I've seen the BOFH columns in The Register for awhile, and never had a clue what it meant. I figured out the "from hell" part, but "BO"? Anyway, I'm sure I'm not the only one who has been confused by that column. None of the columns ever seem to explain the acronym, but I did eventually find it.
So a year ago, you were a mac expert, http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=113957&cid=965 4747, but you just recently got your very first Mac? Hmmm . . . Something tells me you've been a "recent mac convert" for quite some time now.
Where did the parent say he had recently got his first Mac? The post you linked to talks about logging into a Mac as root. That obviously wasn't possible before OS X. I just recently (2 months ago) got a replacement for my aging Powerbook which I bought at the beginning of 2001. Do you consider three years ago recent? Because as of January, I was still using my "first Mac," and my reasons were nearly identical to the parent poster's. If you interpret "first Mac" as "recent convert," maybe it's because you're used to shoddy machines that need to be replaced three times as often. My Powerbook would certainly not fit in that category.
Then why isn't Openstep more popular? Is it that if you have a Mac you don't need it? Or is it because most of the 'switchers' are recent converts, and Openstep will pick up in popularity for their non-Apple systems later?
I have to speculate about what you actually mean here, so this may not be relevant, but . . .
It would be really cool to use Cocoa / ObjC to write a GUI application and be able to run it on an x86 machine with GNUStep. But from what I hear, GNUStep is at least a step behind Cocoa when it comes to functionality. You can't just recompile and go. If you have a Mac, you have Cocoa, so if would be a disadvantage to use GNUStep instead. If you already use GNUStep, you probably worked on a NeXTStep machine at some point, and probably do have a Mac. I really enjoyed the interview yesterday with Jonathan Rentzsch, and he picked apart some of the more frustrating parts of using Objective C (garbage collection is a particular nuisance), and he also mentioned using Python (PyObjC) which would be my inclination. What would be really cool would be some framework using Interface Builder and pure Python. I know (okay, I've heard) you can use Interface Builder with pure Java. Since Python comes standard with OS X, maybe that's around the corner.
Ethanol turns into a thick syrup when cooled sufficiently. LN2 works nicely. And, yes, I've tried it. Just don't try to drink it.
Ethanol will also freeze when cooled sufficiently (i.e., -114 C). Just don't try to eat it. Did you have a point? Thick syrup gets even thicker when cooled, and thinner when heated.
putty is a very bad example
on
Bang But No Splash
·
· Score: 3, Informative
Because it's a
non-Newtonian fluid.
More specifically, it's a
Bingham plastic.
I wouldn't expect any non-Newtonian fluid to behave in a "normal" way. They don't flow like water (plug flow, rather than laminar) and have very funky properties, in general. It's complicated to discuss viscosity of a Bingham plastic, but I think ketchup is another example.
This previously undescribed process is shown to occur at all DNA sequence polymorphisms examined and therefore seems to be a general mechanism for extragenomic inheritance of DNA sequence information.
I was wondering how many polymorphisms they examined, so thanks for the info. I have full access to Nature at work, but I guess I'll have to wait until tomorrow to read the complete article.
Though I have never heard of a gene specific protein-mediated repair mechanism, it may exisist.
Just like RNA was a more primitive precursor to DNA (by the standard theory), this Error Correcting Code would have to fall somewhere in that model of mechanism evolution. It also has to be pretty good at copying fidelity, because DNA is pretty damned good (as in one error per billion passes good), and if this code is thousands of times worse, it won't survive unchanged long enough to be useful as an error corrector.
You're making some pretty big assumptions. Haven't you heard of recursion? Why is it not possible for DNA to repair itself? We have kinases that act on other kinases, proteins that help fold other proteins, so why not? Imagine that the hothead gene (the single base mutant in this case), normally produces an enzyme with multiple functions, and one of those functions is to turn OFF gene foo. But when the hothouse gene is mutated so badly that the proteins it produces can't turn off gene foo, foo expresses a protein that binds to the segment of hothead that encodes the enzyme's active site, and makes sure the active site contains, say, an aspartic acid codon. I couldn't find out what the actual mutation is, but there are only a few amino acids in enzyme active sites.
Admit that it is a very major example of 'survival of the less fit code" and the theory of Evolution explains only how species diversify and otherwise change. It becomes impossible to claim that Evolution reveals how life gets started and advances to near flawless replicators like DNA.
Actually, this is an example of how "less fit code" was detected and eliminated. Though the mechanism is unclear, the gene was obviously detrimental.
There are at least five apparently sound arguements against extending natural selection to 'explain' the origin of life. This was just one more. You won't hear any of them from the current establishment.
I certainly hope the other apparently sound arguements [sic] are more sound than the one you just described, because I'm not convinced at all.
Since you're a "Genetic Engineer, in Training" you should also appreciate that the mutation is only a single base, and that certain genes are important enough that proteins are dedicated to their repair. Not that those facts make this finding insignificant, but it would be much more significant if the mutant gene were even two bases different from wildtype. A single base, though . . . I'm not convinced the repair was due to genes from the grandparent plants.
I just spent a few minutes trying to find (without paying Nature) what the exact mutation was, but no luck.
So you can see why this is so confusing -- in the case in the article the daughter cells, with two bad alleles for the gene they studied, are supposed to have no information pointing them to the gene from the grandparents. And yet they did, since they were able to fix it. The article postulates that this could be because a THIRD copy of the gene exists as RNA that's passed down from the grandparents (third since there are two chromosomes, each with a copy of the gene). If this were true, then the RNA would be the source of information required to fix the problem. Alternatively, there could be a specific protein that hunts down mutations in this gene and somehow fixes it, since it somehow bonds only to the correct version of the gene. But that's just my wild speculation.
I would definitely like to know the mechanism the plants are using to fix the DNA, and I think your suggestion of a specific fixer protein for this gene is a perfectly reasonable guess, but the hothouse gene is only a single base mutation away from the wildtype. There could have been many ways it was repaired. See my other comments on this article for more. I don't feel like being redundant, but I do like discussing molecular biology.
Maybe the mutation is very simple and repairing could be as simple as inserting a couple of base pairs in the right place, which really wouldn't even need a DNA template.
An organism's cells can certainly identify and discard misfolded proteins. And although DNA is supposed to be just the "template," certain patterns result in less stable DNA. Here's an interesting article about other selective pressures on DNA, such as stem-loop formation.
But much of the time, the mutation is harmless. Part of this is built into the genetic code. Amino acids with similar properties (acidic, basic, polar, nonpolar) have similar codons, meaning that the result of any mutation is more likely to yield a functional protein. From the wikipedia article, notice that all the nonpolar amino acids have a U (T for DNA) in the middle of the codon? Additionally, DNA sequences yielding malformed proteins often just don't get expressed. And most of the time there's enough redundancy so that single protein doesn't matter. We know that from gene-knockdown studies with mice.
FWIW, the paper this morning was pointing out how this discovery might leave a gaping hole in evolutionary theory. The crux of the problem is that "micro-evolution" as it were, is dependant on an organism's ability to mutate from generation to generation. If a mechanism exists that prevents or corrects mutations across generations, then the theorists may *again* have to go back to the drawing board.
I think you might be talking about this (from the article):
The finding poses a puzzle for evolutionary theory because it corrects mutations, which evolution depends on as generators of novelty. Dr. Meyerowitz said he did not see this posing any problem for evolution because it seems to happen only rarely. "What keeps Darwinian evolution intact is that this only happens when there is something wrong," Dr. Surridge said.
I've read enough of your posts to guess you didn't mean to suggest this "gaping hole" in evolutionary theory implies that creationism is a better alternative, but do watch your rhetoric. This is a violation of Mendel's laws of inheritance, but Mendel was just a monk growing peas. Biology is mind-bogglingly complex. There are so many biological checks and balances, circular pathways, regulator proteins (and proteins that regulate the regulator proteins). If the article had a little more meat regarding the "hothead" gene in question, this would be more interesting. How much different was the mutated protein from the wildtype? If it was just a single base difference, there could have been ten different ways the mutation was repaired. If there were several amino acids difference in the final protein sequence, that would be much more exciting.
Okay, after a bit of research I can answer my own question:
A plant repairing a single base mutation isn't that surprising at all, especially if the mutation made the DNA twist into some funky unstable form, while the wild-type DNA forms neat and thermodynamically stable loops. They may have already considered that.
Incidentally, it is much easier than I once thought to create a functional protein from scratch, if you know what you're doing. This guy at Princeton, who gave a seminar at my workplace recently, created proteins made of four alpha helices just by varying the amino acids by polarity. And the most surprising part is that some of these de novo proteins have enzymatic activity! Some can bind to heme and then act as peroxidases. Some act as esterases. It was suggested that perhaps primordial proteins were highly non-specific, or multi-functional, and only later evolved specificity.
Whether or not forcing ISPs to offer a filtered internet for those who want it is right is not a First Ammendmant issue.
[sic]
What is a First Ammendment issue is that the state attorney general is the one who's making the list. That's state censorship if I've ever seen it. Besides, customers have plenty of filtering services available, so any law instituting a state blacklist is just iron-fisted proselytizing by the LDS Utah government.
How much you want to bet that alcohol-oriented and anti-Mormon websites are going to be on that blacklist? After all, the list is optional, so by your definition that isn't censorship.
If you think I might be exaggerating, consider the case of Polygamy Porter, which got totally screwed by the Utah government when "the Utah Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control (UDABC) announced that using religion in advertising would not be permitted," though the law was later overturned.
In my opinion, contract employees should only receive the benefits offered to them by their employer, not the company or agency they may actually work at. If you don't like the benefits you have, then switch jobs.
Well, that was my opinion until I read the following:
The Internal Revenue Services uses a list of 20 criteria to help determine a worker's status, but Kaupins said those criteria come down to three main points: Does the employer have control over where you work, what time you work and what you work with?
These employees had requirements that should not have been imposed on contractors. They had all the restrictions of salaried employees, but none of the associated benefits. And that's wrong, especially because HP pays less in taxes for each contract employee.
The Indian government has a comprehensive program to practically make Hindi its national language. Officially, Hindi is its national language, but not all non-Hindi states (like Tamil Nadu) like that.
English is an official language that can be used instead of Hindi in pretty much all official matters, because the southern states (like Tamil Nadu and Kerala) definitely don't want Hindi to be the national language, and with reason. Hindi is unrelated to the Dravidian languages in the south, and is spoken natively by only
18% of the population. I've heard the Dravidian languages might be related to Finnish, the linguistic origins are pretty mysterious.
Anyway, the wikipedia article has almost nothing about language conflicts in India, so here's my
supporting evidence:
As drafted, English ceased to exist as an official language (on par with Hindi) in 1965, after which it was intended to continue as an "associate additional official language" until such time that a duly appointed committee can decide on a full-scale transition to Hindi, based on a periodic review. However, due to protests from some states like Tamil Nadu where there is low Hindi penetration, the "twin language" system is still in vogue. Due to rapid industrialization, and a bustling multinational influence in the economy, English continues to be a popular and influential means of communication in the government and day-to-day business, and moves to replace it have effectively been shelved.
I'm sure that (standard).22 ammo couldn't go through these concrete huts
Really? I did not think, these huts are strong at all. Wind/water protection, that's all I'd expect...
I'm pretty sure. There are the.22 CB caps (I have no idea what that means) which are subsonic BBs, basically. They make a dent in a pine board from across a room. A decent dent. There are Greentags (?) which are manufactured with fairly high precision for competition shooting. But they're only moderately powerful. Then there are the CCI Stinger hollowpoints, which are by far the most powerful.22 rounds I've seen. But I still doubt they'd go through more than 5 mm of this concrete / fabric stuff. Just a guess. But I think a.38 would go through 5 mm concrete. However, I once knew a pitbull that had been shot in the head with a.38, but the bullet bounced off the dog's skull. That's why I'm curious. These huts seem just strong enough to be at that hazy interface between bulletproof and not.
Thanks for your reply.
I realize the.223 ammo is dinky compared to a.308, but it's a monster compared to the.22.
I don't think I'd like to meet a deer that can take a.223 round without dying;)
PS: Thanks so much for pointing me to the "3-D Panel" website. I've been looking for this for months now.
It actually took me a few minutes to find it. I think they changed domains, which threw me off. I don't know about the tendency for the shotcrete to crack. I imagine climate plays a big role.
It's not just the size of the bullet, but the size of the charge behind it too.
Yes, I am aware of that. An AR-15/M-16 round is.223 caliber, almost the same as a.22, but the.223 not only has a huge bullet, but a whopping charge behind it.
So I was asking if this guy (mi) had any personal experiences with the AK-47 that might be enlightening to someone who has never fired one. I've seen what a.50 caliber rifle can do, and a.308,.223, and several handguns. But not an AK.
Rifle rounds go a whole lot faster, so while a.22 pistol may barely put a dint in a Coke can . . .
Do you mean because the ammo is different, or would a given.22 round go faster when shot from a rifle? I know rifles are much more accurate, and less deafening, but does the longer barrel make bullets faster, too? (And btw, a.22 is not that wimpy--it can still go through a skull, or at least into a skull.)
I not only know, what 'Kalashnikov' means, I was the fastest in my high-school class to disassemble the weapon and put it back together with my eyes closed. (With open eyes another guy won.)
I'm glad you know what you're talking about. How available are rounds for the AK-47? How powerful are the rounds compared to a.223? A.308? I've seen what a.308 can do. I'm just looking for a qualitative comparison.
I've done (crude) experiments shooting polycarbonate, wood, etc.--your question got me thinking because I'm sure that (standard).22 ammo couldn't go through these concrete huts, but what about a.38? How bullet resistant would these things be, really? Better than a tent, for sure.
With all your points, *you're* the one trying to show off.
I'm no firearms encyclopedia, but neither am I ignorant when it comes to guns. Still, I reread his post several times and didn't understand what the guy meant--was there a reason for saying "Kalashnikov bullet" instead of "bullet?"
I didn't know what kind of rounds an AK takes, because I've never shot one. I didn't know they were less powerful until I tried to figure out what the poster was saying. Ammunition is not generally specific to a particular gun manfacturer, because that's annoying and causes high prices.
I did a minute or two of research, still couldn't figure it out, so I asked. I had a lot of points because I actually stopped to think about what I was asking before I clicked on "submit." And the answer to my question was something I hadn't thought of.
I'm not perfect, and I certainly could have been more tactful (though that would stick out like a sore thumb around here), but I stand by what I wrote.
Are you always such a hypocrite?
Are you always such a coward, making judgments behind your protective cloak of anonymity?
One has to wonder, such a building in a bag must be fairly large, and if the fabric is impregnated with concrete, that must weigh quite a lot. (1000's of lbs?)
I find it ironic that your subject line says "minor details"
when it's obvious you didn't go through the trouble to find any of those minor details, in a relatively short article. It is heavy, but not 1000s of pounds:
A bag weighing 230 kilograms (approximately 500 pounds) inflates into a shelter with 16 square meters (172 square feet) of floor space.
I think they need a reality check.
I think you need to actually read the article before you say that.
e) Making no distinction between the AK-47 and AK-74 and noting that the odds of an M-16 being shot at an American structure are low.
Ah, I see what you meant. But you're forgetting that although the Soviets gave tons of arms to Afghani fighters, the US supplied arms all over the Middle East during Reagan's regime. I seem to recall something about Oliver North . . . Given that most active American troops are in Iraq, and the US certainly supplied Saddam Hussein with weapons, I'd guess it is more probable that an M-16 would be shot at an American structure than an AK. But then, bunkers don't work that well against guerillas and landmines, so the point is moot.
Slashdot Mirror
I've seen the BOFH columns in The Register for awhile, and never had a clue what it meant. I figured out the "from hell" part, but "BO"? Anyway, I'm sure I'm not the only one who has been confused by that column. None of the columns ever seem to explain the acronym, but I did eventually find it.
It would be really cool to use Cocoa / ObjC to write a GUI application and be able to run it on an x86 machine with GNUStep. But from what I hear, GNUStep is at least a step behind Cocoa when it comes to functionality. You can't just recompile and go. If you have a Mac, you have Cocoa, so if would be a disadvantage to use GNUStep instead. If you already use GNUStep, you probably worked on a NeXTStep machine at some point, and probably do have a Mac. I really enjoyed the interview yesterday with Jonathan Rentzsch, and he picked apart some of the more frustrating parts of using Objective C (garbage collection is a particular nuisance), and he also mentioned using Python (PyObjC) which would be my inclination. What would be really cool would be some framework using Interface Builder and pure Python. I know (okay, I've heard) you can use Interface Builder with pure Java. Since Python comes standard with OS X, maybe that's around the corner.
Does that at all answer your questions?
Because it's a non-Newtonian fluid. More specifically, it's a Bingham plastic. I wouldn't expect any non-Newtonian fluid to behave in a "normal" way. They don't flow like water (plug flow, rather than laminar) and have very funky properties, in general. It's complicated to discuss viscosity of a Bingham plastic, but I think ketchup is another example.
When it comes to silly names, I'm a fan of the hedgehog genes: Desert, Indian and Sonic hedgehog.
I just spent a few minutes trying to find (without paying Nature) what the exact mutation was, but no luck.
Probably a Freudian slip. I love hothouse vegetables.
But much of the time, the mutation is harmless. Part of this is built into the genetic code. Amino acids with similar properties (acidic, basic, polar, nonpolar) have similar codons, meaning that the result of any mutation is more likely to yield a functional protein. From the wikipedia article, notice that all the nonpolar amino acids have a U (T for DNA) in the middle of the codon? Additionally, DNA sequences yielding malformed proteins often just don't get expressed. And most of the time there's enough redundancy so that single protein doesn't matter. We know that from gene-knockdown studies with mice.
The finding poses a puzzle for evolutionary theory because it corrects mutations, which evolution depends on as generators of novelty. Dr. Meyerowitz said he did not see this posing any problem for evolution because it seems to happen only rarely. "What keeps Darwinian evolution intact is that this only happens when there is something wrong," Dr. Surridge said.
I've read enough of your posts to guess you didn't mean to suggest this "gaping hole" in evolutionary theory implies that creationism is a better alternative, but do watch your rhetoric. This is a violation of Mendel's laws of inheritance, but Mendel was just a monk growing peas. Biology is mind-bogglingly complex. There are so many biological checks and balances, circular pathways, regulator proteins (and proteins that regulate the regulator proteins). If the article had a little more meat regarding the "hothead" gene in question, this would be more interesting. How much different was the mutated protein from the wildtype? If it was just a single base difference, there could have been ten different ways the mutation was repaired. If there were several amino acids difference in the final protein sequence, that would be much more exciting. Okay, after a bit of research I can answer my own question:
A plant repairing a single base mutation isn't that surprising at all, especially if the mutation made the DNA twist into some funky unstable form, while the wild-type DNA forms neat and thermodynamically stable loops. They may have already considered that.Incidentally, it is much easier than I once thought to create a functional protein from scratch, if you know what you're doing. This guy at Princeton, who gave a seminar at my workplace recently, created proteins made of four alpha helices just by varying the amino acids by polarity. And the most surprising part is that some of these de novo proteins have enzymatic activity! Some can bind to heme and then act as peroxidases. Some act as esterases. It was suggested that perhaps primordial proteins were highly non-specific, or multi-functional, and only later evolved specificity.
What is a First Ammendment issue is that the state attorney general is the one who's making the list. That's state censorship if I've ever seen it. Besides, customers have plenty of filtering services available, so any law instituting a state blacklist is just iron-fisted proselytizing by the LDS Utah government.
How much you want to bet that alcohol-oriented and anti-Mormon websites are going to be on that blacklist? After all, the list is optional, so by your definition that isn't censorship.
If you think I might be exaggerating, consider the case of Polygamy Porter, which got totally screwed by the Utah government when "the Utah Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control (UDABC) announced that using religion in advertising would not be permitted," though the law was later overturned.
The Internal Revenue Services uses a list of 20 criteria to help determine a worker's status, but Kaupins said those criteria come down to three main points: Does the employer have control over where you work, what time you work and what you work with?
These employees had requirements that should not have been imposed on contractors. They had all the restrictions of salaried employees, but none of the associated benefits. And that's wrong, especially because HP pays less in taxes for each contract employee.
Anyway, the wikipedia article has almost nothing about language conflicts in India, so here's my supporting evidence:
As drafted, English ceased to exist as an official language (on par with Hindi) in 1965, after which it was intended to continue as an "associate additional official language" until such time that a duly appointed committee can decide on a full-scale transition to Hindi, based on a periodic review. However, due to protests from some states like Tamil Nadu where there is low Hindi penetration, the "twin language" system is still in vogue. Due to rapid industrialization, and a bustling multinational influence in the economy, English continues to be a popular and influential means of communication in the government and day-to-day business, and moves to replace it have effectively been shelved.
I'm pretty sure. There are the .22 CB caps (I have no idea what that means) which are subsonic BBs, basically. They make a dent in a pine board from across a room. A decent dent. There are Greentags (?) which are manufactured with fairly high precision for competition shooting. But they're only moderately powerful. Then there are the CCI Stinger hollowpoints, which are by far the most powerful .22 rounds I've seen. But I still doubt they'd go through more than 5 mm of this concrete / fabric stuff. Just a guess. But I think a .38 would go through 5 mm concrete. However, I once knew a pitbull that had been shot in the head with a .38, but the bullet bounced off the dog's skull. That's why I'm curious. These huts seem just strong enough to be at that hazy interface between bulletproof and not.
Thanks for your reply. I realize the .223 ammo is dinky compared to a .308, but it's a monster compared to the .22.
I don't think I'd like to meet a deer that can take a .223 round without dying ;)
So I was asking if this guy (mi) had any personal experiences with the AK-47 that might be enlightening to someone who has never fired one. I've seen what a .50 caliber rifle can do, and a .308, .223, and several handguns. But not an AK.
Do you mean because the ammo is different, or would a givenI've done (crude) experiments shooting polycarbonate, wood, etc.--your question got me thinking because I'm sure that (standard) .22 ammo couldn't go through these concrete huts, but what about a .38? How bullet resistant would these things be, really? Better than a tent, for sure.
I'm no firearms encyclopedia, but neither am I ignorant when it comes to guns. Still, I reread his post several times and didn't understand what the guy meant--was there a reason for saying "Kalashnikov bullet" instead of "bullet?" I didn't know what kind of rounds an AK takes, because I've never shot one. I didn't know they were less powerful until I tried to figure out what the poster was saying. Ammunition is not generally specific to a particular gun manfacturer, because that's annoying and causes high prices. I did a minute or two of research, still couldn't figure it out, so I asked. I had a lot of points because I actually stopped to think about what I was asking before I clicked on "submit." And the answer to my question was something I hadn't thought of. I'm not perfect, and I certainly could have been more tactful (though that would stick out like a sore thumb around here), but I stand by what I wrote.
Are you always such a hypocrite?
Are you always such a coward, making judgments behind your protective cloak of anonymity?
I find it ironic that your subject line says "minor details" when it's obvious you didn't go through the trouble to find any of those minor details, in a relatively short article. It is heavy, but not 1000s of pounds:
I think they need a reality check.I think you need to actually read the article before you say that.