You might have heard of this fellow by the name of Pat Tillman.
But I don't want to talk about him. I want to tell you about the lab manager at the Chemistry department of City College in San Francisco. He joined up for another reason that I think is far more common. Doug Love is not a "grunt" or an amoral bully. When he was still a student at the very department he now manages, he won the annual scholarship that is awarded by the department to the best performing student in Organic Chemistry for that year. After he transfered and got his 4 year degree, the state of the economy could not support him with suitable employment. He joined the Navy because they were able to help him support his family and clear the debt of his student loans. When I asked him about it recently, he tells me that all soldiers are anti-war because they are the first to get killed and maimed when conflicts break out. Even those who survive are often left with deep psychological problems that prevents them from ever living normal lives. Very few people in this world are blessed with a dream job. This includes many in the armed forces like my hero Doug.
Well MacGuyver's educational value, for me at least. Was showing that there are always a solution to a problem. Every time I think up a non direct solution to a problem because I don't have the proper tools on hand I give a nod to the creators of MacGuyver and RDA specifically. I applaud you for deriving a positive experience out of the show. That is something we both share. However, it seems to me that protagonists who come up with solutions, often creative ones, to encountered problems are essentially the staples of every drama show featuring any kind of trained professionals be they cops, soldiers, lawyers or doctors. MacGuyver was not unique in that regard as a resourceful character who thinks outside of the box. What made him special for me was that he was able to succeed with what at first glance seem to be such poverty of resources. To contrast his fictional situations with other shows of the period:
*Captain Picard and the crew of the enterprise would always rely on some cool fictional future technology to help resolve their issues.
*Jim Phelps and the mission:impossible gang often uses incredible spy tools of misdirection that no one except spies can access.
But as the joke goes, MacGuyver solves the same problem with duct tape, paper clips, and tube socks. Occasionally, his antics pushes the bounds of believability - which is okay for a fictional drama series. But it *IS* a fictional drama series - not a documentary - and as such is is entertaining and enjoyable in it's own right. Which brings me the my original point: that I wished there were more shows like it.
Well gosh, all the major broadcasters would simply *die* if you're not happy. Luckily they all stay in business by staying away from shows like dramas that you don't believe in. Honestly what does that have to do with the subject at hand? I was trying to say something about the subject matter of what is on TV and character portrayal of a particular profession. If you're offended by the presentation style, you're missing the point of my comment. If I recall correctly, we're talking about how the application of science/technology is featured on the screen and the creativity of writers in the context of MacGyver.
In all seriousness, I think you might be posting to this thread by mistake. Might your perspective be more relevant in the earlier submitted story " Science Documentaries for Youngsters?" I mean, unless you wish to explain yourself further, I don't know how many people here would agree that MacGyver has *that* much educational value for young children. I remember reading somewhere that the show runners always intentionally leave out a critical component in all of MacGyver's creative solutions exactly because they didn't want kids to successfully copy what they see and hurt someone or something.
Yes, I have heard of those channels.
But unless you have access to some strange new premium service, not once has any of those channels ever taken a stab at a drama series. In the same way, "From Earth to the Moon" was very much based on the history Apollo missions. It really wouldn't have worked for the mini-series had the writers taken too much liberties with historic facts. How about creating something different where competent writers are give free reigns to truly explore new territory? The closest realization of what I had in mind comes from the BBC when they did a docu-fiction called "Space Odyssey: Voyage to the Planets" about what it would be like to the the solar system "Grand Tour" voyager-style but with a manned spacecraft.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/pressoffice/pressreleases/stories/2004/10_october/13/space.shtml
I remembered this show very well because they used the fictional nature of the presentation to tackle some serious issues such as, risk management, astronaut safety vs. scientific objectives, death of a crew member far from home, etc. that the current state of space exploration has not yet dealt with. It was a fun and exciting show and I wish there were more like it.
You know, I've never understood why they didn't take the idea behind MacGyver and run with it in the same way you've mentioned those show about all those other professionals. How come there has never been a show about engineers? As of late, CSI has been exceptional and unique in portraying folks trained in science who applying it in exciting ways to uncover mysteries and provide insights. But imagine telling the story of how "Spirit" and "Opportunity" were designed and following the drama of the Mars Exploration Rover from testing, construction, launch, en route, landing, and finally exploration of the red planet. There is a story worth telling behind amazingly beautiful pictures like this that are so familiar and identifiable by at the same time so utterly alien.
Alas, the forecast thus far for the San Francisco Bay Area is currently "mostly cloudy" for Wednesday as well. However, should we get a lucky break with any moments of clear sky, the Astronomy department at City College of San Francisco will host anyone who care to venture to the roof of the Science Building for a view of the event. We'll have telescopes set up for folks who'd want a closer look at the craters and maria.
The Science Building is at the main campus at 50 Phelan Avenue. It is the only one on the hill with a dome on the roof - you can't miss it. Don't be to startled at all the construction and landscaping work going on. It wouldn't affect your enjoyment of the moon.
....."phantom matter", would have negative energy and negative mass, causing it to exert a repulsive effect. It would be identical to the qualities that Kip Thorne postulated.
....transition effects inside the Evince document viewer.... I'm not at all sure what this is, but there is one thing that I hope Evince will be improved on. When used to view some PDF documents with Chinese fonts, the text comes across as terribly mangled. Though readable with great effort, the rendering is very coarse with inconsistent line widths. I may not be speaking for a large number of affected users. However, Gnome under Ubuntu for me has been indespensible as the computing plateform of choice for my retiree father. Those of us living in the US have difficult choices in the way of foreign language text suppport in the Windows camp. Available retail OS from MS in the US target primarily English users. Alternatively, for me at least, the Multilingual User Interface add-on from MS has been a pain to deal with. Contrast this with Ubuntu, where a default install in the language of one's choice provides everything (dialog boxes, menu options, etc.) in one's native language - the choice is a no-brainer. Since deploying Gnome/Ubuntu on my father's box, he's been considerably more happy and I've cut down dramatically on time/effort spent on troubleshooting, support, and computer tutoring. But as my encounter with certain PDFs show, there is still a lot of room for improvement.
dude,
I think you are in the wrong thread. I was talking about helping my dad at home. I don't do PC tech support for a living. Maybe what you say makes sense, I don't know. It remains to be seen if any of us are Einsteins, but at least I think *you* should at least read /. before posting.
Thank you for understanding the gravity of my problem. I'm only able to reinstall from the restore partition that comes with the computer. Which puts me back at square one since the thing is preinstalled
well, I once heard a space hooker say that it takes less than a pound of pressure to slice through human flesh...or something like that. I'm afraid to wonder about her clientele.
Well...yes. Haha and all that. What about us poor suckers who have the unenviable task of supporting systems with Symantec preinstalled? My father was given an HP a year ago running this piece of crap on XP and it has given me no shortage of headaches. The fucker takes ages to boot up and more than half the time it refuses to acknowledge the network. I got so tired of wasting time with the damn thing I gave him a lesser box running Ubuntu. Not a word of complaint since. Still, I keep the HP around because it has some other software that makes me reluctant to hose it. It'd be nice to hear how others have come up with good ways to solve the problem *without* avoiding it in the first place.
...then the answer is probably no. An exception to this is a type of mutation called a "point insertion". It is a type of mistake that can happen during DNA replication where one (very VERY rarely more than one) extra nucleotide gets shuffled into a sequence as it is being constructed from a parent template. This has an effect called a "frame shift". The way it normally works, the genetic code consists of 3-letter "words" that describe how to string together a bunch of amino acids to form the protein building block of life. A "frame shift" corrupts the "sentence" those "words" form. Whee nhuman srea d ama-lforme dsentenc, we can usually figure out the correct meaning, but the molecular processes happening in our cells can't always handle it correctly and this sometimes causes problems.
I would call these new sequences of DNA... Be careful how you talk about these things. You run the risk of getting trapped in semantic gibberish. How do *you* intend to use this term, "new sequences of DNA"? Geneticist have developed very precise language to describe the features they encounter in the course of doing their research. I'm sure you have good intentions born out of genuine curiosity in voicing a comment. But to ask a meaningful question, on must try to converse with the same terminology.
...what about insertions? There exists a feature called a transposon , also known as a "jumping gene" that has the curious ability to move around to different places in the organism's genome. Is this the kind of "insertion" you were thinking about? Discovery of this feature earned Barbara McClintock a Nobel Prize in 1983.
Shouldn't "new" nucleotides occasionally have been found as well? If you mean "new" nucleotides by genetic information that just comes out of thin air, then the answer is probably no. I apologize if I misunderstand you. Admittedly, this seems like a attempt by me to construct a "straw man argument", but this is one of the biggest misconceptions people have about how evolution works. The important thing to remember is, it (evolution) MUST HAVE SOMETHING TO WORK ON. In other words, mutation doesn't mutate thin air, there has to be genetic material to undergo mutation. An organism doesn't gain a cool new trait as a result of some previously non-existent DNA suddenly materializing within the genome. Often, (but by no means always) new useful features arise as a consequence of mutations in one of several copies of the same gene. The new feature confers some useful function that is different from the function of the pre-mutated gene. But because there are other copies of the old gene around, no (critical/useful) function is lost to the organism. Sometimes, however, genetic material may come from outside sources. Some viruses and bacterias are good examples. A retrovirus like HIV will actually insert it's own DNA directly into the chromosomes in your cells with special DNA splicing proteins. In a sense, the added virus DNA sequence can be considered "new" nucleotides. But again, it all depends on how you talk about it.
I agree with you whole heartedly in principle. And I think it is a shame that it takes an honest voice like yours to declare the nudity shaming the materialistic retards among us. But your comments risk being misconstrued. Yes, people are being stupid when living beyond their means, but the point of a bail out wouldn't be exclusively about helping those idiots keeping their houses. It also helps stabilize the financial landscape for the rest of us.
When people default on their payments, the financial institutions who own those debts suffer losses on expected earnings. Those who have stakes in the performance of those institutions (pensions, mutual funds, and other investors who own stocks in those companies) are thus similarly affected by those losses. The financial relationships are often convoluted beyond any sensible man's comprehension. But because we are all intimately linked together via the "butterfly effect" of global financial transactions, the ripple of consequences reach far and wide. If enough people, regardless of who or where they are, had bought McLarens and Lamborghinis in bad judgement, it doesn't matter if you want them to fuck off and die, you'll still feel the effect of their rash decisions when you check the interest rate on your own bank accounts or apply for a loan of your own.
The tone of your comments suggests you're older than I am. You're likely more wise to the things I just mentioned than I am. So I jsut want to make it clear that I don't mean at all to belittle the point you're making. Any stabilization efforts of a bail out will still be of greater benefit to the stupid borrowers than it will be to the rest of us sensible middle/working class. That doesn't seem very fair. But to me, it seems like lending institutions and financial entities are at least partly to blame for this mess. Like you said, the whole lot of them are greedy. When recklessly and irresponsibly pushing their "high risk/high return" earning projections to the breaking point, they're just as much to blame as the borrowers who don't think(care) about meeting their obligations. And what of rich investors egging them on in the pursuit of higher stock prices? Truly there is enough blame to go around. You might for instance also ask why the feds didn't nip this in the bud and put in place some guidelines to cool the relationship between lender and borrower or restrict the market in some other way. It would be easy and comforting to point fingers and just be done with identifying the morons for causing this mess. But I think we're all a little to blame even if (or perhaps exactly because) we didn't do anything.
I find it somewhat amusing that the part of Pennsylvania where this occurred is right next to Dover where we had that embarrassing ID circus show some while back. Maybe there is something in the water suppressing common-sense/critical-thinking/open-mindedness? I'm sure there is a much more clever joke to be told here but I'm not cynical enough to deliver it.
As you said, you are not a biologist. Leukemia is a type of cancer, and I specifically excluded cancer in my post. This research may be relevant to cancer (ONLY, in my opinion). However it's not the Holy Grail it is presented as.
If this leads to advancement in the treatment of cancer (even if only cancer), I think many would consider it to be a holy grail enough. But then, to the credit of the article's author, no where in the article did they allude to this research result being a Panacea for all of humanity's ills. I may not have a biology degree (yet) but I don't have to in order to understand the article. However, I'm a bit confused by your comprehension of the article. You seem to be under the impression that an imprinted gene leads to a single affected cell being damaged/killed and that is of no consequence. That's not what the article is talking about at all. Genomic imprinting happens during the formation of gametes which means the entire organism which develops is affected. What is relevant to the article is that the *consequences* of genomic imprinting for an organism which has no insurance policy to handle the environmental influences on it's development. If environmental factors *are* of consequence, you can bet that the effect is not going to be felt by just a single cell or affect just a single gene. In other worlds, if, for example, you diet is to be considered a risk factor, every cell (all containing the same allele of the imprinted genome) in you entire body is going to be subjected to what you eat. But since most diseases are not caused or controlled by a single gene, we can only speak of raised or lowered risk due to the nature of exposure. The article specifically mention that "imprinted genes are in regions of chromosomes already *linked* to the development of obesity, diabetes, cancer and some other major diseases". They never said such are the definitive causes of such diseases.
There are many stem cells in the bone marrow and wiping one of those cells out will not lead to aplasia. And we're talking about millions of cells getting the exact same gene damaged - in theory. Now what are the odds of THAT?
Are we talking about the same stem cells? If a damaged progenitor cell gives rise to mature lineage cells of the circulatory system, it seems certain that the odds of those decedents all having the same gene damage are 100%. If environmental exposure can cause one cell to acquire genetic damage, the odds are that is not an isolated occurrence and you will end up with defective cells from far more than just one mutated stem cell. Health hazards would not called that if they affect only one or two cells would they?
....and becomes less functional, but this has nothing to do with malfunctioning genes.
In another post, you made mention of being "able to identify non-desirable traits that are more likely to be passed on to offspring" and "inherited a non-functional gene for the GLUT-2 glucose transporter". If this is your notion of gene imprinting, you don't really understand the process at all. Imprinting is an epigentic process (as someone else has already mentioned). It is a non-sequential manipulation of gene expression that doesn't alter the gene itself. The affected gene is turned on/off through methylation but is otherwise completely intact and functional. In fact, in each generation, the old imprints are "erased" in the gamete-producing cells and the chromosomes of developing gametes are newly imprinted according to the sex of the individual. For a given species, the imprinting pattern always follow a consistent maternal/paternal line generation after generation. But nowhere does the process of imprinting destroy or damage the gene itself.
IANAB, but perhaps you're overlooking environmental factors that influence gene expression and are potentially damaging to normal cellular functions. Also, cancers and oncogenes would be the rule rather than the exception as it is notorious for doing the exact kind of thing this research is aiming to treat. Think if you will, of a smoker who's been dumping craploads of toxins and mutagens onto his/her lung tissue for years at a time. It won't be just one or two cells that mutate or die. Also, if the gene that fails happens to be in one or two of those bone marrow cells that are responsible for churning out blood cells and/or maintaining your immune system, you're risk of developing leukemia increases dramatically. Because since cancer is essentially uncontrolled cell growth, it will quickly overwhelm any normal body functions if not stopped.
From the article, a bit more pertinent background:
Usually, people inherit a copy of each gene from each parent and both copies are active, programmed to do their jobs whenever needed. If one copy of a gene becomes mutated and quits working properly, often the other copy can compensate.
Genetic imprinting knocks out that backup. It means that for some genes, people inherit an active copy only from the mother or only from the father. Molecular signals tell, or "imprint," the copy from the other parent to be silent.
Wow! I've rarely had the experience of someone taking words out of my mouth, but you've come awfully close. I mostly agree with you in principle, but practically speaking, my opinion diverge a bit. (But as we will soon see, that may well be due to my own inexperience.)
- Start reading to them VERY YOUNG.
I was reading on my own before the age of three and have had a life long adoration for literature. How did I learn to read? Simple. My mom read a book to me EVERY NIGHT as far back as I can remember (and then even before that) and let me follow along with her as she pointed to each word she read. Eventually, I didn't need her to do that anymore and I would toddle off into a corner with a stack of books on my own.
I have a nephew who is five years old now. But ever since he came into our lives, I've been keen to develop in him a strong interest in literature/reading with the help of his mother. I remember in particular during his birthday a year or two ago, I gave him a present I'd been dying for him to have for a long time. "Harold and the Purple Crayon" had a huge influence on me when I was young because it fostered the joy and excitement of imagination and creation of ideas in the most pure and simple way. I bought him the 50th anniversary edition in the hope that it would instill in him the same spirit that led me to become an engineer. It was a little disappointing when he ripped open the wrappings and promptly took a *much* greater interest in "Finding Nemo" t-shirt his other aunt got him. Over time however, he warmed up to the book. He began asking me to read it to him over and over again and when we finished the last page, he would sigh with melancholy and it was as if he'd lost a good friend. I was thrilled that it was possible for me to evoke such a response in him and had high hopes for introducing him to some of the more fruitful endeavors that humanity has to offer a young mind like his. but as years went by, our effort to encourage useful qualities in him backfired in rather unexpected ways. He began loosing interest in *reading* books and began more and more to *hoard* books. They became objectified and possession became more important. No longer did he ask me to read to him, but the first thing he tells me when I see him is that he *has*/*owns* such and such. When I bring him to the library, he would snatch certain books he recognize which most often turns out the be ones we've already bought him. It was as if his sense of curiosity just disappeared.
- Allow your children to engage you in intellectual conversations. The worst thing you can do is, when your child starts a conversation or asks questions or wants to give you their thoughts on a topic, is slough it off or reply with only the vaguest of attention. No, you can't give your child constant un-divided attention. Your child needs to know that talking and debating and sharing thoughts and opinions and information is valued, encouraged and important. If all you engage each other in is conversations about last night's episode of your favorite sit-com, your kid is going to learn that consuming entertainment and keeping your mouth shut is what matters.
This is *a lot* harder than it sounds. Sometimes, their unsullied innocence can be very penetrating and stop you dead in your tracks when you try to talk about something that is the result not of intellectual insight but social convention, opportunistic circumstances, or just plain triviality. Let's be honest, most of the time, we don't think too much or deeply about the intellectual justification behind something as routine and trivial as bathroom etiquette. Why do we close the door behind us while we're on the can and desire not to be disturbed when it is okay to barge in and help him wipe his bottom when he is doing potty? and how do we transition from that to the need for operating two switches when watching DVD but only one when watching broadcast television? It can also be very hard to exp
Hmmm... I remember scrotum sacks are cooler than the rest of the human body, but what about breasts? Oh wait, nevermind - I just remembered that this is slashdot.
Actually I was just being facetious. But I am curious to know the current state of ham radio in other parts of the world. Has anyone ever exchanged QSL with someone in Burma? Might be a good time for state-side hams to start listening and do some credit to the amateur radio discipline.
Taking a stand should always be applauded as an act of courage. However, I think brandishing one's wallet in this case is a hollow gesture that is far from the impact a real nerd can make on these events. Money comes and goes but knowledge and information moves the spirit and changes regimes. I think it would be far more effective for those of us with the technical know-how to exercise our convictions by aiding those inside Burma to get the word out(and in) by circumventing the censorship that has been put in place by the Junta. The monks and other who've been arrested (or killed) are not going to be relieved if China sells one less laptop. But realization the world over (including Burma's own citizens) of what is going on will make it that much harder for the military to wield legitimate power.
Slashdot Mirror
Patriotism?
You might have heard of this fellow by the name of Pat Tillman.
But I don't want to talk about him. I want to tell you about the lab manager at the Chemistry department of City College in San Francisco. He joined up for another reason that I think is far more common. Doug Love is not a "grunt" or an amoral bully. When he was still a student at the very department he now manages, he won the annual scholarship that is awarded by the department to the best performing student in Organic Chemistry for that year. After he transfered and got his 4 year degree, the state of the economy could not support him with suitable employment. He joined the Navy because they were able to help him support his family and clear the debt of his student loans. When I asked him about it recently, he tells me that all soldiers are anti-war because they are the first to get killed and maimed when conflicts break out. Even those who survive are often left with deep psychological problems that prevents them from ever living normal lives. Very few people in this world are blessed with a dream job. This includes many in the armed forces like my hero Doug.
I think we should offer that girl, credited as Raven, a complementary slashdot account.
Well gosh, all the major broadcasters would simply *die* if you're not happy. Luckily they all stay in business by staying away from shows like dramas that you don't believe in. Honestly what does that have to do with the subject at hand? I was trying to say something about the subject matter of what is on TV and character portrayal of a particular profession. If you're offended by the presentation style, you're missing the point of my comment. If I recall correctly, we're talking about how the application of science/technology is featured on the screen and the creativity of writers in the context of MacGyver.
In all seriousness, I think you might be posting to this thread by mistake. Might your perspective be more relevant in the earlier submitted story " Science Documentaries for Youngsters?" I mean, unless you wish to explain yourself further, I don't know how many people here would agree that MacGyver has *that* much educational value for young children. I remember reading somewhere that the show runners always intentionally leave out a critical component in all of MacGyver's creative solutions exactly because they didn't want kids to successfully copy what they see and hurt someone or something.
Yes, I have heard of those channels. But unless you have access to some strange new premium service, not once has any of those channels ever taken a stab at a drama series. In the same way, "From Earth to the Moon" was very much based on the history Apollo missions. It really wouldn't have worked for the mini-series had the writers taken too much liberties with historic facts. How about creating something different where competent writers are give free reigns to truly explore new territory? The closest realization of what I had in mind comes from the BBC when they did a docu-fiction called "Space Odyssey: Voyage to the Planets" about what it would be like to the the solar system "Grand Tour" voyager-style but with a manned spacecraft. http://www.bbc.co.uk/pressoffice/pressreleases/stories/2004/10_october/13/space.shtml I remembered this show very well because they used the fictional nature of the presentation to tackle some serious issues such as, risk management, astronaut safety vs. scientific objectives, death of a crew member far from home, etc. that the current state of space exploration has not yet dealt with. It was a fun and exciting show and I wish there were more like it.
You know, I've never understood why they didn't take the idea behind MacGyver and run with it in the same way you've mentioned those show about all those other professionals. How come there has never been a show about engineers? As of late, CSI has been exceptional and unique in portraying folks trained in science who applying it in exciting ways to uncover mysteries and provide insights. But imagine telling the story of how "Spirit" and "Opportunity" were designed and following the drama of the Mars Exploration Rover from testing, construction, launch, en route, landing, and finally exploration of the red planet. There is a story worth telling behind amazingly beautiful pictures like this that are so familiar and identifiable by at the same time so utterly alien.
Alas, the forecast thus far for the San Francisco Bay Area is currently "mostly cloudy" for Wednesday as well. However, should we get a lucky break with any moments of clear sky, the Astronomy department at City College of San Francisco will host anyone who care to venture to the roof of the Science Building for a view of the event. We'll have telescopes set up for folks who'd want a closer look at the craters and maria.
The Science Building is at the main campus at 50 Phelan Avenue. It is the only one on the hill with a dome on the roof - you can't miss it. Don't be to startled at all the construction and landscaping work going on. It wouldn't affect your enjoyment of the moon.
....."phantom matter", would have negative energy and negative mass, causing it to exert a repulsive effect. It would be identical to the qualities that Kip Thorne postulated.how odd. It is so strange to see a story like this not tagged as "whatcouldpossiblygowrong".
....transition effects inside the Evince document viewer.... I'm not at all sure what this is, but there is one thing that I hope Evince will be improved on. When used to view some PDF documents with Chinese fonts, the text comes across as terribly mangled. Though readable with great effort, the rendering is very coarse with inconsistent line widths. I may not be speaking for a large number of affected users. However, Gnome under Ubuntu for me has been indespensible as the computing plateform of choice for my retiree father. Those of us living in the US have difficult choices in the way of foreign language text suppport in the Windows camp. Available retail OS from MS in the US target primarily English users. Alternatively, for me at least, the Multilingual User Interface add-on from MS has been a pain to deal with. Contrast this with Ubuntu, where a default install in the language of one's choice provides everything (dialog boxes, menu options, etc.) in one's native language - the choice is a no-brainer. Since deploying Gnome/Ubuntu on my father's box, he's been considerably more happy and I've cut down dramatically on time/effort spent on troubleshooting, support, and computer tutoring. But as my encounter with certain PDFs show, there is still a lot of room for improvement.dude, I think you are in the wrong thread. I was talking about helping my dad at home. I don't do PC tech support for a living. Maybe what you say makes sense, I don't know. It remains to be seen if any of us are Einsteins, but at least I think *you* should at least read /. before posting.
Thank you for understanding the gravity of my problem. I'm only able to reinstall from the restore partition that comes with the computer. Which puts me back at square one since the thing is preinstalled
well, I once heard a space hooker say that it takes less than a pound of pressure to slice through human flesh...or something like that. I'm afraid to wonder about her clientele.
Well...yes.
Haha and all that.
What about us poor suckers who have the unenviable task of supporting systems with Symantec preinstalled? My father was given an HP a year ago running this piece of crap on XP and it has given me no shortage of headaches. The fucker takes ages to boot up and more than half the time it refuses to acknowledge the network. I got so tired of wasting time with the damn thing I gave him a lesser box running Ubuntu. Not a word of complaint since. Still, I keep the HP around because it has some other software that makes me reluctant to hose it. It'd be nice to hear how others have come up with good ways to solve the problem *without* avoiding it in the first place.
...then the answer is probably no. An exception to this is a type of mutation called a "point insertion". It is a type of mistake that can happen during DNA replication where one (very VERY rarely more than one) extra nucleotide gets shuffled into a sequence as it is being constructed from a parent template. This has an effect called a "frame shift". The way it normally works, the genetic code consists of 3-letter "words" that describe how to string together a bunch of amino acids to form the protein building block of life. A "frame shift" corrupts the "sentence" those "words" form. Whee nhuman srea d ama-lforme dsentenc, we can usually figure out the correct meaning, but the molecular processes happening in our cells can't always handle it correctly and this sometimes causes problems.
...what about insertions? There exists a feature called a transposon , also known as a "jumping gene" that has the curious ability to move around to different places in the organism's genome. Is this the kind of "insertion" you were thinking about? Discovery of this feature earned Barbara McClintock a Nobel Prize in 1983. Shouldn't "new" nucleotides occasionally have been found as well? If you mean "new" nucleotides by genetic information that just comes out of thin air, then the answer is probably no. I apologize if I misunderstand you. Admittedly, this seems like a attempt by me to construct a "straw man argument", but this is one of the biggest misconceptions people have about how evolution works. The important thing to remember is, it (evolution) MUST HAVE SOMETHING TO WORK ON. In other words, mutation doesn't mutate thin air, there has to be genetic material to undergo mutation. An organism doesn't gain a cool new trait as a result of some previously non-existent DNA suddenly materializing within the genome. Often, (but by no means always) new useful features arise as a consequence of mutations in one of several copies of the same gene. The new feature confers some useful function that is different from the function of the pre-mutated gene. But because there are other copies of the old gene around, no (critical/useful) function is lost to the organism. Sometimes, however, genetic material may come from outside sources. Some viruses and bacterias are good examples. A retrovirus like HIV will actually insert it's own DNA directly into the chromosomes in your cells with special DNA splicing proteins. In a sense, the added virus DNA sequence can be considered "new" nucleotides. But again, it all depends on how you talk about it.I agree with you whole heartedly in principle. And I think it is a shame that it takes an honest voice like yours to declare the nudity shaming the materialistic retards among us. But your comments risk being misconstrued. Yes, people are being stupid when living beyond their means, but the point of a bail out wouldn't be exclusively about helping those idiots keeping their houses. It also helps stabilize the financial landscape for the rest of us.
When people default on their payments, the financial institutions who own those debts suffer losses on expected earnings. Those who have stakes in the performance of those institutions (pensions, mutual funds, and other investors who own stocks in those companies) are thus similarly affected by those losses. The financial relationships are often convoluted beyond any sensible man's comprehension. But because we are all intimately linked together via the "butterfly effect" of global financial transactions, the ripple of consequences reach far and wide. If enough people, regardless of who or where they are, had bought McLarens and Lamborghinis in bad judgement, it doesn't matter if you want them to fuck off and die, you'll still feel the effect of their rash decisions when you check the interest rate on your own bank accounts or apply for a loan of your own.
The tone of your comments suggests you're older than I am. You're likely more wise to the things I just mentioned than I am. So I jsut want to make it clear that I don't mean at all to belittle the point you're making. Any stabilization efforts of a bail out will still be of greater benefit to the stupid borrowers than it will be to the rest of us sensible middle/working class. That doesn't seem very fair. But to me, it seems like lending institutions and financial entities are at least partly to blame for this mess. Like you said, the whole lot of them are greedy. When recklessly and irresponsibly pushing their "high risk/high return" earning projections to the breaking point, they're just as much to blame as the borrowers who don't think(care) about meeting their obligations. And what of rich investors egging them on in the pursuit of higher stock prices? Truly there is enough blame to go around. You might for instance also ask why the feds didn't nip this in the bud and put in place some guidelines to cool the relationship between lender and borrower or restrict the market in some other way. It would be easy and comforting to point fingers and just be done with identifying the morons for causing this mess. But I think we're all a little to blame even if (or perhaps exactly because) we didn't do anything.
I find it somewhat amusing that the part of Pennsylvania where this occurred is right next to Dover where we had that embarrassing ID circus show some while back. Maybe there is something in the water suppressing common-sense/critical-thinking/open-mindedness? I'm sure there is a much more clever joke to be told here but I'm not cynical enough to deliver it.
IANAB, but perhaps you're overlooking environmental factors that influence gene expression and are potentially damaging to normal cellular functions. Also, cancers and oncogenes would be the rule rather than the exception as it is notorious for doing the exact kind of thing this research is aiming to treat. Think if you will, of a smoker who's been dumping craploads of toxins and mutagens onto his/her lung tissue for years at a time. It won't be just one or two cells that mutate or die. Also, if the gene that fails happens to be in one or two of those bone marrow cells that are responsible for churning out blood cells and/or maintaining your immune system, you're risk of developing leukemia increases dramatically. Because since cancer is essentially uncontrolled cell growth, it will quickly overwhelm any normal body functions if not stopped.
I have a nephew who is five years old now. But ever since he came into our lives, I've been keen to develop in him a strong interest in literature/reading with the help of his mother. I remember in particular during his birthday a year or two ago, I gave him a present I'd been dying for him to have for a long time. "Harold and the Purple Crayon" had a huge influence on me when I was young because it fostered the joy and excitement of imagination and creation of ideas in the most pure and simple way. I bought him the 50th anniversary edition in the hope that it would instill in him the same spirit that led me to become an engineer. It was a little disappointing when he ripped open the wrappings and promptly took a *much* greater interest in "Finding Nemo" t-shirt his other aunt got him. Over time however, he warmed up to the book. He began asking me to read it to him over and over again and when we finished the last page, he would sigh with melancholy and it was as if he'd lost a good friend. I was thrilled that it was possible for me to evoke such a response in him and had high hopes for introducing him to some of the more fruitful endeavors that humanity has to offer a young mind like his. but as years went by, our effort to encourage useful qualities in him backfired in rather unexpected ways. He began loosing interest in *reading* books and began more and more to *hoard* books. They became objectified and possession became more important. No longer did he ask me to read to him, but the first thing he tells me when I see him is that he *has*/*owns* such and such. When I bring him to the library, he would snatch certain books he recognize which most often turns out the be ones we've already bought him. It was as if his sense of curiosity just disappeared.
This is *a lot* harder than it sounds. Sometimes, their unsullied innocence can be very penetrating and stop you dead in your tracks when you try to talk about something that is the result not of intellectual insight but social convention, opportunistic circumstances, or just plain triviality. Let's be honest, most of the time, we don't think too much or deeply about the intellectual justification behind something as routine and trivial as bathroom etiquette. Why do we close the door behind us while we're on the can and desire not to be disturbed when it is okay to barge in and help him wipe his bottom when he is doing potty? and how do we transition from that to the need for operating two switches when watching DVD but only one when watching broadcast television? It can also be very hard to exp
Hmmm... I remember scrotum sacks are cooler than the rest of the human body, but what about breasts? Oh wait, nevermind - I just remembered that this is slashdot.
Actually I was just being facetious. But I am curious to know the current state of ham radio in other parts of the world. Has anyone ever exchanged QSL with someone in Burma? Might be a good time for state-side hams to start listening and do some credit to the amateur radio discipline.
Taking a stand should always be applauded as an act of courage. However, I think brandishing one's wallet in this case is a hollow gesture that is far from the impact a real nerd can make on these events. Money comes and goes but knowledge and information moves the spirit and changes regimes. I think it would be far more effective for those of us with the technical know-how to exercise our convictions by aiding those inside Burma to get the word out(and in) by circumventing the censorship that has been put in place by the Junta. The monks and other who've been arrested (or killed) are not going to be relieved if China sells one less laptop. But realization the world over (including Burma's own citizens) of what is going on will make it that much harder for the military to wield legitimate power.