Re:Tech support load varies with configuration cou
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Dorm Storm?
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· Score: 5, Insightful
"Spoken like a person who's never had to do tech support."
Spoken like a person who has no respect for his users.
There's a fundamental difference in philosophy here. One camp would suggest that the tail wags the dog--the network admins get to say who can use the network, and how the network gets used, because it's their job to keep the network up. The other camp--the dog-wags-tail group--would acknowledge that they A) are working at a university B) would have no power if it weren't for the users they serve and C) only really have to deal with a single mad rush for a few weeks at the beginning of the year. These people would have to begrudgingly accept a few rough weeks at the beginning of term as a part of the job.
Yes, users can call tech support with stupid/unanswerable/unsupported questions. Yes, you can simply refuse to answer those questions. Yes, these users still take up a call. How many times do you think they'll call back if you tell them no?
I have worked tech support, and I do understand the frustration. However, I also know that imposing arbitrary restrictions isn't the answer. Sooner or later, your users will figure things out, and if your restrictions are too imposing, someone will be clogging your lines with complaints, instead of questions--or worse, calling the dean to get you canned. Being draconian is never a winning strategy.
Re:Strict Guidelines only way to cope with load
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Dorm Storm?
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· Score: 5, Insightful
"Thankfully, the rest of the university was a pleasent blend of Windows, MacOS, Linux, and commerical Unix. "Housing and Dining" was the only department with the Windows and our NIC only policy."
And you were also probably the least used network on campus. Maybe that's why you had so few network problems. And it's not that impressive a statistic, precisely because you serverely and arbitrarily limited the functionality of your network service to attain the (less important) standard of uptime.
I mean, listen to yourself! You required users to buy your NIC (at $50?!?), use only the operating systems that you allowed (I still haven't figured out what you're preventing by not allowing Linux as a client OS, aside from happy users), you misused the concept of DHCP, and you completely violated any standards of academic opennes and integrity. Your network sounds not like a success, but a disaster!
I wouldn't be so harsh about most of your policies, if you didn't also mix in a number of shortsighted, non-benificial rules in there as well. What the hell do you care what the user does behind his/her dorm-room port? Are you filtering packets? Blocking ports? Yes? Then it doesn't matter if Joe User wants to set up a single windows PC, or establish a 10 computer NAT network in their room, hidden behind a linux firewall. Second, why would you want to alienate technically savvy users by requiring them to use hardware or software different from what they already have? If a Joe User can do his own install, do you care *what* he installs? Of course not! Your rules provide no benefit, other than to stroke your own sense of power.
If I were both a competent network user and a paying student at your university, I know I would've done my best to get you fired. Sheesh.
And don't forget the swimsuit competition! I can't wait for this month's Scientific Computing and Instrumentation centerfold! Hoo-ah! Did you see the CM5 from last month? Still sexy after all these years....
"You mean, unlike the way that German scientists were not handicapped 60 years ago? I say this to illustrate a point. Many people see this type of research as orwellian, to control the cells of an individual in order to limit his/her position in life. To limit the scope of one individual to that of a test subject who will never have a choice as to whether or not to take part."
Oh, goddamn it...would you just quit with the nazi atrocity comparisons! It's really an idiotic comparison. There is no parallel you can draw, moral, ethical, legal or otherwise, that would rationally place stem cell research in the same category as the "research" that went on in the nazi camps. One did experimentation on out-of-the-womb, walking, talking, thinking, conscious human beings, often with very little direct scientific benefit. The other? It takes cells from the 24-hour blastocyst, in order to better understand the details of human development. The blastocyst cannot think. The blastocyst cannot feel. The blastocyst is a molecular machine, capable of becoming a higher organism known as a human.
We're talking about balls of cells here, not, walking, talking human beings. Now I know that you don't see the difference for some reason--but most people in this country do, statistically speaking. And that's why your position is extreme, no matter how you want to frame it.
"As far as "creating life", we are a long way off from that. We won't be able to create life until we can build DNA, RNA, and/or amino acid chains from carbon and water with no help from any natural process."
Either you don't know what you're talking about, or you're purposely trying to cloud debate, but that statement was complete bunk. We can "create" DNA, RNA, and even amino acids from carbon and water (not to mention the nitrogen, sulfur and other atoms that are required), and we do it regularly in laboratories all across the country. You can buy organically synthesized nucleotides and amino acids from Sigma, a chemical supply company. And machines exist that will link those together in any arbitrary combination you wish. So you're completely wrong.
Unfortunately, I can already see what you're going to say next. You're going to retreat back to "I said no help from any natural process" and argue that laboratory techniques must use "natural processes" to synthesize any chemical compounds. Don't bother. If your way of winning an argument is to frame a truism, then you're not worth arguing with. We live in a physical world. If your only basis for justifying an argument is that "god is everywhere, and therefore He innervates even physical phenomenon" you deserve to be ignored.
"Why is it The religious extreme and The scientific community?"
Because that's the truth. Current polls suggest that the opposition to stem cell research doesn't lie in the mainstream. That's why you hear enigmatic things like the Pope publicly opposing the research, while the news reports in the same breath that the majority of American catholics support it. And specific cases aside, the "scientific community" is pretty single-minded on the issue--they see the research as a valuable tool.
"I could just as easily say the supporters of life and the killers of babies -- but you'd probably call that hate speech."
I wouldn't call it hate speech, but I would call it a stupid and shortsighted statement. Ignoring the fact that the scientists aren't "killing" anything that wouldn't be "killed" anyway (what do you think they do with those unused embryos, eh?), it's highly questionable to morally equate scientific investigators--people whose work has a great chance of doing good--to common murderers. Of course, now you're probably going to criticise me for referring to murderers as "common"...
"And those scientists who will pursue the research are not neccessarily pure, or even scientific. They could be complete charlatans, only wanting the funding because they're greedy."
And at this point, you've thoroughly proven that you don't know what the hell you're talking about. Federally-funded stem cell research will be administered through the NIH. If the NIH, with it's extensive peer review systems (consisting of some of the best scientific minds in the US) is sponsoring the research of greedy charlatans, then Bush has bigger problems than deciding whether a blastocyst constitutes a person...
"Hell, what if one of the scientists create a cure for alzheimers from this research and manages to patent it? What will you say then?"
I'd say: "hooray! someone found a cure for alzheimers." And it would be a great day. And if I were ever diagnosed with alzheimers, I would gladly pay for the treatment, thrilled that someone found a way to cure me of a progressive, debilitating and dehumanizing illness.
And, in case you've been asleep for the majority of the stem-cell debate, the very reason scientists are so keen on keeping federal funding for this research is so that we have a fighting chance of keeping the results open. In the era of gene patents and spiraling research costs, it's essential that silly and vacuous political arguments don't cut off our ability to do interesting research in a public manner.
"You can say he waffled. You can say he is an idiot. You can say whatever you want, but in the end I'm proud to call this man President. He to the time to carefully consider the argument from both sides are reached a decision that should make everyone happy."
Except that it doesn't, because it doesn't address the fundamental problems that either side had. The religious extreme still see the embryo research they hate. The scientific community knows very well that the existing stem cell lines are NOT immortal (contrary to what Bush has said) and are NOT sufficiently genetically diverse to do many types of meaningful work. So no, Bush's decision was not a paragon of enlightened decision making and compromise. It was a politically-motivated decision designed to protect his voting constituencies as much as possible.
Yeah, Bush delayed a political nightmare last night (sort of). Big deal--he's a politician, he should be able to do that. You'll have to excuse me if I, and a lot of other thoughtful Americans don't gush with praise over poorly-informed decisions made in the name of political expediency.
I've been using a compaq 1800T with linux and windows for almost a year now, with very few problems. At the time I bought it, it was easily the most feature complete laptop I found for the money. And the 1400x1050 screen resolution (which works under linux) is pretty stunning...
One thing for potential compaq buyers: don't pay extra for memory upgrades from compaq. You can do far better at other places on the net (ebay included). I bought mine with 64M installed, and upgraded to 192M for *half* the price that compaq was charging...
Well, I don't know much, but I do know that, back when I was youngun, I would see people holding hands, and sometimes I would see an occasional peck on the cheek. At most.
But now? Now everyone is gropin' and palmin' and spankin' in public! I don't know why, but suddenly everyone thinks that it's just O-freakin-K to get all hot and bothered out in the town square. And I don't like it! Nosiree!
"Well, to be fair, a far larger number of companies have had very lucrative and stable relationships with MS than the converse."
Not even close. Certainly, you have heard of more companies that live in symbiosis with microsoft, but for every one of those, there are probably ten that got squashed that you never even heard about. Funny how that works.
I haven't understood Ximian's strategy from the start. Some important people have already noted that.NET isn't that technically great, that it may or may not be a big security risk, and that it definitely looks like an attempt to kill Java. So why is Ximian so eager to buy into it?
There may be a lot to.NET, but given that it's a nascent collection of tools, and that it has no foothold in the consumer market (other than hype), wouldn't it be a better strategy to produce a competing free alternative? Tripping the giant always seems better than sleeping with it...
This is just one step closer to my ultimate dream: the internet park!
Just imagine--sitting in the grass, in the sun, hacking away at some code that you've pulled from your sourceforge CVS archive through the ethernet port in the tree behind you.
"There's nothing postmodern about it -- Hume was one of those Dead White European Males that the postmoderns hate."
The idea was very postmodern. Postmodernists *love* the thought that physical reality might be subjective.
"Scientists make theories, which they have faith in long before enough data is available to make them plausible to the the scientific community at large. The arguments at scientific meetings are quite heated because not everyone shares the faith in the theories being discussed."
Scientists have hypotheses. This is not bad. They seek to prove, disprove or refine those hypotheses with evidence. The process is not based on faith. The process is based on observation.
"The notion that science alone holds the secrets of our existence has become a religion of its own. The faith of Dawkins and others in biology seems even greater than the faith of the simple believer in God. Science is the proper way to understand the natural, of course; but science gives us no reason to deny that there are aspects of human identity that fall outside the sphere of nature, and hence outside the sphere of science."
While the rest of the article was first-rate, I have to wonder what the authors were thinking when writing the above. Whether they realize it or not, the authors are falling back on that classic logical fallacy that religious groups everywhere have used to argue the creation side of the creation/evolution debate: "there is no evidence for your argument, so mine must be correct."
Science is about what is observable, and to their credit, the authors admit this in the very next paragraph. But to state that a decision to believe only in the observable is tantamount to an act of "faith" is silly. Science is about observation. When you decide that something may never be observable (i.e. because it may be "supernatural"), you bias yourself beyond repair.
It isn't "faith" to believe that our behaviors are a result of complex natural phenomena--it is a refusal to place credence in that which is unobservable, and therefore undefendable. And *that* is the exact opposite of faith.
"UV is sometimes used to sterilize drinking water and is known to alter the DNA of fungi, bacteria, viruses to keep them from reproducing."
And induce skin cancer in human beings. If you're using enough UV to kill a microorganism, you're using more than enough to cause nasty sunburns and eventually, tumors.
Not that this has to happen, of course, but I wouldn't go putting a short-wave UV lamp in any conventional computer case, what with all their openings, and their tendency to be placed under desks (near legs)...
"The software packages that comes to my mind when reading this are in fact written by statisticians and/or computer scientists... And if there is a rivalling package by a biologist, you'll see that they have often picked up statistics and methods from their competitors."
This line of debate gets silly fast. Is a "computer scientist" a computer scientist if they focus on biology, or take a biology-centric view of the world? Vice-versa? Yes, you can define people in computational biology as either computer scientists or biologists, depending on how you like to think of them. I'll agree with you that the best researchers are highly competent in both realms. But the absolute best are biologists at heart.
The point I wanted to emphasize is that the people who focus on "computer science" centrally, and do "computational biology" peripherally, almost universally come up short. Truthfully, you have to be a biologist before you can be a computational biologist.
"I have numerous examples of biologists contending that their heuristic is much better than all the other heuristics (well at least on their own dataset)."
In my experience, this happens more often among CS researchers in computational biology than it does among biologists. Check out the microarray analysis/feature detection literature before you disagree with me. It's a parade of algorithms with absolutely zero relevance to practical biology. And everybody insists that their own approach is better (the worst case in recent memory, involved a paper from ISMB '00 (I think) where the researchers' clustering algorithm produced results inconsistent with known biology, so they concluded that the biologists were wrong! I'm not kidding.)
Biologists are certainly not innocent--after all, everyone has an ego--but the debates of this variety tend to be among two or three competing alternatives (i.e. the parsimony vs. likelihood debates in phylogeny) that have been accepted by a majority of the researchers in a field.
"There are also excellent examples of biologists promoting their version of a traditional greedy heuristic as a "new algorithm" for solving an NP complete problems."
I guess my response to this is "so what?" If Biologists were studying NP-complete problems, and not biology, then they couldn't be excused for not knowing the existing research in that field of computer science. But they're not. They're studying biology, and they're using whatever computational tools they need to do their job. So you're going to see these types of things for a while, and frankly, it's not a big deal. Who cares if a biologist thinks he/she has developed a new approximation for solving NP-complete problems? Does it change the fact that they've probably found another direct application of computational techniques to biology? No.
"Have you looked at protein folding?"
Yes. I work in the field.
"That field is a source for the most repugnant oversimplifications ever made in science."
Well, if you're going to make that kind of dispersion, you're going to have to be a lot more specific. Yes, there's a lot of bad literature on protein folding. A lot of it comes from polymer physicists. But the best stuff out there is still pretty simple. Does that make it bad? I would say the whole field is an "oversimplification." I would not say that this is "repugnant." I might just say it is realistic to simplify, depending on what kind of simplification I was talking about.
"My point is that pointing fingers to either discipline is ridiculous."
No, not really. Biologists have a handle on relevance and topicality, which are the most important things to have a handle on, frankly. What computer scientists do far more than biologists is lose the forest for the trees, and get lost in algorithmic trivia. And a lot of this owes to the sheer cultural differences between the two fields--CS people often go into CS because they want to think about algorithms and efficiency issues. Biologists just want to learn how real, squishy things work. They beg, borrow and steal from other disciplines to do this. And if they don't need to learn the whole field to do so, well, so be it. That's why the field is computational biology, and not biological computation...
"The real path to successful bioinformatics is cooperation and humility."
Certainly. But not equal humility. Computer scientists are entering an entirely new discipline where their own skills are of lesser importance, and they need to understand that. The CS/biology trade-off isn't equal at all, IMO.
"Disclaimer: I am a computer scientist."
Disclaimer: I am both, but I think like a molecular biologist. CS theory makes me yawn.:-)
"A lot of the work that's been done so far has been done by biologists who happen to be able to program, rather than by programmers who have learned the biology. As a result, a lot of the work uses inefficient algorithms, primitive approaches, bad statistics, and the like....Somebody who actually knows interesting new algorithms that can be applied to the problems can do even more."
This is kind of a bad generalization to make. The software that has achieved notoriety and widespread use, while primitive in method (i.e. dynamic programming--boring, but widespread), is often based on very, very solid statistical theory. To the point where I almost find the "programmer" appeal to computational biology laughable--you'd be better served with some advanced statistics knowledge under your belt, rather than some programming knowledge, frankly.
Also, as a student in comp bio myself, I can't tell you the number of times I've heard computational "biologists" stand up and give silly lectures on new algorithms to resolve solved problems (but in slightly faster time), or worse, completely abstract away the relevant details of a biological system in order to make new applications for their fancy new methods. While, yes, there's a danger to having a poor grasp on CS skills and doing computational biology work, this danger is significanty smaller than for those who are doing the same work without the biology skills. In my experience, it usually works like this: a biologist who can sort-of program will tend to write ugly code that gets the job done. A computer scientist who sort-of knows biology will get nowhere fast.
"So, I guess the moral is, if you see any "free after rebate" deals, take advantage of them because they won't be around long. Race you to Best Buy!"
Me: "I'd like to buy this spindle of CD-Rs, please."
Best Buy Cashier: "OK. I see that these have an instant rebate, so the price is only $2 today."
Me: "Cool."
Cashier: "However, with our convenient CD-R protection plan, for the low cost of only $35, we'll provide you with a replacement if your purchase should be found defective for any reason."
Me: "uhm...wait a second..."
Cashier: "We also highly recommend these special CD-R cleaning cloths, available for only $19.95...you can't clean CD-R's any other way, you know..."
Me: "wha? cleaning cloths? I don't think..."
Cashier: "...and don't forget these special CD-R labelling pens, only $7.50, which are guaranteed to work with your new CD-Rs."
Me:"Hold on just one second now..."
Cashier: "better not to argue, sir. See the cameras? They're watching...ok then, your total comes to $70 after tax...sir? sir?"
"But what we're talking about is replacing one mom-and-pop radio station with five corporate affiliates. That's the situation on your dial these days, overall."
No, it isn't. And it will never be, as long as there are a finite number of FM radio stations available for licensing in any given area. When there is replacement these days, it is to replace a current station's management with new management. Not to replace one station with "five corporate affiliates."
And, having lived in 3 different metropolitan areas of different sizes over the last 6 years, I can vouch for the way clear channel and it's bretheren have been innundating local markets with "market music." Just because the phonomenon started 10 or 15 years ago, doesn't mean it isn't worse today.
"Linux doesn't save any money to a IT shop due to licensing fees becuase windows licesne fees are not that much. However linux can save a lot of money if the machines are set and forget. administrators are the expensive part."
Yeah, admins are expensive, but at thousands of dollars for a 5 user license pack for Win 2000, the difference starts to diminish -- remember, we're not only talking about the big iron in the back room (which, frankly, is likely to be running a *NIX anyway), we're talking about the thousands of desktop boxes that a large corporation needs to administer on a daily basis.
Further, when you consider the anecdotal evidence suggesting that a single, competent UNIX admin can handle more machines with less downtime than a competent Windows admin can handle Windows boxen--even without "set and forget"--the "TCO" starts to look favorable for UNIX.
This has been in the Seattle Weekly a coupla times now. The website is for a play of the same name, which may or may not still be running in downtown Seattle. It was supposed to be a mediocre play, but a good commentary on dot-bomb life.
At this point, I'm beginning to think I've fallen into a troll pit. Nevertheless...
"Funny how you edit my post to omit the point where I discuss P/E and then say that I didn't mention it."
Oh, for god's sake fine. Here's the one place in your post that you mention P/E:
"Red Hat would have to double revenues without increasing costs to get to a P/E of 10."
So what does this show us?
1) You grasp the numeric relationship of P/E to P/R.
2) You really like to use P/E without a context (So RHAT's P/E would be 10. So what? You still don't tell anyone why thats high, outside of saying that "Red Hat...faces competition.")
"Bwwwaahhhaaahhaaahahaa, ok you find a company with a P/E of one that has not had major accounting irregularity accusations or the like made. A P/E of one means that a billion dollar market cap company makes a billion dollars profit in a year."
Look, man--I'm not the one who said (in the previous post) that "in sane market conditions" a company's P/R should be 1. Since you obviously accept that a P/E can be greater than 1 in "sane market conditions," you've set yourself up. Your statement limits the trading multiple of a company to the costs of doing business. I think this is silly.
"A P/E should normally be in the range of about 15 to 30, representing a return on investment of 7% to 3.5%. Companies with very high growth can justify higher P/Es - but these should be rarities not the norm."
Holy @$%#! Now you're comparing P/E to ROI? What guru taught you to do analysis? Why don't you just accept it: P/E should be used in the context of earnings growth. When E = 0, you should use the PRG ratio instead. When R = 0, you should walk away from the stock (IMHO).
"Conflating a PEG ratio of one and a PRG ratio of one is insane - that would only hold for a company with 100% margins, something no packager of free software can hope for."
Which is why I didn't do that. I said that, in a fully and fairly valued situation, the price/revenue/revenue-growth should be 1 (or close to one). This works because P/R and P/E are related by a constant factor--1/costs--at any given point in time. As long as you use revenue growth in a PRG and not earnings growth, then you can do the same sort of analysis as you would a PEG.
Look, my point is (and was), that you didn't use the PR ratio in any sort of meaningful context--which you didn't. If you want to be a bear, then fine, go right ahead--be a bear. Don't, however, expect to go around making silly, talking-head-analyst valuation assesments without expecting to be called on them once in a while.
"I didn't state a P/E, I stated a projected P/E which is what the PEG Ratio is trying to do."
No, this is what you said:
"Err folks even in the software sector a price/revenue of 1 billion to 100 million/yr is pretty rich."
So no, you didn't say projected P/E. You didn't even say P/E--which is why I mentioned both P/R and P/E ratios. They're objective measures of the same process.
"PEG ratios are a stock screening tool, they are not a substitute for proper analysis."
Nor did I suggest that they were. I suggested that you can only use a P/E or a P/R ratio in context, which is true. Your original statement was misleading and incorrect.
"BTW Price revenue ratio in sane market conditions tends to be 1, o-n-e, not 20."
Oh, please. If you accept that a P/E could reasonably be greater than 1, you're saying that the multiple a stock trades at in sane market conditions (your term), is limited to multiple implied by the cost of doing business. Give me a break--a company that is expected to grow revenue 50% annually should only be valued at it's current revenue per share?
What I suspect you mean here is that the price/revenue/revenue-growth ratio should be 1, o-n-e, in a fully and fairly valued situation. Which, again, leads us back to the whole context discussion...
"Go read the motley fool site a bit more, they like PEG ratios but it is only ONE of he criteria they use out of 12 or so."
Oh man...
First of all, just because a fellow mentions a PEG does not mean he got it from the Motley Fool.
Second, and more importantly, I never said that a PEG should be used in isolation. I said that your original post was wrong--and it is. I'm tired of hearing people like you spout off about "absurdly high P/E" ratios without putting their statements into a meaningful context.
Slashdot Mirror
"Spoken like a person who's never had to do tech support."
Spoken like a person who has no respect for his users.
There's a fundamental difference in philosophy here. One camp would suggest that the tail wags the dog--the network admins get to say who can use the network, and how the network gets used, because it's their job to keep the network up. The other camp--the dog-wags-tail group--would acknowledge that they A) are working at a university B) would have no power if it weren't for the users they serve and C) only really have to deal with a single mad rush for a few weeks at the beginning of the year. These people would have to begrudgingly accept a few rough weeks at the beginning of term as a part of the job.
Yes, users can call tech support with stupid/unanswerable/unsupported questions. Yes, you can simply refuse to answer those questions. Yes, these users still take up a call. How many times do you think they'll call back if you tell them no?
I have worked tech support, and I do understand the frustration. However, I also know that imposing arbitrary restrictions isn't the answer. Sooner or later, your users will figure things out, and if your restrictions are too imposing, someone will be clogging your lines with complaints, instead of questions--or worse, calling the dean to get you canned. Being draconian is never a winning strategy.
"Thankfully, the rest of the university was a pleasent blend of Windows, MacOS, Linux, and commerical Unix. "Housing and Dining" was the only department with the Windows and our NIC only policy."
And you were also probably the least used network on campus. Maybe that's why you had so few network problems. And it's not that impressive a statistic, precisely because you serverely and arbitrarily limited the functionality of your network service to attain the (less important) standard of uptime.
I mean, listen to yourself! You required users to buy your NIC (at $50?!?), use only the operating systems that you allowed (I still haven't figured out what you're preventing by not allowing Linux as a client OS, aside from happy users), you misused the concept of DHCP, and you completely violated any standards of academic opennes and integrity. Your network sounds not like a success, but a disaster!
I wouldn't be so harsh about most of your policies, if you didn't also mix in a number of shortsighted, non-benificial rules in there as well. What the hell do you care what the user does behind his/her dorm-room port? Are you filtering packets? Blocking ports? Yes? Then it doesn't matter if Joe User wants to set up a single windows PC, or establish a 10 computer NAT network in their room, hidden behind a linux firewall. Second, why would you want to alienate technically savvy users by requiring them to use hardware or software different from what they already have? If a Joe User can do his own install, do you care *what* he installs? Of course not! Your rules provide no benefit, other than to stroke your own sense of power.
If I were both a competent network user and a paying student at your university, I know I would've done my best to get you fired. Sheesh.
And don't forget the swimsuit competition! I can't wait for this month's Scientific Computing and Instrumentation centerfold! Hoo-ah! Did you see the CM5 from last month? Still sexy after all these years....
"You mean, unlike the way that German scientists were not handicapped 60 years ago? I say this to illustrate a point. Many people see this type of research as orwellian, to control the cells of an individual in order to limit his/her position in life. To limit the scope of one individual to that of a test subject who will never have a choice as to whether or not to take part."
Oh, goddamn it...would you just quit with the nazi atrocity comparisons! It's really an idiotic comparison. There is no parallel you can draw, moral, ethical, legal or otherwise, that would rationally place stem cell research in the same category as the "research" that went on in the nazi camps. One did experimentation on out-of-the-womb, walking, talking, thinking, conscious human beings, often with very little direct scientific benefit. The other? It takes cells from the 24-hour blastocyst, in order to better understand the details of human development. The blastocyst cannot think. The blastocyst cannot feel. The blastocyst is a molecular machine, capable of becoming a higher organism known as a human.
We're talking about balls of cells here, not, walking, talking human beings. Now I know that you don't see the difference for some reason--but most people in this country do, statistically speaking. And that's why your position is extreme, no matter how you want to frame it.
"As far as "creating life", we are a long way off from that. We won't be able to create life until we can build DNA, RNA, and/or amino acid chains from carbon and water with no help from any natural process."
Either you don't know what you're talking about, or you're purposely trying to cloud debate, but that statement was complete bunk. We can "create" DNA, RNA, and even amino acids from carbon and water (not to mention the nitrogen, sulfur and other atoms that are required), and we do it regularly in laboratories all across the country. You can buy organically synthesized nucleotides and amino acids from Sigma, a chemical supply company. And machines exist that will link those together in any arbitrary combination you wish. So you're completely wrong.
Unfortunately, I can already see what you're going to say next. You're going to retreat back to "I said no help from any natural process" and argue that laboratory techniques must use "natural processes" to synthesize any chemical compounds. Don't bother. If your way of winning an argument is to frame a truism, then you're not worth arguing with. We live in a physical world. If your only basis for justifying an argument is that "god is everywhere, and therefore He innervates even physical phenomenon" you deserve to be ignored.
"Why is it The religious extreme and The scientific community?"
Because that's the truth. Current polls suggest that the opposition to stem cell research doesn't lie in the mainstream. That's why you hear enigmatic things like the Pope publicly opposing the research, while the news reports in the same breath that the majority of American catholics support it. And specific cases aside, the "scientific community" is pretty single-minded on the issue--they see the research as a valuable tool.
"I could just as easily say the supporters of life and the killers of babies -- but you'd probably call that hate speech."
I wouldn't call it hate speech, but I would call it a stupid and shortsighted statement. Ignoring the fact that the scientists aren't "killing" anything that wouldn't be "killed" anyway (what do you think they do with those unused embryos, eh?), it's highly questionable to morally equate scientific investigators--people whose work has a great chance of doing good--to common murderers. Of course, now you're probably going to criticise me for referring to murderers as "common"...
"And those scientists who will pursue the research are not neccessarily pure, or even scientific. They could be complete charlatans, only wanting the funding because they're greedy."
And at this point, you've thoroughly proven that you don't know what the hell you're talking about. Federally-funded stem cell research will be administered through the NIH. If the NIH, with it's extensive peer review systems (consisting of some of the best scientific minds in the US) is sponsoring the research of greedy charlatans, then Bush has bigger problems than deciding whether a blastocyst constitutes a person...
"Hell, what if one of the scientists create a cure for alzheimers from this research and manages to patent it? What will you say then?"
I'd say: "hooray! someone found a cure for alzheimers." And it would be a great day. And if I were ever diagnosed with alzheimers, I would gladly pay for the treatment, thrilled that someone found a way to cure me of a progressive, debilitating and dehumanizing illness.
And, in case you've been asleep for the majority of the stem-cell debate, the very reason scientists are so keen on keeping federal funding for this research is so that we have a fighting chance of keeping the results open. In the era of gene patents and spiraling research costs, it's essential that silly and vacuous political arguments don't cut off our ability to do interesting research in a public manner.
"You can say he waffled. You can say he is an idiot. You can say whatever you want, but in the end I'm proud to call this man President. He to the time to carefully consider the argument from both sides are reached a decision that should make everyone happy."
Except that it doesn't, because it doesn't address the fundamental problems that either side had. The religious extreme still see the embryo research they hate. The scientific community knows very well that the existing stem cell lines are NOT immortal (contrary to what Bush has said) and are NOT sufficiently genetically diverse to do many types of meaningful work. So no, Bush's decision was not a paragon of enlightened decision making and compromise. It was a politically-motivated decision designed to protect his voting constituencies as much as possible.
Yeah, Bush delayed a political nightmare last night (sort of). Big deal--he's a politician, he should be able to do that. You'll have to excuse me if I, and a lot of other thoughtful Americans don't gush with praise over poorly-informed decisions made in the name of political expediency.
I've been using a compaq 1800T with linux and windows for almost a year now, with very few problems. At the time I bought it, it was easily the most feature complete laptop I found for the money. And the 1400x1050 screen resolution (which works under linux) is pretty stunning...
One thing for potential compaq buyers: don't pay extra for memory upgrades from compaq. You can do far better at other places on the net (ebay included). I bought mine with 64M installed, and upgraded to 192M for *half* the price that compaq was charging...
Well, I don't know much, but I do know that, back when I was youngun, I would see people holding hands, and sometimes I would see an occasional peck on the cheek. At most.
But now? Now everyone is gropin' and palmin' and spankin' in public! I don't know why, but suddenly everyone thinks that it's just O-freakin-K to get all hot and bothered out in the town square. And I don't like it! Nosiree!
What? Whaddya mean "not that kind of PDA"?
oh.
nevermind.
"Well, to be fair, a far larger number of companies have had very lucrative and stable relationships with MS than the converse."
Not even close. Certainly, you have heard of more companies that live in symbiosis with microsoft, but for every one of those, there are probably ten that got squashed that you never even heard about. Funny how that works.
I haven't understood Ximian's strategy from the start. Some important people have already noted that .NET isn't that technically great, that it may or may not be a big security risk, and that it definitely looks like an attempt to kill Java. So why is Ximian so eager to buy into it?
.NET, but given that it's a nascent collection of tools, and that it has no foothold in the consumer market (other than hype), wouldn't it be a better strategy to produce a competing free alternative? Tripping the giant always seems better than sleeping with it...
There may be a lot to
This is just one step closer to my ultimate dream: the internet park!
Just imagine--sitting in the grass, in the sun, hacking away at some code that you've pulled from your sourceforge CVS archive through the ethernet port in the tree behind you.
Ahhh....a geek can dream, can't he?
"There's nothing postmodern about it -- Hume was one of those Dead White European Males that the postmoderns hate."
The idea was very postmodern. Postmodernists *love* the thought that physical reality might be subjective.
"Scientists make theories, which they have faith in long before enough data is available to make them plausible to the the scientific community at large. The arguments at scientific meetings are quite heated because not everyone shares the faith in the theories being discussed."
Scientists have hypotheses. This is not bad. They seek to prove, disprove or refine those hypotheses with evidence. The process is not based on faith. The process is based on observation.
"it is simple faith to assume that your senses give you an accurate picture of reality."
Ah, postmodernism. Talk about a pointless, cyclic debate.
What's the famous saying about this? "If you doubt existence of a universal truth, open up a window and step outside?"
Something like that...
"The notion that science alone holds the secrets of our existence has become a religion of its own. The faith of Dawkins and others in biology seems even greater than the faith of the simple believer in God. Science is the proper way to understand the natural, of course; but science gives us no reason to deny that there are aspects of human identity that fall outside the sphere of nature, and hence outside the sphere of science."
While the rest of the article was first-rate, I have to wonder what the authors were thinking when writing the above. Whether they realize it or not, the authors are falling back on that classic logical fallacy that religious groups everywhere have used to argue the creation side of the creation/evolution debate: "there is no evidence for your argument, so mine must be correct."
Science is about what is observable, and to their credit, the authors admit this in the very next paragraph. But to state that a decision to believe only in the observable is tantamount to an act of "faith" is silly. Science is about observation. When you decide that something may never be observable (i.e. because it may be "supernatural"), you bias yourself beyond repair.
It isn't "faith" to believe that our behaviors are a result of complex natural phenomena--it is a refusal to place credence in that which is unobservable, and therefore undefendable. And *that* is the exact opposite of faith.
"UV is sometimes used to sterilize drinking water and is known to alter the DNA of fungi, bacteria, viruses to keep them from reproducing."
And induce skin cancer in human beings. If you're using enough UV to kill a microorganism, you're using more than enough to cause nasty sunburns and eventually, tumors.
Not that this has to happen, of course, but I wouldn't go putting a short-wave UV lamp in any conventional computer case, what with all their openings, and their tendency to be placed under desks (near legs)...
"Anytime I see a booyah! in source code I know it's quality."
:-)
To conform to mil-spec, that line would have to be changed to "hooah!"...
"The software packages that comes to my mind when reading this are in fact written by statisticians and/or computer scientists... And if there is a rivalling package by a biologist, you'll see that they have often picked up statistics and methods from their competitors."
:-)
This line of debate gets silly fast. Is a "computer scientist" a computer scientist if they focus on biology, or take a biology-centric view of the world? Vice-versa? Yes, you can define people in computational biology as either computer scientists or biologists, depending on how you like to think of them. I'll agree with you that the best researchers are highly competent in both realms. But the absolute best are biologists at heart.
The point I wanted to emphasize is that the people who focus on "computer science" centrally, and do "computational biology" peripherally, almost universally come up short. Truthfully, you have to be a biologist before you can be a computational biologist.
"I have numerous examples of biologists contending that their heuristic is much better than all the other heuristics (well at least on their own dataset)."
In my experience, this happens more often among CS researchers in computational biology than it does among biologists. Check out the microarray analysis/feature detection literature before you disagree with me. It's a parade of algorithms with absolutely zero relevance to practical biology. And everybody insists that their own approach is better (the worst case in recent memory, involved a paper from ISMB '00 (I think) where the researchers' clustering algorithm produced results inconsistent with known biology, so they concluded that the biologists were wrong! I'm not kidding.)
Biologists are certainly not innocent--after all, everyone has an ego--but the debates of this variety tend to be among two or three competing alternatives (i.e. the parsimony vs. likelihood debates in phylogeny) that have been accepted by a majority of the researchers in a field.
"There are also excellent examples of biologists promoting their version of a traditional greedy heuristic as a "new algorithm" for solving an NP complete problems."
I guess my response to this is "so what?" If Biologists were studying NP-complete problems, and not biology, then they couldn't be excused for not knowing the existing research in that field of computer science. But they're not. They're studying biology, and they're using whatever computational tools they need to do their job. So you're going to see these types of things for a while, and frankly, it's not a big deal. Who cares if a biologist thinks he/she has developed a new approximation for solving NP-complete problems? Does it change the fact that they've probably found another direct application of computational techniques to biology? No.
"Have you looked at protein folding?"
Yes. I work in the field.
"That field is a source for the most repugnant oversimplifications ever made in science."
Well, if you're going to make that kind of dispersion, you're going to have to be a lot more specific. Yes, there's a lot of bad literature on protein folding. A lot of it comes from polymer physicists. But the best stuff out there is still pretty simple. Does that make it bad? I would say the whole field is an "oversimplification." I would not say that this is "repugnant." I might just say it is realistic to simplify, depending on what kind of simplification I was talking about.
"My point is that pointing fingers to either discipline is ridiculous."
No, not really. Biologists have a handle on relevance and topicality, which are the most important things to have a handle on, frankly. What computer scientists do far more than biologists is lose the forest for the trees, and get lost in algorithmic trivia. And a lot of this owes to the sheer cultural differences between the two fields--CS people often go into CS because they want to think about algorithms and efficiency issues. Biologists just want to learn how real, squishy things work. They beg, borrow and steal from other disciplines to do this. And if they don't need to learn the whole field to do so, well, so be it. That's why the field is computational biology, and not biological computation...
"The real path to successful bioinformatics is cooperation and humility."
Certainly. But not equal humility. Computer scientists are entering an entirely new discipline where their own skills are of lesser importance, and they need to understand that. The CS/biology trade-off isn't equal at all, IMO.
"Disclaimer: I am a computer scientist."
Disclaimer: I am both, but I think like a molecular biologist. CS theory makes me yawn.
"A lot of the work that's been done so far has been done by biologists who happen to be able to program, rather than by programmers who have learned the biology. As a result, a lot of the work uses inefficient algorithms, primitive approaches, bad statistics, and the like....Somebody who actually knows interesting new algorithms that can be applied to the problems can do even more."
This is kind of a bad generalization to make. The software that has achieved notoriety and widespread use, while primitive in method (i.e. dynamic programming--boring, but widespread), is often based on very, very solid statistical theory. To the point where I almost find the "programmer" appeal to computational biology laughable--you'd be better served with some advanced statistics knowledge under your belt, rather than some programming knowledge, frankly.
Also, as a student in comp bio myself, I can't tell you the number of times I've heard computational "biologists" stand up and give silly lectures on new algorithms to resolve solved problems (but in slightly faster time), or worse, completely abstract away the relevant details of a biological system in order to make new applications for their fancy new methods. While, yes, there's a danger to having a poor grasp on CS skills and doing computational biology work, this danger is significanty smaller than for those who are doing the same work without the biology skills. In my experience, it usually works like this: a biologist who can sort-of program will tend to write ugly code that gets the job done. A computer scientist who sort-of knows biology will get nowhere fast.
"So, I guess the moral is, if you see any "free after rebate" deals, take advantage of them because they won't be around long. Race you to Best Buy!"
Me: "I'd like to buy this spindle of CD-Rs, please."
Best Buy Cashier: "OK. I see that these have an instant rebate, so the price is only $2 today."
Me: "Cool."
Cashier: "However, with our convenient CD-R protection plan, for the low cost of only $35, we'll provide you with a replacement if your purchase should be found defective for any reason."
Me: "uhm...wait a second..." Cashier: "We also highly recommend these special CD-R cleaning cloths, available for only $19.95...you can't clean CD-R's any other way, you know..." Me: "wha? cleaning cloths? I don't think..." Cashier: "...and don't forget these special CD-R labelling pens, only $7.50, which are guaranteed to work with your new CD-Rs." Me:"Hold on just one second now..." Cashier: "better not to argue, sir. See the cameras? They're watching...ok then, your total comes to $70 after tax...sir? sir?"
Sound of car tires peeling in parking lot...
"The rumors were true; it was the infamous Microsoft interview, and that first question would be followed by increasingly confounding ones."
The real question in the Microsoft Interview is why the hell people don't run the other way while they have the chance.
"But what we're talking about is replacing one mom-and-pop radio station with five corporate affiliates. That's the situation on your dial these days, overall."
No, it isn't. And it will never be, as long as there are a finite number of FM radio stations available for licensing in any given area. When there is replacement these days, it is to replace a current station's management with new management. Not to replace one station with "five corporate affiliates."
And, having lived in 3 different metropolitan areas of different sizes over the last 6 years, I can vouch for the way clear channel and it's bretheren have been innundating local markets with "market music." Just because the phonomenon started 10 or 15 years ago, doesn't mean it isn't worse today.
"Linux doesn't save any money to a IT shop due to licensing fees becuase windows licesne fees are not that much. However linux can save a lot of money if the machines are set and forget. administrators are the expensive part."
Yeah, admins are expensive, but at thousands of dollars for a 5 user license pack for Win 2000, the difference starts to diminish -- remember, we're not only talking about the big iron in the back room (which, frankly, is likely to be running a *NIX anyway), we're talking about the thousands of desktop boxes that a large corporation needs to administer on a daily basis.
Further, when you consider the anecdotal evidence suggesting that a single, competent UNIX admin can handle more machines with less downtime than a competent Windows admin can handle Windows boxen--even without "set and forget"--the "TCO" starts to look favorable for UNIX.
This has been in the Seattle Weekly a coupla times now. The website is for a play of the same name, which may or may not still be running in downtown Seattle. It was supposed to be a mediocre play, but a good commentary on dot-bomb life.
At this point, I'm beginning to think I've fallen into a troll pit. Nevertheless...
"Funny how you edit my post to omit the point where I discuss P/E and then say that I didn't mention it."
Oh, for god's sake fine. Here's the one place in your post that you mention P/E:
"Red Hat would have to double revenues without increasing costs to get to a P/E of 10."
So what does this show us?
1) You grasp the numeric relationship of P/E to P/R.
2) You really like to use P/E without a context (So RHAT's P/E would be 10. So what? You still don't tell anyone why thats high, outside of saying that "Red Hat...faces competition.")
"Bwwwaahhhaaahhaaahahaa, ok you find a company with a P/E of one that has not had major accounting irregularity accusations or the like made. A P/E of one means that a billion dollar market cap company makes a billion dollars profit in a year."
Look, man--I'm not the one who said (in the previous post) that "in sane market conditions" a company's P/R should be 1. Since you obviously accept that a P/E can be greater than 1 in "sane market conditions," you've set yourself up. Your statement limits the trading multiple of a company to the costs of doing business. I think this is silly.
"A P/E should normally be in the range of about 15 to 30, representing a return on investment of 7% to 3.5%. Companies with very high growth can justify higher P/Es - but these should be rarities not the norm."
Holy @$%#! Now you're comparing P/E to ROI? What guru taught you to do analysis? Why don't you just accept it: P/E should be used in the context of earnings growth. When E = 0, you should use the PRG ratio instead. When R = 0, you should walk away from the stock (IMHO).
"Conflating a PEG ratio of one and a PRG ratio of one is insane - that would only hold for a company with 100% margins, something no packager of free software can hope for."
Which is why I didn't do that. I said that, in a fully and fairly valued situation, the price/revenue/revenue-growth should be 1 (or close to one). This works because P/R and P/E are related by a constant factor--1/costs--at any given point in time. As long as you use revenue growth in a PRG and not earnings growth, then you can do the same sort of analysis as you would a PEG.
Look, my point is (and was), that you didn't use the PR ratio in any sort of meaningful context--which you didn't. If you want to be a bear, then fine, go right ahead--be a bear. Don't, however, expect to go around making silly, talking-head-analyst valuation assesments without expecting to be called on them once in a while.
"I didn't state a P/E, I stated a projected P/E which is what the PEG Ratio is trying to do."
No, this is what you said:
"Err folks even in the software sector a price/revenue of 1 billion to 100 million/yr is pretty rich."
So no, you didn't say projected P/E. You didn't even say P/E--which is why I mentioned both P/R and P/E ratios. They're objective measures of the same process.
"PEG ratios are a stock screening tool, they are not a substitute for proper analysis."
Nor did I suggest that they were. I suggested that you can only use a P/E or a P/R ratio in context, which is true. Your original statement was misleading and incorrect.
"BTW Price revenue ratio in sane market conditions tends to be 1, o-n-e, not 20."
Oh, please. If you accept that a P/E could reasonably be greater than 1, you're saying that the multiple a stock trades at in sane market conditions (your term), is limited to multiple implied by the cost of doing business. Give me a break--a company that is expected to grow revenue 50% annually should only be valued at it's current revenue per share?
What I suspect you mean here is that the price/revenue/revenue-growth ratio should be 1, o-n-e, in a fully and fairly valued situation. Which, again, leads us back to the whole context discussion...
"Go read the motley fool site a bit more, they like PEG ratios but it is only ONE of he criteria they use out of 12 or so."
Oh man...
First of all, just because a fellow mentions a PEG does not mean he got it from the Motley Fool.
Second, and more importantly, I never said that a PEG should be used in isolation. I said that your original post was wrong--and it is. I'm tired of hearing people like you spout off about "absurdly high P/E" ratios without putting their statements into a meaningful context.