It seems that DNA is the 'paper tape' component of the genetic Turing machine. mRNA seems to be the data bus and RNA interference is the ALU.
In the "Genetic Turing Machine" the 'tape' is comprised of DNA, RNA (in various forms), and proteins; the 'head' is mostly protein and RNA; and the FSM involves DNA, RNA, and protein. Oh, with some other crap, like metals, sprinkled throughout. Information is encoded in DNA and various other epigenetic systems (about which we know very little at this point). Reading and writing from/to this 'tape' is accomplished with mechanisms built from proteins and RNA, proteins whose production is regulated by other proteins and various forms of RNA.
There is no similarity in the fundamental workings of biological systems and computers, except perhaps (depending how you feel about the Church-Turing thesis) their computability power.
Computer metaphors are generally useless, whether you are trying to explain computers using cars, or humans using computers.
Oh, but reducing our bodies to algorithms is simple - all you have to do is model the physicals properties of all the atoms that comprise the body. It's simply a matter of processing power.
It's just one of those things that people think are sexy and futuristic, but which are completely impractical for everyday use (like 3D desktop environments).
Can you imagine writing code with voice recognition? Those "hash - bang - slash - bin - slash - bash" t-shirts had a point.
Why must we be confined to the keyboard and mouse?
How are we confined? Adequate voice recognition and drawing styli exist and are widely used. Joysticks are kinda pointless unless you are flying something. And I don't see the advantage of touch screens for larger buttons - you already have the mouse, it's easier just to use that, no?
The biggest problem is that currently the most stress to your hand is from moving it from mouse to keyboard - if you add another device (or two, or three) it's going to be an ergonomic nightmare.
I don't see huge improvements in user input devices until we get them brain-wave scanning things (apparently not all that far fetched); most innovations until then are bound to be very niche, or very silly.
There does seem to be a lot of actual development activity as well. I wonder if the people bitching and the people doing work are, as usual, different people?
Is this the guy with the previous sex-offender record? In the UK judges seem to have god-like power to deal as they want with previously convicted criminals (including throwing them back in jail), if they feel that they present a danger to the public ("feel" is the main point, they don't need a conviction of a new crime, or even an accusation). And of course sex offenders lose a lot of their legal rights for life.
All of this is very wrong, but still, I'm pretty sure that without prior history photoshopped pictures will not land you in jail in the UK.
The worst about all this is, that it has never actually been shown that CP is bad.
Ok, that was one of the more unsettling arguments here. Rather than dwell on the ethics of forcing children to have sex for the purpose of producing pornography, I'll point out the legal points involved here.
Under current law, sexual activity with minors is, ipso facto, non-consensual and therefore illegal. Your point #1 is in fact what "they" are after, the reasoning behind going after the consumers as well as the producers, is that demand creates supply, and cutting off the demand for child pornography will lower the incentives to produce it (whether or not money is directly involved). Not to say that the effectiveness of this has been tested in any way, but it seems like a more or less reasonable measure.
There is no doubt that many people believe your point #2, but, as far as I'm aware, it's not being used to justify the current state of affairs.
Of course everything concerning child porn tends to err on the side of vigorous prosecution, but then it's a pretty horrific crime, so that's understandable. (I'm of course not talking about bullshit powergrabs such as what the article is talking about).
And of course there is very little in common between most consumers of child pornography and actual pedophiles. But do people really have a right to consume something that is illegal to produce?
A nice example of the old 'begging the question' fallacy, such as in the question 'Have you stopped beating your wife yet?'
This is so exciting - an entirely new, wrong use of "begging the question"!
So, are the descriptivists going to jump in with how this is now also a valid definition through popular use? Or can I just go ahead and point out that that is not what the fallacy refers to?
private education collectives with 3D virtual classrooms
For some reason these "technologically enabled data absorption communes" don't sound very appealing.
I don't know, I guess I always thought of universities (and the purpose of education in general) as more than "content delivery." And why is a 3D virtual classroom better than a real one?
I have to ask - have you actually been to a good university?
They have their share of problems, but there is a reason people will continue paying the ridiculous amounts of money they cost - no amount of CSS and JavaScript can ever replace a solid, well-rounded education. I'm sure that in prepping you for that cool tech job it's a giant waste of time, that results in an arbitrarily valued piece of paper that has nothing to do with the on-the-job skills; but university isn't about that.
Google's tags are functionally no different than traditional folders
Not true. This is the one aspect of GMail I hate. Say you are subscribed to a lot of techie mailing lists; they are all easily sorted into folders for future perusing and the 'Inbox' is left with just the stuff that actually needs attention.
GMail on the other hand just tells me that I have 238 new messages, and I have to substract the totals of 9 different tags to find out how much "real" mail I have.
Simple solution - why not have both? Labels are a categorization thing, and folders are an organization thing, they are complimentary in many ways. Of course folders are just too mundane for Google, they have to have something "new" - it's just typical "ideology over function" mentality.
I think that any eight to fourteen year old kid would enjoy all the Star Wars movies thoroughly and that makes them good.
Does it really? Or does that just cheat the 8-14 year old? I'd say you are overstating the marginal improvements II and III had over I; they may have been well conceived as far as the Grand Themes go (which they were, and oddly topical, too), but the execution was just inexcusable. I'm pretty sure that in "goodness per dollar spent" these are some of the worst movies ever made.
For me the "Oh it's for the kids, so I don't have to bother hiring competent writers and directors" excuse just doesn't hold much water. That was not silver, not by a long shot; somewhere between lead and pyrite, I'd say.
We have had these tiny variations going on for billions of years and pretty much every available variation will have occured by now.
How do you figure? I am pretty sure that unless you are talking about a few tiny viral genomes you can't say "Oh, evolution has played itself out by now, and nothing new is possible."
assuming that it's never really exceeding the speed of light, and that thousands of years in "real time" pass in the meantime. That's not what happens on the show
That's not what I read - they assume the ship can travel at 1516 times the speed of light, but experiences no time dilation. So a 21 year trip for the ship (31,836 light years or 9,761 parsecs) would only be 3 seconds for an "occupant" of the particle in question.
Slashdot Mirror
I'd hate to be in the shoes of a 23rd century researcher trying to play back a 2005 issue SONY drm'd compact disc
On the other hand, were there that many CDs released in 2005 that will be worth playing in the 23rd century? Or in 2006, for that matter? Or 2005...
It does mangle the filenames unnecessarily.
Don't pretty much all players do this? I think it has to do with their very rudimentary filesystems.
Not that I like iPods (any player that doesn't support Vorbis is dead to me), just saying.
gratification in being the first kid on the block to have paid for and bought a hot new tune
Yeah, cause nothing seems cooler to kids today than paying for music.
It seems that DNA is the 'paper tape' component of the genetic Turing machine. mRNA seems to be the data bus and RNA interference is the ALU.
In the "Genetic Turing Machine" the 'tape' is comprised of DNA, RNA (in various forms), and proteins; the 'head' is mostly protein and RNA; and the FSM involves DNA, RNA, and protein. Oh, with some other crap, like metals, sprinkled throughout. Information is encoded in DNA and various other epigenetic systems (about which we know very little at this point). Reading and writing from/to this 'tape' is accomplished with mechanisms built from proteins and RNA, proteins whose production is regulated by other proteins and various forms of RNA.
There is no similarity in the fundamental workings of biological systems and computers, except perhaps (depending how you feel about the Church-Turing thesis) their computability power.
Computer metaphors are generally useless, whether you are trying to explain computers using cars, or humans using computers.
Oh, but reducing our bodies to algorithms is simple - all you have to do is model the physicals properties of all the atoms that comprise the body. It's simply a matter of processing power.
It's just one of those things that people think are sexy and futuristic, but which are completely impractical for everyday use (like 3D desktop environments).
Can you imagine writing code with voice recognition? Those "hash - bang - slash - bin - slash - bash" t-shirts had a point.
Why must we be confined to the keyboard and mouse?
How are we confined? Adequate voice recognition and drawing styli exist and are widely used. Joysticks are kinda pointless unless you are flying something. And I don't see the advantage of touch screens for larger buttons - you already have the mouse, it's easier just to use that, no?
The biggest problem is that currently the most stress to your hand is from moving it from mouse to keyboard - if you add another device (or two, or three) it's going to be an ergonomic nightmare.
I don't see huge improvements in user input devices until we get them brain-wave scanning things (apparently not all that far fetched); most innovations until then are bound to be very niche, or very silly.
There does seem to be a lot of actual development activity as well. I wonder if the people bitching and the people doing work are, as usual, different people?
Ok, it's only considered news if a Debian-related matter doesn't spark debate.
(I do like and use debian the distro though)
What's going to be the next great innovation in portable power - world's tiniest steam engine?
Is this the guy with the previous sex-offender record? In the UK judges seem to have god-like power to deal as they want with previously convicted criminals (including throwing them back in jail), if they feel that they present a danger to the public ("feel" is the main point, they don't need a conviction of a new crime, or even an accusation). And of course sex offenders lose a lot of their legal rights for life.
All of this is very wrong, but still, I'm pretty sure that without prior history photoshopped pictures will not land you in jail in the UK.
The worst about all this is, that it has never actually been shown that CP is bad.
Ok, that was one of the more unsettling arguments here. Rather than dwell on the ethics of forcing children to have sex for the purpose of producing pornography, I'll point out the legal points involved here.
Under current law, sexual activity with minors is, ipso facto, non-consensual and therefore illegal. Your point #1 is in fact what "they" are after, the reasoning behind going after the consumers as well as the producers, is that demand creates supply, and cutting off the demand for child pornography will lower the incentives to produce it (whether or not money is directly involved). Not to say that the effectiveness of this has been tested in any way, but it seems like a more or less reasonable measure.
There is no doubt that many people believe your point #2, but, as far as I'm aware, it's not being used to justify the current state of affairs.
Of course everything concerning child porn tends to err on the side of vigorous prosecution, but then it's a pretty horrific crime, so that's understandable. (I'm of course not talking about bullshit powergrabs such as what the article is talking about).
And of course there is very little in common between most consumers of child pornography and actual pedophiles. But do people really have a right to consume something that is illegal to produce?
There's an "alternative" root password? Oh crap, the Constitution is running on NT, isn't it?
A nice example of the old 'begging the question' fallacy, such as in the question 'Have you stopped beating your wife yet?'
This is so exciting - an entirely new, wrong use of "begging the question"!
So, are the descriptivists going to jump in with how this is now also a valid definition through popular use? Or can I just go ahead and point out that that is not what the fallacy refers to?
So I didn't think much of the movies (seemed like roughly 12 hours of people walking), but if Liv Tyler is ugly, that's my kind of ugly!
private education collectives with 3D virtual classrooms
For some reason these "technologically enabled data absorption communes" don't sound very appealing.
I don't know, I guess I always thought of universities (and the purpose of education in general) as more than "content delivery." And why is a 3D virtual classroom better than a real one?
iCar, which will be made out of translucent white plastic, but will only run certain fuels
:)
Don't all cars only run on "certain" fuels? I mean, you can't really fill up your Honda with, let's say, coal or whale oil, now can you?
In any case, if they marketed the American iCar model as "iCarUS", I think it would sell quite well, definitely fits in with Apple philosophy
I have to ask - have you actually been to a good university?
They have their share of problems, but there is a reason people will continue paying the ridiculous amounts of money they cost - no amount of CSS and JavaScript can ever replace a solid, well-rounded education. I'm sure that in prepping you for that cool tech job it's a giant waste of time, that results in an arbitrarily valued piece of paper that has nothing to do with the on-the-job skills; but university isn't about that.
So he wants me to make up for all the features missing from MySQL by using PHP?
I think I just threw up in my mouth a little.
(helpful hint for mods: this might be considered flaimbait)
I stand corrected - thanks. Though I'd say 'Archive' is a slight misnomer.
Oh, and it's good to know that having issues with software is trolling...
Google's tags are functionally no different than traditional folders
Not true. This is the one aspect of GMail I hate. Say you are subscribed to a lot of techie mailing lists; they are all easily sorted into folders for future perusing and the 'Inbox' is left with just the stuff that actually needs attention.
GMail on the other hand just tells me that I have 238 new messages, and I have to substract the totals of 9 different tags to find out how much "real" mail I have.
Simple solution - why not have both? Labels are a categorization thing, and folders are an organization thing, they are complimentary in many ways. Of course folders are just too mundane for Google, they have to have something "new" - it's just typical "ideology over function" mentality.
I think that any eight to fourteen year old kid would enjoy all the Star Wars movies thoroughly and that makes them good.
Does it really? Or does that just cheat the 8-14 year old? I'd say you are overstating the marginal improvements II and III had over I; they may have been well conceived as far as the Grand Themes go (which they were, and oddly topical, too), but the execution was just inexcusable. I'm pretty sure that in "goodness per dollar spent" these are some of the worst movies ever made.
For me the "Oh it's for the kids, so I don't have to bother hiring competent writers and directors" excuse just doesn't hold much water. That was not silver, not by a long shot; somewhere between lead and pyrite, I'd say.
We have had these tiny variations going on for billions of years and pretty much every available variation will have occured by now.
How do you figure? I am pretty sure that unless you are talking about a few tiny viral genomes you can't say "Oh, evolution has played itself out by now, and nothing new is possible."
assuming that it's never really exceeding the speed of light, and that thousands of years in "real time" pass in the meantime. That's not what happens on the show
That's not what I read - they assume the ship can travel at 1516 times the speed of light, but experiences no time dilation. So a 21 year trip for the ship (31,836 light years or 9,761 parsecs) would only be 3 seconds for an "occupant" of the particle in question.
Wouldn't a fire sufficient for Xerox to DIAF need a lot of wood?
Seven paragraphs of gibberish before it actually tells you what the stupid deal is!
Mmmmm.... Moon-Bulge...
(got nothing - pants/fat/aliens/etc were already done)