Awww. I work as a scientist, and I have a fond spot in my heart for imperial measurements.
You might have ten fingers, but both 12 and 16 have many more factors. One system plays nicer with decimal math, but the other is much more practical in the real world.
So, in full disclosure, I am a human embryonic stem cell (huESC) researcher at the University of Washington.
Let's say Focus on the Family writes a series of letters to the University accusing a "John Doe" embryonic stem cell researcher at the university of violating federal restrictions on the creation of new lines. Mind you, they've shown no real material information that any individual has violated the law, just blanket accusations with flimsy identifying information.
They say to the University "give us personal information on every human embryonic stem cell researcher at the University or we'll subpoena that information."
The University replies: "Well, we can't roll over that easily. Send us letters demanding that the recipient contact you or suffer severe legal concequences, and we'll forward them to everyone working on human embryonic stem cells here. Then you'll get your identifying information, and we'll be off the hook."
Let's be clear about what's being done here. From the original e-mail:
The RIAA is now sending colleges and universities a letter for each instance they find of a student illegally downloading material from the internet and requesting the university to identify the individual student and forward the letter to him or her...
The University has been notified by the RIAA that we will be receiving a number of these early settlement letters. After careful consideration, we have decided to forward the letters to the alleged copyright violators. We do so primarily because we believe students should have the opportunity to avail themselves of the settlement option if they so choose.
Whether the University is directly identifying students to the RIAA or indirectly does so by sending the students a letter directing them to contact the RIAA, the net result is the same.
Do people not understand why academic institutions MUST behave differently than this?
What if the coal industry threw letters at climatologists?
What if the junk food industry thew letters at obesity researchers?
The University has access to a massive collection of very personal information, including detailed financial, academic and medical records. It is essential for the primary mission of the University to protect its members against angered outside forces. Without this commitment to protect academics, we'll never be able to get honest answers to questions.
The proper course was to:
1. Not save identifying information in the first place
2. Tell the RIAA to come back with their own damn identifying information.
3. Send letters instructing students to not self-incriminate themselves
4. Provide proper legal services than (borderline negligent) legal advice to settle to any and all demands.
Could the Russians have launched a Soyuz capsule to the shuttle in sufficient time (in the place of rushing atlantis).
As I recall, there are pre-existing interdocking mechanisms between the shuttles and soyuz capsules.
Mesenchymal Stem Cells can do it to, maybe easier
on
Growing New Cartilage
·
· Score: 3
Mesenchymal Stem Cells (MSCs) can be isolated from bone marrow, are easily expanded outside of the body, and can be converted into a variety of tissues, including fat cells, muscle cells, bone cells and cartilage cells. Unlike adipocytes (fat cells), they are easier to grow, easier to isolate, less delicate and more naturally converted into cartlidge cells.
A company, Osiris is working on developing technology around these cells.
I happen to work with these cells in a reseach lab at Johns Hopkins. Beyond neurons, researchers have claimed these cells can become
- Fat Cells
- Cartilage Cells
- Bone Cells
- Muscle Cells (smooth, skeletal and cardiac)
The ability to produce new caridac muscle cells is also particularly important, as like neurons, they cannot be repaired or naturally replaced in adults. With a reliable source of Cardiac muscle cells heart failure, a disease millions of people develop each year, could possibly be cured.
If you are curious about reading more, try out these urls:
A nice graphical depiction from a biotech company.
An Importance Science Article (Requires account for full text access.)
Additionally, Osiris Theraputics is a biotech company which is doing work on these cells.
Didn't it come out not too long ago that shipments for Win2K were below expectations? This is a very clever way of making it *seem* like more people are using 2000 than actually are. The motivation here might be less to increase revenue, but rather simply to pad the usage stats for Windows 2000, as the large customers affected by this are likely to get a discount from M$ to placate them. In fact, this move makes much more sense from a PR point of view (2x million copies of windows shipped sounds better than 1x million), especially in light of the inroads linux has made.
Another interesting point from the article: The "solution" recommended was simply purchasing a PC without a copy of windows. I thought it was virtually impossible to buy a PC without a copy of windows pre-included. Wasn't this one of the charges in the DOJ case? Wasn't this what came up in refund day?
Why this is useful.. Kernel Development
on
Plex86 Runs DOS
·
· Score: 3
For an Operating Systems course I took, we modified the linux kernel, and tested our changes in VMWare running linux on a stable kernel. The cost of the VMWare liscenses was a bit prohibitive, but for anyone doing experimental work at the the kernel level, software such as this is endlessly useful. If a modification seriously damages things, one can simply kill the vmware/plex86 process, copy over a clean disk image, and immediately restart, rather than having to have a seperate whole system which has to be painstakingly rebuilt after each error. To have a free version of this software could only help kernel development, making all of us linux users much happier
Re:Grave of the Fireflies / Hotaru no haka
on
Essential Anime
·
· Score: 1
Absolutely. A fantastic anime, with the added bonus of historical truth to it. A must. If you like this one, try Barefoot Gen as well (info from imdb
Slashdot Mirror
Awww. I work as a scientist, and I have a fond spot in my heart for imperial measurements.
You might have ten fingers, but both 12 and 16 have many more factors. One system plays nicer with decimal math, but the other is much more practical in the real world.
Let's say Focus on the Family writes a series of letters to the University accusing a "John Doe" embryonic stem cell researcher at the university of violating federal restrictions on the creation of new lines. Mind you, they've shown no real material information that any individual has violated the law, just blanket accusations with flimsy identifying information.
They say to the University "give us personal information on every human embryonic stem cell researcher at the University or we'll subpoena that information."
The University replies: "Well, we can't roll over that easily. Send us letters demanding that the recipient contact you or suffer severe legal concequences, and we'll forward them to everyone working on human embryonic stem cells here. Then you'll get your identifying information, and we'll be off the hook."
Let's be clear about what's being done here. From the original e-mail:
Whether the University is directly identifying students to the RIAA or indirectly does so by sending the students a letter directing them to contact the RIAA, the net result is the same.
Do people not understand why academic institutions MUST behave differently than this?
What if the coal industry threw letters at climatologists?
What if the junk food industry thew letters at obesity researchers?
The University has access to a massive collection of very personal information, including detailed financial, academic and medical records. It is essential for the primary mission of the University to protect its members against angered outside forces. Without this commitment to protect academics, we'll never be able to get honest answers to questions.
The proper course was to:
1. Not save identifying information in the first place
2. Tell the RIAA to come back with their own damn identifying information.
3. Send letters instructing students to not self-incriminate themselves
4. Provide proper legal services than (borderline negligent) legal advice to settle to any and all demands.
You raise and interesting question:
Could the Russians have launched a Soyuz capsule to the shuttle in sufficient time (in the place of rushing atlantis).
As I recall, there are pre-existing interdocking mechanisms between the shuttles and soyuz capsules.
Mesenchymal Stem Cells (MSCs) can be isolated from bone marrow, are easily expanded outside of the body, and can be converted into a variety of tissues, including fat cells, muscle cells, bone cells and cartilage cells. Unlike adipocytes (fat cells), they are easier to grow, easier to isolate, less delicate and more naturally converted into cartlidge cells.
A company, Osiris is working on developing technology around these cells.
There is also a Science paper on these cells.
Full Disclosure: I work with these cells, and can routinely convert them into fat, bone and cartilige cells.
I happen to work with these cells in a reseach lab at Johns Hopkins. Beyond neurons, researchers have claimed these cells can become
- Fat Cells
- Cartilage Cells
- Bone Cells
- Muscle Cells (smooth, skeletal and cardiac)
The ability to produce new caridac muscle cells is also particularly important, as like neurons, they cannot be repaired or naturally replaced in adults. With a reliable source of Cardiac muscle cells heart failure, a disease millions of people develop each year, could possibly be cured.
If you are curious about reading more, try out these urls:
A nice graphical depiction from a biotech company.
An Importance Science Article (Requires account for full text access.)
Additionally,
Osiris Theraputics is a biotech company which is doing work on these cells.
Didn't it come out not too long ago that shipments for Win2K were below expectations? This is a very clever way of making it *seem* like more people are using 2000 than actually are. The motivation here might be less to increase revenue, but rather simply to pad the usage stats for Windows 2000, as the large customers affected by this are likely to get a discount from M$ to placate them. In fact, this move makes much more sense from a PR point of view (2x million copies of windows shipped sounds better than 1x million), especially in light of the inroads linux has made.
Another interesting point from the article: The "solution" recommended was simply purchasing a PC without a copy of windows. I thought it was virtually impossible to buy a PC without a copy of windows pre-included. Wasn't this one of the charges in the DOJ case? Wasn't this what came up in refund day?
For an Operating Systems course I took, we modified the linux kernel, and tested our changes in VMWare running linux on a stable kernel. The cost of the VMWare liscenses was a bit prohibitive, but for anyone doing experimental work at the the kernel level, software such as this is endlessly useful. If a modification seriously damages things, one can simply kill the vmware/plex86 process, copy over a clean disk image, and immediately restart, rather than having to have a seperate whole system which has to be painstakingly rebuilt after each error.
To have a free version of this software could only help kernel development, making all of us linux users much happier
Absolutely. A fantastic anime, with the added bonus of historical truth to it. A must. If you like this one, try Barefoot Gen as well (info from imdb