And in fact I believe that DNA ancestors studies use mitochondrial DNA. So it is an important contribution in that it breaks a long line of identical mitochondrial DNA within the female ancestors of the embryo.
From what I understand of the present case, the mitochondrial DNA of the mother who supplied the nucleus indeed contained genes for a disease and that is what motivated the change. So the change is not unimportant at all.
Question from a European who, too, was very disappointed of this reversal : has he been giving reasons for that ? Did he say it was for security ? did he present it as a compromise with republicans ? did he deny changing positions ?
It is trivially easy to state a natural phenomenon that has a low probability of happening even in 10^18 star systems. For instance, I can state with some certainty that no planet in the universe has the same continental lines as Earth. There exist a resolution at which the Kilimandjaro is a unique feature in the universe. Similarily, there is a certain resolution of the parameter spaces where earth has a high probability of being a unique or rare occurrence. We simply don't have enough data to:
1) State in how big a range of parameters life can appear.
2) Compute the frequency of occurrence of such parameters.
I also find it hard to believe that we are indeed in an awesome improbable planet and that our biosphere is a curiosity unequaled in the whole universe. I also acknowledge that this is purely a belief and that it is not possible to demonstrate it with the data we currently have yet. Hopefully as our knowledge of biological mechanisms and astronomy grow, we will eventually get there. But what is the proportion of systems harboring life ? 100% ? 1/2 ? 1/10 ? 1/100 ? 10^-6 ? 10^-18 ? There are no ruled out possibilities yet.
Yeah funny, but indeed accurate. The people who use algorithms to predict delinquents are politicians who think that the 5% of false positives is acceptable and who don't care having a very normalized society
And explain to them how email is not a way to do business on the web if they are not cryptographically signed. Sorry, I may sound like an asshole, but this is a flaw in the email protocol that everyone accepts and deals with. This is the kind of things that will more and more happen until people ask for something more robust.
Because every situation needs a car analogy:
Salesman : Hey everyone ! Free cars ! Runs on regular fuel, 30 MPG ! take one home !
Clients : Yay !
Salesman : Oh, btw, now it only runs on our own and overpriced fuel stations, or it won't be able to go on new roads just because we decided it, no real technological problem.
Just to make it clear, I am not stating this hypothesis to put somewhere my favorite supernatural imaginary friend. I understand and agree with abiogenesis as an explanation for life on earth. However, considering the current state of our knowledge about planetary formation, abiogenesis conditions and requirements in the latter states, census of exoplanets, I doubt it is possible to give sensible bounds for the probability of abiogenesis happening somewhere else. None of these hypothesis are easy to refute factually right now (even if most scientists agree we can do some educated guess, I think no one says they are provably wrong):
- conditions for abiogenesis may be very precise (require a planet where lightning occurs, the good temperatures range occurs, with a magnetic "shield", with the good type of star, with tides...)
- planets like earth may be a very rare occurrence. All the exoplanets we have observed are within a limited radius in our own galaxy. Maybe it takes exceptional conditions to make a planet with that much nova stuff (elements with higher atomic number than iron).
The question is to know whether abiogenesis conditions are as common in the universe as patches of muddy water are on earth or if it is as uncommon as the underground acid lake that was discovered in Antarctica.
Hydrogen and oxygen are the 1st and 3rd most abundant elements in the universe and spontaneously react to from water. Given what we know about galaxy composition and the formation of planetary systems the odds that Earth has the only surface level ocean in the cosmos are so impractically small that they could be used to drive an infinite improbability machine.
Yes, we can guess that water is common in the universe. What we don't know is how common telluric planets are in a zone that allows big quantities of liquid water to exist. All stars are not born equal. We know next to nothing about the process of planets formation. It is not implausible that planets like Earth are very rare gems in the universe and that even in good conditions, the appearance of life is a very improbable event.
Like many, my intuition says that the universe is big enough to have other forms of life, but let's not forget that the possibility that we are really alone in the universe cannot be ruled out.
How does my post disagree with your point of view ? I wholeheartedly agree with that and just point out that sometimes you have to do something useless but fancy to get funds.
Or maybe the life on earth comes from an absurd combination of improbable coincidence, that nowhere else in the Universe did star give birth to planets except in our very small part of the Milky Way (all the exoplanets detected are "close") and that the earth is really the only one with liquid water and liquid water is the only environment where life has a chance to appear spontaneously...
Hey, why not ? It is bad practice in statistics to use only two observations to do a projection. In search for IT we are extrapolating from a single observation (Earth). Everything is possible !
Ok, replace "French alternative music" by "punk band from the city I live in", which is Lyon, France. If I was fucking sophisticated, I would not fart in your general direction.
The main strength of OS/2 today would be the IBM logo on the start screen. Believe it or not, this makes linux a whole different game to many decision-makers.
Because to do science, you have to wow voters. This will probably cheap : they have a humanoid robot, a shuttle that is not full, well just put the robot inside the shuttle, make it screw two things in slow motion, and next time you talk to Congress, these people will think they understand what these "robotic missions" they have to vote for really are.
By the way, humanoid robots can be useful, but on Earth, where most of the tools, machines and paths are shaped for humans. In space the humanoid shape is really useless. Anyway, a lot of work on the ISS station is already roboticized : Canadarm is the kind of shape you are looking for.
Or suggest that they find the song themselves, or invite them round to listen to the song themselves (if you know them in RL), or find a sample that is already legally online.
IRL : Hey, do you know that song ? (plays a song)
via Internet : Hey you know that song ? No ? Can't make you hear it but you should definitely buy it.
And no, most of the French, alternative music I listen to isn't available online, a lot of my friends live more than 100 km away.
And instead of showing self-restraint and not benefiting for free when they should legally be paying, they disrespect the artist by taking a free copy and not paying them at all?
I have been showing restraint for 10 years. I did not want to be illegally downloading. I want files in an open format readable under linux, without DRM. I stopped discovering new artists since I left school where filesharing was all the rage. I feel I am out of the cultural system right now. Now I am tired to wait for majors to find a workable business plan. Their plan is to make music forbidden on computers, I find it non acceptable. So fùck it. I share files with friends, I make them discover new artists, I make them go to concerts and buy goodies, I wait for flattr to be released and finally repay all the artists I love and want them to earn money through their music. I am not a thief a pirate or whadayanot. Between 10% and 40% of the price of a CD goes to the artist, the rest goes to people who go to the opposite way of progress. On internet stores, the ratio is even lower. Give me a direct way to give money to the artist or insurance that on a price paid at least 80% will go to them and sure as hell I'll pay for DRM-less music.
Oh, we are ready to admit that this "filesharer" word is as biased as "pirate" is. The thing is, people who are just downloading songs they don't want to buy are not maritime bandits, neither are they counterfeiters or people pretending to be the original author (what 'piracy' used to mean in the artistic world).
I also disagree with the dichotomy that you are either a legal filesharer or someone motivated by greed. If I love a song I bought from an artist and want to send it to a group of 5 friends, I either have to spend 5x what I spent for me or be labeled "greedy pirate who steals from artist" instead of "enthusiastic fan through who the promotion of the artist is done".
Studies are showing that people who download a lot are also people who spend a lot in legal music. The thing is, there is simply no legal way of doing on internet some of the things that music fans regularly do in the meatspace (or at a cost of dozens of times what it costs usually). The typical profile of a pirate is either:
- student with no money who wouldn't buy much music anyway
- music fan (who used to be a student with no money) who would love to have a way to pay for artists through internet in a way that both respect consumer and artist (i.e. cheaper on internet than on physical media and with a greater artist share. iTunes is notoriously bad in the latter aspect)
It does.
From what I understand, this reads flash videos without using flash code. There is a difference between flash code and flash codec. One is an insecure runtime that is a blatant hole inside a device's security and allows arbitrary code execution, the other is just a regular video codec that VLC can read.
You'd have thought that "copyright infringers" would have been short, to the point and accurate. Maybe that doesn't sound evil enough, even if it is correct.
Well, from people who consider that "piracy" also encompasses the use of P2P tools (because, you know, free culture just doesn't exist) "filesharer" sounded like a better idea. Also "copyright infringement" is not always a legal term in every country, that's why "piracy" is used internationally, as well as "filesharer". Both depicts an action independently of national laws.
In France, for instance, pirates are not "copyright infringers" but counterfeiters. I must confess that I also love all the puns that make the words "piratage" (piracy) and "partage" (sharing) so close in French:-)
Oh, I know that Z-pinch machines and laser inertial confinements are all the rage now. They really are sexy beasts. But right now if you want to sustain a high-temperature fusion reaction during several seconds (minutes ?) you only have tokamaks.
Yeah, many people amongst pirate parties feel that way too. But first, we think that the "second-degreeness" of the name is good and is a way to ridicule this "pirate" label that lobbyists are trying to give to people who just share files. There has already been some reaction (from the RIAA IIRC). They said that "pirate" was a bad term because it sounded "too cool" and that they needed to come out with a new term to qualify their enemies. We proposed "filesharers" but apparently that is not what they are looking for.
Earlier Russian scientific communities were, for all the lip service paid to science, really dedicated to furthering atomic weaponry. There was never a great diversity of scientific exploration going on within them, and Russia thus has no experience with establishing communities that can actually create profitable technologies that will boost the country's economy.
Another way of saying is just that they missed the IT train. But to dismiss their level in aeronautics, space, physics (tokamaks anyone ?) is a bit exaggerated. I think that through this plan they will try to come back on the IT scene and that they have good opportunities for that. We all know about the Russian hackers, it means that they have a wealth of capable and educated people there.
Slashdot Mirror
And in fact I believe that DNA ancestors studies use mitochondrial DNA. So it is an important contribution in that it breaks a long line of identical mitochondrial DNA within the female ancestors of the embryo.
From what I understand of the present case, the mitochondrial DNA of the mother who supplied the nucleus indeed contained genes for a disease and that is what motivated the change. So the change is not unimportant at all.
Question from a European who, too, was very disappointed of this reversal : has he been giving reasons for that ? Did he say it was for security ? did he present it as a compromise with republicans ? did he deny changing positions ?
It is trivially easy to state a natural phenomenon that has a low probability of happening even in 10^18 star systems. For instance, I can state with some certainty that no planet in the universe has the same continental lines as Earth. There exist a resolution at which the Kilimandjaro is a unique feature in the universe. Similarily, there is a certain resolution of the parameter spaces where earth has a high probability of being a unique or rare occurrence. We simply don't have enough data to :
1) State in how big a range of parameters life can appear.
2) Compute the frequency of occurrence of such parameters.
I also find it hard to believe that we are indeed in an awesome improbable planet and that our biosphere is a curiosity unequaled in the whole universe. I also acknowledge that this is purely a belief and that it is not possible to demonstrate it with the data we currently have yet. Hopefully as our knowledge of biological mechanisms and astronomy grow, we will eventually get there. But what is the proportion of systems harboring life ? 100% ? 1/2 ? 1/10 ? 1/100 ? 10^-6 ? 10^-18 ? There are no ruled out possibilities yet.
Yeah funny, but indeed accurate. The people who use algorithms to predict delinquents are politicians who think that the 5% of false positives is acceptable and who don't care having a very normalized society
And explain to them how email is not a way to do business on the web if they are not cryptographically signed. Sorry, I may sound like an asshole, but this is a flaw in the email protocol that everyone accepts and deals with. This is the kind of things that will more and more happen until people ask for something more robust.
Because every situation needs a car analogy :
Salesman : Hey everyone ! Free cars ! Runs on regular fuel, 30 MPG ! take one home !
Clients : Yay !
Salesman : Oh, btw, now it only runs on our own and overpriced fuel stations, or it won't be able to go on new roads just because we decided it, no real technological problem.
Isn't it a bit more obvious why it is illegal ?
Just to make it clear, I am not stating this hypothesis to put somewhere my favorite supernatural imaginary friend. I understand and agree with abiogenesis as an explanation for life on earth. However, considering the current state of our knowledge about planetary formation, abiogenesis conditions and requirements in the latter states, census of exoplanets, I doubt it is possible to give sensible bounds for the probability of abiogenesis happening somewhere else. None of these hypothesis are easy to refute factually right now (even if most scientists agree we can do some educated guess, I think no one says they are provably wrong) :
- conditions for abiogenesis may be very precise (require a planet where lightning occurs, the good temperatures range occurs, with a magnetic "shield", with the good type of star, with tides...)
- planets like earth may be a very rare occurrence. All the exoplanets we have observed are within a limited radius in our own galaxy. Maybe it takes exceptional conditions to make a planet with that much nova stuff (elements with higher atomic number than iron).
The question is to know whether abiogenesis conditions are as common in the universe as patches of muddy water are on earth or if it is as uncommon as the underground acid lake that was discovered in Antarctica.
Because they know they would be bitten too...
Well of course it does some steam. The question is : what will they do with that much obsidian ?
"I am a professional medium. My Gift says you still have your soul. Please give to them what you agreed by contract or the clauses are null"
There has been more silly things defended in a court of law.
Hydrogen and oxygen are the 1st and 3rd most abundant elements in the universe and spontaneously react to from water. Given what we know about galaxy composition and the formation of planetary systems the odds that Earth has the only surface level ocean in the cosmos are so impractically small that they could be used to drive an infinite improbability machine.
Yes, we can guess that water is common in the universe. What we don't know is how common telluric planets are in a zone that allows big quantities of liquid water to exist. All stars are not born equal. We know next to nothing about the process of planets formation. It is not implausible that planets like Earth are very rare gems in the universe and that even in good conditions, the appearance of life is a very improbable event.
Like many, my intuition says that the universe is big enough to have other forms of life, but let's not forget that the possibility that we are really alone in the universe cannot be ruled out.
As long as it's cheaper, they don't care about ethics.
As long as we don't care about ethics, they don't care about ethics.
How does my post disagree with your point of view ? I wholeheartedly agree with that and just point out that sometimes you have to do something useless but fancy to get funds.
Or maybe the life on earth comes from an absurd combination of improbable coincidence, that nowhere else in the Universe did star give birth to planets except in our very small part of the Milky Way (all the exoplanets detected are "close") and that the earth is really the only one with liquid water and liquid water is the only environment where life has a chance to appear spontaneously...
Hey, why not ? It is bad practice in statistics to use only two observations to do a projection. In search for IT we are extrapolating from a single observation (Earth). Everything is possible !
Ok, replace "French alternative music" by "punk band from the city I live in", which is Lyon, France. If I was fucking sophisticated, I would not fart in your general direction.
The main strength of OS/2 today would be the IBM logo on the start screen. Believe it or not, this makes linux a whole different game to many decision-makers.
Because to do science, you have to wow voters. This will probably cheap : they have a humanoid robot, a shuttle that is not full, well just put the robot inside the shuttle, make it screw two things in slow motion, and next time you talk to Congress, these people will think they understand what these "robotic missions" they have to vote for really are.
By the way, humanoid robots can be useful, but on Earth, where most of the tools, machines and paths are shaped for humans. In space the humanoid shape is really useless. Anyway, a lot of work on the ISS station is already roboticized : Canadarm is the kind of shape you are looking for.
Or suggest that they find the song themselves, or invite them round to listen to the song themselves (if you know them in RL), or find a sample that is already legally online.
IRL : Hey, do you know that song ? (plays a song)
via Internet : Hey you know that song ? No ? Can't make you hear it but you should definitely buy it.
And no, most of the French, alternative music I listen to isn't available online, a lot of my friends live more than 100 km away.
And instead of showing self-restraint and not benefiting for free when they should legally be paying, they disrespect the artist by taking a free copy and not paying them at all?
I have been showing restraint for 10 years. I did not want to be illegally downloading. I want files in an open format readable under linux, without DRM. I stopped discovering new artists since I left school where filesharing was all the rage. I feel I am out of the cultural system right now. Now I am tired to wait for majors to find a workable business plan. Their plan is to make music forbidden on computers, I find it non acceptable. So fùck it. I share files with friends, I make them discover new artists, I make them go to concerts and buy goodies, I wait for flattr to be released and finally repay all the artists I love and want them to earn money through their music. I am not a thief a pirate or whadayanot. Between 10% and 40% of the price of a CD goes to the artist, the rest goes to people who go to the opposite way of progress. On internet stores, the ratio is even lower. Give me a direct way to give money to the artist or insurance that on a price paid at least 80% will go to them and sure as hell I'll pay for DRM-less music.
Oh, we are ready to admit that this "filesharer" word is as biased as "pirate" is. The thing is, people who are just downloading songs they don't want to buy are not maritime bandits, neither are they counterfeiters or people pretending to be the original author (what 'piracy' used to mean in the artistic world).
:
I also disagree with the dichotomy that you are either a legal filesharer or someone motivated by greed. If I love a song I bought from an artist and want to send it to a group of 5 friends, I either have to spend 5x what I spent for me or be labeled "greedy pirate who steals from artist" instead of "enthusiastic fan through who the promotion of the artist is done".
Studies are showing that people who download a lot are also people who spend a lot in legal music. The thing is, there is simply no legal way of doing on internet some of the things that music fans regularly do in the meatspace (or at a cost of dozens of times what it costs usually). The typical profile of a pirate is either
- student with no money who wouldn't buy much music anyway
- music fan (who used to be a student with no money) who would love to have a way to pay for artists through internet in a way that both respect consumer and artist (i.e. cheaper on internet than on physical media and with a greater artist share. iTunes is notoriously bad in the latter aspect)
It does.
From what I understand, this reads flash videos without using flash code. There is a difference between flash code and flash codec. One is an insecure runtime that is a blatant hole inside a device's security and allows arbitrary code execution, the other is just a regular video codec that VLC can read.
You'd have thought that "copyright infringers" would have been short, to the point and accurate. Maybe that doesn't sound evil enough, even if it is correct.
Well, from people who consider that "piracy" also encompasses the use of P2P tools (because, you know, free culture just doesn't exist) "filesharer" sounded like a better idea. Also "copyright infringement" is not always a legal term in every country, that's why "piracy" is used internationally, as well as "filesharer". Both depicts an action independently of national laws.
:-)
In France, for instance, pirates are not "copyright infringers" but counterfeiters. I must confess that I also love all the puns that make the words "piratage" (piracy) and "partage" (sharing) so close in French
Oh, I know that Z-pinch machines and laser inertial confinements are all the rage now. They really are sexy beasts. But right now if you want to sustain a high-temperature fusion reaction during several seconds (minutes ?) you only have tokamaks.
Yeah, many people amongst pirate parties feel that way too. But first, we think that the "second-degreeness" of the name is good and is a way to ridicule this "pirate" label that lobbyists are trying to give to people who just share files. There has already been some reaction (from the RIAA IIRC). They said that "pirate" was a bad term because it sounded "too cool" and that they needed to come out with a new term to qualify their enemies. We proposed "filesharers" but apparently that is not what they are looking for.
As you point out, there is already a protection against that. I may ask, what is the point then ?
Earlier Russian scientific communities were, for all the lip service paid to science, really dedicated to furthering atomic weaponry. There was never a great diversity of scientific exploration going on within them, and Russia thus has no experience with establishing communities that can actually create profitable technologies that will boost the country's economy.
Another way of saying is just that they missed the IT train. But to dismiss their level in aeronautics, space, physics (tokamaks anyone ?) is a bit exaggerated. I think that through this plan they will try to come back on the IT scene and that they have good opportunities for that. We all know about the Russian hackers, it means that they have a wealth of capable and educated people there.