Exactly - google will start losing talented people only once they stop doing cool things. As long as they keep putting out new shiny toys, what geek wouldn't want to work there?
Exactly - Losos (with people like Larson) had some very very cool papers out about a decade ago on this stuff (rapid speciation in Anoles), and I read this as a simple update/tweaking of that work.
This is the tragedy of the commons, my friends. A small percentage of asshats ruin it for the rest of us. The law enforcement agencies are either unable or unwilling to help, so it's all up to us.
Rather than a crappy overview from CNN, here's the original article's abstract. In fact, it looks like it's in PNASes open access section, so you can all download the PDF for free.
They're basically studying a haplogroup of the microcephalin gene, and show that this gene probably entered the human lineage before 37KYA. The other haplogroups have coalescent times of circa 100KYA (which is around when Homo sapiens arose).
They then use some statistical magic to show that the early coalescence time for the D haplogroup was probably a result of introgression into the population - i.e. it came from another population. Note that they don't stress that it was Neanderthals, it could have been any archaic Homo lineage.
I'm not sure what to make of this yet, as far as I'm aware there's some very strong evidence AGAINST interbreeding between Neanderthals and Humans (e.g. Svante Paabo's work etc)
The risk of a population bottleneck is the problem. If the population drops below some level, then it can be almost impossible to recover decent levels of genetic diversity. This means huge risks of disease sweeping through the population, as well as things like the spread of deleterious mutations.
Many posters in this thread seem to think economic supply and demand will stop overfishing in time, but this is not necessarily the end of the story.
so? this will only become a problem once you get well into hundreds of millions of records on any non-trivial database. If you're just storing some key and an email address, then it's not much lifting for the database server at all.
You know that there are a number of products that automatically strip HTTP Referers, right? Nortons Antivirus is one - it thinks that this adds some privacy value for the user. Or what happens if I bookmark your comment page to come write an insightful comment later?
Whilst I agree that checking for referers is a good thing (90% of the spam I've seen doesn't have them - they find the comment page, work out the form structure then hammer it using some app.), automatically DENY'ing users without refererers may be a bit harsh:-)
Aside: one thing I have noticed is that my spam requests generally look for http://www.example.com/comment.php (i.e. GET http://www.example.com/comment.php) whilst regular users who've browsed there have a relative URL (i.e. GET/comment.php). I've been toying with the idea of filtering on that.
It's also easily breakable - there are scripts out there that can decode the common CAPTCHAs with >90% success.
This doesn't even include social engineering CAPTCHA breakers which are also known to exist e.g. spammer sets up a (say) fake porn site, hotlinks the CAPTCHA image of the site they want to spam. When someone comes along to fake porn site, it tells the user to enter the CAPTCHA. Once the user does this, they're shown some boobies, whilst the site fires off a spam to the site the CAPTCHA came from.
Don't get me wrong - CAPTCHAs are a useful tool, but not necessarily the best solution.
it's even worse when you can't SKIP the damn things. I have vivid memories of Final Fantasy 7, solely because the really hard bits where you died often, were the ones right after REALLY long unskippable cut scenes. When you died, you got to watch that whole five minutes of CGI pan shots again... and again... and again.
Re:Yerp. Figure it Out, Already.
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Game Breakers
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· Score: 1
Leisure Suit Larry!? They were renowned for letting you play on for hours in unwinnable situations, simply because you didn't (IIRC) get the jar of pickled eggs from the bar on the third floor of the cruise liner. Sure, they weren't as kill-happy as the Space Quest games, where any false move got you killed immediately, but you still died all the time.
Nothing compared to the Secret of Monkey Island where there's only *one* way to die in the whole game, and it's very obscure (bonus points for guessing it). This made the game great - you could try anything without fear of dying (USE "Stylish confetti" ON "heavily-armed clown" comes to mind).
what is up with Elder Scrolls III???
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Game Breakers
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· Score: 1
Seriously - it's a great game and all, but apparently the solution to ALL of these problems can be found in The Elder Scrolls III: Oblivion? Is it a coincidence that their (evil) intelliTXT is underlining "The Elder Scrolls III" everywhere...
and those *damn* nurse-maid things always popping up somewhere and yelling something about babies needing their mothers. Oh god. One of the best games ever.
Re:my scariest video game moment
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Games and Fear
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· Score: 1
you know you've been playing nethack too much when email addresses give you flash backs about being trapped in a corridor, surrounded by monsters.
Ahh... but you've been corrupted by "science" and that "evolution" fairy tale. All graduands of the Kansas school system know that the world is only 6,000 years old
OT, but the thing that amuses me is that someone keeps tagging "fud" and "notfud" on pretty much every article. Oh, and "wrtechedhiveofscumandvillany" on all the Diebold articles. Nice
Slashdot Mirror
Hmm.. I had a quick look over, but can't see any good indy RPGs - anyone know of any?
Exactly - google will start losing talented people only once they stop doing cool things. As long as they keep putting out new shiny toys, what geek wouldn't want to work there?
unfortunately yes.
In search of stupidity? You can all stop looking, I've found it!
Exactly - Losos (with people like Larson) had some very very cool papers out about a decade ago on this stuff (rapid speciation in Anoles), and I read this as a simple update/tweaking of that work.
--Simon
This is the tragedy of the commons, my friends. A small percentage of asshats ruin it for the rest of us. The law enforcement agencies are either unable or unwilling to help, so it's all up to us.
When you have 5 minutes, go help out groups like Phishtank, Akismet, SpamVampire, etc.
Yep, Russell's my Ph.D supervisor. I'll be at Doom this year (missed the last two), & we can have a beer or something ;-)
As for the article - I'm not sure where the "white people are smarter" slant crept in, I didn't see anything like that in TFA.
Rather than a crappy overview from CNN, here's the original article's abstract. In fact, it looks like it's in PNASes open access section, so you can all download the PDF for free.
They're basically studying a haplogroup of the microcephalin gene, and show that this gene probably entered the human lineage before 37KYA. The other haplogroups have coalescent times of circa 100KYA (which is around when Homo sapiens arose).
They then use some statistical magic to show that the early coalescence time for the D haplogroup was probably a result of introgression into the population - i.e. it came from another population. Note that they don't stress that it was Neanderthals, it could have been any archaic Homo lineage.
I'm not sure what to make of this yet, as far as I'm aware there's some very strong evidence AGAINST interbreeding between Neanderthals and Humans (e.g. Svante Paabo's work etc)
Nothing to see here folks.
Oops, yes - of course. Not sure what I was thinking. However, my point that refererers are not reliable still stands.
The risk of a population bottleneck is the problem. If the population drops below some level, then it can be almost impossible to recover decent levels of genetic diversity. This means huge risks of disease sweeping through the population, as well as things like the spread of deleterious mutations.
Many posters in this thread seem to think economic supply and demand will stop overfishing in time, but this is not necessarily the end of the story.
Surprisingly, how could they leave off Leisure Suite Larry?
/sorry
Well, I know there's middle age spread and all, but I doubt he's turned into a three-piece couch set.
"[url=" is another good one to block (well, if your app doesn't use BBCode)
so? this will only become a problem once you get well into hundreds of millions of records on any non-trivial database. If you're just storing some key and an email address, then it's not much lifting for the database server at all.
You know that there are a number of products that automatically strip HTTP Referers, right? Nortons Antivirus is one - it thinks that this adds some privacy value for the user. Or what happens if I bookmark your comment page to come write an insightful comment later?
:-)
/comment.php). I've been toying with the idea of filtering on that.
Whilst I agree that checking for referers is a good thing (90% of the spam I've seen doesn't have them - they find the comment page, work out the form structure then hammer it using some app.), automatically DENY'ing users without refererers may be a bit harsh
Aside: one thing I have noticed is that my spam requests generally look for http://www.example.com/comment.php (i.e. GET http://www.example.com/comment.php) whilst regular users who've browsed there have a relative URL (i.e. GET
it's also extraordinarily difficult to use for low-vision people. Making your website inaccessible to people is not usually a good idea.
It's also easily breakable - there are scripts out there that can decode the common CAPTCHAs with >90% success.
This doesn't even include social engineering CAPTCHA breakers which are also known to exist e.g. spammer sets up a (say) fake porn site, hotlinks the CAPTCHA image of the site they want to spam. When someone comes along to fake porn site, it tells the user to enter the CAPTCHA. Once the user does this, they're shown some boobies, whilst the site fires off a spam to the site the CAPTCHA came from.
Don't get me wrong - CAPTCHAs are a useful tool, but not necessarily the best solution.
The Fonz will NEVER die!
Oh, wrong 'cool'. My bad.
it's even worse when you can't SKIP the damn things. I have vivid memories of Final Fantasy 7, solely because the really hard bits where you died often, were the ones right after REALLY long unskippable cut scenes. When you died, you got to watch that whole five minutes of CGI pan shots again... and again... and again.
Leisure Suit Larry!? They were renowned for letting you play on for hours in unwinnable situations, simply because you didn't (IIRC) get the jar of pickled eggs from the bar on the third floor of the cruise liner. Sure, they weren't as kill-happy as the Space Quest games, where any false move got you killed immediately, but you still died all the time.
Nothing compared to the Secret of Monkey Island where there's only *one* way to die in the whole game, and it's very obscure (bonus points for guessing it). This made the game great - you could try anything without fear of dying (USE "Stylish confetti" ON "heavily-armed clown" comes to mind).
Seriously - it's a great game and all, but apparently the solution to ALL of these problems can be found in The Elder Scrolls III: Oblivion? Is it a coincidence that their (evil) intelliTXT is underlining "The Elder Scrolls III" everywhere...
and those *damn* nurse-maid things always popping up somewhere and yelling something about babies needing their mothers. Oh god. One of the best games ever.
you know you've been playing nethack too much when email addresses give you flash backs about being trapped in a corridor, surrounded by monsters.
(not mine, saw it in a signature somewhere)
Ahh... but you've been corrupted by "science" and that "evolution" fairy tale. All graduands of the Kansas school system know that the world is only 6,000 years old
OT, but the thing that amuses me is that someone keeps tagging "fud" and "notfud" on pretty much every article. Oh, and "wrtechedhiveofscumandvillany" on all the Diebold articles. Nice
Magic quotes! No more problem\'s!