I've been reading Matt Ridley's The Red Queen: Sex and the Evolution of Human Nature. Jumping off Richard Dawkins ideas that it's not survival of the fittest species, or even the fittest individual, but the survival of the genes *themselves*, I'm not overly surprised that recessive genes can express themselves generations afterward. Genes in fact compete with *each other* in the same individual, struggling to force some genes out, other times co-existing. In fact, this fits right in with Dawkins ideas. These "repairing genes" want to survive to further generations, and if they happen to have to repair their host so that it can have sex and pass on the genes, then so be it.
Genetics is an amazingly complex science. Genes sometimes actively kill off their competators. The concept of XX being female and XY being male applies to humans but not necessarily other animals, or even other mammals. (Some birds have XX and XY reversed for male and female, some mammals have a third "W" chromosome to determine gender. This just blew me away when I first read it.
Think of genes as a computer program, perhaps like a computer virus. You can program a virus to rootkit other apps. Genetics provides more than enough complexity for genes to be able to perform a similar function.
Mendel's work was very, very good, but seems ancient in the context of what we've learned from genetics in the past 25 years.
Mendels laws of inheritance are like Newton's laws of Gravity. They hold in most everyday situations, but there are strange and unusual exceptions. Saying that this says there's a flaw in evolution is about the same as saying because of questions raised by Einstein's relativity, gravity might be false.
The Astronauts - Bill deserves this show.
on
The Science Guy Returns
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
After seeing Bill Nye do a PBS documentary on shuttle astronauts (very well done and not over the top like science guy) as well as seeing Bill testify before Congress, I knew then that Bill deserved his own science show someday.
Way to go Bill! You've come a long way from "Speed Walker", wiggling your ass in tight shorts superhero costume for laughs on "Almost Live"
Right now the BT "network" has multiple seperate hubs that host.torrent files. They can pop up like mushrooms and pretty much anyone can host them.
The next step of course is to integrate something like BitTorrent into the browser, (perhaps bttp?) that would allow you to browse websites hosted on various bittorren trackers. Then.torrent hosting sites could become amorphous on the net. You might only need one http site, perhaps BitTorrent Google.
Perhaps They'd simply take down the tracker sites that hosted the web files instead. Still, think of the reduction in bandwidth costs for http servers. No more slashdot effect.
Certainly there are some issues with content authors updating static pages (slow because you're pulling from other users "cache", you might require a timeout) and the serving up of dynamic pages (intelligent trackers, or cached parameters (&n=x) for.torrent files?) but this should be feasible a few generations of BT-tech down the road.
I'm assuming that a new telescope can be developed and deployed for the same cost as a repair mission, and that the issue is the 5-7 year delay time from concept to launch?
Maybe it's time to bite the bullet, be without data for a few years, and plan for something grander for the next decade.
Why not look at developing a fleet of Hubbles, each with perhaps a 2 year lifespan, and just keep launching them as the others break down? Or better yet, launch a number at the same time. Hubble often seems very busy, I'm sure people would crave the opportunity to collect even more data?
Of course, Hubble nostalgia is the one thing keeping funding going. Politically, you can continue to argue for Hubble repair, but not for the construction of new telescopes, even if they cost the same thing. The program would be never be approved or scrapped soon after the design phase.
If Mr. "I Pushed The Big Red Button"'s personal information ever gets published....
LJ's active user base is easily 10x that of Slashdot's. We'd have to come up with a new term for the internet event that pales any slashdotting that ever came before.
I'm not sure it's fair to compare a 100 line straight text file to a 1000 line XML file and say that one is inherently superior. Having worked with XML, crafting it by hand, running in to all sorts of parsing errors, I've come to one conclusion:
XML was never built to be written by hand, or to be read with the human eye.
After all, these are text files, and it's not like we're using systems with only a few hundred kilobytes of storage anymore. I can see a distinct advantage to enforcing a schema on data, even if it is a total pain in the ass to enforce it.
I can craft 100-200 line XML files in the manner that we all craft HTML by hand, and my patience *just* holds out through all the parsing errors.
What we do need is a good (ideally open source) XML editor that's as natural and intuitive to use as Notepad (or more ideally Textpad) is to edit text files.
I haven't seen one yet. I keep going back to really good text editors and using my brain and lots of iterations checking that the XML matches the schema to keep me from going insane.
Some of them are out there, but they're all so *fiddly*. Fiddly enough to scare off a data content author, who isn't a programmer. Given a schema, editing XML should be Microsoft Word easy (sans Clippy). I've not seen it there yet.
Then again I'm an old bastard (30) who wants to edit everything by hand no matter what. It's hard to break that habit.
So if you actually went to either Spiderman movie, or own the DVD, you should expect to be taken to small claims court by the MPAA for another 10% of your purchase price?
Part of my brain is cheering "hooray for the artists", and the controdictosensor went off.
Maybe it's OK because I haven't seen Stan Lee shoving his fist down my throat saying I've been a bad person the last several years. (For going to a movie that didn't support him). I mean, Stan could have had an option to lead a fan based boycott. He's not that stupid (on several levels).
You have to take into account the notion that societies change as older generations die off.
Did you ever see any of the protests in Moscow, calling for the return of Communism? *Everyone* in the demonstration was old.
A lot of things we take for granted in society are made easier by the fact that the people who we consider to have archaic ideas tend to die off and let the younger folk decide what defines society.
Two more issues that come to mind are resentment between the different "classes" of human (think rich/poor) and that people granted a much extended lifespan wont take any risks, for instance they may consider driving in a car too dangerous.
Is there some sort of load threshold you're willing to live with? Perhaps 50% or 80% of all servers up before starting a cluster? You know your system load distribution based on time of day better than anyone though...
An update #2 on the status page might be called for at this point. People might appreciate some reflection of how many checkboxes are checked off on that whiteboard. It would also give the impression you're busting ass for LJ, which would go over well after the panic some users had over SixApart. "As long as Brad is still around, we're in good hands", that sort of thing.
Good Luck tonight. SysAdmin crises nights suck, but they do actually pass.
Update #1, 7:35 pm PST: we're up on 'dirty' power for now (it works, but it's unreliable), and we're working to assess the state of the databases. The worst thing we could do right now is rush the site up in an unreliable state. We're checking all the hardware and data, making sure everything's consistent. Where it's not, we'll be restoring from recent backups and replaying all the changes since that time, to get to the current point in time, but in good shape. We'll be providing more technical details later, for those curious, on the power failure (when we learn more), the database details, and the recovery process. For now, please be patient. We'll be working all weekend on this if we have to.
Lovely. I just bought another year's subscription for my wife, figuring the change to Six Apart wouldn't change anything for a few months at least. LJ could lose a lot of subscribers with an outage just after the takeover.
One flaw in any hard drive backup system: what happens if your system is cracked?
If someone gets into your system, they do an rm -r *, is your backup drive mounted?
What if they're clever and do a mount all, or find your backup.sh first?
I've seen some people take the first and last step of "inserting the USB cable" and "removing the USB cable". Is there any kind of automated system that would ease this, or is it the Hard drive equivelant of "Remove tape, insert new tape".
USB drives also suffer from problems with catastrophic failure, like a fire in your home.
I wonder if there exist any online backup systems that let you do offsite daily differential backups of your system (or critical files) that would let you download or mail you an image of your harddrive (on DVD-R) along with restore software in case anything went wrong. You could charge directly by bandwidth used. Hmm, interesting idea.
I could be really mean and say that objective reality "exists" because I experience. What happens to that reality after I cease to exist, I'm not entirely sure. Some basic concepts, particularly the flow of time, might be distinctly human concious related.
So long suckers, I'm taking the universe with me!
And I promise to read the Wikipedia article... Several people caught me on the error.
Thanks for your reply. I'm glad people are posting with their own thoughts.
1) I'm not sure what I can do to reply to this question other than to ask: "Why do you think this?". The best that I can come up with is that many people feel highly unsettled with the idea of creation without purpose or meaning, as if this somehow transfers to themselves a lack of purpose or meaning.
2) If the physical healing was for you or for those close to you, I'm glad. All I can say to this is that the human body is an incredible machine and capable of amazing things. I've also taken enough statistics to realize amazing things and coincidences happen a lot more frequently than one might expect.
3) I talked about this in my last comment. People are quite unsettled about their own mortality and need something to cling to to keep from shivering in a dark corner for the rest of their lives. I see belief in God as a solution for people getting on with their lives. If belief is the only thing that helps them get through their day, then so be it.
4) I don't doubt the existence of Jesus. He was one hoopy frood (HHGTTG reference) who had some very cool ideas. I am concerned with the number of edits and revisions that appear to have happened in the Bible since its creation. (Reed Sea > Red Sea, etc). Actually there's nothing in #4 that we'd necessarily disagree with.
5) Sure. I also think the teachings of Bhudda are a better way to live. And the teachings of Ghandi. And John Lennon. And Nelson Mandela. I would argue that the very best of Jesus' ideas aren't his (or any other religions) exclusively. If he's publicised them and brought them to more people, more power to him...
6) Satan, a personification of evil. Personally I never could quite understand an omnipitent God creating someone he knew would turn on him and become an adversary. Either that or Satan is in fact an agent of God's plan, and God is both good and evil (giving all the bad publicity to this other guy). It's not ineffible, it's illogical.
And thank you, thank you so much for #7 and 8. Too many people see religion as a team sport with its own chants, flags, and rituals. I also feel that this religious rivalry and antagonism belittles the spirituality that religion brings to many. I have a much greater respect for those who view religion as a gateway to spirituality rather than an "excuse" to go on living, hating and doing the evil things they were doing anyways.
Thanks again for your reply, I enjoy the discussion as well.
I can understand the need to feel better. Questioning the existance of God raises some uncomfortable questions (partucularly about our mortaility) that are difficult to answer. A more cynical person might say that belief in God is misleading yourself and isn't helpful, I might argue that if it helps you get through your day without shivering in a corner for the rest of your life, then go right ahead.:)
I'm glad that you feel your religion makes you a better person. I would like to think that I'm a good person as well, and that good and evil can be defined outside the context of religion. I'd like to think the absence of roving bands of athiest and agnostics causing havoc in the street is an indication that I might be right.
Can you give me an example where lack of faith caused evil results? The best example I can think of is Russia, but I believe a lot of the badness of Stalin could be explained as a quest for power and domination; failure of morality and failure of religion aren't that tightly tied (i.e. The Spanish Inquisition). The actions of cults or other religions don't count as those who "do not believe", and I would argue (as others would) that some of the worst atrocities in human history were tied to religious movements. Many agnostics and atheists use this as an example that religion is bad. I'd rather say simply that people, particularly those in power, can go very very bad.
Thanks for the realization that some people to use religion as an "excuse". Again, a seperation of the concepts religion and morality.
Is religion a tool for some to influence the many to be good or evil? If morality isn't independent of religion, and two religions consider themselves good and the other evil, how is it possible to tell which one is right?
Slashdot Mirror
I've been reading Matt Ridley's The Red Queen: Sex and the Evolution of Human Nature. Jumping off Richard Dawkins ideas that it's not survival of the fittest species, or even the fittest individual, but the survival of the genes *themselves*, I'm not overly surprised that recessive genes can express themselves generations afterward. Genes in fact compete with *each other* in the same individual, struggling to force some genes out, other times co-existing. In fact, this fits right in with Dawkins ideas. These "repairing genes" want to survive to further generations, and if they happen to have to repair their host so that it can have sex and pass on the genes, then so be it.
Genetics is an amazingly complex science. Genes sometimes actively kill off their competators. The concept of XX being female and XY being male applies to humans but not necessarily other animals, or even other mammals. (Some birds have XX and XY reversed for male and female, some mammals have a third "W" chromosome to determine gender. This just blew me away when I first read it.
Think of genes as a computer program, perhaps like a computer virus. You can program a virus to rootkit other apps. Genetics provides more than enough complexity for genes to be able to perform a similar function.
Mendel's work was very, very good, but seems ancient in the context of what we've learned from genetics in the past 25 years.
Mendels laws of inheritance are like Newton's laws of Gravity. They hold in most everyday situations, but there are strange and unusual exceptions. Saying that this says there's a flaw in evolution is about the same as saying because of questions raised by Einstein's relativity, gravity might be false.
After seeing Bill Nye do a PBS documentary on shuttle astronauts (very well done and not over the top like science guy) as well as seeing Bill testify before Congress, I knew then that Bill deserved his own science show someday.
Way to go Bill! You've come a long way from "Speed Walker", wiggling your ass in tight shorts superhero costume for laughs on "Almost Live"
Right now the BT "network" has multiple seperate hubs that host .torrent files. They can pop up like mushrooms and pretty much anyone can host them.
.torrent hosting sites could become amorphous on the net. You might only need one http site, perhaps BitTorrent Google.
.torrent files?) but this should be feasible a few generations of BT-tech down the road.
The next step of course is to integrate something like BitTorrent into the browser, (perhaps bttp?) that would allow you to browse websites hosted on various bittorren trackers. Then
Perhaps They'd simply take down the tracker sites that hosted the web files instead. Still, think of the reduction in bandwidth costs for http servers. No more slashdot effect.
Certainly there are some issues with content authors updating static pages (slow because you're pulling from other users "cache", you might require a timeout) and the serving up of dynamic pages (intelligent trackers, or cached parameters (&n=x) for
If it has 512MB of memory, and a hefty GPU, can it run Linux?
He doesn't know how lucky he is..
Why, does Google have some exit interview techniques that we don't know about?
What more could they do to this person than fire them?
I'm assuming that a new telescope can be developed and deployed for the same cost as a repair mission, and that the issue is the 5-7 year delay time from concept to launch?
Maybe it's time to bite the bullet, be without data for a few years, and plan for something grander for the next decade.
Why not look at developing a fleet of Hubbles, each with perhaps a 2 year lifespan, and just keep launching them as the others break down? Or better yet, launch a number at the same time. Hubble often seems very busy, I'm sure people would crave the opportunity to collect even more data?
Of course, Hubble nostalgia is the one thing keeping funding going. Politically, you can continue to argue for Hubble repair, but not for the construction of new telescopes, even if they cost the same thing. The program would be never be approved or scrapped soon after the design phase.
Now we'll get to screw up ANOTHER universe? Can we fix our own in the first place? ;)
If Mr. "I Pushed The Big Red Button"'s personal information ever gets published....
LJ's active user base is easily 10x that of Slashdot's. We'd have to come up with a new term for the internet event that pales any slashdotting that ever came before.
Diverging more generally to the topic of XML...
I'm not sure it's fair to compare a 100 line straight text file to a 1000 line XML file and say that one is inherently superior. Having worked with XML, crafting it by hand, running in to all sorts of parsing errors, I've come to one conclusion:
XML was never built to be written by hand, or to be read with the human eye.
After all, these are text files, and it's not like we're using systems with only a few hundred kilobytes of storage anymore. I can see a distinct advantage to enforcing a schema on data, even if it is a total pain in the ass to enforce it.
I can craft 100-200 line XML files in the manner that we all craft HTML by hand, and my patience *just* holds out through all the parsing errors.
What we do need is a good (ideally open source) XML editor that's as natural and intuitive to use as Notepad (or more ideally Textpad) is to edit text files.
I haven't seen one yet. I keep going back to really good text editors and using my brain and lots of iterations checking that the XML matches the schema to keep me from going insane.
Some of them are out there, but they're all so *fiddly*. Fiddly enough to scare off a data content author, who isn't a programmer. Given a schema, editing XML should be Microsoft Word easy (sans Clippy). I've not seen it there yet.
Then again I'm an old bastard (30) who wants to edit everything by hand no matter what. It's hard to break that habit.
So if you actually went to either Spiderman movie, or own the DVD, you should expect to be taken to small claims court by the MPAA for another 10% of your purchase price?
Part of my brain is cheering "hooray for the artists", and the controdictosensor went off.
Maybe it's OK because I haven't seen Stan Lee shoving his fist down my throat saying I've been a bad person the last several years. (For going to a movie that didn't support him). I mean, Stan could have had an option to lead a fan based boycott. He's not that stupid (on several levels).
You and me both. And I created the parent post...
Though my wife and I did get a chuckle out of how the mod points were distributed.
David Duchovney, isn't he the narrator dude from the softcore porn show "Red Shoe Diaries"?
Guess we're in for some alien softcore, stuff you just won't want to believe.
You have to take into account the notion that societies change as older generations die off.
Did you ever see any of the protests in Moscow, calling for the return of Communism? *Everyone* in the demonstration was old.
A lot of things we take for granted in society are made easier by the fact that the people who we consider to have archaic ideas tend to die off and let the younger folk decide what defines society.
Two more issues that come to mind are resentment between the different "classes" of human (think rich/poor) and that people granted a much extended lifespan wont take any risks, for instance they may consider driving in a car too dangerous.
True, this isn't Six Apart's fault at all.
However, considering the level of paranoia on LJ regarding the acquisition, the timing really really sucks.
Sure, go to www.livejournal.com when it's back up. It's fairly self explanitory.
ROFL on the hugs...
That is so LJ.
A long night indeedy.
Is there some sort of load threshold you're willing to live with? Perhaps 50% or 80% of all servers up before starting a cluster? You know your system load distribution based on time of day better than anyone though...
An update #2 on the status page might be called for at this point. People might appreciate some reflection of how many checkboxes are checked off on that whiteboard. It would also give the impression you're busting ass for LJ, which would go over well after the panic some users had over SixApart. "As long as Brad is still around, we're in good hands", that sort of thing.
Good Luck tonight. SysAdmin crises nights suck, but they do actually pass.
For those people who might not know, Brad Fitzpatrick is Livejournal User #1.
I'd have to agree with the AC, Brad, stop posting to slashdot and hover over that DB rebuild a bit more.
(Yes, posting to slashdot relieves tension... Whatever it takes, Brad.)
On the Livejournal main page:
Update #1, 7:35 pm PST: we're up on 'dirty' power for now (it works, but it's unreliable), and we're working to assess the state of the databases. The worst thing we could do right now is rush the site up in an unreliable state. We're checking all the hardware and data, making sure everything's consistent. Where it's not, we'll be restoring from recent backups and replaying all the changes since that time, to get to the current point in time, but in good shape. We'll be providing more technical details later, for those curious, on the power failure (when we learn more), the database details, and the recovery process. For now, please be patient. We'll be working all weekend on this if we have to.
Lovely. I just bought another year's subscription for my wife, figuring the change to Six Apart wouldn't change anything for a few months at least. LJ could lose a lot of subscribers with an outage just after the takeover.
One flaw in any hard drive backup system: what happens if your system is cracked?
If someone gets into your system, they do an rm -r *, is your backup drive mounted?
What if they're clever and do a mount all, or find your backup.sh first?
I've seen some people take the first and last step of "inserting the USB cable" and "removing the USB cable". Is there any kind of automated system that would ease this, or is it the Hard drive equivelant of "Remove tape, insert new tape".
USB drives also suffer from problems with catastrophic failure, like a fire in your home.
I wonder if there exist any online backup systems that let you do offsite daily differential backups of your system (or critical files) that would let you download or mail you an image of your harddrive (on DVD-R) along with restore software in case anything went wrong. You could charge directly by bandwidth used. Hmm, interesting idea.
Was the virgin to be sacrificed on Olympus Mons?
And even then, it was old news.
The last item on the list behind the link:
11 Dec 2001 Google offers 20-year Usenet Archive
Which makes this story not only a dupe, but 3 years old as well...
If we keep this up we'll start seeing dupe John Katz posts any time now.
Yes.
I could be really mean and say that objective reality "exists" because I experience. What happens to that reality after I cease to exist, I'm not entirely sure. Some basic concepts, particularly the flow of time, might be distinctly human concious related.
So long suckers, I'm taking the universe with me!
And I promise to read the Wikipedia article... Several people caught me on the error.
Thanks for your reply. I'm glad people are posting with their own thoughts.
1) I'm not sure what I can do to reply to this question other than to ask: "Why do you think this?". The best that I can come up with is that many people feel highly unsettled with the idea of creation without purpose or meaning, as if this somehow transfers to themselves a lack of purpose or meaning.
2) If the physical healing was for you or for those close to you, I'm glad. All I can say to this is that the human body is an incredible machine and capable of amazing things. I've also taken enough statistics to realize amazing things and coincidences happen a lot more frequently than one might expect.
3) I talked about this in my last comment. People are quite unsettled about their own mortality and need something to cling to to keep from shivering in a dark corner for the rest of their lives. I see belief in God as a solution for people getting on with their lives. If belief is the only thing that helps them get through their day, then so be it.
4) I don't doubt the existence of Jesus. He was one hoopy frood (HHGTTG reference) who had some very cool ideas. I am concerned with the number of edits and revisions that appear to have happened in the Bible since its creation. (Reed Sea > Red Sea, etc). Actually there's nothing in #4 that we'd necessarily disagree with.
5) Sure. I also think the teachings of Bhudda are a better way to live. And the teachings of Ghandi. And John Lennon. And Nelson Mandela. I would argue that the very best of Jesus' ideas aren't his (or any other religions) exclusively. If he's publicised them and brought them to more people, more power to him...
6) Satan, a personification of evil. Personally I never could quite understand an omnipitent God creating someone he knew would turn on him and become an adversary. Either that or Satan is in fact an agent of God's plan, and God is both good and evil (giving all the bad publicity to this other guy). It's not ineffible, it's illogical.
And thank you, thank you so much for #7 and 8. Too many people see religion as a team sport with its own chants, flags, and rituals. I also feel that this religious rivalry and antagonism belittles the spirituality that religion brings to many. I have a much greater respect for those who view religion as a gateway to spirituality rather than an "excuse" to go on living, hating and doing the evil things they were doing anyways.
Thanks again for your reply, I enjoy the discussion as well.
I can understand the need to feel better. Questioning the existance of God raises some uncomfortable questions (partucularly about our mortaility) that are difficult to answer. A more cynical person might say that belief in God is misleading yourself and isn't helpful, I might argue that if it helps you get through your day without shivering in a corner for the rest of your life, then go right ahead. :)
I'm glad that you feel your religion makes you a better person. I would like to think that I'm a good person as well, and that good and evil can be defined outside the context of religion. I'd like to think the absence of roving bands of athiest and agnostics causing havoc in the street is an indication that I might be right.
Can you give me an example where lack of faith caused evil results? The best example I can think of is Russia, but I believe a lot of the badness of Stalin could be explained as a quest for power and domination; failure of morality and failure of religion aren't that tightly tied (i.e. The Spanish Inquisition). The actions of cults or other religions don't count as those who "do not believe", and I would argue (as others would) that some of the worst atrocities in human history were tied to religious movements. Many agnostics and atheists use this as an example that religion is bad. I'd rather say simply that people, particularly those in power, can go very very bad.
Thanks for the realization that some people to use religion as an "excuse". Again, a seperation of the concepts religion and morality.
Is religion a tool for some to influence the many to be good or evil? If morality isn't independent of religion, and two religions consider themselves good and the other evil, how is it possible to tell which one is right?
Thanks for sharing your ideas.