The problem is not so much the absolute amount as the lack of planning. In the 90ies, NIH funding was increased rapidly during a short period of time, and then the funding increase was stopped abruptly. During the increase, universities and medical schools reacted by increasing their faculties, who then suddenly couldn't get any funding anymore when the budget increase stopped. The problem will correct itself when older scientists will have to close their labs because of lack of funding, and younger scientists won't get tenure for the same reason. The question is whether that is the correct way to treat some of the brightest and hardest-working people in this country.
I'm all for open access, but I find the law problematic. Instead of requiring the journals to make their content available, it requires the researcher to deposit the article in a database. The result is yet another piece of paperwork we have to keep track of instead of doing research, and if we forget to deposit one of our articles, we are now breaking the law.
The only alternative is to publish in open access journals, which is fine in principle. However, for a cash-strapped lab, it can be hard to pay open access fees for several articles a year, even with NIH funding.
The parent poster is 100% right. It's sad how few people understand this. With the way the majority of contemporary American cities are built, it's essentially impossible to introduce efficient mass transit, simply because there are very few places that have sufficient population density to be attractive stops for mass transit. City planning has to be changed first, then people can use more mass transit and use their car less.
For more info, read "Suburban Nation" by Duany et al.
Also, as a counter example, consider San Francisco, which still has a traditional city layout, and functioning mass transit.
It's simple: Side effects are all the things that happen to people while they are taking part in the drug trials. Include sufficiently many people in the test, and you'll find some that get headaches, stomach aches, depression, flu-like symtoms, etc. Now you would argue that these symptoms weren't caused by the placebo, but how do you know whether comparable symptoms in the patients that took the real drug were caused by that drug? Since this question cannot be resolved, the only reasonable way to deal with the situation is to say that everything that occurs during the tests is a side effect, and to compare whether the real drug has significantly worse side effects than the placebo.
There is a petition to sign. Current count already over 85000.
`In the aftermath of the ruthless attack on the World Trade Center and
Pentagon, we implore the leaders of the United States to ensure that
justice be served by protecting the innocent citizens of all nations all
over the world.
We demand that the President maintain the civil liberties of all U.S.
residents, protect the human rights of all people at home and abroad, and
guarantee that this attempted attack on the principles and freedoms of the
United States will not succeed.
We plead for a thorough investigation of the terrorist events before any
retaliation.
We call for PEACE and JUSTICE, not revenge. LET THERE BE PEACE ALL OVER
THE WORLD!`
No, capitalism doesn't have anything to do with patents and things like that. It's actually the exact opposite. In capitalism, you assume a free market, which means everybody is competing on their own merit, and not on legal battles.
This is a very frequent misconception (the same reason why Linux business is not communism, but capitalism to the extreme. You charge people money for a commodity).
I don't understand you problem. On my screen (XGA), subpixel rendered text looks better than
any other text. Why shouldn't I use it? Because in 5 years, I will be able to buy a super-cool
2048x2048 LCD display?
Keith is implementing both. ClearType is the same
as subpixel rendering, and somewhere on Keith's
homepage you can find subpixel rendered text. If
you have an LCD screen, you will see the difference. Otherwise, you won't;-)
Many have pointed out that this is not new, because there have been already Tierra, Corewars, Life, and so on. Its true that these have been earlier, but that doesn't mean that the avida stuff isn't new. Look at Adami's publications (his homepage is http://www.krl.caltech.edu/~adami/ ) or look into his book "Artificial Life", and you will see that he knows all these previous works. The difference with avida is that Adami et al. have done more than just simulations, they have developed *quantitative* mathematical formulations that explain the experiment's observations, and they have shown that they can relate their computer experiments to the evolution of real bakteria (Lenski's work). So with this work the evolution of computer organisms enters a new stage because now it is proven that for certain well chosen experimental setups, the study of digital organsims is equivalent to the study of biological organisms, but of course can be done with a much higher accuracy and much faster.
By the way the connection to Microsoft is of course the least important aspect of their work. They did this before Microsoft got interested, and they will continue if Microsoft looses interest. Their work is mostly sponsored by the NSF.
For the first time I had pain from typing about 10 years ago. It was so bad I thought I would never be able to type again. However, then I found out about these Chinese balls you let roll over your hands. You get them in different sizes, made from different materials, with and without "sound". After practicing a couple of months the basic technique of letting two balls roll over my hands, my pain started to disappear.
Since then, whenever I start to feel some pain in my wrists, I make sure I use these balls for a couple of minutes every day, and the pain goes away after some time.
Anyway, I agree with all who said that a proper typing technique is very important. And my opinion, drag and drop is really the worst of all (that's why I learned all keyboard commands of emacs. I try not to use programs that demand heavy mouse usage).
Slashdot Mirror
The problem is not so much the absolute amount as the lack of planning. In the 90ies, NIH funding was increased rapidly during a short period of time, and then the funding increase was stopped abruptly. During the increase, universities and medical schools reacted by increasing their faculties, who then suddenly couldn't get any funding anymore when the budget increase stopped. The problem will correct itself when older scientists will have to close their labs because of lack of funding, and younger scientists won't get tenure for the same reason. The question is whether that is the correct way to treat some of the brightest and hardest-working people in this country.
I'm all for open access, but I find the law problematic. Instead of requiring the journals to make their content available, it requires the researcher to deposit the article in a database. The result is yet another piece of paperwork we have to keep track of instead of doing research, and if we forget to deposit one of our articles, we are now breaking the law.
The only alternative is to publish in open access journals, which is fine in principle. However, for a cash-strapped lab, it can be hard to pay open access fees for several articles a year, even with NIH funding.
The parent poster is 100% right. It's sad how few people understand this. With the way the majority of contemporary American cities are built, it's essentially impossible to introduce efficient mass transit, simply because there are very few places that have sufficient population density to be attractive stops for mass transit. City planning has to be changed first, then people can use more mass transit and use their car less.
For more info, read "Suburban Nation" by Duany et al.
Also, as a counter example, consider San Francisco, which still has a traditional city layout, and functioning mass transit.
It's simple: Side effects are all the things that happen to people while they are taking part in the drug trials. Include sufficiently many people in the test, and you'll find some that get headaches, stomach aches, depression, flu-like symtoms, etc. Now you would argue that these symptoms weren't caused by the placebo, but how do you know whether comparable symptoms in the patients that took the real drug were caused by that drug? Since this question cannot be resolved, the only reasonable way to deal with the situation is to say that everything that occurs during the tests is a side effect, and to compare whether the real drug has significantly worse side effects than the placebo.
See: http://www.nvu.com/
You are correct. But that is not an argument *not* to sign the petition. I would suggest doing both.
There is a petition to sign. Current count already over 85000.
`In the aftermath of the ruthless attack on the World Trade Center and
Pentagon, we implore the leaders of the United States to ensure that
justice be served by protecting the innocent citizens of all nations all
over the world.
We demand that the President maintain the civil liberties of all U.S.
residents, protect the human rights of all people at home and abroad, and
guarantee that this attempted attack on the principles and freedoms of the
United States will not succeed.
We plead for a thorough investigation of the terrorist events before any
retaliation.
We call for PEACE and JUSTICE, not revenge. LET THERE BE PEACE ALL OVER
THE WORLD!`
http://www.care2.com/go/redirect/2/2400
No, capitalism doesn't have anything to do with patents and things like that. It's actually the exact opposite. In capitalism, you assume a free market, which means everybody is competing on their own merit, and not on legal battles.
This is a very frequent misconception (the same reason why Linux business is not communism, but capitalism to the extreme. You charge people money for a commodity).
I don't understand you problem. On my screen (XGA), subpixel rendered text looks better than
any other text. Why shouldn't I use it? Because in 5 years, I will be able to buy a super-cool
2048x2048 LCD display?
Keith is implementing both. ClearType is the same ;-)
as subpixel rendering, and somewhere on Keith's
homepage you can find subpixel rendered text. If
you have an LCD screen, you will see the difference. Otherwise, you won't
Try pdflatex. Works great for me.
Many have pointed out that this is not new, because there have been already Tierra, Corewars, Life, and so on. Its true that these have been earlier, but that doesn't mean that the avida stuff isn't new. Look at Adami's publications
(his homepage is http://www.krl.caltech.edu/~adami/ ) or look into his book "Artificial Life", and you will see that he knows all these previous works. The difference with avida is that Adami et al. have done more than just simulations, they have developed *quantitative* mathematical formulations that explain the experiment's observations, and they have shown that they can relate their computer experiments to the evolution of real bakteria (Lenski's work). So with this work the evolution of computer organisms enters a new stage because now it is proven that for certain well chosen experimental setups, the study of digital organsims is equivalent to the study of biological organisms, but of course can be done with a much higher accuracy and much faster.
By the way the connection to Microsoft is of course the least important aspect of their work. They did this before Microsoft got interested, and they will continue if Microsoft looses interest. Their work is mostly sponsored by the NSF.
Bye,
Claus
For the first time I had pain from typing about 10 years ago. It was so bad I thought I would never be able to type again. However, then I found out about these Chinese balls you let roll over your hands. You get them in different sizes, made from different materials, with and without "sound". After practicing a couple of months the basic technique of letting two balls roll over my hands, my pain started to disappear.
Since then, whenever I start to feel some pain in my wrists, I make sure I use these balls for a couple of minutes every day, and the pain goes away after some time.
Anyway, I agree with all who said that a proper typing technique is very important. And my opinion, drag and drop is really the worst of all (that's why I learned all keyboard commands of emacs. I try not to use programs that demand heavy mouse usage).