I was thinking something just like this, though in a slightly different context.
One of the things that makes a hive-society so tightly knit is that unlike brothers and sisters, many of these hive animals share 3/4s of their DNA, rather than merely a half.
Dawkins actually argued in "The Selfish Gene" that hives should be possibly considered a single entity, housed in many physical bodies because the genetics are so common within the group.
I have to agree somewhat. Let it have *real* consequences (ocean sea levels rising and coastal cities disappearing, something we might see over Civ's millennium time scale), or just tax all countries at 20% at the UN and "solve" the problem.
Re:Question about the first clip
on
Carl Sagan Sings
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· Score: 5, Informative
I loved Slackware for many years, from 1995 to 2008, when I had 4 Slack machines in the house. However, it was the upgrading itself that finally turned me. I found it nigh impossible to actually "upgrade" a pre-existing configured system in use without critically damaging libraries and needing to reinstall from scratch, and worse, reconfigure and fiddle for about 10 hours to get everything working again the way I liked it. In my 20s I had that kind of energy and enthusiasm. Not any longer.
Yes, I have switched to Ubuntu/Mythbuntu, but have brought all my Slackware knowledge with me. Debian package management is divine. The switch has turned out to be the best of both worlds, Ubuntu's polish with my Slackware config skills, with the result of a brilliantly tuned machine that's nigh hassle free.
I'm sure someone's going to pick on my "rarely" slow down in the left lane comment. I *only* slow down in the left lane when tailgated there's some sort of imminent danger from the driving situation because of the introduction of someone speeding behind me. I will pull into the right lane as soon as is safe.
I *will* slow down if I deem the driving situation unsafe, and I don't get any guilty pleasure from a "left lane tailgater slowdown".
Just for clarification, I often drive in the right hand lane, and rarely slow for tailgaters in the left hand lane. Single lane roads or the right lane is fair game though. People *still* tailgate me in the right lane.
For the real idiots I'm willing to pull off the road and let them pass. Given our Canadian sense of passive aggressiveness, that's a fairly strong insult.:)
I know I slow down when people tailgate me very badly (within a meter), and speed up again when they change lanes. It's a guilty pleasure.
Honestly, it's the only safe thing to me do. If I have someone driving that close behind me I'll need more time to brake if something happens up ahead, to prevent the person behind me ramming into me.
Give me space, and we'll go a nice fast speed. I'll be happy to let you pass me and will move to the right. Ride my ass and expect to go under the limit.
I call bad math. You need to calculate number of infected who died over number of infected who recovered or died, excluding people infected who have not yet recovered. Dividing by the number of infected deflates the death rate, which appears to be about 0.4%. Higher than the 0.1% for your standard flu.
Now the aporkalypse is if this flu does spread to about 1 billion people (not unrealistic for this kind of flu), you're looking at 4 million dead. That's fairly serious stuff. Enough reason to be concerned. Never a reason to panic.
As a Dad, it would seem to me that robots learning how to fall is a prerequisite for learning how to walk. Children around 12 months old spend a lot of time learning how to fall gracefully, so that they have the confidence to actually take steps and walk without fear of damaging themselves.
I recall a video some years back of a number of Japanese engineers racing towards a walking robot that was about to fall, for fear of it breaking. Somewhere in the back of my head I wondered if they ever took the time to observe humans learning to walk.
I hit this same glitch yesterday... kept getting errors about my xorg.conf file being invalid and ended up pooching my video setup for about 20 minutes... though in all honesty I blame the fact I downloaded NVIDIA 180 drivers from an alternate apt source a few months ago to get Compiz working right.
US Libraries started doing something similar after the passing of the Patriot Act: deleting customer's borrowing history so that their information couldn't be subpoenaed for the data by the government.
I did exactly the same thing 13 years ago.. Nursing a 4L/day Cola habit and going to bed vibrating from the buzz, I decided it just wasn't healthy, that I couldn't do moderation and decided to go cold turkey.
I still drink plenty of pop though... Diet Caffeine Free Pepsi is my friend.
For the past two years I've been working with MythTV on Slackware... one backend and three frontends. I loved the result, but it was an absolute struggle. Multiple packages to install and configure. Little tweaks here and there. Recently I tried to upgrade mplayer to the latest SVN and ended up trashing my system.
I'vee been toying with the idea for a few months, but finally bit the bullet and instelled MythBuntu on my HTPC. And it's an absolute dream to install. I was up and running and watching MythTV TV streaming from my backend in 20 minutes.
That being said, two years of tweaking MythTV has helped. I've customized the system so that I have that mplayer SVN (so I can play the latest MKV files without error), and tweaked lirc's config file so it's what I'm used to and not merely adequate to the task. But there's no way I'd go back to the old way.
Give the MythBuntu Live CD a try. It's worth seeing if it works for you now.
(Typed with a wireless keyboard from my MythBuntu HTPC, with the latest 60 Minutes playing in the background)
If I recall correctly, the chip used to be a 386, and they upgraded it during the first repair mission in 1993.
I was in Ontario at the time working a co-op semester at the National Research Council; they aired the whole repair mission on local TV. It was like watching paint dry in the Sistine Chapel.
"God forbid those scientists should get a hold of Super Mario Brothers."
I was taking a Human Evolution course at Simon Fraser University in Canada with Birute Galdikas the same time the Super Mario Bros movie came out (1994ish). Birute was one of three women (Goodall, Fossey were the others) who studied primates under (*cough*) Louis Leakey. Birute studied orangutans in Borneo.
Birute actually mentioned the SMB movie during one class and said it had some interesting comments about evolution, and recommended the class go to see it.
Then again, this was one of many crazy, bat-shit moments she had in the four month course.
Slashdot Mirror
I was thinking something just like this, though in a slightly different context.
One of the things that makes a hive-society so tightly knit is that unlike brothers and sisters, many of these hive animals share 3/4s of their DNA, rather than merely a half.
Dawkins actually argued in "The Selfish Gene" that hives should be possibly considered a single entity, housed in many physical bodies because the genetics are so common within the group.
I have to agree somewhat. Let it have *real* consequences (ocean sea levels rising and coastal cities disappearing, something we might see over Civ's millennium time scale), or just tax all countries at 20% at the UN and "solve" the problem.
Episode 11: The Persistence of Memory
Around the 10:24 mark.
I loved Slackware for many years, from 1995 to 2008, when I had 4 Slack machines in the house. However, it was the upgrading itself that finally turned me. I found it nigh impossible to actually "upgrade" a pre-existing configured system in use without critically damaging libraries and needing to reinstall from scratch, and worse, reconfigure and fiddle for about 10 hours to get everything working again the way I liked it. In my 20s I had that kind of energy and enthusiasm. Not any longer.
Yes, I have switched to Ubuntu/Mythbuntu, but have brought all my Slackware knowledge with me. Debian package management is divine. The switch has turned out to be the best of both worlds, Ubuntu's polish with my Slackware config skills, with the result of a brilliantly tuned machine that's nigh hassle free.
Wow.. lots of hostility below.
I'm sure someone's going to pick on my "rarely" slow down in the left lane comment. I *only* slow down in the left lane when tailgated there's some sort of imminent danger from the driving situation because of the introduction of someone speeding behind me. I will pull into the right lane as soon as is safe.
I *will* slow down if I deem the driving situation unsafe, and I don't get any guilty pleasure from a "left lane tailgater slowdown".
Just for clarification, I often drive in the right hand lane, and rarely slow for tailgaters in the left hand lane. Single lane roads or the right lane is fair game though. People *still* tailgate me in the right lane.
For the real idiots I'm willing to pull off the road and let them pass. Given our Canadian sense of passive aggressiveness, that's a fairly strong insult. :)
I know I slow down when people tailgate me very badly (within a meter), and speed up again when they change lanes. It's a guilty pleasure.
Honestly, it's the only safe thing to me do. If I have someone driving that close behind me I'll need more time to brake if something happens up ahead, to prevent the person behind me ramming into me.
Give me space, and we'll go a nice fast speed. I'll be happy to let you pass me and will move to the right. Ride my ass and expect to go under the limit.
Humans, Cylons, and descendants of the aboriginals of this planet.
Duh!
I call bad math. You need to calculate number of infected who died over number of infected who recovered or died, excluding people infected who have not yet recovered. Dividing by the number of infected deflates the death rate, which appears to be about 0.4%. Higher than the 0.1% for your standard flu.
Citation: http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/rapidpdf/1176062v2.pdf
Now the aporkalypse is if this flu does spread to about 1 billion people (not unrealistic for this kind of flu), you're looking at 4 million dead. That's fairly serious stuff. Enough reason to be concerned. Never a reason to panic.
Wash your hands, people.
Mythbusters wouldn't perform spectography on the resulting explosion...
(Although they are getting more clever as the years go on. I wouldn't be surprised if Adam becomes the new Mr. Wizard in the 2020's...)
Susan?
Punishment for election fraud shouldn't be financial. How about an hour of jail or community service for every vote miscalculated?
Be careful what you label your anomalous data. It may come back to be your new theory.
Try explaining to Americans why "The Axis of Evil" won out over conservative theory. Give the genius who thought that term up another grant... ;)
As a Dad, it would seem to me that robots learning how to fall is a prerequisite for learning how to walk. Children around 12 months old spend a lot of time learning how to fall gracefully, so that they have the confidence to actually take steps and walk without fear of damaging themselves.
I recall a video some years back of a number of Japanese engineers racing towards a walking robot that was about to fall, for fear of it breaking. Somewhere in the back of my head I wondered if they ever took the time to observe humans learning to walk.
Gamepark (GPH) is Korean.
I hit this same glitch yesterday... kept getting errors about my xorg.conf file being invalid and ended up pooching my video setup for about 20 minutes... though in all honesty I blame the fact I downloaded NVIDIA 180 drivers from an alternate apt source a few months ago to get Compiz working right.
US Libraries started doing something similar after the passing of the Patriot Act: deleting customer's borrowing history so that their information couldn't be subpoenaed for the data by the government.
Nope, you're not alone. There's many of us who've gone on the wagon to be free from the stuff.
I did exactly the same thing 13 years ago.. Nursing a 4L/day Cola habit and going to bed vibrating from the buzz, I decided it just wasn't healthy, that I couldn't do moderation and decided to go cold turkey.
I still drink plenty of pop though... Diet Caffeine Free Pepsi is my friend.
Ron Moore doesn't like being called that...
(Honestly, the "guiding force" being the dude reading National Geographic in the last scene explains a lot)
Boo to CNN for showing some economic program rerun instead of breaking away for just a few minutes for the launch.
You'll have to put it where Chandra won't find it without a deliberate search.
For the past two years I've been working with MythTV on Slackware... one backend and three frontends. I loved the result, but it was an absolute struggle. Multiple packages to install and configure. Little tweaks here and there. Recently I tried to upgrade mplayer to the latest SVN and ended up trashing my system.
I'vee been toying with the idea for a few months, but finally bit the bullet and instelled MythBuntu on my HTPC. And it's an absolute dream to install. I was up and running and watching MythTV TV streaming from my backend in 20 minutes.
That being said, two years of tweaking MythTV has helped. I've customized the system so that I have that mplayer SVN (so I can play the latest MKV files without error), and tweaked lirc's config file so it's what I'm used to and not merely adequate to the task. But there's no way I'd go back to the old way.
Give the MythBuntu Live CD a try. It's worth seeing if it works for you now.
(Typed with a wireless keyboard from my MythBuntu HTPC, with the latest 60 Minutes playing in the background)
If I recall correctly, the chip used to be a 386, and they upgraded it during the first repair mission in 1993.
I was in Ontario at the time working a co-op semester at the National Research Council; they aired the whole repair mission on local TV. It was like watching paint dry in the Sistine Chapel.
"God forbid those scientists should get a hold of Super Mario Brothers."
I was taking a Human Evolution course at Simon Fraser University in Canada with Birute Galdikas the same time the Super Mario Bros movie came out (1994ish). Birute was one of three women (Goodall, Fossey were the others) who studied primates under (*cough*) Louis Leakey. Birute studied orangutans in Borneo.
Birute actually mentioned the SMB movie during one class and said it had some interesting comments about evolution, and recommended the class go to see it.
Then again, this was one of many crazy, bat-shit moments she had in the four month course.