rate based on the relative prices of similar goods in the two countries. The exchange rate probably underestimates China's GDP, since there's a general consensus that the yuan is undervalued vs. the US dollar. PPP underestimates the US's GDP, since everything is more expensive here than in China, but that is all factored out. PPP is probably better for comparing standard of living, but not for judging the total capacity of the economy. A hamburger is a hamburger, but you could import more BMWs with what the US hamburger cost than you could with what the China hamburger cost.
Apple is the vertical monopoly, since it controls a music store, a music application, a music player, and a computer that links them all. Microsoft is the horizontal monopoly, since they control all of Windows, but not any store (below) or any players (above).
Horizontal monopolies are usually illegal, since the company completely controls one market and can easily abuse that power. Vertical monopolies are not, since the company doesn't control any particular market and thus has no power over them. [/nitpick]
I won't comment on your theory, but your GDP numbers are just plain wrong. The US accounts for about one-third of global GDP, not 10% as you suggest. Global GDP per capita is thus around $5000, nowhere near the $18k you suggest. And since 1995, the US has accounted for fully 60% of world GDP growth. The US economy is still the main engine for world growth. I'm not saying anything about how fair or equitable or sustainable that American economic growth has been. And it's good that you're trying to raise some sort of alarm about the dangers of race-to-the-bottom off-shoring. But if you use numbers so absurdly detached from reality as yours, no one will take any argument you make seriously.
I think you hit on the fundamental law of our culture. It's better to be beautiful than rich, smart, athletic, hard-working, or anything else. The only reason I made it through high school, I realize belatedly, is that I was also a reasonbly nice looking, somewhat athletic nerd/geek. I was never picked on, despite displaying all the classic signs of luser nerddom, from math club and science olympiad to hanging out with guidance counselors and playing computer games in the school library during lunch. I never would have had a chance otherwise. I started thinking about this again after watching a bit of Average Joe - a fascinating reflection on the role of beauty in our society.
I think you're joking.:) But if not, it's trivial to reset the passwords if you have an OSX install CD and physical access to the machine. Reset Passwords
By the same token, you could also call the user, impersonate an Apple tech, and ask them to turn on SSH and tell you their username and password. Or, if a user leaves their front door unlocked, you could walk in and remove their computer. Both obviously point to glaring security holes in OSX.
The point, however, is that it's extrememly difficult and/or impossible to write an autonomously propogating virus or worm for OSX that doesn't require active user intervention. Contrast with Windows...
One of the security updates (October, I think) disabled the log-in button on the log-in screen, so you had to hit after typing your password to log in. Apple released an updated update within a week. I think that's the worst wide-spread flaw in any recent Apple update.
Every president since JFK has promised new directions in the space program, but none has delivered the money. I'll believe GWB when he doubles NASA's budget (and the NSF's, for good measure). The sad thing is how little this would cost us.
In 1965 and 1966, the height of the build-up to Apollo, we spent about one-half of one percent of GDP on NASA - about $4.5billion in a $700B economy. How big would NASA's budget be today if we still spent 0.5% of GDP on it? $70B. What is it, actually? About $12B. NSF gets only a few billion a year for basic research in the physical sciences. We could double both for the cost of about two months worth of Iraq occupation. NASA is a rounding error in the DoD's budget. Unless that changes, grand plans for space are just hot air - ain't gonna make it to orbit.
China is a partner in Galileo, because they, quite reasonably, would like access to GPS for military uses without being held hostage by the US. They watched Kosovo and Iraq on TV just like we did, and realize what a strategic disadvantage they're at without GPS to guide their bombs and missles.
The scientists propigating the advances, the medical students that become practitioners that treat world leaders, and the univerities that attract foreign students are all privately funded. They have no bearing on our nation's school system.
You don't seem very famililar with our system of secondary education (and academic research). The vast majority of funding for univerisities, medical school, research, even post-graduate medical training programs (residencies) comes from the US government via your tax dollars. Our world-class universities are publically-financed. Even a place like Yale, with its multi-billion dolar endowment and sky-high tuition, gets more of its operating funds and research dollars from the government than from either tuition or its endowment. And much of the tuition ends up coming from federal financial aid programs and educational tax breaks, anyway.
You might argue that the difference between our world-class public universities and our "crumbling" public primary schools is that the secondary dollars are laregly awarded in competetive block grants, rather than self-renewing dedicated tax levies. But you might also argue the primary education system is just too vast to make competitive funding economically feasible, and that in any event it isn't realistic to fund 1st grade classroom re-paintings with a school levy on the teacher's research grants.
Slashdot Mirror
As has been said elsewhere, they fluoresce. That means they absorb light of one wavelength (UV in this case) and emit light of another wavelength (green). So they emit light just like fireflies. It's just that they need to absord light first before emitting it; while the luciferase in a firefly gets the energy for its light emission from an oxidation reaction, so it works in the dark.
The protein that creates this fluorescence, GFP (green fluorescent protein) is an all-natural protein found in undersea organisms. Inserting its gene into the zebrafish genome caused no other changes. We can be as sure about that as I can be that you weren't born with two heads (i.e. almost certain, but there are no absolutes in biology).
It's true that you don't find fluorescent zebrafish in the wild, but then I don't see any poodle-wolves or siamese-lions in the wild either. Every domesticated animal has undergone far, far more extensive genetic modifcation than any molecular biologist can even begin to comprehend. To say nothing of domesticated plants. You think corn looked like that when it was a wild plant? You think bananas didn't have seeds? But instead we worry about adding a single harmless gene to an aquarium fish?
If they're such an abusive, closed monopoly, you must still be using them, right? A company with 3% market share is not, by any absurd stretch, a monopoly. Porsche is not a monopoly because only they make Porsches. (Duh.)
OTOH, a company with 95% market share IS a monopoly, and thanks to some brave progressive politicians in the 1890s and 1900s (TR and others), they have to play by different rules to ensure that their monopoly does not hurt consumers. So yes, all you have to do is shout (i.e. demonstrate in court) "monopolist". Why do I have to tell this to a four-digiter? You're obviously not a 12-year-old troll.
I'll bet those NASA engineers are happy about that data deteriorating before it can be analized. Yeow, just the thought of terabyte upon terabyte of CDs or magnetic tape getting analized by skinny little NASA geeks makes my own anus hurt in sympathy.
It's how their measured. World Bank calculates GDP in local currency and then converts to US dollars using that year's average exchange rate. CIA uses purchasing power parity (PPP), which basically creates a new currency exchange rate based on the relative prices of similar goods in the two countries. The exchange rate probably underestimates China's GDP, since there's a general consensus that the yuan is undervalued vs. the US dollar. PPP underestimates the US's GDP, since everything is more expensive here than in China, but that is all factored out. PPP is probably better for comparing standard of living, but not for judging the total capacity of the economy. A hamburger is a hamburger, but you could import more BMWs with what the US hamburger cost than you could with what the China hamburger cost.
[nitpick]
I think your axes are mixed up.
Apple is the vertical monopoly, since it controls a music store, a music application, a music player, and a computer that links them all. Microsoft is the horizontal monopoly, since they control all of Windows, but not any store (below) or any players (above).
Horizontal monopolies are usually illegal, since the company completely controls one market and can easily abuse that power. Vertical monopolies are not, since the company doesn't control any particular market and thus has no power over them.
[/nitpick]
I won't comment on your theory, but your GDP numbers are just plain wrong. The US accounts for about one-third of global GDP, not 10% as you suggest. Global GDP per capita is thus around $5000, nowhere near the $18k you suggest. And since 1995, the US has accounted for fully 60% of world GDP growth. The US economy is still the main engine for world growth. I'm not saying anything about how fair or equitable or sustainable that American economic growth has been. And it's good that you're trying to raise some sort of alarm about the dangers of race-to-the-bottom off-shoring. But if you use numbers so absurdly detached from reality as yours, no one will take any argument you make seriously.
Sources are also your friend.
Source: World Bank
I think you hit on the fundamental law of our culture. It's better to be beautiful than rich, smart, athletic, hard-working, or anything else. The only reason I made it through high school, I realize belatedly, is that I was also a reasonbly nice looking, somewhat athletic nerd/geek. I was never picked on, despite displaying all the classic signs of luser nerddom, from math club and science olympiad to hanging out with guidance counselors and playing computer games in the school library during lunch. I never would have had a chance otherwise. I started thinking about this again after watching a bit of Average Joe - a fascinating reflection on the role of beauty in our society.
I think you're joking. :) But if not, it's trivial to reset the passwords if you have an OSX install CD and physical access to the machine.
Reset Passwords
By the same token, you could also call the user, impersonate an Apple tech, and ask them to turn on SSH and tell you their username and password. Or, if a user leaves their front door unlocked, you could walk in and remove their computer. Both obviously point to glaring security holes in OSX.
The point, however, is that it's extrememly difficult and/or impossible to write an autonomously propogating virus or worm for OSX that doesn't require active user intervention. Contrast with Windows...
One of the security updates (October, I think) disabled the log-in button on the log-in screen, so you had to hit after typing your password to log in. Apple released an updated update within a week. I think that's the worst wide-spread flaw in any recent Apple update.
Every president since JFK has promised new directions in the space program, but none has delivered the money. I'll believe GWB when he doubles NASA's budget (and the NSF's, for good measure). The sad thing is how little this would cost us.
In 1965 and 1966, the height of the build-up to Apollo, we spent about one-half of one percent of GDP on NASA - about $4.5billion in a $700B economy. How big would NASA's budget be today if we still spent 0.5% of GDP on it? $70B. What is it, actually? About $12B. NSF gets only a few billion a year for basic research in the physical sciences. We could double both for the cost of about two months worth of Iraq occupation. NASA is a rounding error in the DoD's budget. Unless that changes, grand plans for space are just hot air - ain't gonna make it to orbit.
Show me the money.
Get a clue before posting.
China is a partner in Galileo, because they, quite reasonably, would like access to GPS for military uses without being held hostage by the US. They watched Kosovo and Iraq on TV just like we did, and realize what a strategic disadvantage they're at without GPS to guide their bombs and missles.
You don't seem very famililar with our system of secondary education (and academic research). The vast majority of funding for univerisities, medical school, research, even post-graduate medical training programs (residencies) comes from the US government via your tax dollars. Our world-class universities are publically-financed. Even a place like Yale, with its multi-billion dolar endowment and sky-high tuition, gets more of its operating funds and research dollars from the government than from either tuition or its endowment. And much of the tuition ends up coming from federal financial aid programs and educational tax breaks, anyway.
You might argue that the difference between our world-class public universities and our "crumbling" public primary schools is that the secondary dollars are laregly awarded in competetive block grants, rather than self-renewing dedicated tax levies. But you might also argue the primary education system is just too vast to make competitive funding economically feasible, and that in any event it isn't realistic to fund 1st grade classroom re-paintings with a school levy on the teacher's research grants.
You can hit the green button to shrink the window to console size. Hit it again to go back to full-view.
Actually, according to the people who built it, the $5.2M includes "system itself, memory, storage, and communication fabrics."
http://www.chaosmint.com/mac/vt-supercomputer/
Infrastructure and admin costs are presumably separate, but are also probably shared with other uses.