I once studied genetic algorithms and I thought to myself 'hmm there are so many ways that I could implement a genetic algorithm, endless ways. I wonder how nature does it' and went on to study cell biology and genetics.
Coming from computer science, I can tell you it was a humbling experience. We think we are so clever with our electronics and silicon chips and technology, but any living cell is far more amazingly... actually its hard to quantify in exactly what department they excel in, energy efficiency, massive parallelism, sophisticated encoding systems you name it.
And living cells are so much more than genes and proteins.
If some Mr Smartypants Biologist wants to say that we understand biology and we arn't like naive kids they are welcome to try but there are major problems in our understanding of some very basic mechanics of biology. It looks for all the world like a little machine down there... they talk about 'cargo vesicles'
Like oh I don't know how about a theory on how the right transfer RNA actually finds its way -- how it actually moves through the cytoplasm -- to the right ribosome at the right time to plug the amino acid in (which presumably it picked up and carried here from somewhere else), and *don't* try to tell me its 'brownian motion' because thats no better than a conspiracy theory.
If its supposed to be like a little machine, its got to be explainable in a deterministic way. Otherwise its magic.
I have no problem with magic (see my sig), but its nice if you admit to it rather than pretending its science.
yeah thats what I was thinking; they have the causality round the wrong way. Its being obese which makes one less comfortable asleep which then causes one to sleep less.
Its not that sleeping more will make a person slim...
Interestingly its a pattern thats familiar from feudal Japan.
When the warrior aristocracy was being dismantled and their assets evaluated, it turned out that virtually all of them were effectively bankrupt.
For a long time, they had been forced to maintain an extravagant lifestyle (due to the way that the Shogunate operated) and were in debt up to their eyeballs to the merchant classes.
When time came to dismantle their estates, they had a net worth in the large negative numbers and the merchants effectively owned them and their estates.
The same merchants who, under the feudal caste system were regarded as only one step above the 'untouchables' called 'eta' IIRC; handlers of dead bodies and excrement).
The merchants actually ranked below farmers; they were regarded as total scum by the Samurai.
Yet it is the descendants of these people who now rule Japan.
"Oh god, where will this end? Where will they put that burned down server?"
Knowing NASA, after just one server crashes and burns, the rest will be grounded for years and years and the USA will have to rely on Russian servers...
"Now, MS were naive to think that no-one would ever exploit that feature maliciously"
At least in the beginning they took measures to stop it; the original outlook couldn't even receive pop or imap email and hence the only incoming email was supposed to be from the corporate Exchange server.
It was only later, when the internet became popular, that, uh, by popular demand they produced add-on packs for exchange with which you could use pop, smtp and imap.
Then the email viruses began to take advantage...
I reckon that they should now go the other way around; produce a special add-on pack for the VB scripting and just leave it right out of the default install.
"They just don't bother to fix them in a timely fashion because it's not profitable"
Yeah, that and the fact that the NSA would throw a fit if MS took away their backdoors.
(Any security system thats it is permitted to export from the USA must be bypassable by the appropriate US government agency, or at least thats what I'd assume. I mean, thats what I'd do).
"Win95 had built-in SLIP/PPP because of the popularity of third-party add-ons. The Web was obviously nowhere as big in 1995 as it is today"
Indeed, I have a copy of Office 97. The version of Outlook in this requires an add-on in order to access POP, SMTP and IMAP; it does not support these out of the box.
Outlook was originally intended for corporate intranets and exchange servers, not the internet. Even as late as '97
"it's not always an either/or thing, it's a continuum. hetero, bi, homo, somewhere in between,"
which is why I was so specific in the first place.
"Given the evidence, it sure seems to me that its more likely a genetic thing than some sort of rebellious subconscious decision."
Given that strict homosexuality occurs in birds which mate for life and are faithful to their partners, it seems that a reasonably ethical animal experiment could be performed to test the theory.
Take a male duck that exhibits strict homosexuality, artificially inseminate a female duck with some sperm from that male and watch the offspring over a few generations.
If theres a statistically significant proportion of those offspring that are strict homosexuals then its more likely genetic.
Thing is, that my take on this goes something along the lines of...
Homosexuality is somewhat frowned upon (still) in many cultures. Therefore, it is preferable, for a homosexual in one of those cultures, to blame their 'condition' on factors outside of their control, eg genetics. This give the homosexual a handy way to argue 'its not *my* fault, its my *genes* so dont blame me for being gay'.
The other alternative is taking responsibility for ones own condition which leaves one vulnerable to the so-called moral arguments against homosexuality.
I get bad hayfever. I'd *like* to be able to blame this on my genes (or something else outside my control) but, through long and hard experience, I am fairly certain that its ultimate cause is psychological or subconscious.
"the image of a James Dean Penguin is rather amusing."
Well its an analogy, but it is a psychological thing, not a genetic thing, and in a sense a kind of confusion. Not necessarily conscious, more likely subconscious.
In fact, strict homosexuality would count as a rebellion against genetic programming. To reproduce is the 'prime directive' of the gene.
I had thought that we (humans) would be 'special' as sentient beings in being capable of such rebellion. If animals can do it too, I'm impressed.
"This gives new meaning to the concept of re-incarnation"
It does indeed. It seems to me that it is the sum total of all of the instances of me, inhabiting those many worlds which makes up the real me; my true self, ageless and eternal.
Slashdot Mirror
fanta eh? So those damn Nazi's did get to Mars after all...
sorry, whats anything got to do with 'intelligent creator'?
For what its worth I believe that the sum total of existance is, collectively, intelligent.
yeah it applies to physics too but I know a lot less about that and I do try not to talk complete shit.
Absolutely.
I once studied genetic algorithms and I thought to myself 'hmm there are so many ways that I could implement a genetic algorithm, endless ways. I wonder how nature does it' and went on to study cell biology and genetics.
Coming from computer science, I can tell you it was a humbling experience. We think we are so clever with our electronics and silicon chips and technology, but any living cell is far more amazingly... actually its hard to quantify in exactly what department they excel in, energy efficiency, massive parallelism, sophisticated encoding systems you name it.
And living cells are so much more than genes and proteins.
If some Mr Smartypants Biologist wants to say that we understand biology and we arn't like naive kids they are welcome to try but there are major problems in our understanding of some very basic mechanics of biology. It looks for all the world like a little machine down there... they talk about 'cargo vesicles'
Like oh I don't know how about a theory on how the right transfer RNA actually finds its way -- how it actually moves through the cytoplasm -- to the right ribosome at the right time to plug the amino acid in (which presumably it picked up and carried here from somewhere else), and *don't* try to tell me its 'brownian motion' because thats no better than a conspiracy theory.
If its supposed to be like a little machine, its got to be explainable in a deterministic way. Otherwise its magic.
I have no problem with magic (see my sig), but its nice if you admit to it rather than pretending its science.
yeah thats what I was thinking; they have the causality round the wrong way. Its being obese which makes one less comfortable asleep which then causes one to sleep less.
Its not that sleeping more will make a person slim...
Interestingly its a pattern thats familiar from feudal Japan.
When the warrior aristocracy was being dismantled and their assets evaluated, it turned out that virtually all of them were effectively bankrupt.
For a long time, they had been forced to maintain an extravagant lifestyle (due to the way that the Shogunate operated) and were in debt up to their eyeballs to the merchant classes.
When time came to dismantle their estates, they had a net worth in the large negative numbers and the merchants effectively owned them and their estates.
The same merchants who, under the feudal caste system were regarded as only one step above the 'untouchables' called 'eta' IIRC; handlers of dead bodies and excrement).
The merchants actually ranked below farmers; they were regarded as total scum by the Samurai.
Yet it is the descendants of these people who now rule Japan.
IIRC, dual core CPUs only give 50% of the available clockcycles to each thread.
Its like having an SMP box with each CPU being half the speed, so to speak.
If this is true then SMP is clearly better as each thread gets 100% of the available CPU.
However its hotter and draws more current (I'd think)
"Oh god, where will this end? Where will they put that burned down server?"
Knowing NASA, after just one server crashes and burns, the rest will be grounded for years and years and the USA will have to rely on Russian servers...
"Now, MS were naive to think that no-one would ever exploit that feature maliciously"
At least in the beginning they took measures to stop it; the original outlook couldn't even receive pop or imap email and hence the only incoming email was supposed to be from the corporate Exchange server.
It was only later, when the internet became popular, that, uh, by popular demand they produced add-on packs for exchange with which you could use pop, smtp and imap.
Then the email viruses began to take advantage...
I reckon that they should now go the other way around; produce a special add-on pack for the VB scripting and just leave it right out of the default install.
"They just don't bother to fix them in a timely fashion because it's not profitable"
Yeah, that and the fact that the NSA would throw a fit if MS took away their backdoors.
(Any security system thats it is permitted to export from the USA must be bypassable by the appropriate US government agency, or at least thats what I'd assume. I mean, thats what I'd do).
"Win95 had built-in SLIP/PPP because of the popularity of third-party add-ons. The Web was obviously nowhere as big in 1995 as it is today"
Indeed, I have a copy of Office 97. The version of Outlook in this requires an add-on in order to access POP, SMTP and IMAP; it does not support these out of the box.
Outlook was originally intended for corporate intranets and exchange servers, not the internet. Even as late as '97
Wierd but true.
What do you suppose the melting point of lego is?
Actually, I owe it to another Anonymous Coward on /. who started it all off!
:)
Only things which are difficult should be illegal; like getting along with ones inlaws.
Yes yes and I am sure that I must hate freedom as well
;-p
No, its just that spelling it USA PATRIOT act is just wrong because its got nothing to do with patriotism.
Just doing my little subversive bit for society.
"and a laser tracking system."
Well this'll get it in trouble under the U SAP AT RIOT act! Better watch out for airliners when playing with this.
"it's not always an either/or thing, it's a continuum. hetero, bi, homo, somewhere in between,"
;)
which is why I was so specific in the first place.
"Given the evidence, it sure seems to me that its more likely a genetic thing than some sort of rebellious subconscious decision."
Given that strict homosexuality occurs in birds which mate for life and are faithful to their partners, it seems that a reasonably ethical animal experiment could be performed to test the theory.
Take a male duck that exhibits strict homosexuality, artificially inseminate a female duck with some sperm from that male and watch the offspring over a few generations.
If theres a statistically significant proportion of those offspring that are strict homosexuals then its more likely genetic.
Thing is, that my take on this goes something along the lines of...
Homosexuality is somewhat frowned upon (still) in many cultures. Therefore, it is preferable, for a homosexual in one of those cultures, to blame their 'condition' on factors outside of their control, eg genetics. This give the homosexual a handy way to argue 'its not *my* fault, its my *genes* so dont blame me for being gay'.
The other alternative is taking responsibility for ones own condition which leaves one vulnerable to the so-called moral arguments against homosexuality.
I get bad hayfever. I'd *like* to be able to blame this on my genes (or something else outside my control) but, through long and hard experience, I am fairly certain that its ultimate cause is psychological or subconscious.
"the image of a James Dean Penguin is rather amusing."
That would be Tux, wouldn't it?
Well its an analogy, but it is a psychological thing, not a genetic thing, and in a sense a kind of confusion. Not necessarily conscious, more likely subconscious.
In fact, strict homosexuality would count as a rebellion against genetic programming. To reproduce is the 'prime directive' of the gene.
I had thought that we (humans) would be 'special' as sentient beings in being capable of such rebellion. If animals can do it too, I'm impressed.
You need to read Stanislaw Lem 'Non Serviam'.
:)
Really.
Wow.
Well I suppose even animals get confused...
"homosexuality has been documented in many primates as well as many other animals."
Strict homosexuality in animals? Not bisexuality?
(I doubt it somehow).
"This gives new meaning to the concept of re-incarnation"
It does indeed. It seems to me that it is the sum total of all of the instances of me, inhabiting those many worlds which makes up the real me; my true self, ageless and eternal.
France would be merde-based
"I always dread just one wheel hitting a rough patch."
:)
or one skate... so that one foot is suddenly going a lot faster than the other