Maybe it's the election, but I had thought I was watching plenty of news lately. This post made me look up Columbia and I see that the 5th anniversary of its crash was Feb 1st, 2008. Funny thing is, I didn't hear a thing about it then. Did anyone else? Or was this ignored by the media in the runup to Feb 3rd (superbowl) and Feb 5th (super Tuesday)? Seems that NASA was reminded with this disaster to pay attention to the Feynman suggestion that shuttle failures will happen on the order of 1% of the time, as suggested by its engineers.
Glad the Mars landed proposed by Bush still has time to be well-designed.;)
BTW, the Iraq war also started about 5 years ago, on March 19. Maybe that event helped to squelch public morning for Columbia at the time. Sure seemed like it wasn't in the headlines for long. Or maybe, like me, everyone was just to sad to be reminded of Challenger and didn't want to think about Columbia.
First off, the average male adult will probably need about 2500 calories per day to maintain weight. To lose one pound, you need to subtract 3500 calories from your maintenance weight. That's right: 3500 calories is about equal to a pound. Now, figure that if you go run ONE MILE, you have just burnt 100 calories. Thus, if you run 4 miles a day EVERY STINKING DAY (speaking from experience) you will need about nine days of this to lose one pound. 36 MILES is only ONE FREAKIN' POUND. Say you're a mere 20 pounds overweight. Then we're talking about 6 months of non-stop daily four mile runs and no cheating on your regular 2500 calorie per day diet to shed those 20 pounds. Any personal project that requires 6 months of daily effort with no extra pay and a small, gradual reward is almost impossible to achieve. The bottom line is, if you are relying on exercise alone, it is very difficult to lose weight. That is why diet and exercise are always mentioned together. By dieting, you can, for example, reasonably cut 600 calories per day with very little pain. That's a pound a week with NO exercise. And that's the basis behind weight watchers and nurtisystem, where they provide the food in calorie-measured portions.
And if you are the slashdotter who thinks anyone can eat 300 calories per day and gain weight, well, I can practically guarantee you will benefit by studying these numbers a little. Metabolism is not a wishy washy thing. This is an idea that seems to comfort the obese, but it's not true. Your cells are the same as mine and the next guy's. Your DNA is almost identical to mine. Give or take a fraction of a percent at the most. And your calorie requirements are basically the same.
By eliminating DRM, all music suppliers whose primary revenue is a monthly subscription will have to change their business model. Napster, for example: They sell you all the music you can download and you pay a monthly fee. But as soon as you stop paying the fee, the DRM attached to your music prevents you from playing that music anymore. Thus, if music is sold without any DRM, then Napster and the like won't be able to offer a monthly subscription model. So the new choice in online music will be something like EMI music at iTunes with no DRM, or EMI music at Napster with an 'old fashioned' DRM and lower value to the consumer. Furthermore, since the lack of a DRM gives the music more value to the consumer, Apple might allow a higher per track price. This is something the big music companies have been shouting for. It might be used as a bargaining chip in Apple's next round of negotiations with the music companies.
In the sci-fi book Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut, ice-9 was a crystal that could be dropped in water to instantly crystallize it. Of course, by the end of the book it gets dropped in the ocean and we all (almost) die.
Go figure. Articles left and right about what's wrong with the iPhone. Many of them stuck on the name issue, i.e., the Cisco conflict. Some stuck on the features issue and some stuck on the price. Others worried about the size of the system and the lack of third party applications. Each of these is utterly meaningless. Completely without merit. The name could be anything. Who cares? Call it the rose-is-a-rose-by-any-other-name-Phone. The feature list is almost pure speculation and certainly bound to change. I've tried to use excel on a TREO. It sucks. (However, it also sucks to use google spreadsheets.) And MS Word? If you're using your smart phone for documents that are longer than email it's because you weren't prepared and didn't bring your laptop. And the price is a small fraction of any two-year contract. Even the Motorola Q and the Treo cost well over $2000 for a two year contract. We're talking a minimum of $60-$80 per month plus taxes and the initial phone costs. The OS could be on separate memory chips for all we know. And there is in fact speculation that Apple will let some developers release apps.
HOWEVER, I for one hope the negative press continues, driving the stock price down. I expect to buy AAPL at a low just before the iPhone is released and then reap great profit as the stock price goes up. Every reviewer who has actually touched the iPhone wants to buy one. And I want to buy one.
even on Mars, might teach us plenty about how to control temperature on Earth. Such information could be invaluable in averting the upcoming global warming. Can we, for example, reflect light away from our planet to reduce temperature?
For years I had a Mobil speedpass. I found it incredibly convenient. Take out the keys, pass them near the pump, and go. For those rushed commutes when I wanted to get back to the road and back to my audiobook, getting out of the gas station was a priority and I thought it was great. And even when it was clear the system was hackable http://www.marketingshift.com/2005/1/exxon-mobile- speedpass-hack-via-rfid.cfm I still used it. WTF? You get cheated, you call the credit card company and take care of it. How many websites already have my credit card information? How many bills do I pay online? There is a huge amount of trust that I put in these institutions. But I've decided that my time and convenience in the long run are more important than worrying about a few hundred dollars.
Since Nike already makes a sensor that ties to the top of any shoe, I'd bet that their new in-sole sensor will also work by fixing it to some zip ties and putting it on your Adidas. No doubt the sensor is accessible since you'll need to change its batteries. I also doubt that the position in the sole is important, though certainly it will have to be placed on the shoe.
There is only one wire coming to my house. It already carries the HD signal to my TV and the internet to my computer. But let's see, if it carries the HD signal to my computer then I'll need to pay more money? No, wait, the problem must be upstream of the of the cable provider office, where internet signals have to travel from satellite dish to satellite dish, just like... just like my HD broadcast already does. No, wait...
Congressman Lamar Smith is the chairman of the committee that is looking into legislating DRM uniformity. It is interesting to note that among the top twenty PACs that contributed to Congressman Smith's 2002 campaign, for which the info is readily available, are Dell (#10), Microsoft and Wallmart (tied at #11) and the National Assn of Broadcasters (#20). This info is from opensecrets.org
This was reported a couple of days ago in the new york times. The links in the Times article show pictures of the vehicles and talk about touch pad controls and an assignable USB control. The cars include a MacNova, MacJeep and soon a MacCamino. Personally, I'd prefer a MacPorsche911.
I'm surprised at all of the partisan comments. After all, if there really is a problem with the electronic voting machines, how do we know that the programming will always favor a republican? Maybe the programming will always favor the incumbant! (Hillary wins next two terms!) Maybe it will always favor the candidate who comes first in the alphabet! (Bart Simpson beats Spongebob Squarepants -- whoda guessed.) Maybe the program will always favor a president named George! We just don't know. For this reason, all of you who think that scientists at Berkeley are challenging George Bush's presidency, forget about it! The real issue here is not whether Bush is president. There is no way he will be removed due to election problems, that just won't happen. So focus on the big picture: If electronic voting doesn't work, it needs to be fixed. For everyone.
It is NOT a gene sequencer!!!
on
Home DNA Sequencing
·
· Score: 2, Informative
Sorry, the poster and Wired got it wrong. The original source calls this a gene mapper. That probably means it includes restriction enzymes for cutting the DNA into chuncks. This is not the same as finding the primary sequence. Sequencing by all current common methods requires either radioactivity or a fluorescent laser detection device. Neither of which is likely to be provided for $80. (Or I'd buy it for my lab!!)
The reason why you can burn a nutshell and save greenhouse gases may be partly due to the fact that the alternative is to let it rot. Dozens of swimming pools worth of nutshells will produce tons of a different type of greenhouse gas, namely methane. According to energy.qld.gov.au methane has 21 times the effect of CO2 as a greenhouse gas. (Nitrous oxide has 310 times the effect.) This is partly why there is an increasing interest in converting methane from dump sites into liquid natural gas or other types of convertible energy. According to the epa at yosemite, municipal solid waste amounted to 309 teragrams of methane in 1997 alone. What's a teragram? a trillion grams.
Kurzweil believes that in some small number of decades, we will be able to put all human thought into a machine. Essentially "beaming" ourselves into a mechanical device.
This seems like so much bull to me.
I can't help but wonder if this is an instance of an individual who turned one dream into a success (Kurzweil made himself a millionare) and thereafter thinks that turning any imagined thought into a success is trivial.
If you were starting a computer company now..and you wanted to capitalize on the most vocal, intelligent base of people in existense on the planet, then your choices (IMHO), are either the open source community of linux/unix people or the fringe community who protested at the world trade organization when they last met in Seattle.
So, was putting out a unix box more than just a marketting decision on the part of Apple?
Slashdot Mirror
Maybe it's the election, but I had thought I was watching plenty of news lately. This post made me look up Columbia and I see that the 5th anniversary of its crash was Feb 1st, 2008. Funny thing is, I didn't hear a thing about it then. Did anyone else? Or was this ignored by the media in the runup to Feb 3rd (superbowl) and Feb 5th (super Tuesday)? Seems that NASA was reminded with this disaster to pay attention to the Feynman suggestion that shuttle failures will happen on the order of 1% of the time, as suggested by its engineers. Glad the Mars landed proposed by Bush still has time to be well-designed. ;)
BTW, the Iraq war also started about 5 years ago, on March 19. Maybe that event helped to squelch public morning for Columbia at the time. Sure seemed like it wasn't in the headlines for long. Or maybe, like me, everyone was just to sad to be reminded of Challenger and didn't want to think about Columbia.
First off, the average male adult will probably need about 2500 calories per day to maintain weight. To lose one pound, you need to subtract 3500 calories from your maintenance weight. That's right: 3500 calories is about equal to a pound. Now, figure that if you go run ONE MILE, you have just burnt 100 calories. Thus, if you run 4 miles a day EVERY STINKING DAY (speaking from experience) you will need about nine days of this to lose one pound. 36 MILES is only ONE FREAKIN' POUND. Say you're a mere 20 pounds overweight. Then we're talking about 6 months of non-stop daily four mile runs and no cheating on your regular 2500 calorie per day diet to shed those 20 pounds. Any personal project that requires 6 months of daily effort with no extra pay and a small, gradual reward is almost impossible to achieve. The bottom line is, if you are relying on exercise alone, it is very difficult to lose weight. That is why diet and exercise are always mentioned together. By dieting, you can, for example, reasonably cut 600 calories per day with very little pain. That's a pound a week with NO exercise. And that's the basis behind weight watchers and nurtisystem, where they provide the food in calorie-measured portions. And if you are the slashdotter who thinks anyone can eat 300 calories per day and gain weight, well, I can practically guarantee you will benefit by studying these numbers a little. Metabolism is not a wishy washy thing. This is an idea that seems to comfort the obese, but it's not true. Your cells are the same as mine and the next guy's. Your DNA is almost identical to mine. Give or take a fraction of a percent at the most. And your calorie requirements are basically the same.
I'm sure we'll bring democracy to the Galaxy soon. We'll be up on Mars soon, after all. Then...
By eliminating DRM, all music suppliers whose primary revenue is a monthly subscription will have to change their business model. Napster, for example: They sell you all the music you can download and you pay a monthly fee. But as soon as you stop paying the fee, the DRM attached to your music prevents you from playing that music anymore. Thus, if music is sold without any DRM, then Napster and the like won't be able to offer a monthly subscription model. So the new choice in online music will be something like EMI music at iTunes with no DRM, or EMI music at Napster with an 'old fashioned' DRM and lower value to the consumer. Furthermore, since the lack of a DRM gives the music more value to the consumer, Apple might allow a higher per track price. This is something the big music companies have been shouting for. It might be used as a bargaining chip in Apple's next round of negotiations with the music companies.
In the sci-fi book Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut, ice-9 was a crystal that could be dropped in water to instantly crystallize it. Of course, by the end of the book it gets dropped in the ocean and we all (almost) die.
they are not giving the information away. If you want to know, you have to PAY!
Go figure. Articles left and right about what's wrong with the iPhone. Many of them stuck on the name issue, i.e., the Cisco conflict. Some stuck on the features issue and some stuck on the price. Others worried about the size of the system and the lack of third party applications. Each of these is utterly meaningless. Completely without merit. The name could be anything. Who cares? Call it the rose-is-a-rose-by-any-other-name-Phone. The feature list is almost pure speculation and certainly bound to change. I've tried to use excel on a TREO. It sucks. (However, it also sucks to use google spreadsheets.) And MS Word? If you're using your smart phone for documents that are longer than email it's because you weren't prepared and didn't bring your laptop. And the price is a small fraction of any two-year contract. Even the Motorola Q and the Treo cost well over $2000 for a two year contract. We're talking a minimum of $60-$80 per month plus taxes and the initial phone costs. The OS could be on separate memory chips for all we know. And there is in fact speculation that Apple will let some developers release apps.
HOWEVER, I for one hope the negative press continues, driving the stock price down. I expect to buy AAPL at a low just before the iPhone is released and then reap great profit as the stock price goes up. Every reviewer who has actually touched the iPhone wants to buy one. And I want to buy one.
whatsoever effect ill no felt and
even on Mars, might teach us plenty about how to control temperature on Earth. Such information could be invaluable in averting the upcoming global warming. Can we, for example, reflect light away from our planet to reduce temperature?
For years I had a Mobil speedpass. I found it incredibly convenient. Take out the keys, pass them near the pump, and go. For those rushed commutes when I wanted to get back to the road and back to my audiobook, getting out of the gas station was a priority and I thought it was great. And even when it was clear the system was hackable http://www.marketingshift.com/2005/1/exxon-mobile- speedpass-hack-via-rfid.cfm I still used it. WTF? You get cheated, you call the credit card company and take care of it. How many websites already have my credit card information? How many bills do I pay online? There is a huge amount of trust that I put in these institutions. But I've decided that my time and convenience in the long run are more important than worrying about a few hundred dollars.
Since Nike already makes a sensor that ties to the top of any shoe, I'd bet that their new in-sole sensor will also work by fixing it to some zip ties and putting it on your Adidas. No doubt the sensor is accessible since you'll need to change its batteries. I also doubt that the position in the sole is important, though certainly it will have to be placed on the shoe.
There is only one wire coming to my house. It already carries the HD signal to my TV and the internet to my computer. But let's see, if it carries the HD signal to my computer then I'll need to pay more money? No, wait, the problem must be upstream of the of the cable provider office, where internet signals have to travel from satellite dish to satellite dish, just like... just like my HD broadcast already does. No, wait...
it took ten minutes for the hole in the water to fill up...
Congressman Lamar Smith is the chairman of the committee that is looking into legislating DRM uniformity. It is interesting to note that among the top twenty PACs that contributed to Congressman Smith's 2002 campaign, for which the info is readily available, are Dell (#10), Microsoft and Wallmart (tied at #11) and the National Assn of Broadcasters (#20). This info is from opensecrets.org
This was reported a couple of days ago in the new york times. The links in the Times article show pictures of the vehicles and talk about touch pad controls and an assignable USB control. The cars include a MacNova, MacJeep and soon a MacCamino. Personally, I'd prefer a MacPorsche911.
All those anti-cell phone health nuts will fell stupid one day, lying in hospitals dying of nothing.
I'm surprised at all of the partisan comments. After all, if there really is a problem with the electronic voting machines, how do we know that the programming will always favor a republican? Maybe the programming will always favor the incumbant! (Hillary wins next two terms!) Maybe it will always favor the candidate who comes first in the alphabet! (Bart Simpson beats Spongebob Squarepants -- whoda guessed.) Maybe the program will always favor a president named George! We just don't know. For this reason, all of you who think that scientists at Berkeley are challenging George Bush's presidency, forget about it! The real issue here is not whether Bush is president. There is no way he will be removed due to election problems, that just won't happen. So focus on the big picture: If electronic voting doesn't work, it needs to be fixed. For everyone.
Sorry, the poster and Wired got it wrong. The original source calls this a gene mapper. That probably means it includes restriction enzymes for cutting the DNA into chuncks. This is not the same as finding the primary sequence. Sequencing by all current common methods requires either radioactivity or a fluorescent laser detection device. Neither of which is likely to be provided for $80. (Or I'd buy it for my lab!!)
The reason why you can burn a nutshell and save greenhouse gases may be partly due to the fact that the alternative is to let it rot. Dozens of swimming pools worth of nutshells will produce tons of a different type of greenhouse gas, namely methane. According to energy.qld.gov.au methane has 21 times the effect of CO2 as a greenhouse gas. (Nitrous oxide has 310 times the effect.) This is partly why there is an increasing interest in converting methane from dump sites into liquid natural gas or other types of convertible energy. According to the epa at yosemite, municipal solid waste amounted to 309 teragrams of methane in 1997 alone. What's a teragram? a trillion grams.
Artificial Intelligence is no match for Natural Stupidity.
Kurzweil believes that in some small number of decades, we will be able to put all human thought into a machine. Essentially "beaming" ourselves into a mechanical device. This seems like so much bull to me. I can't help but wonder if this is an instance of an individual who turned one dream into a success (Kurzweil made himself a millionare) and thereafter thinks that turning any imagined thought into a success is trivial.
If you were starting a computer company now..and you wanted to capitalize on the most vocal, intelligent base of people in existense on the planet, then your choices (IMHO), are either the open source community of linux/unix people or the fringe community who protested at the world trade organization when they last met in Seattle. So, was putting out a unix box more than just a marketting decision on the part of Apple?