Here's an example, apparently the power-plant inside all our cells was once a separate living organism, and one day squillions of years ago one cell absorbed another without digesting it and through a magic more powerful than mere symbiosis Two Became One and the resulting biology was *significantly* more energy efficient.
It's entirely plausible that it's simply a case of whatever bacteria processing our gut contents significantly more efficiently and producing something useful to us as their waste product.
Remember folks, all that poop you produce actually contains a significant amount of unused/unprocessed energy - once it exits your body all them bacteria would die almost immediately if it didn't.
This study is not an isolated case regarding the issue of bacterium-mediated weight gain.
There have been several studies which clearly indicate that there appears to be a case for "(at least some) people have excess weight due to 'which bacteria inhabit their gut' " or something approximating that.
Yes folks, I said DUE TO, ie caused by the bacteria not the other way around (in at least one case, administering a certain bacteria caused not just scientifically significant but visibly large weight gain on the exact same diet, at least in rats).
As yet there's no conclusive proof (ie several repeated tests independently verified) with hard science numbers (not to mention something of an explanation why/how this works) and, and no magic cure for fatness, but science is nowhere near laughing this off as 'mere crackpottery'.
There's VERY OBVIOUSLY something going on here with certain bacteria and (at least) some overweight people, and scientists (all over the world, not "just someone I've never heard of in China") are turning up results from a variety of research projects (all with slightly different angles) all pointing in the direction of "this is starting to smell just like That Stomach Ulcer Thing".
This article was brought to you by The Department Of The Blindingly Obvious!
Those of us who have been paying attention know PERFECTLY WELL that this is what patents are for (ie in practice, not "in theory").
More often that not a patent is put to one of three uses:
(1) None at all (2) Used to Bludgeon competitors (3) Saved for a rainy-day then sold to the highest bidder (who immediately implement Option #2)
Pretty much NOBODY uses a patent by developing a product using such technicalities and should a competitor wish to use the same merely requiring a license at Fair And Reasonable terms.
You may be able to recreate a human with the exact same genetic material as its source, but that doesn't mean creating another you. The butterfly effect applies in the womb (or whatever replacement they will be using for it) - the brain will develop slightly differently in individuals, even if genetic material is 100% identical. Thus, identical twins may well have slightly different characters (one good, one evil). Also, this clone of yours will never have had the exact set of experiences that you did, and therefore will develop differently.
Also, I may be biased but I think the old fashioned way of creating humans is more fun.
Absolutely!
It's been conclusively proven that "who you are" is almost as much your genes as it is your mothers genes (ie gestating parent) as well as what she ate and all the other aspects of her life (eg emotional/mental stress) at the time.
WHO YOU ARE is 50% genetic and 50% all the other aspects of ALL of your environment from the moment of conception.
Cloning a human being will produce something close to genetic identity, but it WILL (probably) NEVER produce "the same person".
This is retarded, it's based on a complete lack of understanding of the practicalities of running an ISP.
While I'm sure some service providers are royally screwing their customers, this approach WILL NOT BE PRACTICAL.
I'm not sure about excess usage charges in the US of A, but here in Down Undah Land 2x or 3x is fairly typical. The idea being that if you often go into excess you *really* should be buying a larger amount of included usage.
BY FAR the BIGGEST issue in the US of A is NOT data-caps (and the pricing thereof) but rather the lack of competition, many people HAVE NO CHOICE of provider, and it is THIS which then leads to customer-getting-screwed.
For more years than I can remember I've been A Windows User, pretty much since Microsoft HAD Windows.
Don't blame me, I worked for Companies and Companies used Windows Desktop Computers.
But suffice to say that Using Windows had become an ingrained habit.
The one day I found myself the excited owner of a MacPRO desktop Personal Computer.
Despite the many and various differences, I found almost everything intuitive, almost everything was pretty obvious, and the not immediately obvious things were not hard to find.
Since then I've become a very happy MacOS user.
Any new OS I have the opportunity to explore now has an extremely high standard to live up to, because quite frankly if it's even slightly more difficult to 'learn' than my experience migrating to MacOS was I'm going to give up in frustration.
IMMEDIATELY.
Yes I have become a SPOILED CHILD as a result, but let me be very clear about this I'M A VERY HAPPY SPOILED CHILD - you WILL NOT gain my business by FRUSTRATING THE LIFE OUT OF ME.
I DO NOT and NEVER WILL care that your shiny-new is "better" or "faster" (unless it's measurably orders of magnitude faster), if it is NOT significantly "easier" you have an extremely hard sell in front of you.
How are users who have been opening the Start menu with the mouse for a decade and a half expected to discover the Windows key?
They're not. They're expected to move their mouse to the corner where they remember having it, and clicking there, which brings up the Start screen. Furthermore, when they first log into the OS, it plays a short video that urges them to do just that.
Erm, you mean they're supposed to INTUITIVELY know to move their mouse to some point on the screen WHERE THERE IS NOTHING and CLICK THE NOTHING?
Sounds like a perfect description of COMPLETE UI FAILURE to me.
Irrespective of what is good for whom, PoliticianA agrees to support some policy of PoliticianB in return for vice-versa and suddenly legislation is passed.
A sudden reversal of announced policy within a week is absolutely someone whoring out their principles to get what they want elsewhere.
Most (but not all) Politicians have the morals, ethics, and integrity of pondscum.
The whole notion of IQ has been discussed ad nauseam here on the boards. We all know it's bullshit, so there's really no point in discussing it further.
Lemme Guess, you're new here?
Slashdot: violently rehashing everything for nerds.
A long time ago people ventured out to discover new land with the intention of CLAIMING said land.
Once claimed (for the country, usually) the land could be developed under the laws of said country.
While I understand and agree with the proposition that it'd be unfair (or at least, unreasonable) for any country to claim an entire planet (at least, any planet in this system) but Asteroids and Various Other Miscellaneous Bodies should quite literally be UP FOR GRABS.
Of course you'd have to land on it, stake your claim, and maintain a permanent facility there. This can all be done with robots/remote-landers but it IS entirely achievable.
Also: for those with excessively large Slashdot IDs:
Oh! (OH!)
Yo! Pretty ladies around the world,
Got a weird thing to show you, so tell all the boys and girls.
Tell your brother, your sister, and your ma-mma too,
'Cause we're about to throw down and you'll know just what to do. Wave your hands in the air like you don't care.
Glide by the people as they start to look and stare.
Do your dance, do your dance, do your dance quick,
Ma-mma, c'mon baby, tell me what's the word?
Ah word up!
Everybody say,
When you hear the call,
You've got to get it underway.
Word up!
It's the code word,
No matter where you say it, you'll know that you'll be heard.
Good lord, this entire article is based on one tweet - 107 characters. Surely we could have waited for Carmack to say something more detailed than this??
DISCLAIMER; I actually work for an ISP, and have done so for over a dozen years now.
The phrase you're looking for is "punitive damages".
At some point an ISP will charge a non-trivial amount of money in order to avoid network congestion.
The main problem with this equation, if there is one, is NOT the price being charged but rather the amount of data included before excess/usage-charges are applied.
In practice you should ALWAYS cause financial pain-and-suffering to your Top 'N' customers, because they're the ass-monkeys abusing your capacity as hard as they're capable. If they *really really really* want that much bandwidth, all the time, every day, then they should be prepared to pay for it.
ISP financials (for retail customers, at least - business people pay "real money" for services) are based on the assumption that "on average customers use X% of their line-rate".
REAL WORLD EXAMPLE: little-ol-grandma absolutely NAILING her DSL line torrenting DVDs of movies (yes, violating copyrights no less), burning them to disk and handing them out to friends WHILE SHE NEVER WATCHES ANY OF THEM (there aren't enough hours in the day anyway). Are you going to SERIOUSLY going to argue that her usage costs should be happily averaged out across the entire userbase?
All "right to armed bears" arguments aside, clearly the weapons and ammunition were not sufficiently secured.
Had THAT been done in a safe and sane manner, THIS event would never have occurred.
American society has changed HUGELY (attitudes, values, etc) compared to back in the "recently separated from Britain" days and the assumption (at the time) that "people with guns are both reasonable and sane" no longer applies.
Add to that the fact that guns these days are smaller and lighter and fire faster and more accurately than they did in the days of way-back-when (semi-automatic handguns were invented only just prior to the 1900s) and you have what's officially known as "a volatile mix".
DESPITE these facts (ie MASSIVE CHANGES over time), the second amendment to the constitution remains unmodified, a historical artefact.
SOMETHING needs to change.
Would all gun owners be willing to submit to random inspections of their weapon/ammunition storage and safety? Would the government fund the additional manpower/resources to perform such validations?
Answering YES to both might possibly lead to more freedom for enthusiasts of recreational firearms.
You forget the US wouldn't be around if it wouldn't be for the private stock of weapons our ancestors had laying around. I'm not sure if I've been thorough enough with my own homework, but I've noticed something like this hasn't happened in Texas (castle law) or Florida (stand your ground law).
And ALL of you forget the REASON why you have the right to these arms in your constitution.
The entire point of it was so that The People could form a self-armed self-organising militia as required (either to repel invaders or overthrow their own despotic government, should either of those actions become necessary).
It's trivial to argue that MOST of the "right to bear arms" is irrelevant with the advent of a major government funded military force, and the ONLY reason you need "arms" is for self defence.
Once you go that far it's easy to demonstrate that (aside from more rural communities where "a rifle" is about as standard-issue as putting on your pants) a single handgun per person is adequate.
This American penchant for anything-less-than-WMD is, quite frankly, rampant insanity.
HAVING SAID THAT I fully support your national wish to apply natural selection and the principles of Darwinian Evolution.
Personally I think many of you are akin to crack-smoking retarded monkeys on this issue, but I fully support your right to choose the direction of your own society.
Worse still, oil drillers are actively drilling in this area and willing to give up the cores for free as they are an unavoidable byproduct of their operations. Why are we not hearing about the research into these arctic sediment cores?
Because any "scientific evidence" which has been through the hands of an oil driller is contaminated, on principle and by definition.
An important binary in the New Testament is the opposition between law and love. Accordingly, the New Testament, particularly the Synoptic Gospels, presents especially the leadership of the Pharisees as obsessed with man-made rules (especially concerning purity) whereas Jesus is more concerned with God’s love; the Pharisees scorn sinners whereas Jesus seeks them out. (The Gospel of John, which is the only gospel where Nicodemus is mentioned, particularly portrays the sect as divided and willing to debate) Because of the New Testament's frequent depictions of Pharisees as self-righteous rule-followers (see also Woes of the Pharisees and Legalism (theology)), the word "pharisee" (and its derivatives: "pharisaical", etc.) has come into semi-common usage in English to describe a hypocritical and arrogant person who places the letter of the law above its spirit.
I absolutely LOVE IT when a group of "The Faithful" get together and basically act like a bunch of complete assholes.
Because, you know, THAT is the entire point of "having religion", they even have a phrase for it "self-righteous".
This is absolutely a case of them having read every single Word of The Bible (and could probably, literally, quote you chapter and verse) yet NONE of them , not a single one, have read The Message Of The Bible.
Of course, what d'you expect from a bunch of lawyers - stick to the exact literal letter of the law and completely ignore the intention.
Slashdot Mirror
Here's an example, apparently the power-plant inside all our cells was once a separate living organism, and one day squillions of years ago one cell absorbed another without digesting it and through a magic more powerful than mere symbiosis Two Became One and the resulting biology was *significantly* more energy efficient.
It's entirely plausible that it's simply a case of whatever bacteria processing our gut contents significantly more efficiently and producing something useful to us as their waste product.
Remember folks, all that poop you produce actually contains a significant amount of unused/unprocessed energy - once it exits your body all them bacteria would die almost immediately if it didn't.
This study is not an isolated case regarding the issue of bacterium-mediated weight gain.
There have been several studies which clearly indicate that there appears to be a case for "(at least some) people have excess weight due to 'which bacteria inhabit their gut' " or something approximating that.
Yes folks, I said DUE TO, ie caused by the bacteria not the other way around (in at least one case, administering a certain bacteria caused not just scientifically significant but visibly large weight gain on the exact same diet, at least in rats).
As yet there's no conclusive proof (ie several repeated tests independently verified) with hard science numbers (not to mention something of an explanation why/how this works) and, and no magic cure for fatness, but science is nowhere near laughing this off as 'mere crackpottery'.
There's VERY OBVIOUSLY something going on here with certain bacteria and (at least) some overweight people, and scientists (all over the world, not "just someone I've never heard of in China") are turning up results from a variety of research projects (all with slightly different angles) all pointing in the direction of "this is starting to smell just like That Stomach Ulcer Thing".
This article was brought to you by The Department Of The Blindingly Obvious!
Those of us who have been paying attention know PERFECTLY WELL that this is what patents are for (ie in practice, not "in theory").
More often that not a patent is put to one of three uses:
(1) None at all
(2) Used to Bludgeon competitors
(3) Saved for a rainy-day then sold to the highest bidder (who immediately implement Option #2)
Pretty much NOBODY uses a patent by developing a product using such technicalities and should a competitor wish to use the same merely requiring a license at Fair And Reasonable terms.
You may be able to recreate a human with the exact same genetic material as its source, but that doesn't mean creating another you. The butterfly effect applies in the womb (or whatever replacement they will be using for it) - the brain will develop slightly differently in individuals, even if genetic material is 100% identical. Thus, identical twins may well have slightly different characters (one good, one evil). Also, this clone of yours will never have had the exact set of experiences that you did, and therefore will develop differently.
Also, I may be biased but I think the old fashioned way of creating humans is more fun.
Absolutely!
It's been conclusively proven that "who you are" is almost as much your genes as it is your mothers genes (ie gestating parent) as well as what she ate and all the other aspects of her life (eg emotional/mental stress) at the time.
WHO YOU ARE is 50% genetic and 50% all the other aspects of ALL of your environment from the moment of conception.
Cloning a human being will produce something close to genetic identity, but it WILL (probably) NEVER produce "the same person".
This is retarded, it's based on a complete lack of understanding of the practicalities of running an ISP.
While I'm sure some service providers are royally screwing their customers, this approach WILL NOT BE PRACTICAL.
I'm not sure about excess usage charges in the US of A, but here in Down Undah Land 2x or 3x is fairly typical. The idea being that if you often go into excess you *really* should be buying a larger amount of included usage.
BY FAR the BIGGEST issue in the US of A is NOT data-caps (and the pricing thereof) but rather the lack of competition, many people HAVE NO CHOICE of provider, and it is THIS which then leads to customer-getting-screwed.
For more years than I can remember I've been A Windows User, pretty much since Microsoft HAD Windows.
Don't blame me, I worked for Companies and Companies used Windows Desktop Computers.
But suffice to say that Using Windows had become an ingrained habit.
The one day I found myself the excited owner of a MacPRO desktop Personal Computer.
Despite the many and various differences, I found almost everything intuitive, almost everything was pretty obvious, and the not immediately obvious things were not hard to find.
Since then I've become a very happy MacOS user.
Any new OS I have the opportunity to explore now has an extremely high standard to live up to, because quite frankly if it's even slightly more difficult to 'learn' than my experience migrating to MacOS was I'm going to give up in frustration.
IMMEDIATELY.
Yes I have become a SPOILED CHILD as a result, but let me be very clear about this I'M A VERY HAPPY SPOILED CHILD - you WILL NOT gain my business by FRUSTRATING THE LIFE OUT OF ME.
I DO NOT and NEVER WILL care that your shiny-new is "better" or "faster" (unless it's measurably orders of magnitude faster), if it is NOT significantly "easier" you have an extremely hard sell in front of you.
How are users who have been opening the Start menu with the mouse for a decade and a half expected to discover the Windows key?
They're not. They're expected to move their mouse to the corner where they remember having it, and clicking there, which brings up the Start screen. Furthermore, when they first log into the OS, it plays a short video that urges them to do just that.
Erm, you mean they're supposed to INTUITIVELY know to move their mouse to some point on the screen WHERE THERE IS NOTHING and CLICK THE NOTHING?
Sounds like a perfect description of COMPLETE UI FAILURE to me.
Irrespective of what is good for whom, PoliticianA agrees to support some policy of PoliticianB in return for vice-versa and suddenly legislation is passed.
A sudden reversal of announced policy within a week is absolutely someone whoring out their principles to get what they want elsewhere.
Most (but not all) Politicians have the morals, ethics, and integrity of pondscum.
The whole notion of IQ has been discussed ad nauseam here on the boards. We all know it's bullshit, so there's really no point in discussing it further.
Lemme Guess, you're new here?
Slashdot: violently rehashing everything for nerds.
Y'all seem to have forgotten your history.
A long time ago people ventured out to discover new land with the intention of CLAIMING said land.
Once claimed (for the country, usually) the land could be developed under the laws of said country.
While I understand and agree with the proposition that it'd be unfair (or at least, unreasonable) for any country to claim an entire planet (at least, any planet in this system) but Asteroids and Various Other Miscellaneous Bodies should quite literally be UP FOR GRABS.
Of course you'd have to land on it, stake your claim, and maintain a permanent facility there. This can all be done with robots/remote-landers but it IS entirely achievable.
Also: for those with excessively large Slashdot IDs:
Oh! (OH!)
Yo! Pretty ladies around the world,
Got a weird thing to show you, so tell all the boys and girls.
Tell your brother, your sister, and your ma-mma too,
'Cause we're about to throw down and you'll know just what to do.
Wave your hands in the air like you don't care.
Glide by the people as they start to look and stare.
Do your dance, do your dance, do your dance quick,
Ma-mma, c'mon baby, tell me what's the word?
Ah word up!
Everybody say,
When you hear the call,
You've got to get it underway.
Word up!
It's the code word,
No matter where you say it, you'll know that you'll be heard.
WordUP!
Good lord, this entire article is based on one tweet - 107 characters. Surely we could have waited for Carmack to say something more detailed than this??
THIS!
In the beginning was The Word.
Now some would say Grease Is The Word, others claim The Bird is The Word.
DISCLAIMER; I actually work for an ISP, and have done so for over a dozen years now.
The phrase you're looking for is "punitive damages".
At some point an ISP will charge a non-trivial amount of money in order to avoid network congestion.
The main problem with this equation, if there is one, is NOT the price being charged but rather the amount of data included before excess/usage-charges are applied.
In practice you should ALWAYS cause financial pain-and-suffering to your Top 'N' customers, because they're the ass-monkeys abusing your capacity as hard as they're capable. If they *really really really* want that much bandwidth, all the time, every day, then they should be prepared to pay for it.
ISP financials (for retail customers, at least - business people pay "real money" for services) are based on the assumption that "on average customers use X% of their line-rate".
REAL WORLD EXAMPLE: little-ol-grandma absolutely NAILING her DSL line torrenting DVDs of movies (yes, violating copyrights no less), burning them to disk and handing them out to friends WHILE SHE NEVER WATCHES ANY OF THEM (there aren't enough hours in the day anyway). Are you going to SERIOUSLY going to argue that her usage costs should be happily averaged out across the entire userbase?
Go easy on the guy. A few months ago he was probably dressed as giant hotdog, busy handing out leaflets in a mall.
By the actions of some of them, I'd have assumed it was only a few days ago.
We cannot suspend our judgement just because there are terrorists in the world and money to be made.
The simple fact that we already have (and consistently, mind you) is absolute proof of how completely wrong you are.
All "right to armed bears" arguments aside, clearly the weapons and ammunition were not sufficiently secured.
Had THAT been done in a safe and sane manner, THIS event would never have occurred.
American society has changed HUGELY (attitudes, values, etc) compared to back in the "recently separated from Britain" days and the assumption (at the time) that "people with guns are both reasonable and sane" no longer applies.
Add to that the fact that guns these days are smaller and lighter and fire faster and more accurately than they did in the days of way-back-when (semi-automatic handguns were invented only just prior to the 1900s) and you have what's officially known as "a volatile mix".
DESPITE these facts (ie MASSIVE CHANGES over time), the second amendment to the constitution remains unmodified, a historical artefact.
SOMETHING needs to change.
Would all gun owners be willing to submit to random inspections of their weapon/ammunition storage and safety? Would the government fund the additional manpower/resources to perform such validations?
Answering YES to both might possibly lead to more freedom for enthusiasts of recreational firearms.
You forget the US wouldn't be around if it wouldn't be for the private stock of weapons our ancestors had laying around. I'm not sure if I've been thorough enough with my own homework, but I've noticed something like this hasn't happened in Texas (castle law) or Florida (stand your ground law).
And ALL of you forget the REASON why you have the right to these arms in your constitution.
The entire point of it was so that The People could form a self-armed self-organising militia as required (either to repel invaders or overthrow their own despotic government, should either of those actions become necessary).
It's trivial to argue that MOST of the "right to bear arms" is irrelevant with the advent of a major government funded military force, and the ONLY reason you need "arms" is for self defence.
Once you go that far it's easy to demonstrate that (aside from more rural communities where "a rifle" is about as standard-issue as putting on your pants) a single handgun per person is adequate.
This American penchant for anything-less-than-WMD is, quite frankly, rampant insanity.
HAVING SAID THAT I fully support your national wish to apply natural selection and the principles of Darwinian Evolution.
Personally I think many of you are akin to crack-smoking retarded monkeys on this issue, but I fully support your right to choose the direction of your own society.
They're saying this is preliminary research that could eventually lead to million year old ice cores.
Am I the only one thinking "worlds most expensive frozen margarita" ?
Worse still, oil drillers are actively drilling in this area and willing to give up the cores for free as they are an unavoidable byproduct of their operations. Why are we not hearing about the research into these arctic sediment cores?
Because any "scientific evidence" which has been through the hands of an oil driller is contaminated, on principle and by definition.
From WIkipedia:
An important binary in the New Testament is the opposition between law and love. Accordingly, the New Testament, particularly the Synoptic Gospels, presents especially the leadership of the Pharisees as obsessed with man-made rules (especially concerning purity) whereas Jesus is more concerned with God’s love; the Pharisees scorn sinners whereas Jesus seeks them out. (The Gospel of John, which is the only gospel where Nicodemus is mentioned, particularly portrays the sect as divided and willing to debate) Because of the New Testament's frequent depictions of Pharisees as self-righteous rule-followers (see also Woes of the Pharisees and Legalism (theology)), the word "pharisee" (and its derivatives: "pharisaical", etc.) has come into semi-common usage in English to describe a hypocritical and arrogant person who places the letter of the law above its spirit.
I absolutely LOVE IT when a group of "The Faithful" get together and basically act like a bunch of complete assholes.
Because, you know, THAT is the entire point of "having religion", they even have a phrase for it "self-righteous".
This is absolutely a case of them having read every single Word of The Bible (and could probably, literally, quote you chapter and verse) yet NONE of them , not a single one, have read The Message Of The Bible.
Of course, what d'you expect from a bunch of lawyers - stick to the exact literal letter of the law and completely ignore the intention.
If Slashdot were broadcast news, this article would be the "dog bites man" story, except no-one was bitten, and it's a cat.
No , if Slashdot were Broadcast news the article would be "Tired Gay Succumbs to Dix".
Because while the title is TECHNICALLY accurate, it is entirely missing the point of the article.
It makes for an interesting read.
The Cable Companies want you to PAY for cable TV even though you still have to watch advertisements.
Now Cox Communications are doing functionally the same thing in your internet.
Are you ABSOLUTELY certain that those ads you see weren't actually injected by Cox just like these outage notices?
Vote with your wallet people, this is yet another deliberate attempt to completely screw up everything we love about the internet.