What is referred to as "the theory of evolution" consists of several parts. First of all, common descent - i.e. that the different species that live on earth (or lived on earth in the past) have common ancestors. They did not appear independently, but instead descended and changed from that common ancestor. The theory does not specify if there was just one common ancestor, or several ancestors (i.e. that life might have originated several times). Currently evidence points at one common ancestor, with no good understanding of where to put viruses. This theory had already many opportunities for being disproved. For example, if it had turned out that the DNA of one species has no resemblence to very close species - so for example, if the DNA of a marsupial rat was closer to that of a regular rat then it is to a kangaroo. Or if the genetic code of species would be a patchwork of pieces assembled from other species, taken almost without change, and not according to a pattern of common descent. It is amazing that the DNA, totally unknown at the time of Darwin, shows almost exactly the same pattern of descent as can be inferred by looking carefully at the animals - i.e from taxonomy - even when one looks at parts of DNA that seem to have no function. Fossil evidence provides another opportunity for the theory of common descent to be chalenged: if we discovered a bird in 2 billion year old rocks, it would be a serious problem for the theory of common descent.
Another part of the theory of evolution is how changes from one species to another happen. The idea of evolution by natural selection and random changes. Part of that theory is a mathematical theory, and can not be disproven. Just like you can not disprove that 7 is a prime number - if you accept certain axioms, then it follows from them. What is disprovable is whether the theory applies to the world - to the way species changed in the past. That, again can be disproved. Darwin provided one example - he said that if one would find even a single instance in which a feature of one species evolved for the sole benefit of anoter species, then his theory would be proven wrong. Thus, artificially selected species have many features that are only good for humans - increased fat content, wiered shapes and so on, which make the species they are in much less viable. If you found something like that in species that were supposed to have been naturally selected, it again would provide a serious chalange to the theory of evolution. Another possible way of disproving the theory is if you found within the DNA of humans a single gene of a length of say 1000 bases (letters) (out of the 10^9 that we have) that does not appear to be similar to a sequence in any organism on earth. (Though it would be already an increadible challange if it did not appear in any closely related ape). Or imagine the following experiment: take bacteria, and delete the gene for digesting a certain sugar. Grow them with that sugar for some time. If the gene suddenly appeared back, it would be a serious challenge to the idea that things change through random mutations.
The point of the cartoons were to anger muslims. (As you can quite clearly see from the fact that several of the cartoons point out that it is an act of provocation) And, they certainly achieved that goal. In general it is very easy to get angry at an act if you know the whole purpose of it was to make you angry.
Wonders? I'd say structures. Wonders should have more, you know, wonder in them. Like a hughe wall, giant statue, hanging gardens. More than hole-in-the-ground. But it is probably impressive!
He (or she) was asking if the secret service, whose job it is to investigate things like this, is investigating any of this. Hearsay or not, it seems such serious allegations should be investigated.
I think that a system just introduced could not explain anything that happened in the past. Maybe one needs to ask why with 35 fatal shootings in the UK, the state thinks there is enough cause to track 60,000,000 people who are innocent until proven guilty.
Buy the car you need everyday, rent the car you need once a month. For me that means I have no car, and rent one of the right size when I need it. This weekend it was a BMW.
Before I disagree with you...
on
Safe Cigarettes?
·
· Score: 0, Redundant
Could you state your oppinion about other drugs, please? Does it not matter in your oppinion at all how addictive the substance is, or how strongly it is marketed to kids/teeagers/adults? Both of these have no effect on free will? As long as there is even a small bit of choice left, then "people made their own choice to die a slow death"?
How many packets of cigarettes do victims need to smoke so that the effect would be equivalent to that of a nuclear bomb? Terrorists don't need to smoke them - just distribute them.
I have no idea in these matters. But you asked slashdot... Find the definition of a safe at this security level, safe enough to store documents, get a laptop, and put the laptop in the safe.
Could you please expand what exactly is this scientific law you speak of? "Gravity" is actually neither a law nor a theory, but rather a word.
Now, if you mean "Newton's law of gravity", then that is indeed a theory which is now thought to be an approximation at low mass. Currently, the accepted theory is the general theory of relativity, which states that energy(mass) behds the space around it, and all objects just continue their path on straight lines in this warped space.
And, the problem is that conceptually a current problem of physics is that the general theory of relativity is conceptually somewhat at odds with the theory of quantum mechanics, so that we are actually sure that we've got at least one of them "wrong" somehow, probably both.
So, currently the theory of evolution is more accepted in science than "newton's law of gravity" and, to some extent even "general relativity".
Most people that ever lived are now dead. But that doesn't give you any right whatsoever to kill a single additional person. All people now living will die. That doesn't give anyone a right to kill, either.
We are now in the middle of a mass extinction, and time will tell how it will compare to the other mass extinctions that happened.
Maybe now pickpockets will instead of taking things from your pocket, add things to your pocket.
A thief bumps into you, and puts a little transciever in it. Then he goes on a shopping spree, and another transceiver in his pocket forwards the questions to the tranceiver in your pocket which forwards it to your card. The card answers all questions and sends them back through the reverse route.
"and remember - when walking down the street, never accept coupons for a restaurant from anyone!"
fsync(2) man does state: fsync copies all in-core parts of a file to disk, and waits until the device reports that all parts are on stable storage. But then it goes on to state: NOTES In case the hard disk has write cache enabled, the data may not really be on permanent storage when fsync/fdatasync return.
Which, as you point out, can be a BAD THING (TM) if someone opens a window. So, who should change? fsync, and it's man page's NOTES for devices that have a cache but actually are capable of flushing that cache? Or should there be a special really_fsync() call?
Hey, parent, or someone who knows something - could you maybe ellaborate? It seems that the problem, as pointed out by the parent and posts below is not with the disks, but with fsync() - it seems that fsync only promises do give all data to the disk, but nothing about whether or not it is actually written (?). So, disks could actually flush, if one only asked them nicely enough? How? Can this be tested? Implemented? Do journaling FS just use regular fsync? Can they use some other call that actually does flush?
Something similar happened to me and others with the HP support forums. See the following thread: http://tabletpcbuzz.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=2 1659&whichpage=3 In particular (since that site can not take much trafic) ---- citing relevant parts of the thread on tabletpcbuzz:
Hmm. My efforts turned out to be futile, since HP removed all my complaints about the loud fan from the support forums. Maybe I was a bit intrusive after few days, when both technical support couldn't help, and my complaints remained unanswered, but they could have kept at least one thread about the issue open, or answer me a straight, but clear "don't even try, we will never ever resolve this problem for you"... ---
I think this is really bad behaviour on HP's part. I also posted on the HP thread that stevetooth opened. The thread indeed seems gone. HP have full contact information for each person on the thread, since you have to sign up to post - including serial number of the TC1100. So they know they deal with customers, and have a phone number+address+email for each. And yet they delete the thread - the don't mark it as resolved, which is an option, it is all gone. ---- Then, a second thread, is also removed:
Why has the thread at HP been removed????
When falling, what will kill you is how fast you stop, not how fast you go. That is why climbers can take a huge fall on a rope without getting hurt too much - the rope stretches, allowing for slow deccelaration. Falling even a short distance on a static, non-stretching rope can be deadly.
So, it all depends on how Superman catches Lois - if he slows her down alowly enough - maybe going slightly backwards while catching, she should survive the fall.
You don't need flash memory or a battery backed RAM on a laptop to reduce power usage. A laptop has a battery. You know exactly when that battery is going to die. A stable operating system would just use the RAM of the computer as a battery powered backup, and write back when power gets low, if neccessary. A laptop is not like a desktop where someone could trip over the powercord, or test the building's main power switch. You have power for hours. (and some laptops even have enough power for 1 minute battery swaps)
But, there is another reason for this: badly written software. It is really hard to get windows not to spin up the hard disk. I have never managed on my windows XP tablet. Even when you close all application, and almost all services, windows keeps doing things like creating the file and directories "C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Microsoft\Provisioning\store.xml". Actually, linux suffers from similar problems. Even linux is hard to get not to sping up. Some programs are spin-unfriendly. (like KDE...) But, in linux you have more control. And, you have hacks like noflushd. After much work and hours of waiting for the HD to spin down, and stay that way for long enough, I managed sometimes to get a laptop to spin down and stay that way for a long time.
But, as I said before - this is a software problem, and can have a software solution. Everything you need is already in the computer - RAM battery backup, CPU.
Very often I have the impression that the people working on certain projects never actually use their program.
One giveaway is when screenshots contain dummy examples. There are two sides - a program that is perfect for the programer, and one that is perfect for the user. The right balance is not the "perfect for the programer" side. But - the people working on such projects do it because they like programming - and I can't really complain. All I can do is contribute myself (and bitch on/.)
Similar story here. I bought a ThinkPad X21 only to discover, when it arrived, that the resolution was 800x600. I never even considered the possibility that IBM made ones like that. It turned out that it you followed several links, then in a locked filing cabinet marked "BEWARE OF THE TIGER" on the bottom drawer it gave the right resolution. Or maybe it said just TFT, without a resolution - I can't remember. Anyway, I called the day the computer arrived, and on several days afterwards. offered to pay the difference to the bigger resolution model or more. Anything. I begged, threatened, asked for supervisors, had a girlfriend call - nothing, nada, they would not budge. (In the end, I sold it on ebay (correctly advertised), and bought a 560 with XGA for the same price.)
Hey! Someone just got hold of my laptop in a coffee shop, while I was in the bathroom, and posted the above program to the net. I was going to distribute it next month. It still isn't ready for the public.
Please remove any copy you have from any public server, or you will be prosecuted!
Slashdot Mirror
What is referred to as "the theory of evolution" consists of several parts. First of all, common descent - i.e. that the different species that live on earth (or lived on earth in the past) have common ancestors. They did not appear independently, but instead descended and changed from that common ancestor. The theory does not specify if there was just one common ancestor, or several ancestors (i.e. that life might have originated several times). Currently evidence points at one common ancestor, with no good understanding of where to put viruses.
This theory had already many opportunities for being disproved. For example, if it had turned out that the DNA of one species has no resemblence to very close species - so for example, if the DNA of a marsupial rat was closer to that of a regular rat then it is to a kangaroo. Or if the genetic code of species would be a patchwork of pieces assembled from other species, taken almost without change, and not according to a pattern of common descent. It is amazing that the DNA, totally unknown at the time of Darwin, shows almost exactly the same pattern of descent as can be inferred by looking carefully at the animals - i.e from taxonomy - even when one looks at parts of DNA that seem to have no function.
Fossil evidence provides another opportunity for the theory of common descent to be chalenged: if we discovered a bird in 2 billion year old rocks, it would be a serious problem for the theory of common descent.
Another part of the theory of evolution is how changes from one species to another happen. The idea of evolution by natural selection and random changes. Part of that theory is a mathematical theory, and can not be disproven. Just like you can not disprove that 7 is a prime number - if you accept certain axioms, then it follows from them. What is disprovable is whether the theory applies to the world - to the way species changed in the past. That, again can be disproved. Darwin provided one example - he said that if one would find even a single instance in which a feature of one species evolved for the sole benefit of anoter species, then his theory would be proven wrong. Thus, artificially selected species have many features that are only good for humans - increased fat content, wiered shapes and so on, which make the species they are in much less viable. If you found something like that in species that were supposed to have been naturally selected, it again would provide a serious chalange to the theory of evolution.
Another possible way of disproving the theory is if you found within the DNA of humans a single gene of a length of say 1000 bases (letters) (out of the 10^9 that we have) that does not appear to be similar to a sequence in any organism on earth. (Though it would be already an increadible challange if it did not appear in any closely related ape).
Or imagine the following experiment: take bacteria, and delete the gene for digesting a certain sugar. Grow them with that sugar for some time. If the gene suddenly appeared back, it would be a serious challenge to the idea that things change through random mutations.
Hey - that was almost on topic!
The point of the cartoons were to anger muslims. (As you can quite clearly see from the fact that several of the cartoons point out that it is an act of provocation)
And, they certainly achieved that goal. In general it is very easy to get angry at an act if you know the whole purpose of it was to make you angry.
Wonders? I'd say structures. Wonders should have more, you know, wonder in them. Like a hughe wall, giant statue, hanging gardens. More than hole-in-the-ground.
But it is probably impressive!
He (or she) was asking if the secret service, whose job it is to investigate things like this, is investigating any of this. Hearsay or not, it seems such serious allegations should be investigated.
I think that a system just introduced could not explain anything that happened in the past. Maybe one needs to ask why with 35 fatal shootings in the UK, the state thinks there is enough cause to track 60,000,000 people who are innocent until proven guilty.
Buy the car you need everyday, rent the car you need once a month. For me that means I have no car, and rent one of the right size when I need it. This weekend it was a BMW.
Could you state your oppinion about other drugs, please?
Does it not matter in your oppinion at all how addictive the substance is, or how strongly it is marketed to kids/teeagers/adults? Both of these have no effect on free will? As long as there is even a small bit of choice left, then "people made their own choice to die a slow death"?
How many packets of cigarettes do victims need to smoke so that the effect would be equivalent to that of a nuclear bomb?
Terrorists don't need to smoke them - just distribute them.
There hasn't been a weapon invented yet that can not be used by both sides.
As can be seen in the fact that most of the headache now comes from scare from an enemy that will use nulear/dirty/biological/chemical weapons.
When you invent a weapon, you invent it for the other side.
Dropping R&D and marketing, you'll get for microsoft:
price of CD: ~1$
price of office/windows XP: 340$/170$
profit: lotsa %!
I have no idea in these matters. But you asked slashdot...
Find the definition of a safe at this security level, safe enough to store documents, get a laptop, and put the laptop in the safe.
couldn't they have a unique ID for each item?
Could you please expand what exactly is this scientific law you speak of? "Gravity" is actually neither a law nor a theory, but rather a word.
Now, if you mean "Newton's law of gravity", then that is indeed a theory which is now thought to be an approximation at low mass. Currently, the accepted theory is the general theory of relativity, which states that energy(mass) behds the space around it, and all objects just continue their path on straight lines in this warped space.
And, the problem is that conceptually a current problem of physics is that the general theory of relativity is conceptually somewhat at odds with the theory of quantum mechanics, so that we are actually sure that we've got at least one of them "wrong" somehow, probably both.
So, currently the theory of evolution is more accepted in science than "newton's law of gravity" and, to some extent even "general relativity".
Most people that ever lived are now dead.
But that doesn't give you any right whatsoever to kill a single additional person.
All people now living will die. That doesn't give anyone a right to kill, either.
We are now in the middle of a mass extinction, and time will tell how it will compare to the other mass extinctions that happened.
Maybe now pickpockets will instead of taking things from your pocket, add things to your pocket.
A thief bumps into you, and puts a little transciever in it. Then he goes on a shopping spree, and another transceiver in his pocket forwards the questions to the tranceiver in your pocket which forwards it to your card. The card answers all questions and sends them back through the reverse route.
"and remember - when walking down the street, never accept coupons for a restaurant from anyone!"
maps.google.com
fsync(2) man does state:
fsync copies all in-core parts of a file to disk, and waits until the device reports that all parts are on stable storage.
But then it goes on to state:
NOTES
In case the hard disk has write cache enabled, the data may not really be on permanent storage when fsync/fdatasync return.
Which, as you point out, can be a BAD THING (TM) if someone opens a window. So, who should change? fsync, and it's man page's NOTES for devices that have a cache but actually are capable of flushing that cache? Or should there be a special really_fsync() call?
Hey, parent, or someone who knows something - could you maybe ellaborate?
It seems that the problem, as pointed out by the parent and posts below is not with the disks, but with fsync() - it seems that fsync only promises do give all data to the disk, but nothing about whether or not it is actually written (?). So, disks could actually flush, if one only asked them nicely enough? How? Can this be tested? Implemented?
Do journaling FS just use regular fsync? Can they use some other call that actually does flush?
From now on, all my papers will have a dutch collaborator.
Something similar happened to me and others with the HP support forums. See the following thread: http://tabletpcbuzz.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=2 1659&whichpage=3
o rt/questionanswer.do?threadId=809256
o rt/questionanswer.do?threadId=812063
In particular (since that site can not take much trafic)
---- citing relevant parts of the thread on tabletpcbuzz:
Hmm. My efforts turned out to be futile, since HP removed all my complaints about the loud fan from the support forums. Maybe I was a bit intrusive after few days, when both technical support couldn't help, and my complaints remained unanswered, but they could have kept at least one thread about the issue open, or answer me a straight, but clear "don't even try, we will never ever resolve this problem for you"...
---
I think this is really bad behaviour on HP's part.
I also posted on the HP thread that stevetooth opened. The thread indeed seems gone.
HP have full contact information for each person on the thread, since you have to sign up to post - including serial number of the TC1100. So they know they deal with customers, and have a phone number+address+email for each.
And yet they delete the thread - the don't mark it as resolved, which is an option, it is all gone.
---- Then, a second thread, is also removed:
Why has the thread at HP been removed????
http://forums1.itrc.hp.com/service/forums/bizsupp
---- (end of cite)
Finally, the following thread survived at the HP site:
http://forums1.itrc.hp.com/service/forums/bizsupp
I'm mentioning this mainly because I think it is bad behavior on HPs part, and people should know...
When falling, what will kill you is how fast you stop, not how fast you go. That is why climbers can take a huge fall on a rope without getting hurt too much - the rope stretches, allowing for slow deccelaration. Falling even a short distance on a static, non-stretching rope can be deadly.
So, it all depends on how Superman catches Lois - if he slows her down alowly enough - maybe going slightly backwards while catching, she should survive the fall.
You don't need flash memory or a battery backed RAM on a laptop to reduce power usage. A laptop has a battery. You know exactly when that battery is going to die. A stable operating system would just use the RAM of the computer as a battery powered backup, and write back when power gets low, if neccessary. A laptop is not like a desktop where someone could trip over the powercord, or test the building's main power switch. You have power for hours. (and some laptops even have enough power for 1 minute battery swaps)
, linux suffers from similar problems. Even linux is hard to get not to sping up. Some programs are spin-unfriendly. (like KDE...) But, in linux you have more control. And, you have hacks like noflushd. After much work and hours of waiting for the HD to spin down, and stay that way for long enough, I managed sometimes to get a laptop to spin down and stay that way for a long time.
But, there is another reason for this: badly written software. It is really hard to get windows not to spin up the hard disk. I have never managed on my windows XP tablet. Even when you close all application, and almost all services, windows keeps doing things like creating the file and directories "C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Microsoft\Provisioning\store.xml".
Actually
But, as I said before - this is a software problem, and can have a software solution. Everything you need is already in the computer - RAM battery backup, CPU.
Very often I have the impression that the people working on certain projects never actually use their program. /.)
One giveaway is when screenshots contain dummy examples.
There are two sides - a program that is perfect for the programer, and one that is perfect for the user. The right balance is not the "perfect for the programer" side. But - the people working on such projects do it because they like programming - and I can't really complain. All I can do is contribute myself (and bitch on
Similar story here. I bought a ThinkPad X21 only to discover, when it arrived, that the resolution was 800x600. I never even considered the possibility that IBM made ones like that. It turned out that it you followed several links, then in a locked filing cabinet marked "BEWARE OF THE TIGER" on the bottom drawer it gave the right resolution. Or maybe it said just TFT, without a resolution - I can't remember.
Anyway, I called the day the computer arrived, and on several days afterwards. offered to pay the difference to the bigger resolution model or more. Anything. I begged, threatened, asked for supervisors, had a girlfriend call - nothing, nada, they would not budge.
(In the end, I sold it on ebay (correctly advertised), and bought a 560 with XGA for the same price.)
Hey! Someone just got hold of my laptop in a coffee shop, while I was in the bathroom, and posted the above program to the net. I was going to distribute it next month. It still isn't ready for the public.
Please remove any copy you have from any public server, or you will be prosecuted!
You have been warned!