Look at the students' reaction when you give then a "story-problem"
Imagine basing all of mathematics around story like problems.
Anyway, teaching mathematics as applied mathematics is like teaching kids to play piano by teaching them Coldplay songs. Sure, it will be fun and all and develop some basic skills, but it's far from real piano playing.
Why can't automatic verifications systems be used for this? You start with an input set and define the output set. Run a program verification system to make sure the outputs are in the output set and don't go out of it?
The inputs or outputs could be infinite but in that case use logical constructs to verify it.
I'm not a researcher or student of this theory. So, maybe someone can illustrate to me why this wouldn't work or be applied to industry?
Mortal comabat could have established or overthrown dominance, and most likely did if humans are anything like other pack animals. The loser either dies directly, or is ostracized and dies of starvation, unless he manages to find a new group to dominate. This behavior is observed in everything from lions to elephant seals. In most cases, the dominant male gets all the females, or the vast majority, and the other males get none unless they can sneak in a quick mating session while the dominant male isn't looking. That's been true for humans throughout most of recorded history; in fact, monogamy was often the law for serfs, while emporers and kings had harems. It's only very recently, in the past couple of centuries, that this has changed on a large scale.
But that is not murder. It happens now too. You lose and you don't make as much money, or get as much whatever. But, it's not directly eliminating someone but showing you're better or winning.
The GM panic patrol always brings out this one. Do you have any evidence this has actually happened, or is in use anywhere in the world? Greenpeace literature doesn't count. Things like this might happen in labs [cornell.edu], but have never made it to the point where it would be approved for human (or livestock) consumption, and the gene wasn't even directly taken from the fish.
The hysteria has to stop. It doesn't do anyone any good. There are valid concerns about GM crops, but this is not one of them.
I didn't say it worked. I just said it was possible and that someone tried it and my point was that transgenic organisms are possible.
I found David Buss's [edge.org] article interesting. He sums up with the following, "On reflection, the dangerous idea may not be that murder historically has been advantageous to the reproductive success of killers; nor that we all house homicidal circuits within our brains; nor even that all of us are lineal descendants of ancestors who murdered. The danger comes from people who refuse to recognize that there are dark sides of human nature that cannot be wished away by attributing them to the modern ills of culture, poverty, pathology, or exposure to media violence. The danger comes from failing to gaze into the mirror and come to grips the capacity for evil in all of us."
I disagree. First of all, if you want to use evolutionary theory then you have to take into fact that humans didn't live in huge cities like we do now. We lived in small collections of hunters/gatherers. You kill someone in your own group, then you get ostracized from the group which will lead to certain no-mating.
Second, murder of another competing group would be good and you'd be considered a hero in your group. Then you'd get more reproductive success if you're a hero.
So, murder is bad but a battlefield kill is good. We hate murderers but love war heros. Anyway, that's my view. So, just murdering someone in cold blood is hard but killing in a battlefield isn't as much.
No, words mean things, especially words carefully chosen by the jerks in marketing. In this case, the word "super" is used to create the appearance of a dire threat were none exist. Fear sells as well as sex and in politics even better.
Hmm, maybe call them X-Weeds, hehe? Super is not a precise term so you're right in that aspect.
No, but killer bees are what you get when humans DON'T meddle. Killer bees are descended from undomesticated wild bees introduced into Brazil in the 1960's.Prior to then, all honey bees were descended from old world domesticated bees. Killer bees displace honeybees in warmer climes because the honeybees have been selectively bred by humans to produce honey at the expense of their own numbers. When confronted by wild bees without the human imposed overhead they fold like a house of cards.
Almost all invasive species are transplanted wild species. Domesticated species must expend so much energy meeting human needs that they cannot compete with wild species.
Hmm, I don't see how you can reach that conclusion. Here's the story from a webpage from a Google search ->
In 1956, some colonies of African Honey Bees were imported into Brazil, with the idea of cross-breeding them with local populations of Honey Bees to increase honey production. In 1957, twenty-six African queens, along with swarms of European worker bees, escaped from an experimental apiary about l00 miles south of Sao Paulo. These African bee escapees have since formed hybrid populations with European Honey Bees, both feral and from commercial hives. They have gradually spread northward through South America, Central America, and eastern Mexico, progressing some 100 to 200 miles per year. In 1990, Killer Bees reached southern Texas, appeared in Arizona in 1993, and found their way to California in 1995. They are expected to form colonies in parts of the southern United States.
The killer bees were first brough in to increase honey production in bees. However, they escaped and formed hybrids and became killer bees. That's exactly what I'm saying. Bring in a new foreign new gene into the ecosystem and it can completely change the balance of things.
No, because resistance occurs naturally. Like I said above, herbicide resistant weeds evolved long before genetic engineering. It's one factor that keeps herbicide companies in business. Naturally evolved resistance is the first thing you must eliminate is you wish to make the argument that the resistance is artificial.
Maybe and maybe not. I guess we'd need a definite study on these to show one way or the other. But, I see your point.
Sorry but this is completely wrong. The entire point of using mutation is to produce novel genes. Simply swapping around existing genes will only get you so far. Given contemporary sequencing technology it is trivial to show that heavily bred domesticated plants possess genes that their wild ancestors do not.
No, I think you're wrong. Remember all dogs of different breeds are in the same species even though they are so different. A chiwawa and a doberman can produce an offspring. Selective breeding is creating new breeds by mixing breeds within a species. That's why I'm saying it's in the same gene pool.
Great, now you're (probably accidentally) channeling creationist. How do think organism evolve in the first place? A human has many more genes than a single cell organism where did those genes come from?
I don't say this to be insulting but you have a fundamental misunderstanding of how genetics and natural and artificial selection works. Novel genes arise from natural mutation. Genes hop species lines all the time especially in plants and single cell organism. Retrovirus and some bacteria carry genes between multicellular species on a routine basis. We are merely using these same phenomenon in a directed fashion.
No offense but you obviously know diddly-squat about agriculture, genetics and evolutionary theory: "Neither did superman."
To repeat myself, the "super" weeds are no more harmful than non-super weeds. They cannot perform the plant equivalent of running faster than a speeding bullet, leaping over tall buildings or wearing tights and cape. In fact, if you ran an "all-organic" farm that used no herbicides whatsoever, the "super" weeds would be exactly as annoying as non-super weeds. Opponents of the use of herbicides should be thrilled at this development since it will help destroy the economic advantage that herbicide using farms have over organic farms.
Insulting me the first line seems to me that you're taking this personally. I have nothing against you. I'm just testing your arguements out. Jeez. Be a sport and if I don't know argiculture, genetics and evolutionary theory point it out.
My point is that "super" is just a text word. Take to take the analogy into further abusrd level, krptonite would hurt superman whereas it wouldn't do anything to everyone else. So, there is nothing in the word super; it's just a moniker.
Are killer bees and ants as annoying as the regular honey bees? Maybe to nature it doesn't matter since it will all balances out. But, it's annoying as hell to humans.
Also, maybe I didn't stress enough, I think most arguements against GM crops are not about the crops itself but about the new genes causing havoc to non-farming ecosystems. Like killer African bees killing off and taking over native north american bees.
Plus, genetic modification isn't just herbicide resistance. There's the terminal genes one and the added vitamins one. Also giant vegetables ones.
I didn't say the argument was invalid. I said it was a supposition. Since all weeds acquire resistance to all herbicides over time by natural evolution, you must first eliminate these natural causes before you can claim that the resistance is artificial. Sequencing a genome for a known gene is actually quite inexpensive so I am suspicious that they don't appear to have done so. Of course, this could just be a result of the Guardian's poor science reporting.
Yeah, they should have just done the gene-sequencing to be sure. However, that weed that is herbicide resistant is growing among thousands of herbicide resistant crops. Rather than a parallel evolution of that particular herbicide resistance, wouldn't it be probabilistically more likely that one some grabbed that section of the inserted gene and passed it onto the weed species? (Although I don't know how frequetly that happens but in the lab to do genetic engineering, viruses are used to insert DNA)
This is plant breeding 101. Plant breeders select from all available variations for the characteristics they seek. To increase the pool of variation they intentionally mutate the genome of test populations using mutagens. Since around 1910, Bis (2-chloroethyl) sulfide or Mustard gas, and related chemicals have been routinely used to increase the pool of variation. After WWII, radiation was used to the same ends.
Virtually, every plant you have ever eaten in your entire life has been through at least one generation of random mutation. Practically, you have consumed thousands of unknown randomly mutated genes. It is a matter of some amusement to me that so many people are terrified at the prospect of GM plants, which have specific and well defined alterations, but who calmly accept plants created with pre-GM methods that contains hundreds if not thousands of completely unexamined and untested genes.
Yes, GM plants are different because they use "transgenic" DNA. Before the genes were always in the population gene pool. Now, we're taking genes from another species and inserting them into completely different DNA set. I think one famous example is fish DNA inserted into tomato DNA. Before you could only b
(1) There is nothing "super" about the weeds, they have merely acquired resistance to herbicides. They don't grow faster or crowd out crops more aggressively than their non-resistant cousins. It just as stupid as calling anti-biotic resistant microbes "super" germs. "Super" is a term meant to imply something new and unusually powerful and deadly. Every weed growing in every crop area in the developed world is largely immune to pesticides that entered widespread use over 30 years years ago. Are they "super" weeds as well?
Neither did superman. He grew up at the same rate as other humans did.
(2) The article presents no evidence that the acquired resistance is in fact the result of cross-pollination and not natural evolution. In fact the artical says that:
"The new plants were dubbed superweeds because they proved resistant to three herbicides while the crops they were growing among had been genetically engineered to be resistant to only one."
This strongly suggest that the resistance is naturally acquired. It also doesn't seem that anyone took the elemental step of sequencing the pest-plants to see if they are actually using the same genes as the engineered crop plants. Unless someone can show that weeds contain engineered genes this article is nothing but hysterical supposition.
In other words since they didn't have funds to do the gene-sequencing proof, so their arguement is invalid. The fact of the matter is that the weeds are resistant. Until the gene sequencing is done to confirm to deny this, you can't suppose one side or the other.
(3) We have been breeding herbicide resistant crop plants using radiation and mutagenic chemicals for over a century. Where is the evidence that gene transfer has occurred using the older technology? After all, nature doesn't care where the genes came from only whether they benefit the species they jump to. If acquiring herbicide resistance from crop plants was a major problem we would have seen it long ago.
Herbicide resistant crop plants using radiation and mutagenic chemicals? I'm not sure but I thought the mutagenic chemicals was some trick to make incomptabile species produce a fertile offspring. I don't know about radiantion but randomly bombaring cells with radiation to produce herbicide resistance sounds like firing a machine gun at an animal and hoping it will somehow rearrange it to a different animal. Maybe you can back this up with some links?
(4) The supposition that crop plants will spread quickly through the wild is garbage gainsaid by centuries if not millennia or practical experience. We force crop plants to divert resources from their own survival in order to produce the plant products we need. As a result, they cannot survive in competition with natural plants that do not have the artificial overhead. If not protected from natural competition they are quickly wiped out.
I think it's the weeds getting the "super" genes and spreading rapidly. Like the introduction of foreign bees and ants in the US killing off all native bees and ants and spreading faster and causing more problems to humans because of their aggression. So, in a similar manner, not species as such but those gene transfer making a weed more competative and spreading fast killing off other natural species in the wild.
Opponents of GM crops also neglect to mention that if genes jump across species as fast as they claim then the problem will be economically self-limiting. The GM crops are only used because allow the easy killing of associate pest-plants. If the pest plants acquire resistance rapidly then the GM plants lose all their economic advantage. No one will use them because they will offer no benefits for their increased cost.
The concern I think is more of the GM plants' genes getting out in the wild and causing havoc in other ecosystems; not just farmlands.
Just my own experience... After issuing the reg command I was unable to view thumbnails in explorer of jpegs taken by my camera. I was also quite unable to open any of them until I issued the command to register the dll again ( regsvr32 shimgvw.dll ).
Yes, all the thumbnail images - Views->Thumbnails on the toolbar feature doesn't produce any thumbnails. Just the icons for the files only.
Also Windows Picture and Fax viewer doesn't load (a big annoyance) since I use it to quickly scan through images on disk at full size.
It would seem then, that the reforestation of large tracts of former farmland in the Northeastern USA over the last 150 years or so isn't neccessarily a good thing, climate-wise?
I don't think you can say "climate-wise". Maybe tree-locally temperature-wise it is hotter than if it were a giant mirror there or maybe desert is all that can be asserted.
I'm not sure what the article is comparing against. So, instead of green trees if there were white or glass concrete buildings? It can't be parking lots since they're black and absorb more heat or can't be grass since it's also green.
This is exactly what happens when science becomes a politics tool. People want to find a result and they latch onto a paper that says what they want and ignore everything else that might say anything else to the contary. So, we have reporting on a paper on a science journal.
I spent 1000 bucks on the fancy excercise equipment, and I'd do it again in a hearbeat, so please, if...
I think you spend $1000 and you're trying to justify it to yourself.
You can easily count the number of skips on a jumprope and multiply by calories in a spreadsheet. No need to have fancy equipment.
You lost weight because you wanted to lose weight and worked towards it; not because a fancy calorie readout helped you.
Maybe in the future machines will become so good that they will know how to motivate. But, for now, in my opinion it's only done to make money. And, you spending $1000 on it sort of exemplifies it.
On the other hand, those $100 running shoes are totally totally worth it. There are a lot of technologies which are quientisential and others are just marketing onuses to make money.
Plus, exercise does not have to be hard work. There were times when I used to run around all day in the park playing sports with my friends and during that time there was nothing else I would have rather done. It was great great fun.
Anyway, the exercise industry is 99% marketing driven I think.
I wonder if they ever thought about the Quality of the music they sell??
As equipment prices fall, more people have tools to create better music. A lot of stuff out there is simply amazing but just a good distribution, reviewing and cataloging service is missing.
MP3.com was going towards that but was torpedoed and killed off. You could check your local bar listing for bands playing in the month and find their mp3s on mp3.com. Sometimes, you'd find stuff that was simply amazing.
RIAA and the big music distribution is simply snuffing the real good music. I mean the TV-series tied starlet singer with lewd videos with movie tie in are all good for a certain demographic but it's useless for most of the people. Websites like allmusic.com are a step in the direction but lack strength to store songs in decent quality and rely too much on a few professional reviewers who sometimes get it very wrong.
Anyway, it's the atrocious musicians who make all the money and most others who make no money that is really terrible. There is no graduated system for good bands to rise up. It's just who gets picked up. Most local bands have to create their own posters, promo materials and have to do their own booking.
The British music scene is so much better. The American scene has to many dinosaurs and defunct genres still raking it in. The American press is really terrible with music as well.
But, there were rumours that like radio airplay, the promoters had figured out a way to rig the charts as well. Something like spend a large sums of money on buying back your albums and then sell them back. That way the albums climb the chart even though no-one is buying the CDs.
I'm not 100% sure of this. But, I think it somewhat explains why the charts are so weird. I'm an avid music listener but I out of the top 100, I would only consider listening to at most 5 of them (even though it's the same 5 for the whole year).
here Windows is crap. MacOS is significantly better, how come 98% (or whatever the statistic is) don't use a mac? (Their data is worse the slightly extra expense.) The
The foremost reason is using MacOS is most of the time twice as expensive. Dell has coupons going on everywhere and you can build your own PC.
However, for Apple products, they hardly ever participate at any sort of stores sales and the hardware is expensive.
Maybe to you who makes $70K or more a year, a grand here is no biggie but for a student where the computer is the biggest purchase of the year, a choice between $700 Dell laptop and a $1500 Apple laptop, the answer is easy.
When they port their OS to Intel chips and get MacOS running on generic PC architechture, then that will be a valid arguemet.
The moral of the story is "DO NOT USE DIRECT BANK TRANSFER FOR PAYPAL". NEVER EVER!
Sure, paypal makes you go through 3 extra steps of confirming that you want to use your credit card but always use your credit card. Then, you can always chargeback.
Plus, there is pleasure in knowing that Paypal does not get to keep the 3.3% fee but also goes into paying my credit card company.
FTFA: "The real start came in 1991, when India began dismantling its state-run economy and opening its markets to foreign imports and investment."
This is a very bad simplification. When the British left India, it was in tatters. One of the prime push of India after independence was to develop all technology locally and rebuild the society. After they reached the point in development where they knew that the "state-run economy" was more of a hinderance than a help, they slowly started making change.
It wasn't that they just became enlightened at a certain point to capitalism. It was before that point capitalism wasn't the best way of doing things.
To state it more plainly, if you're a couch potato, suddenly becoming active may be harder than you think
Stating it equally plainly, "if you're an active person, then becoming a couch potato might be harder than you think." Now, why didn't that sound right?
Anyway, are we going to slowly figure out that everything has a genetic basis one thing at a time? Next story - liking broccoli has genetic basis, being a Slashdot reader has genetic basis, scoffing at the whole thing has a genetic basis etc etc
A friend of mine works as a market strategist for eBay in Europe. While he was in town this summer he asked me who I thought eBay's biggest competition was. I said I really didn't see another competitor in the on-line or virtual auction space. He just smiled and said, "Google", then explained to me how virtually all of eBay's business is small B to P, and eBay really just brings them together. Google does the same thing with their search engines and targeted advertisements, and is getting better at it.
I totally agree with you. Ebays' main feature is to be able quickly search their 1 million plus database of goods. Everything else is just fluff (except maybe Paypal but I don't know banking at all).
However, ebay is not being very good as the monopoly auction site. They charge a lot for items (paypal and ebay will take about 10% of what you make for items below $100 and at least 6-7% for larger items) and keep finding new fees to add, sell straighforward features for sellers for higher price and I feel Ebay doesn't retain records of past auctions long enough.
There is no questions that Google will enter the auction market whatsoever. I think they're probably just stuck on googlePay or similar. The auction site itself is probably piece of cake for them.
What part? IT's a *big* field. My experience with community college IT programs are that they are closer to resembling vocational training (a heavy emphasis both on hands-on stuff and earning certifications) than prepping students for a transfer to a 4-year university. A more academic CSE track, while still IT, is a world apart. They also both attract a different breed of techie.
I think you nailed it in the head right there.
IT and CS in community colleges and low tier universities are not emphasizing theory; even if they have a class on it it's full of fluff that can just be passed by coming to class. Even though the professor may not be actively pursuing it, it's just becoming a training ground for Microsoft products like VBscript, ASP and Access. It's amazing how many people have a CS degree without a good knowledge of programming languages; I guess theory of computation, rigourous algorithms would be out of the question.
I think CS should be restructured so it is of equal rigour as Physics; and IT to match Engineering. Otherwise, CS and IT are joke majors; like communications for one who knows how to get around a computer.
I can't stand CDs anymore. I used to have hundreds and hundreds of CDs. I have sold almost all except 25 CDs.
Now my music collection is just MP3s, all carefully tagged and neatly sorted in iTunes and iPod.
I borrow CDs from the local library from time to time; when I really need the pristine uncompressed CD audio for reference.
So quit buying CDs used or new.
As a bit of music geek as well, it's so much faster to find the song I want to listen to when refered to in an article. Gosh, holding a CD by the side and placing it into the drive - makes me shudder at how much pointless effort is required and how much time the drawers opening/closing and CD twirrling wastes.
I'll probably setup a networked RAID server that has nothing but MP3s. Like 300 gigs of it of all music that I would ever consider listening to.
I've tried the Napster and Rhapsody and they have done a similar thing - a huge music database. Their licensing is a little hokey, doesn't work with my networked devices attached to my receiver and it needs network access all the time.
Maybe he doesn't want to for the rest of his life be studied by some scientists. I would love to help people but I sure as hell wouldn't want to spend the rest of my life in front of doctors if I was in his position, I would rather continue a "normal" life (you know, normal,/. reading computer geek)
Are you crazy!
If I had the cure to HIV running in my veins, I'd first get legal advice on how to best financially exploit the situation.
Slashdot Mirror
Bachelor in math is only good for teaching below college level.
Master in math is only good for teaching first year college courses and acturial sciences.
Now, PhD in math is useful but only for the research topic.
So, only time I can think of a mathematician looking for a job would be as a professor. Otherwise, he or she would know where exactly to work.
Yeah right!
Look at the students' reaction when you give then a "story-problem"
Imagine basing all of mathematics around story like problems.
Anyway, teaching mathematics as applied mathematics is like teaching kids to play piano by teaching them Coldplay songs. Sure, it will be fun and all and develop some basic skills, but it's far from real piano playing.
Why can't automatic verifications systems be used for this? You start with an input set and define the output set. Run a program verification system to make sure the outputs are in the output set and don't go out of it?
The inputs or outputs could be infinite but in that case use logical constructs to verify it.
I'm not a researcher or student of this theory. So, maybe someone can illustrate to me why this wouldn't work or be applied to industry?
But that is not murder. It happens now too. You lose and you don't make as much money, or get as much whatever. But, it's not directly eliminating someone but showing you're better or winning.
I think it only takes a lot of training to kill efficiently using all sorts of high-tech equipment.
I don't think they have a problem with killing other people and feeling bad about it.
I didn't say it worked. I just said it was possible and that someone tried it and my point was that transgenic organisms are possible.
I disagree. First of all, if you want to use evolutionary theory then you have to take into fact that humans didn't live in huge cities like we do now. We lived in small collections of hunters/gatherers. You kill someone in your own group, then you get ostracized from the group which will lead to certain no-mating.
Second, murder of another competing group would be good and you'd be considered a hero in your group. Then you'd get more reproductive success if you're a hero.
So, murder is bad but a battlefield kill is good. We hate murderers but love war heros. Anyway, that's my view. So, just murdering someone in cold blood is hard but killing in a battlefield isn't as much.
Hmm, maybe call them X-Weeds, hehe? Super is not a precise term so you're right in that aspect.
Hmm, I don't see how you can reach that conclusion. Here's the story from a webpage from a Google search -> In 1956, some colonies of African Honey Bees were imported into Brazil, with the idea of cross-breeding them with local populations of Honey Bees to increase honey production. In 1957, twenty-six African queens, along with swarms of European worker bees, escaped from an experimental apiary about l00 miles south of Sao Paulo. These African bee escapees have since formed hybrid populations with European Honey Bees, both feral and from commercial hives. They have gradually spread northward through South America, Central America, and eastern Mexico, progressing some 100 to 200 miles per year. In 1990, Killer Bees reached southern Texas, appeared in Arizona in 1993, and found their way to California in 1995. They are expected to form colonies in parts of the southern United States.
The killer bees were first brough in to increase honey production in bees. However, they escaped and formed hybrids and became killer bees. That's exactly what I'm saying. Bring in a new foreign new gene into the ecosystem and it can completely change the balance of things.
Maybe and maybe not. I guess we'd need a definite study on these to show one way or the other. But, I see your point.
No, I think you're wrong. Remember all dogs of different breeds are in the same species even though they are so different. A chiwawa and a doberman can produce an offspring. Selective breeding is creating new breeds by mixing breeds within a species. That's why I'm saying it's in the same gene pool.
Insulting me the first line seems to me that you're taking this personally. I have nothing against you. I'm just testing your arguements out. Jeez. Be a sport and if I don't know argiculture, genetics and evolutionary theory point it out.
My point is that "super" is just a text word. Take to take the analogy into further abusrd level, krptonite would hurt superman whereas it wouldn't do anything to everyone else. So, there is nothing in the word super; it's just a moniker.
Are killer bees and ants as annoying as the regular honey bees? Maybe to nature it doesn't matter since it will all balances out. But, it's annoying as hell to humans.
Also, maybe I didn't stress enough, I think most arguements against GM crops are not about the crops itself but about the new genes causing havoc to non-farming ecosystems. Like killer African bees killing off and taking over native north american bees.
Plus, genetic modification isn't just herbicide resistance. There's the terminal genes one and the added vitamins one. Also giant vegetables ones.
Yeah, they should have just done the gene-sequencing to be sure. However, that weed that is herbicide resistant is growing among thousands of herbicide resistant crops. Rather than a parallel evolution of that particular herbicide resistance, wouldn't it be probabilistically more likely that one some grabbed that section of the inserted gene and passed it onto the weed species? (Although I don't know how frequetly that happens but in the lab to do genetic engineering, viruses are used to insert DNA)
Yes, GM plants are different because they use "transgenic" DNA. Before the genes were always in the population gene pool. Now, we're taking genes from another species and inserting them into completely different DNA set. I think one famous example is fish DNA inserted into tomato DNA. Before you could only b
I don't think you can say "climate-wise". Maybe tree-locally temperature-wise it is hotter than if it were a giant mirror there or maybe desert is all that can be asserted.
I'm not sure what the article is comparing against. So, instead of green trees if there were white or glass concrete buildings? It can't be parking lots since they're black and absorb more heat or can't be grass since it's also green.
This is exactly what happens when science becomes a politics tool. People want to find a result and they latch onto a paper that says what they want and ignore everything else that might say anything else to the contary. So, we have reporting on a paper on a science journal.
I think you spend $1000 and you're trying to justify it to yourself.
You can easily count the number of skips on a jumprope and multiply by calories in a spreadsheet. No need to have fancy equipment.
You lost weight because you wanted to lose weight and worked towards it; not because a fancy calorie readout helped you.
Maybe in the future machines will become so good that they will know how to motivate. But, for now, in my opinion it's only done to make money. And, you spending $1000 on it sort of exemplifies it.
On the other hand, those $100 running shoes are totally totally worth it. There are a lot of technologies which are quientisential and others are just marketing onuses to make money.
Plus, exercise does not have to be hard work. There were times when I used to run around all day in the park playing sports with my friends and during that time there was nothing else I would have rather done. It was great great fun.
Anyway, the exercise industry is 99% marketing driven I think.
I thought it was from Star Trek Voyager where Jakotay uses the story to warn Janeway about the alliance with the Borg against Species 8472.
Gosh, I've been watching too much Star Trek!
As equipment prices fall, more people have tools to create better music. A lot of stuff out there is simply amazing but just a good distribution, reviewing and cataloging service is missing.
MP3.com was going towards that but was torpedoed and killed off. You could check your local bar listing for bands playing in the month and find their mp3s on mp3.com. Sometimes, you'd find stuff that was simply amazing.
RIAA and the big music distribution is simply snuffing the real good music. I mean the TV-series tied starlet singer with lewd videos with movie tie in are all good for a certain demographic but it's useless for most of the people. Websites like allmusic.com are a step in the direction but lack strength to store songs in decent quality and rely too much on a few professional reviewers who sometimes get it very wrong.
Anyway, it's the atrocious musicians who make all the money and most others who make no money that is really terrible. There is no graduated system for good bands to rise up. It's just who gets picked up. Most local bands have to create their own posters, promo materials and have to do their own booking.
The British music scene is so much better. The American scene has to many dinosaurs and defunct genres still raking it in. The American press is really terrible with music as well.
But, there were rumours that like radio airplay, the promoters had figured out a way to rig the charts as well. Something like spend a large sums of money on buying back your albums and then sell them back. That way the albums climb the chart even though no-one is buying the CDs.
I'm not 100% sure of this. But, I think it somewhat explains why the charts are so weird. I'm an avid music listener but I out of the top 100, I would only consider listening to at most 5 of them (even though it's the same 5 for the whole year).
The foremost reason is using MacOS is most of the time twice as expensive. Dell has coupons going on everywhere and you can build your own PC.
However, for Apple products, they hardly ever participate at any sort of stores sales and the hardware is expensive.
Maybe to you who makes $70K or more a year, a grand here is no biggie but for a student where the computer is the biggest purchase of the year, a choice between $700 Dell laptop and a $1500 Apple laptop, the answer is easy.
When they port their OS to Intel chips and get MacOS running on generic PC architechture, then that will be a valid arguemet.
The moral of the story is "DO NOT USE DIRECT BANK TRANSFER FOR PAYPAL". NEVER EVER! Sure, paypal makes you go through 3 extra steps of confirming that you want to use your credit card but always use your credit card. Then, you can always chargeback. Plus, there is pleasure in knowing that Paypal does not get to keep the 3.3% fee but also goes into paying my credit card company.
This is a very bad simplification. When the British left India, it was in tatters. One of the prime push of India after independence was to develop all technology locally and rebuild the society. After they reached the point in development where they knew that the "state-run economy" was more of a hinderance than a help, they slowly started making change.
It wasn't that they just became enlightened at a certain point to capitalism. It was before that point capitalism wasn't the best way of doing things.
Stating it equally plainly, "if you're an active person, then becoming a couch potato might be harder than you think." Now, why didn't that sound right?
Anyway, are we going to slowly figure out that everything has a genetic basis one thing at a time? Next story - liking broccoli has genetic basis, being a Slashdot reader has genetic basis, scoffing at the whole thing has a genetic basis etc etc
I totally agree with you. Ebays' main feature is to be able quickly search their 1 million plus database of goods. Everything else is just fluff (except maybe Paypal but I don't know banking at all).
However, ebay is not being very good as the monopoly auction site. They charge a lot for items (paypal and ebay will take about 10% of what you make for items below $100 and at least 6-7% for larger items) and keep finding new fees to add, sell straighforward features for sellers for higher price and I feel Ebay doesn't retain records of past auctions long enough.
There is no questions that Google will enter the auction market whatsoever. I think they're probably just stuck on googlePay or similar. The auction site itself is probably piece of cake for them.
Nah, they'll just sponsor an open source effort. Way way cheaper that way.
I think you nailed it in the head right there.
IT and CS in community colleges and low tier universities are not emphasizing theory; even if they have a class on it it's full of fluff that can just be passed by coming to class. Even though the professor may not be actively pursuing it, it's just becoming a training ground for Microsoft products like VBscript, ASP and Access. It's amazing how many people have a CS degree without a good knowledge of programming languages; I guess theory of computation, rigourous algorithms would be out of the question.
I think CS should be restructured so it is of equal rigour as Physics; and IT to match Engineering. Otherwise, CS and IT are joke majors; like communications for one who knows how to get around a computer.
I can't stand CDs anymore. I used to have hundreds and hundreds of CDs. I have sold almost all except 25 CDs.
Now my music collection is just MP3s, all carefully tagged and neatly sorted in iTunes and iPod.
I borrow CDs from the local library from time to time; when I really need the pristine uncompressed CD audio for reference.
So quit buying CDs used or new.
As a bit of music geek as well, it's so much faster to find the song I want to listen to when refered to in an article. Gosh, holding a CD by the side and placing it into the drive - makes me shudder at how much pointless effort is required and how much time the drawers opening/closing and CD twirrling wastes.
I'll probably setup a networked RAID server that has nothing but MP3s. Like 300 gigs of it of all music that I would ever consider listening to.
I've tried the Napster and Rhapsody and they have done a similar thing - a huge music database. Their licensing is a little hokey, doesn't work with my networked devices attached to my receiver and it needs network access all the time.
Are you crazy!
If I had the cure to HIV running in my veins, I'd first get legal advice on how to best financially exploit the situation.