Are you suggesting that the Theory of Evolution is more solid than electronics?
Yes. Some electronic devices work, some don't -- but no matter what antibiotic you want to use, bacteria will evolve resistance. This isn't a matter of faith. Perhaps evolution was only a theory in Darwin's day, but you can sequence bacteria from a culture before exposure to antibiotics and after and you'll see genetic change -- that's evolution. Evolution's an experimental science now.
People involved in clinical research do all the normal "sciencey" things -- perform experiments, write papers for peer reviewed journals, and -- *yes* -- they do care why methods work. Yes, it's applied research, but physicists who are trying to design and build fusion reactors are still scientists too, no?
Practicing physicians on the other hand, while they may keep in touch with current research (perhaps skimming the New England Journal of Medicine or Lancet) aren't scientists in any real sense of the term, although they certainly use science in their work. It's a bit like the difference between a chemist and a chemical engineer.
The way to authenticity is not through "authorities" but through peer review. Freud is a perfect example -- there's a reason why he published most of his stuff in books (which need merely to sell well) rather than in peer reviewed journals -- even in his own time most scientists realized that babblings about "penis envy" by the juvenile-minded Freud weren't science and couldn't have stood up to the peer review process. And the fact is Wikipedia is far closer to the scientific model of peer review than is Britannica.
You couldn't have a race that was capable of fixing a hyperdrive fighting its wars with sticks and rocks!
I don't see why not. After all, humans have both advanced cultures capable of computers and rockets and primitive ones that can't even count beyond three.
Copyright law is over? You have to be kidding. Yes, the RIAA and MPAA and similar groups are greedy jerks, and so on and so forth, and the Creative Commons is noble and wonderful and all that, but the fact is big business has power. I really expect that we'll see a "war on piracy" that's quite similar to the current "war on drugs". Sure, it can't be "won", and piracy will continue, but people *will* go to jail, and what's more a majority of non-technologically oriented people will think it's a good thing ("those pirates are trying to destroy HOLLYWOOD! Throw the book at 'em")
Also, I seem to remember that back in the 1980's Logitech not only sold mice but Modula-2 compilers as well. Modula-2 was a followup language to Pascal that fixed many of the problems Pascal had, but it never really caught on.
Java? Flash? I've seen lots of animated gifs in educational contexts -- showing how changing parameters affects a curve, for example. Yes, Java and Flash can be used, although they tend to be sluggish to load and crash browsers not infrequently,
While many gurus like to suggest that Hinduism is all smiles and laughter -- it ain't so. Read about the Thugee, who were particularly nasty worshipers of the Hindu Goddess Kali.
As one poster has already mentioned, sovmusic.ru has some nice examples, including Paul Robeson (Yes, Mr. "Ol' Man River" himself) doing a rendition of the Soviet National Anthem in English translation.
Because I know some German, I enjoy the East German stuff more, but lately East German nostalgia has become a big business among German "Generation X" types and it's harder to find free songs on the net. If you know German at all, there's an album called "Die Partei Hat Immer Recht" ("The Party is always right") which collects the best of the East German propaganda songs. You can buy it from Amazon.de (the German version of Amazon.com)
I'm sorry, where does it say that you're not a patriot if you're left wing?
Exactly. Look at Soviet and East German songs -- they can't seem to get a verse out without mentioning "Socialist Motherland" (in Soviet songs) or "sozialistischen Vaterland" (in East German songs). Patriotism and Nationalism are found on both sides of the political spectrum -- in fact, particularly at the sides of the spectrum -- most moderates find excessive flag waving more amusing than inspiring.
Scouts have nothing to do with the military, or military structure.
Read up on the history of scouting -- among other interesting things the first Boy Scout manual was none other than a British Army manual, and the Boy Scouts originated from a paramilitary organization for boys (the Mafeking Cadet Corps) during the Boer War.
As a former scout, I'm unhappy to hear that there was a U.S. Army booth and this game at a scouting event. The Scouts prohibit war games, and scout troops cannot, for example, play paintball. Looks like this line may be eroded in some places.
Er, you *do* realize the whole *point* of Scouting is to familiarize youth with military culture, don't you? Why do you think that had you wear pseudo-military uniforms, with patches indicating your rank, and why you were organized as *troops* for crying out loud?
I've always thought it would be fun to write a homebrewed MAME game, but has anyone really documented it for any driver in particular? It isn't just about knowing Z80 (or whatever CPU) ASM -- you would have to know how to handle sound, graphics, and input for the emulated arcade hardware.
Actually, the way most people use the net... that's pretty much what they do have
True, but even if you only count web servers as "computers", there are still thousands and thousands of them -- there isn't one central storehouse of information that everyone has access to -- that was idea Brunner had.
The article claims that suddenly technology is too hard to predict. I just don't see how that's new. The article mentions Clarke's idea of geosynchronous satellites, but that has to be one of the few technologies actually predicted by SF. In general, SF is pretty laughable when it comes to prediction. 1950's SF regularly had FTL travel and intelligent robots -- but people used slide rules -- computer technology was completely ignored. Even visionary 1960's writers like John Brunner, who predicted a sort of Internet, assumed that computers would be centralized and what everyone would have would just be terminals.
Re:He was a philosopher, not a physicist.
on
The Unknown Newton
·
· Score: 1
Back in Newton's times, scientists like himself were considering themselves and were considered by the others as philosophers, rather than specialized physicists/mathematicians/etc. (This is where the Ph. as in "Ph.D." comes from!)
Yes, but the idea is that a Ph.D. (even in the sciences) was supposed to be well rounded. When I got my Ph.D. there was technically a requirement that all graduates had to demonstrate fluency in at least one foreign language, but this wasn't enforced.
There used to be a degree, that sometimes you still see older professors having, called Sc.D. (Doctorate of Science), that didn't have this requirement. I guess it was sort of the difference between a BS and a BA.
You're mixing public domain and private sources there -- things like 101 Dalmatians and The Sword in the Stone were based on novels that were still under copyright -- there's nothing hypocritical about Disney using sources like that -- they paid up the copyright holders. What's hypocritical is the use of public domain resources like Snow White, Cinderella, etc, while preventing Mickey from becoming public domain
People act as if author charges are a big issue. They're not. Take a real example: the grant I'm currently working on: NSF Award 0228651. We'll probably get two, three papers out if it tops. What's $4500 compared to $2,480,000? Nothing at all.
They got the Nobel Prize for their discovery. She wasn't included in the prize, even though she was critical in the discovery of the molecule's structure.
Only living people can get the Nobel, and by the time of the prize, Rosie had died of cancer. There's no conspiracy.
TIGR has *always* been a non-profit institute. I think you are referring to the early TIGR deals with Human Genome Sciences, which funded TIGR in exchange for first access rights to EST sequences. Human Genome Sciences is, yes, a business.
Much of the money brought in from EST sequencing (which had *nothing* to do with TIGR's main goals as a genomics institute -- we just had spare sequencing capability to rent out, just like some organizations rent out spare computing power) was used to fund the sequencing of the first genome of a free-living organism H. influeneza, which funding agencies were too short sighted at the time to support.
In any case, such a agreement hasn't existed since 1997. Currently, TIGR's research is funded just like research anywhere else -- by grants. For example, my work is currently funded by NSF grants 0237224 and 0228651.
What will Venter do with the genomes he sequences? Put them in the public domain?
Basically -- the data goes in GenBank, a publicly available database. The Sargasso data is already there. Records in Genbank are freely available but aren't "public domain" in a technical sense. Since you are supposed to keep the attribution data, I suppose it's closer to one of the Creative Commons licenses.
Here's an example of a GenBank record. For the Sargasso Sea data, there's over 50,000 of them.
Congratulations, you've stumbled upon the reason why this is purely a gimmick.
It's no gimmick -- there's lots of ways to associate genes together. One way, which I myself was partially responsible for in this analysis (I got an acknowledgment in the original paper) is phylogenetic inference -- basically you can make evolutionary trees for each gene predicted, and you can assume that genes that fall into analogous clades across trees are either due to the same or dimilar organisms.
Hey, I admit that the Sargasso Sea analysis was crude, and ten years from now we'll be laughing at it, but the fact is metagenomics is basically the only way to explore biodiversity at a molecular level. We'll be seeing more such studies (in fact we already have).
I work for TIGR, and therefore indirectly for Craig Venter (Well, actually I work for Craig's soon to be ex-wife, and so I'm not a big personal fan of Craig).
Craig's institutes, TIGR, IBEA, TCAG are *not busineses* -- they are non profit research institutions. Yes, Craig is egotistical -- but the whole point of the Sargasso Sea is science. There is *no profit* to be made or patents to be issued. Yes, Craig worked for a couple of years at Celera, but that doesn't mean everything he's associated with is commercial, any more than Linus having worked at Transmeta makes Linux commercial.
Slashdot Mirror
That's because physics is an experimental science. Archaeology, anthropology and paleontology are not.
But molecular biology *is* an experimental science, and pretty much all serious evolutionary studies these days are molecular.
Are you suggesting that the Theory of Evolution is more solid than electronics?
Yes. Some electronic devices work, some don't -- but no matter what antibiotic you want to use, bacteria will evolve resistance. This isn't a matter of faith. Perhaps evolution was only a theory in Darwin's day, but you can sequence bacteria from a culture before exposure to antibiotics and after and you'll see genetic change -- that's evolution. Evolution's an experimental science now.
People involved in clinical research do all the normal "sciencey" things -- perform experiments, write papers for peer reviewed journals, and -- *yes* -- they do care why methods work. Yes, it's applied research, but physicists who are trying to design and build fusion reactors are still scientists too, no?
Practicing physicians on the other hand, while they may keep in touch with current research (perhaps skimming the New England Journal of Medicine or Lancet) aren't scientists in any real sense of the term, although they certainly use science in their work. It's a bit like the difference between a chemist and a chemical engineer.
The way to authenticity is not through "authorities" but through peer review. Freud is a perfect example -- there's a reason why he published most of his stuff in books (which need merely to sell well) rather than in peer reviewed journals -- even in his own time most scientists realized that babblings about "penis envy" by the juvenile-minded Freud weren't science and couldn't have stood up to the peer review process. And the fact is Wikipedia is far closer to the scientific model of peer review than is Britannica.
You couldn't have a race that was capable of fixing a hyperdrive fighting its wars with sticks and rocks!
I don't see why not. After all, humans have both advanced cultures capable of computers and rockets and primitive ones that can't even count beyond three.
Copyright law is over? You have to be kidding. Yes, the RIAA and MPAA and similar groups are greedy jerks, and so on and so forth, and the Creative Commons is noble and wonderful and all that, but the fact is big business has power. I really expect that we'll see a "war on piracy" that's quite similar to the current "war on drugs". Sure, it can't be "won", and piracy will continue, but people *will* go to jail, and what's more a majority of non-technologically oriented people will think it's a good thing ("those pirates are trying to destroy HOLLYWOOD! Throw the book at 'em")
Also, I seem to remember that back in the 1980's Logitech not only sold mice but Modula-2 compilers as well. Modula-2 was a followup language to Pascal that fixed many of the problems Pascal had, but it never really caught on.
Eye of beholder and all that, but really! That mouse isn't even symmetric! Ick!
Java? Flash? I've seen lots of animated gifs in educational contexts -- showing how changing parameters affects a curve, for example. Yes, Java and Flash can be used, although they tend to be sluggish to load and crash browsers not infrequently,
While many gurus like to suggest that Hinduism is all smiles and laughter -- it ain't so. Read about the Thugee, who were particularly nasty worshipers of the Hindu Goddess Kali.
As one poster has already mentioned, sovmusic.ru has some nice examples, including Paul Robeson (Yes, Mr. "Ol' Man River" himself) doing a rendition of the Soviet National Anthem in English translation.
Because I know some German, I enjoy the East German stuff more, but lately East German nostalgia has become a big business among German "Generation X" types and it's harder to find free songs on the net. If you know German at all, there's an album called "Die Partei Hat Immer Recht" ("The Party is always right") which collects the best of the East German propaganda songs. You can buy it from Amazon.de (the German version of Amazon.com)
I'm sorry, where does it say that you're not a patriot if you're left wing?
Exactly. Look at Soviet and East German songs -- they can't seem to get a verse out without mentioning "Socialist Motherland" (in Soviet songs) or "sozialistischen Vaterland" (in East German songs). Patriotism and Nationalism are found on both sides of the political spectrum -- in fact, particularly at the sides of the spectrum -- most moderates find excessive flag waving more amusing than inspiring.
Scouts have nothing to do with the military, or military structure.
Read up on the history of scouting -- among other interesting things the first Boy Scout manual was none other than a British Army manual, and the Boy Scouts originated from a paramilitary organization for boys (the Mafeking Cadet Corps) during the Boer War.
As a former scout, I'm unhappy to hear that there was a U.S. Army booth and this game at a scouting event. The Scouts prohibit war games, and scout troops cannot, for example, play paintball. Looks like this line may be eroded in some places.
Er, you *do* realize the whole *point* of Scouting is to familiarize youth with military culture, don't you? Why do you think that had you wear pseudo-military uniforms, with patches indicating your rank, and why you were organized as *troops* for crying out loud?
I've always thought it would be fun to write a homebrewed MAME game, but has anyone really documented it for any driver in particular? It isn't just about knowing Z80 (or whatever CPU) ASM -- you would have to know how to handle sound, graphics, and input for the emulated arcade hardware.
Actually, the way most people use the net... that's pretty much what they do have
True, but even if you only count web servers as "computers", there are still thousands and thousands of them -- there isn't one central storehouse of information that everyone has access to -- that was idea Brunner had.
The article claims that suddenly technology is too hard to predict. I just don't see how that's new. The article mentions Clarke's idea of geosynchronous satellites, but that has to be one of the few technologies actually predicted by SF. In general, SF is pretty laughable when it comes to prediction. 1950's SF regularly had FTL travel and intelligent robots -- but people used slide rules -- computer technology was completely ignored. Even visionary 1960's writers like John Brunner, who predicted a sort of Internet, assumed that computers would be centralized and what everyone would have would just be terminals.
Back in Newton's times, scientists like himself were considering themselves and were considered by the others as philosophers, rather than specialized physicists/mathematicians/etc. (This is where the Ph. as in "Ph.D." comes from!)
Yes, but the idea is that a Ph.D. (even in the sciences) was supposed to be well rounded. When I got my Ph.D. there was technically a requirement that all graduates had to demonstrate fluency in at least one foreign language, but this wasn't enforced.
There used to be a degree, that sometimes you still see older professors having, called Sc.D. (Doctorate of Science), that didn't have this requirement. I guess it was sort of the difference between a BS and a BA.
You're mixing public domain and private sources there -- things like 101 Dalmatians and The Sword in the Stone were based on novels that were still under copyright -- there's nothing hypocritical about Disney using sources like that -- they paid up the copyright holders. What's hypocritical is the use of public domain resources like Snow White, Cinderella, etc, while preventing Mickey from becoming public domain
People act as if author charges are a big issue. They're not. Take a real example: the grant I'm currently working on: NSF Award 0228651. We'll probably get two, three papers out if it tops. What's $4500 compared to $2,480,000? Nothing at all.
They got the Nobel Prize for their discovery. She wasn't included in the prize, even though she was critical in the discovery of the molecule's structure.
Only living people can get the Nobel, and by the time of the prize, Rosie had died of cancer. There's no conspiracy.
TIGR has *always* been a non-profit institute. I think you are referring to the early TIGR deals with Human Genome Sciences, which funded TIGR in exchange for first access rights to EST sequences. Human Genome Sciences is, yes, a business.
Much of the money brought in from EST sequencing (which had *nothing* to do with TIGR's main goals as a genomics institute -- we just had spare sequencing capability to rent out, just like some organizations rent out spare computing power) was used to fund the sequencing of the first genome of a free-living organism H. influeneza, which funding agencies were too short sighted at the time to support.
In any case, such a agreement hasn't existed since 1997. Currently, TIGR's research is funded just like research anywhere else -- by grants. For example, my work is currently funded by NSF grants
0237224 and 0228651.
What will Venter do with the genomes he sequences? Put them in the public domain?
Basically -- the data goes in GenBank, a publicly available database. The Sargasso data is already there. Records in Genbank are freely available but aren't "public domain" in a technical sense. Since you are supposed to keep the attribution data, I suppose it's closer to one of the Creative Commons licenses.
Here's an example of a GenBank record. For the Sargasso Sea data, there's over 50,000 of them.
Congratulations, you've stumbled upon the reason why this is purely a gimmick.
It's no gimmick -- there's lots of ways to associate genes together. One way, which I myself was partially responsible for in this analysis (I got an acknowledgment in the original paper) is phylogenetic inference -- basically you can make evolutionary trees for each gene predicted, and you can assume that genes that fall into analogous clades across trees are either due to the same or dimilar organisms.
Hey, I admit that the Sargasso Sea analysis was crude, and ten years from now we'll be laughing at it, but the fact is metagenomics is basically the only way to explore biodiversity at a molecular level. We'll be seeing more such studies (in fact we already have).
I work for TIGR, and therefore indirectly for Craig Venter (Well, actually I work for Craig's soon to be ex-wife, and so I'm not a big personal fan of Craig).
Craig's institutes, TIGR, IBEA, TCAG are *not busineses* -- they are non profit research institutions. Yes, Craig is egotistical -- but the whole point of the Sargasso Sea is science. There is *no profit* to be made or patents to be issued. Yes, Craig worked for a couple of years at Celera, but that doesn't mean everything he's associated with is commercial, any more than Linus having worked at Transmeta makes Linux commercial.