1. Venter has helped lay out the building blocks, but he doesn't have a real idea how all the parts interact. That's why he wants to put some of the parts together: to see what happens.
2. For years we've been giving kids anti-biotics. Guess what? Now we've got mutated bacteria that don't respond to the current course of meds.
3. Ask the folks in Europe if they want any of America's genetically engineered crops or the beef we've fed it too. No?
There are TOO many unknowns about f*cking around with DNA you stupid twit. This isn't Legos we're talking about. It's creating organisms that don't occur in nature. They didn't have to fight through natural selection, don't have any counter balances in nature. It's the possibility (and a good one at that) of creating one that, oops, CRAIG DIDN'T anticipate.
I do understand the problem. THAT's why I'm concerned. It doesn't have a damn thing to do with what you cited. The problem here is thinking it's okay to play GOD without understanding the ramifications.
Btw, are you glad that Oppenheimer and company figured out how to make an atomic bomb? Or do you dismiss that with a wave of your hand too?
The potential capability of being able to engineer DNA sequences makes a myriad of SF nightmares seem like fanciful daydreams. Consider a DNA equivalent of the "Island of Dr Moreau". What would the biological landscape look like populated by viable hazardous failures that aren't what such a new age alchemist intended? The possibility for creating the butterfly that ends civilization is far too frightening to launch ourselves into this blindly. We've been lucky with a few "accidents" that have benefitted mankind (like lexan). How do we explain to the rest of the world, "Oops, we just created an organism that will make you defenseless against the common cold. So sorry." I'm not often in favor of government interference, but someone has got to put the brakes on this idea before it even gets off the ground.
Consider that one reason for using the blue laser is the optical characteristics. Also note that Plasmon's unit has a 0.7 numerical aperature lens to focus the beam.
Makes me wonder. How much higher density could be achieved with a blue laser and a lens made from left-handed (neg refractive index) material?
No, no, you misunderstand. I wanted one of these in the worst way. I'm just pointing out what we thought was irresistible back then in light of present day capabilities.
Still, the Osborne1 was a pacesetter. And for a time it was considered one the best offerings available.
Do you recall the print advertising though? I do. Byte magazine used to run an ad showing an attractive business woman carrying one as though it was her attache. After I carried one the first time, I thought she must have been a weightlifter.
I find the entire anti-Apple crap from Dell laughable. Michael Dell repeatedly tries to convince a gullible public that Apple is dead (and lately, that tired horse they rode in on, OSX). Still, it's innovation(TM)* when Dell follows Apple's lead.
News flash: The king isn't wearing the latest fasion. He's naked and no one has the guts to say it.
* Innovation is a trademark of Microsoft Corporation.
um... how many of Brady's GLASS PLATES are still around?
Images you care about having digital copies of, you'll incrementally upgrade the formats as formats change. No generation is going to move forward without some way to convert forward (look at all the image formats supported by PSP & Photoshop today).
"Honey, what do you suppose is on this odd little black square with the gold contacts? Do we still have anything that will read this?"
And as for prints of digital images. I'm guessing that you don't mean the home image printers that use paper lasting a few months...
The continuing downfall of all things digital/electronic: retention. We keep upgrading, changing formats, algorithms, software, etc. Think of all the articles here about losing data because it's in a format that's no longer supported. Or because the storage media has a shelf life. Nine (or even eight) track tape, 8 and 5.25" floppies for example. Note the increasing difficulty finding a player for these?
We've got images from the earliest days of photography. Brady's pictures from the Civil War. Written word lives on from centuries ago because the original media was substantial if not borderline immutable.
Magnetic-based media is ephemeral. So far that's the REAL problem. Combine modern analog rendering (X3) with a modern analog(?) storage medium and we may have the next ink and vellum.
The article also mentions a Simpsons episode which relates to chaos theory, but didn't bother to mention that it was a take-off on Ray Bradbury's "The Sound of Thunder," a short story written in 1951, well before chaos theory had a name.
Coinicidentally, the movie "A Sound of Thunder" is in post-production for release in perhaps early 2004. It was such a great short story. Seems odd that no one has done the story over the past 40 years. Here's a link to Yahoo's page about the movie with much more info.
...simply stop building in the path of floods and hurricanes.
I'll be sure to tell my folks that. Their house was right in the path of hurricane Fran a couple of years ago. That would be in the middle of f*cking North Carolina. Sure as hell not a coastal town.
Next thing we know you'll suggest that folks shouldn't build ANYWHERE in the state of Florida. And while we're at it, don't build in Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska or Missouri because you might be in the path of sizable tornado.
Point is, your suggestion is not that bloody simple. Certainly, folks who build withing 10 miles of the shore on the Gulf or Mid-Atlantic coasts have to expect consequences. But storms aren't isolated to those areas.
Re:I used to love his stuff
on
Prey
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
And NS wrote about nano way before MC. MC is just jumping on the bandwagon...
Wait a minute, I thought you said you've read all of Crichton? You've forgotten about The Andromeda Strain. That was nano before the term was part of the vernacular. Not sure about Neal's age, but I'm willing to bet that Andromeda Strain was written before Stephenson got started.
Hardly makes Crichton jumping on the bandwagon. One might even go so far as to say that Crichton helped build that wagon in terms of putting real science into SF.
Currently, the only generic standard for document exchange using XML is HTML.
Either I'm misunderestimating your statement, or you left out DocBook. For the folks who work with XML and use a DTD (as opposed to well-formed), THAT is pretty much the standard. It's fairly thorough. For more info, see the folks at OASIS of all people.
One of us is missing something then. Could easily be me. If so, please enlighten me...
The storage capacity we have now is adaquate for at least another few years. I don't know anyone that uses more than 60 gigs, and they are few and far between.
1) Who would want a personal computer? 2) 640 KB is enough for anyone
Someone always figures out a way to use the available resources and more. My point is that this will have an impact.
I suspect the reason Linux (or OpenBSD or FreeBSD...) have not applied for this is that it costs money. I'm sure MS paid SAIC a nice bundle for this work. A BIG difference between the Common Criteria and the old Orange Book evals. Under the Orange Book (the old C2), the gov't paid, the trade-off being that they took their sweet time doing the eval. Now we have private labs doing the work - more quickly, but there is always the issue of whether the payment biases the results.
MS has to pay for the testing. That won't have any effect on the folks performing the testing. The lab exists for anyone who needs CC testing done. It's not a shill for Microsoft.
The time between when Columbus "discovered" the new world and Magellen circumnavigated the globe was 30 years. It has now been 30 years since Apollo 17, the last time man visited the moon, the last time man left low earth orbit. I think it's a great failure of our race that we've dragged our feet such.
We've got a population in the US which is aging. Rapidly. A population that by and large faces a prospect of high medical costs, particularly prescriptions, that will consume a significant portion of their retirement income.
Eat or stay healthy?
THAT'S what a great failure looks like. Potential of benefit to the general population (some day) from space-based research notwithstanding.
This poor excuse for innovation makes all of it's claims on the use of "a micro-computer". And how the heck does someone get to take up with a string of dead previous attempts and make any kind of real claim? Can one of the real lawyers in the audience explain that one?
What if someone were to patent the process for supercomputers, embedded computers, beowulf clusters... you get the picture. Then announce that you will license the patent to interested parties for free (with the exception of the scumbags in San Diego).
Not that it makes a tremendous difference in terms of ecology, but there are people who performing "logging" (collecting deadheads) on lakes. They're looking for waterlogged timber that sank during logging runs. The timber is used for custom work like guitars, flooring, or custom home building. The advantages come from wood that has not been exposed to oxygen for years while it sat at the bottom of a river or lake. Here's another link if you're interested.
There is some great informed discussion going on here. Those of you who live in the US, please write to Davis, Davis, Kind, etc and lay out the same reasoned explanation that you've made on Slashdot. We can discuss it all we want, but if we don't make ourselves heard then we don't have the right to bitch on Slashdot that no one concurred with our thoughts.
[Note: I recognize that lack of action does not prevent bitching on Slashdot about the outcome.]
Code that is written under contract to the Federal Government is the property of the Federal Government. It is not, to paraphrase, sold back to the Government so you pay twice for the same code. That issue has come up on every contract I've worked on. And when the code is owned by the Feds, if they want to re-use it for another Fed project they can. It's their code. It happens a lot.
Meanwhile wouldn't it be nice to have a half-inch thick high resolution LCD TV?
A recent submission here on Slashdot noted that OLED screens are closer to this than the prospect of LCD units.
And considering the additional cost and QC issues, I'd think that separating the control circuitry from the display will have advantages for some time to come.
Who said Apple invented large heatsinks, airflow design, etc?... I have been using large heatsinks, low powered quiet ducted fans, and passive coolers since the pentium days.... Also, your post is irrelevant considering that Gateway, Dell, HP, Compaq has been doing the exact same thing in (many) of their systems as well for years.... And they are far far far FAR from the ppl who started making silent PCs
Hmm... Sounds like Apple pre-dates your knowledge of computers.
Apple has been making quiet computers since before the Mac came out. That would be before Gateway, Dell and Compaq were even in existance (not to mention Pentiums).
And it's not like it's an afterthought either. The Mac engineers begged Jobs to let them use a fan. He refused, saying that he wanted the computer to be as quiet as possible. Granted, that 400k floppy was a loud mother. But when it wasn't in use the computer was silent.
Not really, she's a girl so she dosn't have balls...
First, you're thinking of castrate which would be difficult to achieve from a purely anatomical standpoint. On the other hand, one would have to consider that Microsoft really has balls to think that they could pull a stunt like this and get away with it. Oh wait, they cobble the truth frequently.
I especially enjoyed Ballmer's attempt at sounding surprised. "I received some vague notice about some vague activity that others might consider unethical. Did I mention it was vague?"
Slashdot Mirror
Okay let me make it clearer for you:
1. Venter has helped lay out the building blocks, but he doesn't have a real idea how all the parts interact. That's why he wants to put some of the parts together: to see what happens.
2. For years we've been giving kids anti-biotics. Guess what? Now we've got mutated bacteria that don't respond to the current course of meds.
3. Ask the folks in Europe if they want any of America's genetically engineered crops or the beef we've fed it too. No?
There are TOO many unknowns about f*cking around with DNA you stupid twit. This isn't Legos we're talking about. It's creating organisms that don't occur in nature. They didn't have to fight through natural selection, don't have any counter balances in nature. It's the possibility (and a good one at that) of creating one that, oops, CRAIG DIDN'T anticipate.
I do understand the problem. THAT's why I'm concerned. It doesn't have a damn thing to do with what you cited. The problem here is thinking it's okay to play GOD without understanding the ramifications.
Btw, are you glad that Oppenheimer and company figured out how to make an atomic bomb? Or do you dismiss that with a wave of your hand too?
The potential capability of being able to engineer DNA sequences makes a myriad of SF nightmares seem like fanciful daydreams. Consider a DNA equivalent of the "Island of Dr Moreau". What would the biological landscape look like populated by viable hazardous failures that aren't what such a new age alchemist intended? The possibility for creating the butterfly that ends civilization is far too frightening to launch ourselves into this blindly. We've been lucky with a few "accidents" that have benefitted mankind (like lexan). How do we explain to the rest of the world, "Oops, we just created an organism that will make you defenseless against the common cold. So sorry." I'm not often in favor of government interference, but someone has got to put the brakes on this idea before it even gets off the ground.
Consider that one reason for using the blue laser is the optical characteristics. Also note that Plasmon's unit has a 0.7 numerical aperature lens to focus the beam.
Makes me wonder. How much higher density could be achieved with a blue laser and a lens made from left-handed (neg refractive index) material?
Order of magnitude (300GB)?
No, no, you misunderstand. I wanted one of these in the worst way. I'm just pointing out what we thought was irresistible back then in light of present day capabilities.
Still, the Osborne1 was a pacesetter. And for a time it was considered one the best offerings available.
Do you recall the print advertising though? I do. Byte magazine used to run an ad showing an attractive business woman carrying one as though it was her attache. After I carried one the first time, I thought she must have been a weightlifter.
Gadzooks how could one resist? But for a lot of folks who needed a computer not bolted to the floor (like reporters), the Osborne1 fit the bill.
...Apple is the the cat-bird seat with respect to Microsoft, who is just stuck selling software.
Just curious, just who is making the X-Box and new network gear that Microsoft sells?
I find the entire anti-Apple crap from Dell laughable. Michael Dell repeatedly tries to convince a gullible public that Apple is dead (and lately, that tired horse they rode in on, OSX). Still, it's innovation(TM)* when Dell follows Apple's lead.
News flash: The king isn't wearing the latest fasion. He's naked and no one has the guts to say it.
* Innovation is a trademark of Microsoft Corporation.
Andrew Tridgell (original Samba developer) thinks the fork is a good opportunity to reinvigorate the project and try other things.
Keep in mind that there has been no trial on this case yet. Something about "innocent until proven guilty in a court of law" comes to mind.
um ... how many of Brady's GLASS PLATES are still around?
Images you care about having digital copies of, you'll incrementally upgrade the formats as formats change. No generation is going to move forward without some way to convert forward (look at all the image formats supported by PSP & Photoshop today).
"Honey, what do you suppose is on this odd little black square with the gold contacts? Do we still have anything that will read this?"
And as for prints of digital images. I'm guessing that you don't mean the home image printers that use paper lasting a few months...
The continuing downfall of all things digital/electronic: retention. We keep upgrading, changing formats, algorithms, software, etc. Think of all the articles here about losing data because it's in a format that's no longer supported. Or because the storage media has a shelf life. Nine (or even eight) track tape, 8 and 5.25" floppies for example. Note the increasing difficulty finding a player for these?
We've got images from the earliest days of photography. Brady's pictures from the Civil War. Written word lives on from centuries ago because the original media was substantial if not borderline immutable.
Magnetic-based media is ephemeral. So far that's the REAL problem. Combine modern analog rendering (X3) with a modern analog(?) storage medium and we may have the next ink and vellum.
The article also mentions a Simpsons episode which relates to chaos theory, but didn't bother to mention that it was a take-off on Ray Bradbury's "The Sound of Thunder," a short story written in 1951, well before chaos theory had a name.
Coinicidentally, the movie "A Sound of Thunder" is in post-production for release in perhaps early 2004. It was such a great short story. Seems odd that no one has done the story over the past 40 years. Here's a link to Yahoo's page about the movie with much more info.
...simply stop building in the path of floods and hurricanes.
I'll be sure to tell my folks that. Their house was right in the path of hurricane Fran a couple of years ago. That would be in the middle of f*cking North Carolina. Sure as hell not a coastal town.
Next thing we know you'll suggest that folks shouldn't build ANYWHERE in the state of Florida. And while we're at it, don't build in Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska or Missouri because you might be in the path of sizable tornado.
Point is, your suggestion is not that bloody simple. Certainly, folks who build withing 10 miles of the shore on the Gulf or Mid-Atlantic coasts have to expect consequences. But storms aren't isolated to those areas.
And NS wrote about nano way before MC. MC is just jumping on the bandwagon...
Wait a minute, I thought you said you've read all of Crichton? You've forgotten about The Andromeda Strain. That was nano before the term was part of the vernacular. Not sure about Neal's age, but I'm willing to bet that Andromeda Strain was written before Stephenson got started.
Hardly makes Crichton jumping on the bandwagon. One might even go so far as to say that Crichton helped build that wagon in terms of putting real science into SF.
Currently, the only generic standard for document exchange using XML is HTML.
Either I'm misunderestimating your statement, or you left out DocBook. For the folks who work with XML and use a DTD (as opposed to well-formed), THAT is pretty much the standard. It's fairly thorough. For more info, see the folks at OASIS of all people.
One of us is missing something then. Could easily be me. If so, please enlighten me...
The storage capacity we have now is adaquate for at least another few years. I don't know anyone that uses more than 60 gigs, and they are few and far between.
1) Who would want a personal computer?
2) 640 KB is enough for anyone
Someone always figures out a way to use the available resources and more. My point is that this will have an impact.
I suspect the reason Linux (or OpenBSD or FreeBSD...) have not applied for this is that it costs money. I'm sure MS paid SAIC a nice bundle for this work. A BIG difference between the Common Criteria and the old Orange Book evals. Under the Orange Book (the old C2), the gov't paid, the trade-off being that they took their sweet time doing the eval. Now we have private labs doing the work - more quickly, but there is always the issue of whether the payment biases the results.
MS has to pay for the testing. That won't have any effect on the folks performing the testing. The lab exists for anyone who needs CC testing done. It's not a shill for Microsoft.
The time between when Columbus "discovered" the new world and Magellen circumnavigated the globe was 30 years. It has now been 30 years since Apollo 17, the last time man visited the moon, the last time man left low earth orbit. I think it's a great failure of our race that we've dragged our feet such.
We've got a population in the US which is aging. Rapidly. A population that by and large faces a prospect of high medical costs, particularly prescriptions, that will consume a significant portion of their retirement income.
Eat or stay healthy?
THAT'S what a great failure looks like. Potential of benefit to the general population (some day) from space-based research notwithstanding.
IANAL (shocker):
... you get the picture. Then announce that you will license the patent to interested parties for free (with the exception of the scumbags in San Diego).
This poor excuse for innovation makes all of it's claims on the use of "a micro-computer". And how the heck does someone get to take up with a string of dead previous attempts and make any kind of real claim? Can one of the real lawyers in the audience explain that one?
What if someone were to patent the process for supercomputers, embedded computers, beowulf clusters
Not that it makes a tremendous difference in terms of ecology, but there are people who performing "logging" (collecting deadheads) on lakes. They're looking for waterlogged timber that sank during logging runs. The timber is used for custom work like guitars, flooring, or custom home building. The advantages come from wood that has not been exposed to oxygen for years while it sat at the bottom of a river or lake. Here's another link if you're interested.
There is some great informed discussion going on here. Those of you who live in the US, please write to Davis, Davis, Kind, etc and lay out the same reasoned explanation that you've made on Slashdot. We can discuss it all we want, but if we don't make ourselves heard then we don't have the right to bitch on Slashdot that no one concurred with our thoughts.
[Note: I recognize that lack of action does not prevent bitching on Slashdot about the outcome.]
Okay, let's stop that lie dead in it's tracks.
Code that is written under contract to the Federal Government is the property of the Federal Government. It is not, to paraphrase, sold back to the Government so you pay twice for the same code. That issue has come up on every contract I've worked on. And when the code is owned by the Feds, if they want to re-use it for another Fed project they can. It's their code. It happens a lot.
Meanwhile wouldn't it be nice to have a half-inch thick high resolution LCD TV?
A recent submission here on Slashdot noted that OLED screens are closer to this than the prospect of LCD units.
And considering the additional cost and QC issues, I'd think that separating the control circuitry from the display will have advantages for some time to come.
Who said Apple invented large heatsinks, airflow design, etc? ... I have been using large heatsinks, low powered quiet ducted fans, and passive coolers since the pentium days. ... Also, your post is irrelevant considering that Gateway, Dell, HP, Compaq has been doing the exact same thing in (many) of their systems as well for years. ... And they are far far far FAR from the ppl who started making silent PCs
Hmm... Sounds like Apple pre-dates your knowledge of computers.
Apple has been making quiet computers since before the Mac came out. That would be before Gateway, Dell and Compaq were even in existance (not to mention Pentiums).
And it's not like it's an afterthought either. The Mac engineers begged Jobs to let them use a fan. He refused, saying that he wanted the computer to be as quiet as possible. Granted, that 400k floppy was a loud mother. But when it wasn't in use the computer was silent.
Not really, she's a girl so she dosn't have balls...
First, you're thinking of castrate which would be difficult to achieve from a purely anatomical standpoint. On the other hand, one would have to consider that Microsoft really has balls to think that they could pull a stunt like this and get away with it. Oh wait, they cobble the truth frequently.
I especially enjoyed Ballmer's attempt at sounding surprised. "I received some vague notice about some vague activity that others might consider unethical. Did I mention it was vague?"