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User: LurkerXXX

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  1. Got Fix-a-flat? on NASA's Future Inflatable Lunar Base · · Score: 1

    Seeing as how sharp and abrasive lunar rocks/dust are supposed to be, putting up an inflatable habitat there that potentially might be punctured sounds like a really bad idea.

  2. Re:edu.wikipedia.org on Academic Credentials and Wikiality · · Score: 1

    As the other poster said, that study was debunked. It was very very flawed on many levels. Just a couple of dings on it I remember off the top of my head, some of the Britannica references they used were from the "children's" version of Britannica. It's not exactly shocking that articles written specifically for young children would be incomplete in detail. Other times they used only the first paragraph from a lengthy Brittanica article to compare to a complete Wikipedia article. Shockingly, the single paragraph was also incomplete in detail. The study was severely flawed, and always in ways that favored Wikipedia. They had an agenda. They weren't doing a real comparison.

  3. Re:Its an Encyclopedia... on Academic Credentials and Wikiality · · Score: 1

    Britannica's writers don't get everything right, but rarely do they have the work of Ph.D.s deleted by 12-year olds who's brother told them something different. Or have pages defaced by spammers, folks just joking around, etc, etc. I don't know why, in light of all the downsides, it would be interesting or surprising at all that Britannica has a better reputation than Wikipedia.

  4. Re:Well.. on Academic Credentials and Wikiality · · Score: 1

    I second that.

    - a Hong Kong Cavalier

  5. Re:Wiki equality applies to the higher ups too on Academic Credentials and Wikiality · · Score: 1

    Makes it look like? Obviously some of them are.

  6. Re:Leave him alone! on Academic Credentials and Wikiality · · Score: 1

    The other funny part is worrying about how this will affect Wikipedia's reputation in the academic community. It won't because it doesn't have one. I and every other academic I know want lists of primary references, not a reference where entries by a Ph.D. who has worked his entire life in the field can be a changed by a 12-year old who things 'it doesn't work that way'.

    Students are (or should be) taught to cite primary references. Wikipedia is nothing more than some place you might google/surf to. Not a real authoritative cite anyone in the academic community would actually use for anything.

  7. Re:The article should have been titled... on CompUSA Closing More Than 50 Percent of Stores · · Score: 1

    We have 3 CompUSA's near me, and no Fry's in the entire state. I don't think Fry's had much at all to do with this.

  8. Re:There was a middle ground, and they were it. on CompUSA Closing More Than 50 Percent of Stores · · Score: 1

    I just wanted to 2nd the MicroCenter thing. The MicroCenter near me has a LOT better selection than the CompUSA/Best Buy/Circuit City, etc. They even have good prices. Cables cost slightly more than you could order them online for, but not very much. They are a lot cheaper than any of their brick-and-morter competitors. It's 45 minutes of a drive for me, but definitely worth it, especially with the local CompUSA's likely being on the hit list.

  9. Re:Evolution, with numbers. on Avoiding the Word "Evolution" · · Score: 1

    Anytime the creationism/intelligent-design folks argue against evolution they bring up irreducible complexity, and bad genes as the grandparent did. Those arguments have been debunked by scientists (read pro-evolution) again and again. They eye did not suddenly appear out of nothing as the creationists seem to somehow believe. There are reasons deleterious genes are often carried in populations. If you've read up on the subject at all, you should have come across both sides of these arguments ad-infinitum.

  10. Re:It IS disturbing... on Avoiding the Word "Evolution" · · Score: 1

    So a squirrel can walk. Some squirrels have developed a bit of extra skin between their legs. Some of them use that extra skin to glide on air between trees, they are called flying squirrels. Is this micro evolution or micro? What if these flying squirrels were put into some environment that lead to longer front legs? Is that micro or macro? How about if they now develop much stronger chest muscles? Is that micro or macro yet? You realize we are almost to the point where the flying squirrel now very much resembles a bat in shape and potentially flying ability, don't you? Is it micro or macro now? Small incremental changes, re-use of existing cellular components in new ways can lead to very different shapes and abilities. There is no line at which point you can say 'Aha!, here is macro-evolution'. Macro evolution is simply the description of the summation of a large number of micro changes.

  11. Re:It IS disturbing... on Avoiding the Word "Evolution" · · Score: 1

    Hi,

    Ph.D. Neuroscientist here. The ganglion cell didn't suddenly spring up in full form out of nothing. This is a common thinking of creationists who can't wrap their tiny brains at all around the concept of evolution.

    If you want to get to the origins of where the eye came from, you have to go all the way back to bacteria. Although the earliest bacteria most likely processed energy from sulfur compounds, etc, some evolved bacteriochlroform (most likely actually some precursor to it) which allowed cells to derive energy from sunlight. From there the next likely step would have been an offshoot of the energy pathway which sensed when the pathway was turned on or off, - sensitivity to light.

    That sensitivity to light would have been advantageous to bacteria with bacteriochloroform, because they could recognize if they were in a dark area and 'swim' until they got to a place where they could get more sunlight and hence energy. As bacteria evolved into protozoa, sensitivity to light would have been a selective advantage to those that retained chlorophyll, as well as others for a number of reasons, for example moving into lighted areas if the wanted to be in warmer temperatures, or if they fed off of chlorophyll-containing microbes, etc. The Euglena's 'eye patch' is a collection of photo-sensitive pigments located on once end of the cell which allows limited detection of the direction of light, allowing it to sense (and travel towards or away from light with it's flagellum) for just such purposes.

    Photosensitive pigments and pathways would have been a beneficial advantage all the way up the evolutionary chain when we get to complex multi-celled organisms which could competitively afford to dedicate specific cell-types to light reception. These cells would be part of a basic nervous system.

    You can see in the planaria an example of a primitive eye with simply a relatively small number of photo-receptive cells which are heavily pigmented and can allow for detection of direction of light.

    Although the planeria eye is very simple, anyone can see the basic components of the more advanced eyes of higher vertebrates in this simple invertebrate worm. The origins of the planeria's retinal cells and sensory cells are easily traced back to through evolution.

    It's also not difficult to see how the duplication of these sets of receptor cells can lead to the development of the compound eye in insects. The planeria's receptor cells are also in pits which allow for detection of direction of light. Conceivably, one evolutionary adaptation at some point may have been a layer of transparent cells over these receptor cells as a layer of protection. At some point later another adaption may have been addition of muscles which could stretch the transparent layer of cells to change focus, and so the modern eye is born.

    There are a multitude of small steps along the way, and re-use of existing cellular components in new ways. There is no need to believe the eye sprang forth suddenly in evolution. It is the slow steady culmination of changes originating back to simple bacteria. No god-magic need be involved.

  12. Re:Evolution, with numbers. on Avoiding the Word "Evolution" · · Score: 1

    You've never heard it before? I suggest you read up on evolution articles. It's been debunked over and over.

  13. Re:Why? on Where Are All of the HDTV Tuners? · · Score: 2, Informative

    Those are the only shows you like on OTA. I like others as well.

    Sorry, I have no desire to get satellite or cable. There's no way I'm going to pay money to watch commercials.

  14. Re:Nothing to see. on Microsoft Plays Up Open Source · · Score: 1

    Which means you get zero benefit from the specific features that your database has in it. You could be getting more performance out of it, but you don't.

    You also waste a lot of time shipping information back and forth between the servers for processing when it could all be done locally on the database server.

    You also have to worry about consistency, because if anything EVER (even in the future when things may change at your company) talks directly to the database instead of being built specifically with those classes, your data consistency is toast.

    Don't reinvent the wheel over and over hoping that no developer screws up the logic in those model classes. These things are built into the database for a reason.

  15. Re:Sometimes it "has to fit" on IT Departments Fear Growing Expertise of Users · · Score: 1

    I've convinced several people similar to your boss that they should do all their 'interesting' internet work on a VMWare virtual machine, and not do any of it on their real machine. They play with the VM until it gets too messed up, then they go back to a snapshot from when it was clean. Their problems with their host/work system have gone way down since.

  16. Re:Sometimes it "has to fit" on IT Departments Fear Growing Expertise of Users · · Score: 4, Informative

    This is why the clever IT guy who doesn't want to get blamed for limiting user, as in the blurb, should bring in the corporate lawyers to lay down the law. This way it isn't the good IT director who wants to supply any needed technology, but the lawyer cracking down on things that could get the company in hot soup.

  17. Re:As good as it sounds... on Cancer Drug Found; Scientist Annoyed · · Score: 2, Informative

    er, sorry, make that PPAR-gamma activating drugs have been tested. Didn't mean to leave that part of the sentence out. PPAR-gamma is already present in the cells, you just need to crank up it's activity.

  18. Re:As good as it sounds... on Cancer Drug Found; Scientist Annoyed · · Score: 2, Informative

    Actually PPAR-gamma, as well as other related compounds have been used in a number of clinical trials for other diseases such as Alzheimer's. Some of the risker clinical trials (Phase I/II) have already been done, so the safety of the compounds in humans is already known. That takes off a good bit of time and expense in drug development when you don't have to test a new drug to make sure it doesn't kill people.

  19. Re:Alright.... on Auditors Report FBI Fails in Tracking Lost Laptops · · Score: 1

    I can see some being stolen. I've had friends lose laptops from their homes or businesses when burglarized. The thing is, all the sensitive data on those machines should be backed up, and encrypted, so that the only worry is about the insurance claim and the hassle of getting a new machine allocated and set up.

    Personally I keep all my personal information (banking info, etc) stored in TrueCrypt files on my home machine, just in case my house gets broken into when I'm gone. The same goes for work (I'm in the medical field and have HIPAA protected data to deal with). Everything sensitive is mounted from encrypted TrueCrypt containers. If anyone breaks in and steals a machine, all they get when they plug it in at their place is a machine with a lot of encrypted files they can't get back into.

  20. Re:fork and keep distributing? on Novell Won't Lose Right To Sell Linux · · Score: 1

    Guess what. They don't need EVERYTHING currently ins SUSE. Guess what else? Not EVERYTHING in SUSE is going to move the GPL3. Some will, some won't, including the kernel. They don't need a programming team anywhere comparable in size to the OS community. Plenty of folks will stay with GPL2. Oh, and you do realize some of us also write BSD code they can include, don't you?

  21. Re:They can distribute linux on Novell Won't Lose Right To Sell Linux · · Score: 1

    Oh, of course, that makes it as hard as moving the earth with a lever. Once again, you are a gripless fanboy.

  22. Re:Why am I not surprised that Defense did poorly. on DNS Root Servers Attacked · · Score: 1

    Yeah, some idiot posting on /. thinks the guys who invented the internet don't know their stuff. That's entirely fair. Stupid and moronic, but fair.

  23. Re:They can distribute linux on Novell Won't Lose Right To Sell Linux · · Score: 1

    No, but then again I and many others don't want or need the entire suite of GNU software. There's no need to rewrite or fork anything you don't want to use.

  24. Re:They can distribute linux on Novell Won't Lose Right To Sell Linux · · Score: 1

    That's like saying the only problem with moving the earth is finding a fulcrum and a sufficiently long lever. The cost would be substantial, and the odds of finding enough external developers are not very good.

    Wow, you are some FSF fanatic if you think the difficulty in finding some developers to create some forks of apps is as difficult as moving the earth with a lever. Seriously, get a grip. Believe it or not, many companies/groups have created entire OS's from scratch before. All we are talking about here is forking some apps. BSD folks will very likely jump on the bandwagon to fork or rewrite lots of needed ones so that they don't have to deal with even more restrictive GPL3 license. It's very doable.

    The best and the brightest work other places besides FSF only. Get a grip, the FSF isn't all that.

  25. Re:They can distribute linux on Novell Won't Lose Right To Sell Linux · · Score: 1

    What's more likely is that Novell is just using this as a marketing technique where they can say, "Other Linux distributions are probably infringing on lots of Microsoft's patents, we have the only distribution safe from a lawsuit from Microsoft."

    I think this is exactly what is going on, and your other argument isn't what is happening at all. This is a typical 'don't use your patents against us, and we won't use ours against you' business deal. It's very common. You can give Stallman all the credit you want. Personally I like the BSD license instead.