What amazes me is how much commentary this video contains about adolescent life.
The remixed version is hilarious (as pointed out ad naseum) but take a look at the unedited cut. The last few frames are from the next event recorded on the tape - the school basketball game. Those players completely dwarf the Star Wars Kid.
Juxtaposed with this geeky boy pretending to be a fearsome martial arts master says a lot about what life is like in highschool. If you're not the fastest, strongest, most athletic than what could you have to offer the community? The basketball game was carefully recorded - it's supposed to be seen again. With that to compete with how can anyone be surprised at this boy's fantasy? It's just a reminder of what a strange set of priorities society emphasizes to it's youth.
Now this is quite an extrapolation on my part but I think a just one - and all this was serendipitously caught on tape! I, for one, am glad the Star Wars Kid will be walking away from the experience with more than a little coin for his anguish.
Most Slashdotters agree that beligerant corporate behavior should be stopped by the government. Well it's not the laziness or ignorance of the politicians that's preventing this.
The "hard money" contributions documented at OpenSecrets.org pale in comparison to the enormous "soft money" contributions made to a political party on behalf of a candidate. The power of the DMCA, MPAA, RIAA, MSFT, et al. can be explained by this.
The guy interviewed correllated the DNA genetic map to spaghetti code, a programmers worst nightmare. Apparently all through the genetic make-up of our bodies are "fuction calls" (to put it simply) and pathways that reference other calls and other pathways, over and over upon itself for a hundred million line
This seems a little strange to me. I am a fourth-year PhD student in Molecular Biology and I see a lot of Biology misinformation on slashdot.
What the NPR interviewee said does appear true. However, be aware its not the DNA that's actually performing any operations. Genetic control sequences (called promoters, enhancers, and silencers) are well characterized. It is the product of other genes (i.e. proteins) that perform the operations on DNA and are subject to regulation via these control sequences.
Now what is truly complex is that proteins can bind to other proteins and affect their activity. Lengthy circuits of proteins "touching" one another (called signal transduction pathways) becomes incredibly complex with the exponential level of crosstalk and pathway intersections that can occur. That is where true Bioinformatic power lies....not so much the Folding Projects you see on distributed computing systems.
The design of the "DNA computation" in the original story is contigent upon the aforementioned processes. It does not work on some natural computing power of DNA.
Actually the first "BioTech" would probably be something along the lines of the smallpox vaccines that were manufactured by injecting horses and then taking the serum from the blood for the antibodies.
If someone can think of an earlier biotech, please feel free to let us know!
200 years ago it was observed milk maids exposed to cows did not develop smallpox. By innoculating uninfected individuals with the exudate of the cowpox corpustle an immunity was conferred. In fact, today's smallpox vaccine "DryVax" is comprised of elements from this cowpox virus (called Vaccinia).
On a similar vein, the first noted instance of BioWarfare being employed occured during the Middle Ages. Plague (Yersinia pestis) infected bodies were catapulted over the high walls of fortified strongholds. The hope was that the contagion would spread to the inhabitants.
-DD
p.s. I see a lot of biology misinformation on slashdot. I'd like to qualify my post by stating I am a fourth-year PhD student in Molecular Biology. Should anyone wish to correct or amplify my statement please have more expertise than having read "Hot Zone" or "The Coming Plague." Thank you.
You don't have to be political to enjoy a nice pair of new running shoes (made, possibly, with child labour), medical advances (made possible to some degree due to research done via unanesthesized vivisection of Jews by Nazis during WWII), or "free" health care (paid by tax dollars taken from those who now can't pay for their medical needs not covered by the "free" program).
What?
These examples are flawed. I agree with your point and the child-labor/tennis example does do it some justice. However, the rest don't correspond to the orignal statement. No medical advances were obtained or survived from experiments on Jews in WWII. It was just torture. And the Medicare comment just doesn't make sense or apply. I do not even know where to begin - health care is never free: the providers (doctors, labs, etc.) get compensated for their work no matter what. The health care you have in mind is subsidized and again, the example doesn't apply to the original statement.
I hear a lot of clamor about the "Right to Privacy."
That right doesn't exist people - you share this planet with six billion other people. If you interpret the antiquated documents our country is founded on to mean this then perhaps you are mistaken (and the documents misguided.)
You do not own the phone system or the components of the internet. You do not own the the space they occupy or the airwaves they transmit. You cannot dictate what should happen on them or how they should be administered.
To utilize these systems is a privilege, not a right.
-DD
$12 / month may not sound like that much (relative to a cell phone bill for instance) but it adds up. Especially since the provided "service" is only supplying freely available Guide data.
After a recent move I was forced to switch to TiVo because I didn't face the right direction for satellite TV. I'm not impressed with the marginal increase with a TiVo versus lower cost of ownership with an integrated PVR in my satellite receiver.
I think TiVo's days are numbered. They provide a service that should be integrated with satellite and cable box receivers. They only beat other media providers to the punch with a consumer box. Soon they will be caught up with...
Perhaps their recent ability to display photos and stream mp3s off a home network will buy them some more time however.
-DD
Slashdot Mirror
What amazes me is how much commentary this video contains about adolescent life.
The remixed version is hilarious (as pointed out ad naseum) but take a look at the unedited cut. The last few frames are from the next event recorded on the tape - the school basketball game. Those players completely dwarf the Star Wars Kid.
Juxtaposed with this geeky boy pretending to be a fearsome martial arts master says a lot about what life is like in highschool. If you're not the fastest, strongest, most athletic than what could you have to offer the community? The basketball game was carefully recorded - it's supposed to be seen again. With that to compete with how can anyone be surprised at this boy's fantasy? It's just a reminder of what a strange set of priorities society emphasizes to it's youth.
Now this is quite an extrapolation on my part but I think a just one - and all this was serendipitously caught on tape! I, for one, am glad the Star Wars Kid will be walking away from the experience with more than a little coin for his anguish.
-DD
Unregulated campaign finance contributions.
Most Slashdotters agree that beligerant corporate behavior should be stopped by the government. Well it's not the laziness or ignorance of the politicians that's preventing this.
The "hard money" contributions documented at OpenSecrets.org pale in comparison to the enormous "soft money" contributions made to a political party on behalf of a candidate. The power of the DMCA, MPAA, RIAA, MSFT, et al. can be explained by this.
Recent legislation attempted to curb this but has been meeting resistance.
-DD
What the NPR interviewee said does appear true. However, be aware its not the DNA that's actually performing any operations. Genetic control sequences (called promoters, enhancers, and silencers) are well characterized. It is the product of other genes (i.e. proteins) that perform the operations on DNA and are subject to regulation via these control sequences.
Now what is truly complex is that proteins can bind to other proteins and affect their activity. Lengthy circuits of proteins "touching" one another (called signal transduction pathways) becomes incredibly complex with the exponential level of crosstalk and pathway intersections that can occur. That is where true Bioinformatic power lies....not so much the Folding Projects you see on distributed computing systems.
The design of the "DNA computation" in the original story is contigent upon the aforementioned processes. It does not work on some natural computing power of DNA.
-DD
On a similar vein, the first noted instance of BioWarfare being employed occured during the Middle Ages. Plague (Yersinia pestis) infected bodies were catapulted over the high walls of fortified strongholds. The hope was that the contagion would spread to the inhabitants.
-DD
p.s. I see a lot of biology misinformation on slashdot. I'd like to qualify my post by stating I am a fourth-year PhD student in Molecular Biology. Should anyone wish to correct or amplify my statement please have more expertise than having read "Hot Zone" or "The Coming Plague." Thank you.
You don't have to be political to enjoy a nice pair of new running shoes (made, possibly, with child labour), medical advances (made possible to some degree due to research done via unanesthesized vivisection of Jews by Nazis during WWII), or "free" health care (paid by tax dollars taken from those who now can't pay for their medical needs not covered by the "free" program).
What?
These examples are flawed. I agree with your point and the child-labor/tennis example does do it some justice. However, the rest don't correspond to the orignal statement. No medical advances were obtained or survived from experiments on Jews in WWII. It was just torture.
And the Medicare comment just doesn't make sense or apply. I do not even know where to begin - health care is never free: the providers (doctors, labs, etc.) get compensated for their work no matter what. The health care you have in mind is subsidized and again, the example doesn't apply to the original statement.
-DD
I hear a lot of clamor about the "Right to Privacy."
That right doesn't exist people - you share this planet with six billion other people.
If you interpret the antiquated documents our country is founded on to mean this then perhaps you are mistaken (and the documents misguided.)
You do not own the phone system or the components of the internet. You do not own the the space they occupy or the airwaves they transmit. You cannot dictate what should happen on them or how they should be administered.
To utilize these systems is a privilege, not a right. -DD
Don't forget about the subscription.
$12 / month may not sound like that much (relative to a cell phone bill for instance) but it adds up. Especially since the provided "service" is only supplying freely available Guide data.
After a recent move I was forced to switch to TiVo because I didn't face the right direction for satellite TV. I'm not impressed with the marginal increase with a TiVo versus lower cost of ownership with an integrated PVR in my satellite receiver.
I think TiVo's days are numbered. They provide a service that should be integrated with satellite and cable box receivers. They only beat other media providers to the punch with a consumer box. Soon they will be caught up with... Perhaps their recent ability to display photos and stream mp3s off a home network will buy them some more time however.
-DD