I'm surprised nobody has asked this question yet, but shouldn't owners be worried about the consequences of attaching a relatively high-powered RF transmitter directly to their dog's neck at all times? Think about it. RF penetrates soft tissues the easiest. Seeing as how the neck is about as soft as it comes on a dog's body, I think this product is a legal disaster waiting to happen.
If there's a lawsuit, it's going to be pet owners (legitimately or not) suing the company for giving their dog(s) cancer. In states like California where pets can be classified as "companions" you can even win damages in far excess of the purchased value of the animal.
Wow... that is a tough one. Especially because the dog is so young.
I would say, in all honesty, it is probably a mutt. However, it could be a really young Corgi (without its ears cropped). Here's a picture of a young Corgi that looks really similar.
And not once in all of that did I see an accident that could have been prevented by "evasive high speed".
If this is true, that's only because you're imagining dangerous situations infront of your car. How is braking going to help you when a speeding car is bearing down on you from behind? If anything it's only going to make the collision happen sooner. How is braking going to help you in the split second you realize someone is about to T-bone you from a side?
The first thing you are taught in defensive driving...
Let me just stop you right there. Defensive driving classes are a joke. All they do is tell you to pay attention, slow down, and to hit your brakes. No really. Save yourself 75 dollars and eight hours of your life, because that's about it.
The above advice is ridiculous, because, in my experience, most emergency driving situations can be avoided entirely by disregarding the latter two parts. Sometimes it's safer to go faster. Imagine you're about to pass a truck. You could: (a) break the speedlimit and pass in about 30 seconds or (b) take about 2 minutes to overtake him going the speedlimit. Obviously it's A, because the longer you take to pass him the more time you're in his blindspot and with less routes of escape.
Moreover a good deal of the time, the best thing is to do nothing. That's right--nothing. If you hit a patch of ice, unless you're really experienced, don't try and correct unless you absolutely have to. Just keep your calm and hold the wheel steady until you get through it. Same thing with hydroplaning. It's the overreaction--the slamming on the brakes or swerving--that makes you lose control. In the cases where action is required, however, I find that braking should be viewed as one of many appropriate responses.
What action do you think is faster? To gain that speed in time to matter will doubtless require a downshift. That's going to add at least a second on a shift stick. It might even take that long in an automatic -- since newer automatics lock the torque converter at cruising speed and would need to unlock it before downshifting. All the CVTs that I've driven in my day seem to be equally slow to change gear ratios to anything meaningful. Then how long will it take to actually gain that speed? Contrast that to your brakes..
I don't think you get it though. Collisions you can control usually involve relative velocities. Usually the ones you can't control (for the simple reason that they happen too fast) involve someone being at an complete stop. This difference is crutial. Example: Imagine getting hit by a car at 60 MPH. Now imagine the same collision while you yourself are going 59.9 MPH in the same direction.
In this light, the engine needn't take the car from zero to sixty, to avoid an accident. A small, quick increase in speed can be all that's required to avoid a collision.
I don't think the Nintendogs will do well in the "Good 'ol United States". It's very Japanese. And it shows.
Are you kidding? I made the mistake of waiting until days before our anniversary to buy this game for my girlfriend as a gift... It was completely sold out--and that was weeks after the game had already been released! I visited any store that even remotely had an electronics section and it was to no avail. In the end, I had to eventually order it online and get 2-day air shipping.
You don't think it will do well? It already has done well!
In Japan, most households do not have dogs, so they need video game simulations. In America, nearly half (or more) of the population has one or more dogs. I don't think our youth have become connected to video games so much that they will choose a simulation over the real thing.
See the funny thing is, my girlfriend already has a dog.
The beauty of Nintendogs is it even appeals to dog owners--especially dog owners! Because dog owners, (hopefully) by definition, love animals. Moreover, they appreciate more than the layman the differences between breeds, which are crucial to the enjoyment of the game--otherwise there'd be no point in having any more than one Nintendog or advancing through the game.
The last point shouldn't be overlooked. A big appeal of Nintendogs is in owning a purebred dog of a particular breed. Not everybody has either the time or money to do that. Getting the breed you want can be very difficult--especially if it's rare. I managed to find a breeder for the breed I like the most, Bernese Mountain Dogs. But do you know how much time an effort it took to find a good, ethical breeder for such a rare breed? It was ridiculous! I literally did research for over a year and drove for hours on end visiting multiple breeders before I finally found what I was looking for.
In the end, I got Misha (Pics). But, after my experience, I can definitely empathize with simply buying the Nintendogs. In fact, if you're not willing to do the legwork to get a good purebred dog ethically, I would recommend getting Nintendogs instead.
Better yet, if you know how to make your honeypots 100% secure against all unknown viruses then could you share this technology with everyone else please? That way we wouldn't need the honeypots at all...
Not necessarily. Physically write-protect your hard-disk after a clean install and I'm fairly positive the vast majority your most of your virus woes will disappear.
Of course, your computer might not be very good for general computing tasks then, now would it? But said computer could work for the purposes described in the article--that is, as a host for the virtual servers that make up honeypots.
The last part shouldn't be overlooked either. One needn't have a computer with flaws to simulate a computer with flaws. In fact, that's the whole point of a honeypot.
Imagine a computer running the most secure version of linux (Fanboys, feel free to tell me which one this is.) Now running in memory is our honeypot program which entirely emulates a Windows XP home machine. No read/write from this program is actually done on the drive, rather it is all simulated in memory. Any program inside would be unable to tell the difference. At this point one could do a couple of things: (1) Wait for threats to come to it. OR (2) Actively seek threats by, for example, automating a system to visit websites in IE and so on.
Bear in mind that, because this is all virtual, this needn't be a one honeypot-per server system. In fact, one computer could be simultaneously representing hundreds or thousands of honeypots. Each one could represent a computer doing a different task or the various permutations of versions of windows, for instance.
Such a system would be immune to the threats it was intended to study. In our example, only viruses which affected the most secure version of linux would be a threat--very rare. Whereas it could study, without consequence, Windows viruses--very common. Even if it wasn't necessarily 100% virus-proof, such a system could still be an incredibly useful tool in combating zero-day exploits.
This is the wonderful aspect of the free market when it comes to ethics: you are completely free to live your life believing in the ethical angles you believe in, and allow others to do the same without affecting your ethics or theirs.
The fact that the free-market cares little about ethics is not something that you should make you very happy. A large part of ethics is the veracity with which we hold to a basic set of standards--even if it doesn't directly affect us.
Under a completely libertarian free-market-based system, any number of unethical transgressions could occur. One could easily set up a fee-based (including tips) suicide business that provided lethal injections for depressed individuals. Imagine the success of a debt collection agency that accepted kidneys as payment. Would you be comfortable with genetically altering human fetuses to be born without higher-brain functions for the sole purpose of selling their organs?
Moreover, you're forgetting one very important aspect of medicine--the sense of desperation it creates in both patients and families. If you honestly expect them to hold to a personal set of standards alone in the face of such coercion, think again.
Don't ridicule the idea until you get government out of insurance which is the reason why the poor can't afford it.
Conversely, couldn't it be said that the so-called "ethical" free-market is the reason why the poor can't pay for it in the first place?
I think we need to ask ourselves a basic set of questions. (1) Is everyone entitled to a basic level of care, even if they can't afford it? (2) Is it ethical to have two levels of care? Namely a very good system which can perform miracles designed solely for the rich and a piss-poor system rife with confusion and misery, for everyone else. (3) Isn't healthcare, in essence, a public infrastructure? No different from energy, sewage, or communications, our economy and society depend upon the quality and availability of healthcare.
Now, given the above, are you sure you want the government entirely out of the healthcare business?
"You're taking these approximations and claiming they're more valid than the ballots in the box--it doesn't work that way."
It does when there are no "ballots in the box" to double check the count (as is the case with diebold).
I agree that Diebold's machines are poorly designed. I agree with the need for a papertrail. (Did I not make that clear enough in my first post?)
If the Administration do not want to be accused of cheating then they should use a ballot that can be verified after the fact.
MOST of the ballots nationally WERE NOT computerized. Moreover, voting machines are determined and bought by the STATE branches of government. There's very little the Bush administration could have done to prevent computerized voting even if they wanted to.
This is NOT how the objections (in my opinion reasonable) have been handled, the Administration prefer to use exacly the same strategy as you do to deter critics.
Which is what? I was just pointing out that the claims being thrown around here as fact were completely unsubstantiated and logically flawed. How isn't that reasonable? I'm really not a diehard defender of the Bush Administration--I'm not. Read my posting history. I just call them like I see them. Forgive me for not allowing this place to become an echochamber of liberal discontent.
Regardless, what are you really expecting out of the Administration anyway? Suspend disbelief for a second and imagine that the election was actually won legitimately. What now? The election is already over--can't change the ballots after the fact. Nothing they can say or do will ever convince some of the conspiracy-theory nuts like the OP of the truth. It wouldn't make sense for them to pursue something so remotely away from their party's platform as election reform. So, what would you have them do?
Regardless of the truth, the Administration have brought the accusations apon themselves by thier arrogant behaviour and can think of no other course of action than to "shoot the messenger".
I'm really at a loss on this point. Sure the Bush Administration is arrogant at times, but to what specific events are you referring?
I could contine to pull your post apart line by line but life is too short and I have no intention of visiting the US.
And I have a plethora of great points and retorts to your hypothetical posts, but I'd rather not waste my time either. There's so much better things I could be doing--like, for instance, making excuses.
Your whole argument about statistics is based on the administration's official straw men (ie: exit polls were taken only in the morning...
No, it's not.
All I'm saying is that the exit polls that everyone complains about were the ones reported mid-election day by the media. Those were the ones that didn't match the results. Once the samples from later in the day came in, the media reported the change results of the polls, which then closely resembled the actual results.
...sampling is not as reliable as the official total...
Strictly speaking, it's not. Polling is a wonderful tool but it does have its flaws. What if the voter lied about who he or she voted for? What if the voter got confused and voted for the wrong candidate? (This happens more than you'd think.) What if the sampler has a bias--such as asking younger or attractive people more often? These aren't just academic questions. Actually obtaining a truly random, representative sample is much harder than you think.
Of course, when polls are used as general approximations (and for elections with larger margins), the effects of such errors can be considered negligible, but that's not what you're doing. You're taking these approximations and claiming they're more valid than the ballots in the box--it doesn't work that way.
There were at least three sets of numbers, Rove's predictions, Diebold's count and the Exit poll stat's. Two of them were a very close match but they were not the two sets everyone (except Rove) had expected, the explaination is Rove101, stats101 has it's money on the exit polls.
I don't get you people. Who the fuck do you think this guy is? David Copperfield? If Karl Rove did what you suggested on a large enough scale to affect a national election there would be at least some evidence of it other than mindless conjecture on liberal blogs and, apparently, slashdot.
Off course if I point out your statistician has no clothes I am a loser extremist and it is every American's patriotic duty to hate me. ( The "hate" bit may one day become the definition of "irony" ).
Flowery, grandiose language won't save a poor point. You're failing to recognize the fact that Americans also hate cheats. If you presented undisputable proof that the Bush administration rigged the last election, I think you'd find that most people would rally behind you. The trouble of course is that you haven't.
In other words, allowing people to voice concerns when they have no "evidence" is dangerous, therefore it's better to shun them than to answer their concerns.
Not surprisingly, you took that quote out of context. Voicing your concerns is fine. Claiming them to be fact without any sort of proof to that effect is an entirely different matter. It's like yelling "Fire!" in a theater solely because your seat is warm. Yes it's dangerous and such behavior should be shunned.
Look people we all agree that software patents are bad, but patents to have a place and a purpose. The drug industry would not exist without them.
Nobody's arguing that the current drug industry relies upon patents. That's a given. But does it have to be that way? Software patents may be one of the more ridiculous implementations of Intellectual Property, but drug patents are arguably the ones that most detrimentally affect human life (Yes, people with AIDS in Africa count too.)
Right and you think someone is just going to spend 50-100 million dollars to put out the next drug without any kind of patent protection?
How many individuals do that now? None. Under the current system, we effectively use corporations to organize our funds and direct them towards drug research. Would it be so hard to set up federally-subsidized labs to do the same? What about the UN? Isn't one of their aims to improve human life? Why does every problem require a market-based solution?
Perhaps we need to rethink this unholy alliance of capitalism and pharmaceutical entirely. I'd argue that doing so would have a number of positive benefits:
Drugs available at the mere cost it takes to manufacture them.
Development of drugs which are not currently market-worthy. (Eg. A life saving drug for a rare disease)
Increased patient safety. No longer would researchers be placed in the situation of returning good conclusions or losing their jobs (a la Vioxx).
No motivation for marketing to take place for drugs. Drug effects, treatments, and results would be available without bias.
d they couldn't possibly monitor the situation. Are all the voting machines running approved code? Impossible to know. Is the code locked down, or is it being replaced dynamically to cover tracks? Unknown. Is the code, a closed binary, full of triggers and cheats that only activate...
Guys... it's really not this difficult. Think about it for a second. If the machine prints out a HUMAN-READABLE ticket that the voter can verify and stick in the ballot box, no amount of computerized shenanigans can significantly affect the vote. Then, it's a simple matter of counting up the votes on the tickets (whether automatically or by hand) and comparing that number to the number recorded on the computer.
And that's just a simple system. Far better have been lined out and even discussed at length on slashdot. It can be done.
Diebold has fought a manual recount system so ferociously that (Occam's Razor) they have indeed fixed elections... Their have been a lot of stories and sources stating that the employees know something is crooked, altho they are afraid for their jobs. Jobs in IT are scarce. The top management is far-rightist and saw it's duty as electing Bush; the details are tiresome.
Bullshit. We all hear lots of stories. I want to see evidence to your claims. The whole part about people losing their jobs is such a red herring. There's enough people wanting to know this information that no whistle-blower at Diebold would ever have to worry about getting another job or money for that matter. They'd become an instant hero (with movie rights) and would probably receive vast political and financial support from the great number of people who absolutely hate Bush. Think about it. They'd be bigger than Cindy Sheehan--before she went crazy.
But how about we use Occam's Razor again? The fact that SO many people are looking for tangible proof that fraud occurred and that none has been found leads to the conclusion that no evidence exists--which further leads to the conclusion that no fraud occurred. What's wrong with my logic here?
Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying that some fraud didn't occur (it probably did) or that Diebold isn't a morally bankrupt entity (they're pieces of shit). But making these outrageous claims that fraud, on an unprecedented level, affected the outcome of a national election without any sort of evidence is ridiculous. Not only that, but such accusations are dangerous. Public trust in the elections is paramount in a democracy. You wouldn't want the same kind of accusations being thrown seriously around without evidence if your guy won, would you?
Don't be surprised if your candidates keep losing elections if you (their supporters) keep promoting such ideas. The majority of Americans don't like extremists--and they HATE poor losers. Throwing those accusations without any sort of reliable evidence makes you look like both.
Notice exit polls are no longer conducted? They "broke" during 2000, so no news organization will have them anymore. This in spite of the fact that statistics don't "break" during only one extremely critical election, and no other. They didn't break, kids, the election totals were altered and no longer matched reality.
Maybe you should've paid better attention in STATS 101. Statistics based on unrepresentative samples are worthless. This is a classic problem with statistics.
Nobody is saying that the statistics "broke." It's just that they're inaccurate for one very simple reason: people motivated by different reasons tend to vote at different times. Those highly motivated tend to vote early. Those less motivated vote whenever it's convenient. In other words, the anti-Bush crowd rushed to the polls early in the day, and when polling services extrapolated from this sample set, it got a Kerry win. But later in the day, when the Bush voters showed up, it became clear that Bush was going to win--thus the discrepancy.
The stem cell worriers aren't really worried about stem cells or their source, they're worried about how close we're getting to a comfortable understanding of cellular mechanics.
Oh please... The debate over Stem cells has nothing to do with scientific understanding of cellular mechanics. If that were the case, Watson and Crick would have been burned at the stake decades ago. No other research involving cellular mechanics has reached this level of public scrutiny. I've never heard anyone debate the ethics of cell-surface recognition proteins or origins of the mitochondria in cells. Let's be honest. The whole stem-cell debate is merely a veiled front for the larger fight over abortion. (I use the word fight because "debate" hardly fits.)
Here's how it happened:
The most interesting and scientifically-valuable stem cells are found in developing embryos.
Studying these cells requires the destruction of the embryo.
This raises the ugly question: if destroying an embryo for research is okay, what makes an abortion any different?
Fight ensues. Everybody all the sudden becomes an expert on cellular biology.
That takes the mystery out of a lot things, and devalues mystical explanations (and those social institutions that rely upon them for clout).
Bullshit. "Social instiutions that rely on mystical explanations"? Do you mean "religions"? Why don't you just say it?...Religions... See how easy that was?
Regardless, science doesn't debunk the larger, more important claims of religion. It can't. Learning about cellular theory doesn't debunk the existence of God. Learning physics doesn't mean that God couldn't temporarily violate the laws of physics at a whim--you know, being omnipotent and all.
Religion and God are meta-physical concepts, while science is the study of the physical world. The two aren't mutually exclusive ideas. A scientist can just as easily believe in a religion as an atheist in science.
You know... it's even more retarded when you actually think about it because all it takes is ONE PERSON with a Mac or Linux computer to rip the track and put it on a P2P networks. Then the file is available to the masses... sans-DRM of course. (At which point, clueless, windows owners can then download the MP3s manually.)
Ridiculous.
I shudder to think how much funding went into this useless endevor. It's no wonder the record industry loses money!
The goal of modern torture is not to injure the suspect but rather to make him completely dependent on his interrogator.
You know... I've heard this position a number of times, but I simply don't buy it. It probably is true that such interrogation tactics are more effective in the end. However, the timescale (months) for such tactics might have worked in, say, World War II, but I hardly doubt that it would work today given the nature of the fight. If information is needed about a stolen nuclear weapon, for example, by the time you've warmed up to the prisoner, any information he may have will be useless.
By the end of such treatment, the suspect will be gratefully to tell anyone anything to stop the torture.
This is an oft-cited critique of torture that I think has misplaced value. Eliminating false information would be trivial. Computer scientists, of all people, should be able to recognize this. All it would require is that you simply compare facts and information gathered from the individual to things verifiably known to be true. Furthermore, one could compile statements and information from a number of subjects to further provide light on the situation. Combining a bit of positive/negative reinforcement based on the validity of these already-known facts, would make obtaining true information very likely.
"It is recognised that in inexperienced hands, prisoners can be plunged into psychosis."
This is a moot point, because, in inexperienced hands, NEITHER form of interrogation works.
Don't get me wrong. I'm not making a statement on the morality of torture. It just seems, however, quite evident that it would work using only a little background in biology, game-theory, and psychology.
As an aside, I really think that this view about torture being ineffective is a result a feel-good psychology establishment. They want to think that gentile, sophisticated methods can best barbarous ones. And yet, such a view flies in the face of thousands of years of evidence that torture is, in fact, brutally effective.
But the current government has demonstrated publicly that it doesn't give a shit about constitutional rights or the Geneva convention.
I'm no supporter of the Bush administration, but that's just not true.
Where in the Geneva convention are provisions for rogue saboteurs laid out? Nowhere. This has been the Administration's position and, like it or not, it's entirely correct. It's not that the administration doesn't care, it's that the Geneva convention simply doesn't apply.
As far as constitutional rights go, I'll remind you that the relevant bills to the former part of your statement(PATRIOT I & II) were drafted and voted on by congress, not the administration.
Strategically, you don't fight a worldwide guerilla organization by staring to control your own citizens electronically.
How do you fight one?
It's not like we can just slip agents into their ranks. These are highly close-knit groups that are nearly impossible to penetrate. Furthermore, individual terrorists almost impossible to turn because they're motivated by religious reasons. Lastly, their decentralized command and logistical structures makes combating them extremely difficult.
Realistically, we are left with lacking and disparate methods of fighting Islamic terrorism both at home and abroad. While I may not agree with blanket electronic surveillance of the American populace on principle, it makes perfect sense that doing so would, in fact, further the cause.
...After all, Muslim Terrorists believe in a Different Scary Religion, and are immigrants from countries which the British Government fscked over and they're Really Mad About It...
Islamic Terrorists are motivated by entirely different reasons than the IRA and employ entirely different tactics.
First, the IRA does not employ suicide bombers--Islamic terrorists do. This fact alone makes an attack from Islamic groups much harder to stop. Why? Suicide bombers needn't design an escape plan or contingency plans for casualties. Furthermore, suicide bombers can also quickly change tactics in the middle of an ongoing attack without compromising their mission.
Secondly, Islamic terrorists are much more extreme in their goals than the IRA. The type of casualties seen on 9/11, for instance, were unthinkable among IRA planners. Not a single IRA attack has occurred since 9/11 because even the IRA doesn't want to be associated with such barbarism. If you doubt this, consider for a moment the likelihood of the IRA obtaining and using a nuclear weapon versus Islamic militants doing so.
So, seeing as how Islamic terrorists are both harder to stop and aiming for much more devastating results, why shouldn't there be more powers in place to combat them? Unlike what you suggest, this has nothing to do with religious discrimination or a ridiculous sense of guilt (which is nothing more than apologetics on your part, I might add).
So should I sell all of my Sony stock, or buy more?
It was only after I wrote a scathing response that I realized that you were joking. And yet, for that I think I can be forgiven because I can't help but think that some people, upon hearing about this, were asking themselves just that question.
Sometimes the acerbity of feeling like the only sane man left in an insane world rushes over me when I see how people treat and speak of the stock market. It's not some game to be played. It's not some magical money generator without cause or consequence. And just in case anyone had forgotten, we always have moral obligations to one another--even in situations of diffused responsibility (yes, this includes investing).
But more importantly: What ever happened about being proud of how you got your money and where you spent it? What ever happened to doing the right thing--even if it didn't maximize our individual profits? What ever happened to our dignity?
The fact that a root-kit was installed on the computer to protect music shows that privacy now takes a second place seat to some one-else's property rights
Sony have no property rights here. "Intellectual property" is nothing more than a buzzword. Copyrights aren't property. Patents aren't property. Trademarks aren't property. They are all limited privileges granted by the government to further particular social goals.
And what's even MORE interesting (or confusing, take your pick) than that is that this program actually tresspasses and destroys consumers' very real physical property. The OP's statement could also be put as: Consumer property rights have taken back seat to corporate profits.
In which case, none of us should be surprised. Look how the supreme court ruled recently! You don't even have a right to your house if a company can make a profit by taking it away.
One of these days Americans are going to wake up and realize that their representatives are a pack of greedy whores. I wonder if it will be too late by then.
...is it just that we've not evolved as far as they? Will our DNA be a lot tighter in 30,000,000 AD (assuming we survive at all)?
While much of your post is generally on the fringes of what we know, I can say with general certainty that the answers to these questions is "No" and "No."
For the first question, one shouldn't leap to the conclusion that the number of generations equates to evolutionary success. The two aren't necessarily related. Remember, evolution is essentially about the filling of available biological niches. The niches that humans and bacteria fill are vastly different. In light of this, calling one type of successful species "more evolved" than vastly different, yet also successful, species really carries little meaning. Perhaps a better way of putting it is this: Evolution is not forward-looking. There is no beginning, middle, or end to the evolutionary path of a species. Any species present today (simply by virtue of the fact that it has survived) is just as "evolved" as any other.
For the second question, I seriously doubt our genome will (naturally) become smaller over time. Unlike bacteria, finding the extra nutrient sources to accommodate the amount of unused DNA or non-useful protein products doesn't appear to be a selective pressure. I'd suspect that this is because such an inefficiency is relatively minor for a large multi-cellular omnivore such as us and wasn't an evolutionary driving force in the past nor will be in the future.
Lastly, I'm suspicious to call the DNA whose function remains unknown "junk DNA" as others do. Who's to say that it doesn't serve a purpose simply because we lack a theory for one? To do so reeks of scientific arrogance.
Ah, but something encouraged the development of multiple redundant pathways. I suspect that what happened is that a second pathway randomly developed many years ago (probably before modern humans). After that, something came along that killed everyone off who only had the single pathway.
Ahh... how convenient. My professor asked a question very similar to the issue you're touching on in immunology class the other day. While we haven't studied CCR5 in particular, here's an overview. (Please, anyone, correct me if any of this is wrong--I'm just a student here.)
CCR5 receptor is a part of a general class of proteins regulating immune responses found in what's called the Major Histocompatibility Complex (MHC) of the genome. These genes are HIGHLY polymorphic. For instance, "in mice, the mouse has roughly 100 different alleles for each class I and class II MHC gene, so 100(K) X 100(IAa) X 100(IAb) X 100(IEa) X 100(IEb) X 100(D) = 10^12 [one trillion possible allele combinations]" Which means there's probably about as many combinations of just these genes as there are mice on the planet.
Why such polymorphism? Again, these genes regulate the immune response, which must be ready and able to respond to a complex and quickly evolving set of foes. For instance, in class II MHC molecules, different alleles change the properties of their peptide binding cleft leading the molecules to bind different antigens and, in essence, recognize different foes. Having a large number of alleles in an individual allows one to recognize a large repertoire of foes. For populations, more alleles are advantageous because they lessen the likelihood that any particular pathogen will wipe out all the members.
An analogy of the latter point would be found in computer security. A monoculture of systems (ex. a million identical un-updated windows 98 machines) is highly susceptible to being completely wiped out from a single virus/worm in short order. However, the prevalence of different operating systems with different security measures and different sets of flaws virtually ensures that no single class of computer viruses will, for instance, take out the internet. It's for this very reason that the recent DDoS attack on the DNS root servers failed--the root servers were intentionally designed to be different from one another.
This polymorphism doesn't come without costs, however. Firstly, many MHC alleles are associated with autoimmune diseases, certain viral diseases, complement system disorders, neurological disorders, and allergic disorders. Two examples (among many) of such diseases would be Insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus (Type I diabetes) and Multiple sclerosis.
For humans, MHC polymorphism is also what makes tissue/organ transplant so difficult. (Which makes perfect sense when you think about it.) Interestingly enough, the reason why blood transfusions are so much easier is because blood cells are not nucleated. Only nucleated cells have class I MHC molecules. (And class II molecules are found only on immune cells if you were wondering about those.) The cell-surface molecules left are far less polymorphic (only 8 possible combinations) than MHC ones, leading to a greater likelihood of a donor/recipient match.
Most bacteria have trim and efficient DNA. That keeps their energy expenditures low, letting them focus on important things like reproduction.
Well, yes and no. Selective pressures probably do select for genetic efficiency in mircoorganisms. But remember, bacteria are prokaryotes and lack a nucleus. This (and their circular chromosomes) physically prevents the bacterial genome from achieving the amount of DNA present in their eukaryote counterparts. Take for instance yeast cells. Yeast cells are microorganisms presumably subject to similar selective pressures as bacteria. They too are "efficient" (lacking introns and such), but yeast cells, being eukaryotes, typically have much more DNA than bacteria.
The day I cease to carry my own weight... In native American communities, when someone got "old and frail", they'd leave the tribe, go out into the wilderness, and leave their body for the spirit world. That's my plan.
A society which doesn't value its elderly because of their (seemingly) low economic value is a crummy one indeed. There's a type of the wisdom that can only be garnered through time. The native americans knew this. If their societies could sustain their elderly populations to the extent that we can today, such practices borne of necessity would not have been so commonplace.
3/4 of grandparents are still alive, but they're not really living, not anymore. They're just sitting around (can't walk very well at all anymore), watching T.V., waiting to die.
That's a very pessimestic view.
I work in the healthcare field, and while for many elderly patients that may be the case, I can tell you that it is certainly not like that for all of them.
I've seen 90 year-olds sharper and in better shape than people half their age. It all depends. Personally, I'd hate to design a system which pressures such people to die (or makes adaquate healthcare unavailable) simply because of the year they were born.
Medicare only serves to keep people alive past their expiration date...
Says the twenty-something poster on slashdot. I like that. It's a "surplus-population"-phrase for the new century! Tell me, when's your expiration date?
Which infers that it also sucks smart people into the medical field with the promise of wealth and status, people who maybe would've been engineers.
But wait... if what you're saying is true, you've just invalidated the anti-"Lexus standard" point of one of you links--which is that the artificial lack of medical schools does NOT raise the quality of care. You can't have it both ways.
Medicine in the United States needs to re-evaluate its role and methods. The medical school application process could definitely use an overhaul in order to bring in those actually interested in helping others. You won't get an argument from me there. But it's not an evil institution. Nobody forced your grandparents to have "unnecessary" surgeries. In fact, ironically enough, the whole concept of patient autonomy was brought to the forefront by your much reviled AMA.
Wait? No one liked Chrono Cross? I very vividly remember that game, and how much I enjoyed it. The story was interesting, the graphics were amazing for the PSX, and it had just enough references to Chrono Trigger to make those who played the first game feel at home. I can't recall anyone who played Chrono Cross who didn't find it to be an excellent game. Hell, I bought a Playstation to play the game, and I didn't feel disappointed.
I hate Chrono Cross.
Being a good RPG gamer, I decided against using any sort of guide the first way through. About a third of the way into the game I got stuck on an almost impossible boss battle (I've been told it's the hardest encounter in the game.) I tried everything I could in my gamer experience to win this battle. NOTHING worked. No amount of item-spamming cheese or character combination could work. I probably spent about 6 hours of actual playtime trying to win just this one fight.
Fair enough... I'll just level my characters up and come back stronger for the fight, right? WRONG! Chrono Cross has an extremly STUPID leveling system in which the power of your character is limited by the progression of the game's storyline (ie. Boss fights).
Normally even this wouldn't upset me. Maybe there's something I'm doing wrong in the fight. Maybe I just suck, right? Thinking this was the case, I hopped online at the time to get some help. Well, as it turns out. I wasn't alone. This problem happened to a number of customers... The reason? All of us had picked a JOKE CHARACTER THAT EXCLUDES ONE FROM PICKING THE BEST CHARACTER IN THE GAME. And it's not like this was hard to do. It was possible by following the normal progression of the story. All I can say is: ASDFJAEORDSAOFJASKLDFNKLJASHNDLKFJASDLKFJASDFLKJAS DFJ:KLASDJFLI:QJWSDVKLN!
Needless to say, I've never touched that damn game since finding that out. What kind of QA process lets a dead-end like that slip into production? Each of the moronic elements that culimnates into this giant clusterfuck-of-a-timesink is damn near heresy in traditional RPG game design. Bah...
Diamonds aren't expensive at all. You've fallen for the myth, like so many others before you.
Perhaps you should come with me so can explain that to the friendly gentleman in the Jewlery store.
As popular as it may be on Slashot. The fact is, diamonds ARE expensive--for a variety of reasons. Now whether diamonds are, in fact, RARE is another question entirely.
In the meantime, I suggest you suck it up and buy diamonds for your significant other--if you know what's good for you.
...It's useless comparing quality of living standards because people don't have a frame of reference for what it's like outside of their own environment, and as such get accustomed to the quality of living in that environment. The only measure of "quality of life" I believe is happiness...
Exactly. Listening to some people in this thread, you'd think that every American/European is happy. Or at least a fool for not being so because we have alot of stuff. How absurd!
I think this is just further proof that we (both liberals and conservatives alike) value personal possesions and economic benefits too greatly. But how do these things play into living a good life? Probably very litle.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm surprised nobody has asked this question yet, but shouldn't owners be worried about the consequences of attaching a relatively high-powered RF transmitter directly to their dog's neck at all times? Think about it. RF penetrates soft tissues the easiest. Seeing as how the neck is about as soft as it comes on a dog's body, I think this product is a legal disaster waiting to happen.
If there's a lawsuit, it's going to be pet owners (legitimately or not) suing the company for giving their dog(s) cancer. In states like California where pets can be classified as "companions" you can even win damages in far excess of the purchased value of the animal.
Ambulance-chasers, start your engines...
-Grym
Wow... that is a tough one. Especially because the dog is so young.
I would say, in all honesty, it is probably a mutt. However, it could be a really young Corgi (without its ears cropped). Here's a picture of a young Corgi that looks really similar.
I hope that helps!
-Grym
And not once in all of that did I see an accident that could have been prevented by "evasive high speed".
If this is true, that's only because you're imagining dangerous situations infront of your car. How is braking going to help you when a speeding car is bearing down on you from behind? If anything it's only going to make the collision happen sooner. How is braking going to help you in the split second you realize someone is about to T-bone you from a side?
The first thing you are taught in defensive driving...
Let me just stop you right there. Defensive driving classes are a joke. All they do is tell you to pay attention, slow down, and to hit your brakes. No really. Save yourself 75 dollars and eight hours of your life, because that's about it.
The above advice is ridiculous, because, in my experience, most emergency driving situations can be avoided entirely by disregarding the latter two parts. Sometimes it's safer to go faster. Imagine you're about to pass a truck. You could: (a) break the speedlimit and pass in about 30 seconds or (b) take about 2 minutes to overtake him going the speedlimit. Obviously it's A, because the longer you take to pass him the more time you're in his blindspot and with less routes of escape.
Moreover a good deal of the time, the best thing is to do nothing. That's right--nothing. If you hit a patch of ice, unless you're really experienced, don't try and correct unless you absolutely have to. Just keep your calm and hold the wheel steady until you get through it. Same thing with hydroplaning. It's the overreaction--the slamming on the brakes or swerving--that makes you lose control. In the cases where action is required, however, I find that braking should be viewed as one of many appropriate responses.
What action do you think is faster? To gain that speed in time to matter will doubtless require a downshift. That's going to add at least a second on a shift stick. It might even take that long in an automatic -- since newer automatics lock the torque converter at cruising speed and would need to unlock it before downshifting. All the CVTs that I've driven in my day seem to be equally slow to change gear ratios to anything meaningful. Then how long will it take to actually gain that speed? Contrast that to your brakes..
I don't think you get it though. Collisions you can control usually involve relative velocities. Usually the ones you can't control (for the simple reason that they happen too fast) involve someone being at an complete stop. This difference is crutial. Example: Imagine getting hit by a car at 60 MPH. Now imagine the same collision while you yourself are going 59.9 MPH in the same direction.
In this light, the engine needn't take the car from zero to sixty, to avoid an accident. A small, quick increase in speed can be all that's required to avoid a collision.
-Grym
I don't think the Nintendogs will do well in the "Good 'ol United States". It's very Japanese. And it shows.
Are you kidding? I made the mistake of waiting until days before our anniversary to buy this game for my girlfriend as a gift... It was completely sold out--and that was weeks after the game had already been released! I visited any store that even remotely had an electronics section and it was to no avail. In the end, I had to eventually order it online and get 2-day air shipping.
You don't think it will do well? It already has done well!
In Japan, most households do not have dogs, so they need video game simulations. In America, nearly half (or more) of the population has one or more dogs. I don't think our youth have become connected to video games so much that they will choose a simulation over the real thing.
See the funny thing is, my girlfriend already has a dog.
The beauty of Nintendogs is it even appeals to dog owners--especially dog owners! Because dog owners, (hopefully) by definition, love animals. Moreover, they appreciate more than the layman the differences between breeds, which are crucial to the enjoyment of the game--otherwise there'd be no point in having any more than one Nintendog or advancing through the game.
The last point shouldn't be overlooked. A big appeal of Nintendogs is in owning a purebred dog of a particular breed. Not everybody has either the time or money to do that. Getting the breed you want can be very difficult--especially if it's rare. I managed to find a breeder for the breed I like the most, Bernese Mountain Dogs. But do you know how much time an effort it took to find a good, ethical breeder for such a rare breed? It was ridiculous! I literally did research for over a year and drove for hours on end visiting multiple breeders before I finally found what I was looking for.
In the end, I got Misha (Pics). But, after my experience, I can definitely empathize with simply buying the Nintendogs. In fact, if you're not willing to do the legwork to get a good purebred dog ethically, I would recommend getting Nintendogs instead.
-Grym
Better yet, if you know how to make your honeypots 100% secure against all unknown viruses then could you share this technology with everyone else please? That way we wouldn't need the honeypots at all...
Not necessarily. Physically write-protect your hard-disk after a clean install and I'm fairly positive the vast majority your most of your virus woes will disappear.
Of course, your computer might not be very good for general computing tasks then, now would it? But said computer could work for the purposes described in the article--that is, as a host for the virtual servers that make up honeypots.
The last part shouldn't be overlooked either. One needn't have a computer with flaws to simulate a computer with flaws. In fact, that's the whole point of a honeypot.
Imagine a computer running the most secure version of linux (Fanboys, feel free to tell me which one this is.) Now running in memory is our honeypot program which entirely emulates a Windows XP home machine. No read/write from this program is actually done on the drive, rather it is all simulated in memory. Any program inside would be unable to tell the difference. At this point one could do a couple of things: (1) Wait for threats to come to it. OR (2) Actively seek threats by, for example, automating a system to visit websites in IE and so on.
Bear in mind that, because this is all virtual, this needn't be a one honeypot-per server system. In fact, one computer could be simultaneously representing hundreds or thousands of honeypots. Each one could represent a computer doing a different task or the various permutations of versions of windows, for instance.
Such a system would be immune to the threats it was intended to study. In our example, only viruses which affected the most secure version of linux would be a threat--very rare. Whereas it could study, without consequence, Windows viruses--very common. Even if it wasn't necessarily 100% virus-proof, such a system could still be an incredibly useful tool in combating zero-day exploits.
-Grym
This is the wonderful aspect of the free market when it comes to ethics: you are completely free to live your life believing in the ethical angles you believe in, and allow others to do the same without affecting your ethics or theirs.
The fact that the free-market cares little about ethics is not something that you should make you very happy. A large part of ethics is the veracity with which we hold to a basic set of standards--even if it doesn't directly affect us.
Under a completely libertarian free-market-based system, any number of unethical transgressions could occur. One could easily set up a fee-based (including tips) suicide business that provided lethal injections for depressed individuals. Imagine the success of a debt collection agency that accepted kidneys as payment. Would you be comfortable with genetically altering human fetuses to be born without higher-brain functions for the sole purpose of selling their organs?
Moreover, you're forgetting one very important aspect of medicine--the sense of desperation it creates in both patients and families. If you honestly expect them to hold to a personal set of standards alone in the face of such coercion, think again.
Don't ridicule the idea until you get government out of insurance which is the reason why the poor can't afford it.
Conversely, couldn't it be said that the so-called "ethical" free-market is the reason why the poor can't pay for it in the first place?
I think we need to ask ourselves a basic set of questions. (1) Is everyone entitled to a basic level of care, even if they can't afford it? (2) Is it ethical to have two levels of care? Namely a very good system which can perform miracles designed solely for the rich and a piss-poor system rife with confusion and misery, for everyone else. (3) Isn't healthcare, in essence, a public infrastructure? No different from energy, sewage, or communications, our economy and society depend upon the quality and availability of healthcare.
Now, given the above, are you sure you want the government entirely out of the healthcare business?
-Grym
"You're taking these approximations and claiming they're more valid than the ballots in the box--it doesn't work that way."
It does when there are no "ballots in the box" to double check the count (as is the case with diebold).
I agree that Diebold's machines are poorly designed. I agree with the need for a papertrail. (Did I not make that clear enough in my first post?)
If the Administration do not want to be accused of cheating then they should use a ballot that can be verified after the fact.
MOST of the ballots nationally WERE NOT computerized. Moreover, voting machines are determined and bought by the STATE branches of government. There's very little the Bush administration could have done to prevent computerized voting even if they wanted to.
This is NOT how the objections (in my opinion reasonable) have been handled, the Administration prefer to use exacly the same strategy as you do to deter critics.
Which is what? I was just pointing out that the claims being thrown around here as fact were completely unsubstantiated and logically flawed. How isn't that reasonable? I'm really not a diehard defender of the Bush Administration--I'm not. Read my posting history. I just call them like I see them. Forgive me for not allowing this place to become an echochamber of liberal discontent.
Regardless, what are you really expecting out of the Administration anyway? Suspend disbelief for a second and imagine that the election was actually won legitimately. What now? The election is already over--can't change the ballots after the fact. Nothing they can say or do will ever convince some of the conspiracy-theory nuts like the OP of the truth. It wouldn't make sense for them to pursue something so remotely away from their party's platform as election reform. So, what would you have them do?
Regardless of the truth, the Administration have brought the accusations apon themselves by thier arrogant behaviour and can think of no other course of action than to "shoot the messenger".
I'm really at a loss on this point. Sure the Bush Administration is arrogant at times, but to what specific events are you referring?
I could contine to pull your post apart line by line but life is too short and I have no intention of visiting the US.
And I have a plethora of great points and retorts to your hypothetical posts, but I'd rather not waste my time either. There's so much better things I could be doing--like, for instance, making excuses.
-Grym
Your whole argument about statistics is based on the administration's official straw men (ie: exit polls were taken only in the morning...
No, it's not.
All I'm saying is that the exit polls that everyone complains about were the ones reported mid-election day by the media. Those were the ones that didn't match the results. Once the samples from later in the day came in, the media reported the change results of the polls, which then closely resembled the actual results.
Strictly speaking, it's not. Polling is a wonderful tool but it does have its flaws. What if the voter lied about who he or she voted for? What if the voter got confused and voted for the wrong candidate? (This happens more than you'd think.) What if the sampler has a bias--such as asking younger or attractive people more often? These aren't just academic questions. Actually obtaining a truly random, representative sample is much harder than you think.
Of course, when polls are used as general approximations (and for elections with larger margins), the effects of such errors can be considered negligible, but that's not what you're doing. You're taking these approximations and claiming they're more valid than the ballots in the box--it doesn't work that way.
There were at least three sets of numbers, Rove's predictions, Diebold's count and the Exit poll stat's. Two of them were a very close match but they were not the two sets everyone (except Rove) had expected, the explaination is Rove101, stats101 has it's money on the exit polls.
I don't get you people. Who the fuck do you think this guy is? David Copperfield? If Karl Rove did what you suggested on a large enough scale to affect a national election there would be at least some evidence of it other than mindless conjecture on liberal blogs and, apparently, slashdot.
Off course if I point out your statistician has no clothes I am a loser extremist and it is every American's patriotic duty to hate me. ( The "hate" bit may one day become the definition of "irony" ).
Flowery, grandiose language won't save a poor point. You're failing to recognize the fact that Americans also hate cheats. If you presented undisputable proof that the Bush administration rigged the last election, I think you'd find that most people would rally behind you. The trouble of course is that you haven't.
In other words, allowing people to voice concerns when they have no "evidence" is dangerous, therefore it's better to shun them than to answer their concerns.
Not surprisingly, you took that quote out of context. Voicing your concerns is fine. Claiming them to be fact without any sort of proof to that effect is an entirely different matter. It's like yelling "Fire!" in a theater solely because your seat is warm. Yes it's dangerous and such behavior should be shunned.
-Grym
Look people we all agree that software patents are bad, but patents to have a place and a purpose. The drug industry would not exist without them.
Nobody's arguing that the current drug industry relies upon patents. That's a given. But does it have to be that way? Software patents may be one of the more ridiculous implementations of Intellectual Property, but drug patents are arguably the ones that most detrimentally affect human life (Yes, people with AIDS in Africa count too.)
Right and you think someone is just going to spend 50-100 million dollars to put out the next drug without any kind of patent protection?
How many individuals do that now? None. Under the current system, we effectively use corporations to organize our funds and direct them towards drug research. Would it be so hard to set up federally-subsidized labs to do the same? What about the UN? Isn't one of their aims to improve human life? Why does every problem require a market-based solution?
Perhaps we need to rethink this unholy alliance of capitalism and pharmaceutical entirely. I'd argue that doing so would have a number of positive benefits:
-Grym
d they couldn't possibly monitor the situation. Are all the voting machines running approved code? Impossible to know. Is the code locked down, or is it being replaced dynamically to cover tracks? Unknown. Is the code, a closed binary, full of triggers and cheats that only activate...
Guys... it's really not this difficult. Think about it for a second. If the machine prints out a HUMAN-READABLE ticket that the voter can verify and stick in the ballot box, no amount of computerized shenanigans can significantly affect the vote. Then, it's a simple matter of counting up the votes on the tickets (whether automatically or by hand) and comparing that number to the number recorded on the computer.
And that's just a simple system. Far better have been lined out and even discussed at length on slashdot. It can be done.
Diebold has fought a manual recount system so ferociously that (Occam's Razor) they have indeed fixed elections... Their have been a lot of stories and sources stating that the employees know something is crooked, altho they are afraid for their jobs. Jobs in IT are scarce. The top management is far-rightist and saw it's duty as electing Bush; the details are tiresome.
Bullshit. We all hear lots of stories. I want to see evidence to your claims. The whole part about people losing their jobs is such a red herring. There's enough people wanting to know this information that no whistle-blower at Diebold would ever have to worry about getting another job or money for that matter. They'd become an instant hero (with movie rights) and would probably receive vast political and financial support from the great number of people who absolutely hate Bush. Think about it. They'd be bigger than Cindy Sheehan--before she went crazy.
But how about we use Occam's Razor again? The fact that SO many people are looking for tangible proof that fraud occurred and that none has been found leads to the conclusion that no evidence exists--which further leads to the conclusion that no fraud occurred. What's wrong with my logic here?
Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying that some fraud didn't occur (it probably did) or that Diebold isn't a morally bankrupt entity (they're pieces of shit). But making these outrageous claims that fraud, on an unprecedented level, affected the outcome of a national election without any sort of evidence is ridiculous. Not only that, but such accusations are dangerous. Public trust in the elections is paramount in a democracy. You wouldn't want the same kind of accusations being thrown seriously around without evidence if your guy won, would you?
Don't be surprised if your candidates keep losing elections if you (their supporters) keep promoting such ideas. The majority of Americans don't like extremists--and they HATE poor losers. Throwing those accusations without any sort of reliable evidence makes you look like both.
Notice exit polls are no longer conducted? They "broke" during 2000, so no news organization will have them anymore. This in spite of the fact that statistics don't "break" during only one extremely critical election, and no other. They didn't break, kids, the election totals were altered and no longer matched reality.
Maybe you should've paid better attention in STATS 101. Statistics based on unrepresentative samples are worthless. This is a classic problem with statistics.
Nobody is saying that the statistics "broke." It's just that they're inaccurate for one very simple reason: people motivated by different reasons tend to vote at different times. Those highly motivated tend to vote early. Those less motivated vote whenever it's convenient. In other words, the anti-Bush crowd rushed to the polls early in the day, and when polling services extrapolated from this sample set, it got a Kerry win. But later in the day, when the Bush voters showed up, it became clear that Bush was going to win--thus the discrepancy.
What
The stem cell worriers aren't really worried about stem cells or their source, they're worried about how close we're getting to a comfortable understanding of cellular mechanics.
Oh please... The debate over Stem cells has nothing to do with scientific understanding of cellular mechanics. If that were the case, Watson and Crick would have been burned at the stake decades ago. No other research involving cellular mechanics has reached this level of public scrutiny. I've never heard anyone debate the ethics of cell-surface recognition proteins or origins of the mitochondria in cells. Let's be honest. The whole stem-cell debate is merely a veiled front for the larger fight over abortion. (I use the word fight because "debate" hardly fits.)
Here's how it happened:
That takes the mystery out of a lot things, and devalues mystical explanations (and those social institutions that rely upon them for clout).
Bullshit. "Social instiutions that rely on mystical explanations"? Do you mean "religions"? Why don't you just say it? ...Religions... See how easy that was?
Regardless, science doesn't debunk the larger, more important claims of religion. It can't. Learning about cellular theory doesn't debunk the existence of God. Learning physics doesn't mean that God couldn't temporarily violate the laws of physics at a whim--you know, being omnipotent and all.
Religion and God are meta-physical concepts, while science is the study of the physical world. The two aren't mutually exclusive ideas. A scientist can just as easily believe in a religion as an atheist in science.
-Grym
You know... it's even more retarded when you actually think about it because all it takes is ONE PERSON with a Mac or Linux computer to rip the track and put it on a P2P networks. Then the file is available to the masses... sans-DRM of course. (At which point, clueless, windows owners can then download the MP3s manually.)
Ridiculous.
I shudder to think how much funding went into this useless endevor. It's no wonder the record industry loses money!
-Grym
The goal of modern torture is not to injure the suspect but rather to make him completely dependent on his interrogator.
You know... I've heard this position a number of times, but I simply don't buy it. It probably is true that such interrogation tactics are more effective in the end. However, the timescale (months) for such tactics might have worked in, say, World War II, but I hardly doubt that it would work today given the nature of the fight. If information is needed about a stolen nuclear weapon, for example, by the time you've warmed up to the prisoner, any information he may have will be useless.
By the end of such treatment, the suspect will be gratefully to tell anyone anything to stop the torture.
This is an oft-cited critique of torture that I think has misplaced value. Eliminating false information would be trivial. Computer scientists, of all people, should be able to recognize this. All it would require is that you simply compare facts and information gathered from the individual to things verifiably known to be true. Furthermore, one could compile statements and information from a number of subjects to further provide light on the situation. Combining a bit of positive/negative reinforcement based on the validity of these already-known facts, would make obtaining true information very likely.
"It is recognised that in inexperienced hands, prisoners can be plunged into psychosis."
This is a moot point, because, in inexperienced hands, NEITHER form of interrogation works.
Don't get me wrong. I'm not making a statement on the morality of torture. It just seems, however, quite evident that it would work using only a little background in biology, game-theory, and psychology.
As an aside, I really think that this view about torture being ineffective is a result a feel-good psychology establishment. They want to think that gentile, sophisticated methods can best barbarous ones. And yet, such a view flies in the face of thousands of years of evidence that torture is, in fact, brutally effective.
-Grym
But the current government has demonstrated publicly that it doesn't give a shit about constitutional rights or the Geneva convention.
I'm no supporter of the Bush administration, but that's just not true.
Where in the Geneva convention are provisions for rogue saboteurs laid out? Nowhere. This has been the Administration's position and, like it or not, it's entirely correct. It's not that the administration doesn't care, it's that the Geneva convention simply doesn't apply.
As far as constitutional rights go, I'll remind you that the relevant bills to the former part of your statement(PATRIOT I & II) were drafted and voted on by congress, not the administration.
Strategically, you don't fight a worldwide guerilla organization by staring to control your own citizens electronically.
How do you fight one?
It's not like we can just slip agents into their ranks. These are highly close-knit groups that are nearly impossible to penetrate. Furthermore, individual terrorists almost impossible to turn because they're motivated by religious reasons. Lastly, their decentralized command and logistical structures makes combating them extremely difficult.
Realistically, we are left with lacking and disparate methods of fighting Islamic terrorism both at home and abroad. While I may not agree with blanket electronic surveillance of the American populace on principle, it makes perfect sense that doing so would, in fact, further the cause.
-Grym
Islamic Terrorists are motivated by entirely different reasons than the IRA and employ entirely different tactics.
First, the IRA does not employ suicide bombers--Islamic terrorists do. This fact alone makes an attack from Islamic groups much harder to stop. Why? Suicide bombers needn't design an escape plan or contingency plans for casualties. Furthermore, suicide bombers can also quickly change tactics in the middle of an ongoing attack without compromising their mission.
Secondly, Islamic terrorists are much more extreme in their goals than the IRA. The type of casualties seen on 9/11, for instance, were unthinkable among IRA planners. Not a single IRA attack has occurred since 9/11 because even the IRA doesn't want to be associated with such barbarism. If you doubt this, consider for a moment the likelihood of the IRA obtaining and using a nuclear weapon versus Islamic militants doing so.
So, seeing as how Islamic terrorists are both harder to stop and aiming for much more devastating results, why shouldn't there be more powers in place to combat them? Unlike what you suggest, this has nothing to do with religious discrimination or a ridiculous sense of guilt (which is nothing more than apologetics on your part, I might add).
-Grym
So should I sell all of my Sony stock, or buy more?
It was only after I wrote a scathing response that I realized that you were joking. And yet, for that I think I can be forgiven because I can't help but think that some people, upon hearing about this, were asking themselves just that question.
Sometimes the acerbity of feeling like the only sane man left in an insane world rushes over me when I see how people treat and speak of the stock market. It's not some game to be played. It's not some magical money generator without cause or consequence. And just in case anyone had forgotten, we always have moral obligations to one another--even in situations of diffused responsibility (yes, this includes investing).
But more importantly:
What ever happened about being proud of how you got your money and where you spent it?
What ever happened to doing the right thing--even if it didn't maximize our individual profits?
What ever happened to our dignity?
-Grym
Makes me miss the good old days when ??? was one of the steps.
The fact that a root-kit was installed on the computer to protect music shows that privacy now takes a second place seat to some one-else's property rights
Sony have no property rights here. "Intellectual property" is nothing more than a buzzword. Copyrights aren't property. Patents aren't property. Trademarks aren't property. They are all limited privileges granted by the government to further particular social goals.
And what's even MORE interesting (or confusing, take your pick) than that is that this program actually tresspasses and destroys consumers' very real physical property. The OP's statement could also be put as: Consumer property rights have taken back seat to corporate profits.
In which case, none of us should be surprised. Look how the supreme court ruled recently! You don't even have a right to your house if a company can make a profit by taking it away.
One of these days Americans are going to wake up and realize that their representatives are a pack of greedy whores. I wonder if it will be too late by then.
-Grym
While much of your post is generally on the fringes of what we know, I can say with general certainty that the answers to these questions is "No" and "No."
For the first question, one shouldn't leap to the conclusion that the number of generations equates to evolutionary success. The two aren't necessarily related. Remember, evolution is essentially about the filling of available biological niches. The niches that humans and bacteria fill are vastly different. In light of this, calling one type of successful species "more evolved" than vastly different, yet also successful, species really carries little meaning. Perhaps a better way of putting it is this: Evolution is not forward-looking. There is no beginning, middle, or end to the evolutionary path of a species. Any species present today (simply by virtue of the fact that it has survived) is just as "evolved" as any other.
For the second question, I seriously doubt our genome will (naturally) become smaller over time. Unlike bacteria, finding the extra nutrient sources to accommodate the amount of unused DNA or non-useful protein products doesn't appear to be a selective pressure. I'd suspect that this is because such an inefficiency is relatively minor for a large multi-cellular omnivore such as us and wasn't an evolutionary driving force in the past nor will be in the future.
Lastly, I'm suspicious to call the DNA whose function remains unknown "junk DNA" as others do. Who's to say that it doesn't serve a purpose simply because we lack a theory for one? To do so reeks of scientific arrogance.
-Grym
Ah, but something encouraged the development of multiple redundant pathways. I suspect that what happened is that a second pathway randomly developed many years ago (probably before modern humans). After that, something came along that killed everyone off who only had the single pathway.
Ahh... how convenient. My professor asked a question very similar to the issue you're touching on in immunology class the other day. While we haven't studied CCR5 in particular, here's an overview. (Please, anyone, correct me if any of this is wrong--I'm just a student here.)
CCR5 receptor is a part of a general class of proteins regulating immune responses found in what's called the Major Histocompatibility Complex (MHC) of the genome. These genes are HIGHLY polymorphic. For instance, "in mice, the mouse has roughly 100 different alleles for each class I and class II MHC gene, so 100(K) X 100(IAa) X 100(IAb) X 100(IEa) X 100(IEb) X 100(D) = 10^12 [one trillion possible allele combinations]" Which means there's probably about as many combinations of just these genes as there are mice on the planet.
Why such polymorphism? Again, these genes regulate the immune response, which must be ready and able to respond to a complex and quickly evolving set of foes. For instance, in class II MHC molecules, different alleles change the properties of their peptide binding cleft leading the molecules to bind different antigens and, in essence, recognize different foes. Having a large number of alleles in an individual allows one to recognize a large repertoire of foes. For populations, more alleles are advantageous because they lessen the likelihood that any particular pathogen will wipe out all the members.
An analogy of the latter point would be found in computer security. A monoculture of systems (ex. a million identical un-updated windows 98 machines) is highly susceptible to being completely wiped out from a single virus/worm in short order. However, the prevalence of different operating systems with different security measures and different sets of flaws virtually ensures that no single class of computer viruses will, for instance, take out the internet. It's for this very reason that the recent DDoS attack on the DNS root servers failed--the root servers were intentionally designed to be different from one another.
This polymorphism doesn't come without costs, however. Firstly, many MHC alleles are associated with autoimmune diseases, certain viral diseases, complement system disorders, neurological disorders, and allergic disorders. Two examples (among many) of such diseases would be Insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus (Type I diabetes) and Multiple sclerosis.
For humans, MHC polymorphism is also what makes tissue/organ transplant so difficult. (Which makes perfect sense when you think about it.) Interestingly enough, the reason why blood transfusions are so much easier is because blood cells are not nucleated. Only nucleated cells have class I MHC molecules. (And class II molecules are found only on immune cells if you were wondering about those.) The cell-surface molecules left are far less polymorphic (only 8 possible combinations) than MHC ones, leading to a greater likelihood of a donor/recipient match.
Most bacteria have trim and efficient DNA. That keeps their energy expenditures low, letting them focus on important things like reproduction.
Well, yes and no. Selective pressures probably do select for genetic efficiency in mircoorganisms. But remember, bacteria are prokaryotes and lack a nucleus. This (and their circular chromosomes) physically prevents the bacterial genome from achieving the amount of DNA present in their eukaryote counterparts. Take for instance yeast cells. Yeast cells are microorganisms presumably subject to similar selective pressures as bacteria. They too are "efficient" (lacking introns and such), but yeast cells, being eukaryotes, typically have much more DNA than bacteria.
-Grym
The day I cease to carry my own weight... In native American communities, when someone got "old and frail", they'd leave the tribe, go out into the wilderness, and leave their body for the spirit world. That's my plan.
A society which doesn't value its elderly because of their (seemingly) low economic value is a crummy one indeed. There's a type of the wisdom that can only be garnered through time. The native americans knew this. If their societies could sustain their elderly populations to the extent that we can today, such practices borne of necessity would not have been so commonplace.
3/4 of grandparents are still alive, but they're not really living, not anymore. They're just sitting around (can't walk very well at all anymore), watching T.V., waiting to die.
That's a very pessimestic view.
I work in the healthcare field, and while for many elderly patients that may be the case, I can tell you that it is certainly not like that for all of them.
I've seen 90 year-olds sharper and in better shape than people half their age. It all depends. Personally, I'd hate to design a system which pressures such people to die (or makes adaquate healthcare unavailable) simply because of the year they were born.
-Grym
Says the twenty-something poster on slashdot. I like that. It's a "surplus-population"-phrase for the new century! Tell me, when's your expiration date?
Which infers that it also sucks smart people into the medical field with the promise of wealth and status, people who maybe would've been engineers.
But wait... if what you're saying is true, you've just invalidated the anti-"Lexus standard" point of one of you links--which is that the artificial lack of medical schools does NOT raise the quality of care. You can't have it both ways.
Medicine in the United States needs to re-evaluate its role and methods. The medical school application process could definitely use an overhaul in order to bring in those actually interested in helping others. You won't get an argument from me there. But it's not an evil institution. Nobody forced your grandparents to have "unnecessary" surgeries. In fact, ironically enough, the whole concept of patient autonomy was brought to the forefront by your much reviled AMA.
Wait? No one liked Chrono Cross? I very vividly remember that game, and how much I enjoyed it. The story was interesting, the graphics were amazing for the PSX, and it had just enough references to Chrono Trigger to make those who played the first game feel at home. I can't recall anyone who played Chrono Cross who didn't find it to be an excellent game. Hell, I bought a Playstation to play the game, and I didn't feel disappointed.
I hate Chrono Cross.
Being a good RPG gamer, I decided against using any sort of guide the first way through. About a third of the way into the game I got stuck on an almost impossible boss battle (I've been told it's the hardest encounter in the game.) I tried everything I could in my gamer experience to win this battle. NOTHING worked. No amount of item-spamming cheese or character combination could work. I probably spent about 6 hours of actual playtime trying to win just this one fight.
Fair enough... I'll just level my characters up and come back stronger for the fight, right? WRONG! Chrono Cross has an extremly STUPID leveling system in which the power of your character is limited by the progression of the game's storyline (ie. Boss fights).
Normally even this wouldn't upset me. Maybe there's something I'm doing wrong in the fight. Maybe I just suck, right? Thinking this was the case, I hopped online at the time to get some help. Well, as it turns out. I wasn't alone. This problem happened to a number of customers... The reason? All of us had picked a JOKE CHARACTER THAT EXCLUDES ONE FROM PICKING THE BEST CHARACTER IN THE GAME. And it's not like this was hard to do. It was possible by following the normal progression of the story. All I can say is: ASDFJAEORDSAOFJASKLDFNKLJASHNDLKFJASDLKFJASDFLKJAS DFJ:KLASDJFLI:QJWSDVKLN!
Needless to say, I've never touched that damn game since finding that out. What kind of QA process lets a dead-end like that slip into production? Each of the moronic elements that culimnates into this giant clusterfuck-of-a-timesink is damn near heresy in traditional RPG game design. Bah...
-Grym
Diamonds aren't expensive at all. You've fallen for the myth, like so many others before you.
Perhaps you should come with me so can explain that to the friendly gentleman in the Jewlery store.
As popular as it may be on Slashot. The fact is, diamonds ARE expensive--for a variety of reasons. Now whether diamonds are, in fact, RARE is another question entirely.
In the meantime, I suggest you suck it up and buy diamonds for your significant other--if you know what's good for you.
-Grym
...It's useless comparing quality of living standards because people don't have a frame of reference for what it's like outside of their own environment, and as such get accustomed to the quality of living in that environment. The only measure of "quality of life" I believe is happiness...
Exactly. Listening to some people in this thread, you'd think that every American/European is happy. Or at least a fool for not being so because we have alot of stuff. How absurd!
I think this is just further proof that we (both liberals and conservatives alike) value personal possesions and economic benefits too greatly. But how do these things play into living a good life? Probably very litle.
-Grym