I agree. This could be why we aren't constructed in this way. Also, if you're missing a limb or have a damaged heart, finding food will be even more difficult.
Yes, I am aware that evolution is based on randomness, so it is entirely possible that this just hasn't happened. However, is it probable?
From this article, it seems that the "genetic distance" to having this sort of ability is fairly small, which means a small number of mutations (seen from the point of view of an evolutionary time scale) would give us this ability. Also, the article seems to imply that no mammal has this ability. I find it hard to believe that this ability wouldn't have been aquired by any mammal at all, if it didn't have significant draw-backs.
..but I'm sceptical. Really, if this can be controlled by just changing a dozen genes, then why on earth do we (mammals) not have this ability already? It would obviously be a huge evolutionary advantage -- unless there are some pretty grim side effects.
Sterility perhaps?
As someone else here pointed out, extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof, and, in these cases, extraordinary caution. I'm looking forward to the results though.
Hey, I just saw that episode two hours ago. But this reminds me of another episode: the one with the humans who only lived a hundred days. I think the episode succeeded in raising some interesting questions, such as: If we lived for 200 years, or a thousand years, how much less would we value every day? Perhaps our lifespans are already so long we've lost sight of the importance of actually living life.
[...]as an embedded software engineer[...]
That's so cool! Now I never have to program my household appliances any more, I can just buy one with an embedded software engineer and tell him what to do.
One thing though, do I have to feed you?
Oh please. I recently finished reading the Quoran/Koran, and though there are scary places where the things you mention are preached, there are other places that urge you to *respect* people of other religions (probably depending on what opinions Muhammed had use for at the moment - I'm not religious.)
But if you want to play that game, there are a ton of hateful, xenofobic references in the Bible too. There's also a message of love that a damn lot of christians seem to have completely missed. The point here is that a religion is as much defined by its scriptures as by the culture that forms around it.
Grammar is an attempt at codifying the patterns of language usage, not the other way around. If people start using "should of", grammar needs to be changed, because it reflects usage.
Or maybe you should reinstate dative forms in the english language? That was once a part of the Holy Grammar, and as such, cannot be altered - so most of the grammar in your post is wrong, as well at the grammar in this one.
How do you know, on a forum such as this, or for that matter other in other contexts, if english is my mother tongue? Will you condemn me as 'lazy and self-involved' if I haven't learned your language perfectly?
Am I the only one who thinks that proposal makes sense? Maybe not in that exact form, but the idea of a spelling reform, at least. I guess it's supposed to be humouristic. English not only has a weird, complicated and inconsistent spelling, it also has strange pronounciations of basic consonants and vowels. In most of the rest of Europe, "i" is pronounced as english "ee", and "e" is pronounced like the e in "enter".
My first language is Swedish, another language with completely inconsistent spelling. That brings another problem which I have not seen mentioned here yet: it makes it very hard for foreigners to learn. I guess the same goes for english.
Also being in Sweden, I'd like to confirm that - I would be very surprised to find a front door that opens inwards (seems stupid to me).
On the other hand, people who make applications that minimize to tray when you click the close button should be shot. If I click the close button, I expect the application to *close*. If I wanted to minimize it, I would click the minimize button. I really, really hate that. Another dumb thing that seems like a forced standard in Windows is that additional menu items on the application right-click popup menu (from clicking on applications in the task bar) always seem to be added *below* the Close menu item. This bugs me because I frequently try to close things from the task bar by clicking the lowest menu item in that menu; it's a reflex.
If christians can dictate what should be shown in science museums, then scientists should be able to dictate what should be taught in church. This isn't a school textbook we're talking about.
(And yes, I know it wasn't their initiative here, but still).
Ok, I've gotta ask: what's this obsession with Roland? I don't get it. Sure, maybe there's some kind of conspiracy with the Slashdot editors (who run a company - we usually call them "business agreements" or some such), but I can't see how anyone on Slashdot actually loses anything. I can understand if people find it weird or even suspicious, but I'm not getting this huge disproportionate reaction. The guy might get a lot of money by doing little work. He might have some agreement with the Slashdot editors. Seriously, who gives a fuck? We all get it now. Move on.
While Huygens rests frozen at -180 degrees Celsius on Titan's landscape, a symbolic finale to the engineering and flight phase of this historic mission, scientists have taken little time off to eat or sleep.
They have been processing, examining and analysing data, and sometimes even dreaming about it when they sleep. There's enough data to keep Huygens scientists busy for months and even years to come.
But that's a wonderful idea. Why spend millions trying to probe for life on Mars instead of just throwing a piece of meat on the ground and see if it gets eaten;).
Erh, except faulty brakes will kill people in accidents that happen due to the laws of nature, whereas exploits are dangerous only when people deliberately exploit them (hence the name), and that requires them to *know* about it. That's a huge difference. Maybe the anology would work if they breaks were designed by Heisenberg and only stopped working when people knew they were faulty.
Now, a lot of people here will argue that some people probably already *knew* about these vulnerabilities, and that is probably the case. But now every little script kiddie knows about it too. I say the responsible course of action would have been to notify the company first, give them a little time, and then notify the public.
Well, there's a reason us Postgres fanboys behave like that. MySQL gets a LOT of press and is widely recognized. Postgresql gets almost none. If you've used both and found Postgres to be superior, and more or less fell in love with it, you get frustrated at the lack of public awareness. This causes us to take every opportunity we can to "inform" (annoy) people about this wonderful thing that we've found. Of course,/. is probably the worst place since Postgres awareness is probably comparatively high around here -- but it is a place where we can easily complain and bring the issue up. What we should be doing is perhaps writing letters, but we have no high hopes of competing with MySQLs press releases and the thinly veiled collections of ads that management like to read as magazines.
So in short, yes, we're annoying, but if you found a cheap wonderful car that ran on tap water and realized no one had ever heard about it, you would be frustrated and evangelic too.
Geez. I mean, I know the journalistic standards of/. are laughable, but the fact that this story is still on the front page and hasn't been pulled is just embarrassing. I can only assume that the editors don't read the comments, in addition to not reading the article.
Slashdot Mirror
I think you just invented the "Intelligent Napkin" theory. This explains a lot.
I agree. This could be why we aren't constructed in this way. Also, if you're missing a limb or have a damaged heart, finding food will be even more difficult.
Yes, I am aware that evolution is based on randomness, so it is entirely possible that this just hasn't happened. However, is it probable?
From this article, it seems that the "genetic distance" to having this sort of ability is fairly small, which means a small number of mutations (seen from the point of view of an evolutionary time scale) would give us this ability. Also, the article seems to imply that no mammal has this ability. I find it hard to believe that this ability wouldn't have been aquired by any mammal at all, if it didn't have significant draw-backs.
..but I'm sceptical. Really, if this can be controlled by just changing a dozen genes, then why on earth do we (mammals) not have this ability already? It would obviously be a huge evolutionary advantage -- unless there are some pretty grim side effects.
Sterility perhaps?
As someone else here pointed out, extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof, and, in these cases, extraordinary caution. I'm looking forward to the results though.
Hey, I just saw that episode two hours ago.
But this reminds me of another episode: the one with the humans who only lived a hundred days. I think the episode succeeded in raising some interesting questions, such as: If we lived for 200 years, or a thousand years, how much less would we value every day? Perhaps our lifespans are already so long we've lost sight of the importance of actually living life.
I'm pretty sure it's "Merron".
[...]as an embedded software engineer[...]
That's so cool! Now I never have to program my household appliances any more, I can just buy one with an embedded software engineer and tell him what to do.
One thing though, do I have to feed you?
Oh please.
I recently finished reading the Quoran/Koran, and though there are scary places where the things you mention are preached, there are other places that urge you to *respect* people of other religions (probably depending on what opinions Muhammed had use for at the moment - I'm not religious.)
But if you want to play that game, there are a ton of hateful, xenofobic references in the Bible too.
There's also a message of love that a damn lot of christians seem to have completely missed. The point here is that a religion is as much defined by its scriptures as by the culture that forms around it.
No problem, just wait for the inevitable oil crisis. Then you'll see all of what you mention.
Uhm, I think you're confused about the word "terrorist". It is not equivalent with "someone who is not good". Look it up.
Grammar is an attempt at codifying the patterns of language usage, not the other way around. If people start using "should of", grammar needs to be changed, because it reflects usage.
Or maybe you should reinstate dative forms in the english language? That was once a part of the Holy Grammar, and as such, cannot be altered - so most of the grammar in your post is wrong, as well at the grammar in this one.
How do you know, on a forum such as this, or for that matter other in other contexts, if english is my mother tongue? Will you condemn me as 'lazy and self-involved' if I haven't learned your language perfectly?
Am I the only one who thinks that proposal makes sense? Maybe not in that exact form, but the idea of a spelling reform, at least. I guess it's supposed to be humouristic.
English not only has a weird, complicated and inconsistent spelling, it also has strange pronounciations of basic consonants and vowels. In most of the rest of Europe, "i" is pronounced as english "ee", and "e" is pronounced like the e in "enter".
My first language is Swedish, another language with completely inconsistent spelling. That brings another problem which I have not seen mentioned here yet: it makes it very hard for foreigners to learn. I guess the same goes for english.
Here's another unrelated research project :)
Also being in Sweden, I'd like to confirm that - I would be very surprised to find a front door that opens inwards (seems stupid to me).
On the other hand, people who make applications that minimize to tray when you click the close button should be shot. If I click the close button, I expect the application to *close*. If I wanted to minimize it, I would click the minimize button. I really, really hate that.
Another dumb thing that seems like a forced standard in Windows is that additional menu items on the application right-click popup menu (from clicking on applications in the task bar) always seem to be added *below* the Close menu item. This bugs me because I frequently try to close things from the task bar by clicking the lowest menu item in that menu; it's a reflex.
*breaths deeply*
I'm ok now.
If christians can dictate what should be shown in science museums, then scientists should be able to dictate what should be taught in church. This isn't a school textbook we're talking about.
(And yes, I know it wasn't their initiative here, but still).
Ok, I've gotta ask: what's this obsession with Roland? I don't get it. Sure, maybe there's some kind of conspiracy with the Slashdot editors (who run a company - we usually call them "business agreements" or some such), but I can't see how anyone on Slashdot actually loses anything.
I can understand if people find it weird or even suspicious, but I'm not getting this huge disproportionate reaction.
The guy might get a lot of money by doing little work. He might have some agreement with the Slashdot editors. Seriously, who gives a fuck? We all get it now. Move on.
end flamebait
Except these people don't. From this page:
While Huygens rests frozen at -180 degrees Celsius on Titan's landscape, a symbolic finale to the engineering and flight phase of this historic mission, scientists have taken little time off to eat or sleep.
They have been processing, examining and analysing data, and sometimes even dreaming about it when they sleep. There's enough data to keep Huygens scientists busy for months and even years to come.
But that's a wonderful idea. Why spend millions trying to probe for life on Mars instead of just throwing a piece of meat on the ground and see if it gets eaten ;).
Not blue; now they can render one of the hell scenes from Doom3 instead. The Fiery Screen of Death. Complete with the satanic laugh.
Erh, except faulty brakes will kill people in accidents that happen due to the laws of nature, whereas exploits are dangerous only when people deliberately exploit them (hence the name), and that requires them to *know* about it. That's a huge difference.
Maybe the anology would work if they breaks were designed by Heisenberg and only stopped working when people knew they were faulty.
Now, a lot of people here will argue that some people probably already *knew* about these vulnerabilities, and that is probably the case. But now every little script kiddie knows about it too.
I say the responsible course of action would have been to notify the company first, give them a little time, and then notify the public.
I'll be impressed when they put these prosthetics on wounded Iraqi civilians.
Well, there's a reason us Postgres fanboys behave like that. MySQL gets a LOT of press and is widely recognized. Postgresql gets almost none. /. is probably the worst place since Postgres awareness is probably comparatively high around here -- but it is a place where we can easily complain and bring the issue up. What we should be doing is perhaps writing letters, but we have no high hopes of competing with MySQLs press releases and the thinly veiled collections of ads that management like to read as magazines.
If you've used both and found Postgres to be superior, and more or less fell in love with it, you get frustrated at the lack of public awareness. This causes us to take every opportunity we can to "inform" (annoy) people about this wonderful thing that we've found. Of course,
So in short, yes, we're annoying, but if you found a cheap wonderful car that ran on tap water and realized no one had ever heard about it, you would be frustrated and evangelic too.
Geez. I mean, I know the journalistic standards of /. are laughable, but the fact that this story is still on the front page and hasn't been pulled is just embarrassing. I can only assume that the editors don't read the comments, in addition to not reading the article.
Anyone with two eyes and half a brain can plainly see that.
At first reading I thought it said "Anyone with two and a half brain..."