I just upgraded an app we've been developing in 3.0.0.rc2 and it went smoothly. Looking forward to actually having the docs in place.
It's really been a lot of fun implementing the new changes and I'm excited for everything - hopefully the performance issues will get there, though, I've heard (though not personally observed) that the ActiveRecord in rails3 is something like 50% as fast as 2.3.5 was...
We are truly stupid if we turn backwards right when we figure out how to do high efficiency fusion, store energy as extra mass, and other off the wall things we've cooked up in sci-fi but haven't gotten around to figuring out in the basic physics departments. That quote is simply stunning. Clearly, us as a people and civilization is retarded if we are so dumb as to let "science" be the limiting step in progress and not just the imaginations of our sci-fi writers.
Not that much of the rest of the post isn't worth considering, but that statement surely needed comment. Clearly we're not even CLOSE to figuring out how to do all those things.
I got my first AT&T wireless cell phone in 2000. I had service with them for about three years, and every time I had any concerns or anything I get treated amazingly and the customer service always had me wanting to talk to their supervisors and thank them. I swear to god. It was that good.
Then, like a huge idiot, I got a T-mobile phone when I moved to California since they had "better service" on the campus I was on. It was a disaster. I hated T-mobile. After failing to change my plan despite my calling them thrice and having the agent assure me that my plan HAD been changed way back when, but I still owed them hundreds of dollars, I kept racking up huge phone bills. In the end, after at least tens of hours on the phone with non-helpful customer service agents and about 5 months of promised credit to my account that never happened, I got to someone high-enough up and after threatening to report all charges they'd made to my card as fraudulent to my credit card company I got a small part of my overcharges refunded.
The day my contract ended I was at a Cingular store and haven't looked back. And every time I've had something come up (one time I took my phone out of my pocket and I saw the "Thanks for purchasing this from the online store" or something like that screen) they've been amazing. In the previous example I called them up when I got my bill and explained the situation and they credited me back the charge without even blinking.
So yes, I love Cingular, and my parents live in an area that's quite rural (10,000 people in a whole tri-county area that's like, large landwise) and the coverage has continually gotten better to the point where now I can use my phone in their basement whereas I used to have to stand on a hill in the backyard. So I totally support and will continue to tell everyone about how much I love Cingular/AT&T.
I feel like science getting this rap as "a religion" is a bit strange to say the least. It's probably because the religious people get upset about their views and beliefs being challenged by scientists, but I guess that's kind of what scientists do by definition - challenge and examine beliefs. Being "a scientist" (without going to a book or website that defines such things) is being someone who makes observations about the world, makes inferences based on those observations, then tests those observations. Such activities can also be described as "thinking rationally". So let's take your little list and replace your use of "science" with "thinking rationally".
* "Don't act without thinking rationally!"
* "Rational thinking is responsible for all good things!"
* "Only say things approved by thinking rationally!"
* "Public policy made by those that think rationally is the best policy!"
That's not so greivous now, is it?
So I do think that there are a lot of cases of someone being an expert in one field and leveraging that respect into other areas that they have no expertise in at all, and scientists are certainly wrong about a ton of things. But that's what we do. We make a supposition and test that theory. To not do so is to live life totally randomly and recklessly or with someone else calling all your shots, which to me sounds more dangerous.
I DO have serious issues with "big science" and the political landscape of today's funding agencies and the fact that GW and big oil companies get to dictate where "public" research dollars are spent and are really perverting science by wishing to "push" it in some way, but that's a topic for a different discussion. All told, the alternative to science is...?
Right. The article is horrendously vague, though I guess it has to be. "Conotoxin" is the name of actually a family of different compounds (small peptides) that tend to interact with ion channels. Ion channels are the proteins in neurons that basically transmit electrical information from one end of a neuron to the other. So if you can clog up ion channels, you can stop information transfer - including pain information. There are lots of ion channel types, and lots of different ion channel blockers and it's long been one of the promises of understanding ion channels that if we can block specific ones with high potency and specificity we'll be able to stop pain. The hope is that you'd be able to block the channels involved in transmitting information about pain, but not interfere with the channels that transmit signals from the brain to the muscles. This is all similar to how drugs like lidocaine work where they will 'break' an ion channel for awhile and so you can't feel pain from those neurons. However, this is different from other pain treatments which function by changing your perception of pain (things like morphine or other opiates).
So anyway, that's why toxins can be used to treat pain. The earlier drugs developed were (omega)-conotoxins, which tend to target the voltage-dependent calcium channels. This is from the (mu-O)-conotoxins which is a different family that tends to block the voltage-gated sodium channel, which is actually the channel I've done most of my PhD research on. In fact, I was in the process of writing a research proposal to do pretty much what the experimenters in this study have done. It looks really interesting, but there are still tons of problems involved in using peptides therapeutically (your digestive system tends to be remarkably good at tearing peptides to bits, for example). Oh well, you can't win 'em all.
IGGs can recognize even racemic molecules such as L and D forms of glycine Ah, glycine is um, not chiral. Therefore you can't have an L or a D form, nor can you have a racemate... Close though! You were really unlucky, as glycine is the only AA that's not chiral.
As to the rest of the comment, I'll raise my eyebrows at it. I'm thoroughly skeptical that tunneling would be involved in smell though, but it would be amazing if it were. We'll find out soon enough I'm sure.
I play Gemstone, an older (to put it lightly) text-based MMORPG. In it, someone's "popularity" or whatever comes from interacting with other characters etc. Having a game mechanic to tell you if someone was a jerk to someone else seems very very strange, and would definetly be out of character. So, for "role playing" games I don't feel like that is something that's useful or good. On the other hand, if the game has on objective, and you are trying to "win" WoW or whatever, I guess having that feedback system could save you time and frustration.
I guess one way to rationalize this in character is to have some little cottage where you would go in and greet a jolly fat man in a little red suit who keeps track of who's "naughty" or "nice".
I played WC3, SC, etc but then took a long break from gaming, and then when I decided that I had some disposable time to waste gaming again, it was basically a decision between WoW and Gemstone IV. even caming into a n00b into an environment where it seems most people have been playing for 5-10 years, it's been really fun. it's really intricate and involved and a ton of fun. so yes, I'll back that text-based games are great, and my typing skills really speeded up, which is impressive considering how much time I waste on IM. I guess typing as fast as you can to not get your character pwned is more of a motivation than keeping my friends entertained.
the downside is that now on unix systems where I spend the working time of my life, i'll often type LOOK when i'm confused about where i am... oh well. i then made an alias on my work systems that chides me for using LOOK there...
the battery development problem is a frontier that is being worked on very frantically in such research areas as the people who want to bring you electric cars, as well as the fuel-cell development folks. the fuel cell/battery researchers are trying to solve the exact same problems as far as i can find out: easily moving electrons around in solution without protons (or other ions, such as Li+) going along for the ride. so rest assured, someone is trying to make you a better battery.
so,
Thom Patterson - CNN reported last night that it was a 1.5" piece of tile.
MARCIA DUNN, AP Aerospace Writer - on the yahoo! news - says that it's a "sizable chunk of foam insulation -- the very thing that doomed Columbia" - but then later says that it was indeed a 1.5" piece of tile
while in the latest report from yahoo! it's simply "a large piece of foam insulation broke."
interesting to see this evolve. at least it's not being sensationalized...
this may be off-topic or whatever, but one of my coworkers was a big jackass and installed norton AV on our G5 Powermac. the next time i used it there was a huge slowdown of the system and a quick check of the process monitor showed it using something like 80% of my cpu time for "AutoProtect." after a prompt uninstall, i've noticed a couple other G5's around here getting wasted by that same software (i'm at a university where grad students, who may or may not be very computer-saavy maintain the systems). does anyone else think this software is just garbage?
this topic is indeed huge, and something that would be very important to know. therefore i'm surprised that a finding that was actually real would be published in a garbage journal like new scientist. a google scholar search returns about 3,230 hits for articles in this area, most of which many are in peer-reviewed journals. i'm skeptical of this find unless i could see a real paper...
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I just upgraded an app we've been developing in 3.0.0.rc2 and it went smoothly. Looking forward to actually having the docs in place. It's really been a lot of fun implementing the new changes and I'm excited for everything - hopefully the performance issues will get there, though, I've heard (though not personally observed) that the ActiveRecord in rails3 is something like 50% as fast as 2.3.5 was...
Not that much of the rest of the post isn't worth considering, but that statement surely needed comment. Clearly we're not even CLOSE to figuring out how to do all those things.
I got my first AT&T wireless cell phone in 2000. I had service with them for about three years, and every time I had any concerns or anything I get treated amazingly and the customer service always had me wanting to talk to their supervisors and thank them. I swear to god. It was that good.
Then, like a huge idiot, I got a T-mobile phone when I moved to California since they had "better service" on the campus I was on. It was a disaster. I hated T-mobile. After failing to change my plan despite my calling them thrice and having the agent assure me that my plan HAD been changed way back when, but I still owed them hundreds of dollars, I kept racking up huge phone bills. In the end, after at least tens of hours on the phone with non-helpful customer service agents and about 5 months of promised credit to my account that never happened, I got to someone high-enough up and after threatening to report all charges they'd made to my card as fraudulent to my credit card company I got a small part of my overcharges refunded.
The day my contract ended I was at a Cingular store and haven't looked back. And every time I've had something come up (one time I took my phone out of my pocket and I saw the "Thanks for purchasing this from the online store" or something like that screen) they've been amazing. In the previous example I called them up when I got my bill and explained the situation and they credited me back the charge without even blinking.
So yes, I love Cingular, and my parents live in an area that's quite rural (10,000 people in a whole tri-county area that's like, large landwise) and the coverage has continually gotten better to the point where now I can use my phone in their basement whereas I used to have to stand on a hill in the backyard. So I totally support and will continue to tell everyone about how much I love Cingular/AT&T.
I feel like science getting this rap as "a religion" is a bit strange to say the least. It's probably because the religious people get upset about their views and beliefs being challenged by scientists, but I guess that's kind of what scientists do by definition - challenge and examine beliefs. Being "a scientist" (without going to a book or website that defines such things) is being someone who makes observations about the world, makes inferences based on those observations, then tests those observations. Such activities can also be described as "thinking rationally". So let's take your little list and replace your use of "science" with "thinking rationally".
* "Don't act without thinking rationally!"
* "Rational thinking is responsible for all good things!"
* "Only say things approved by thinking rationally!"
* "Public policy made by those that think rationally is the best policy!"
That's not so greivous now, is it?
So I do think that there are a lot of cases of someone being an expert in one field and leveraging that respect into other areas that they have no expertise in at all, and scientists are certainly wrong about a ton of things. But that's what we do. We make a supposition and test that theory. To not do so is to live life totally randomly and recklessly or with someone else calling all your shots, which to me sounds more dangerous.
I DO have serious issues with "big science" and the political landscape of today's funding agencies and the fact that GW and big oil companies get to dictate where "public" research dollars are spent and are really perverting science by wishing to "push" it in some way, but that's a topic for a different discussion. All told, the alternative to science is...?
Right. The article is horrendously vague, though I guess it has to be. "Conotoxin" is the name of actually a family of different compounds (small peptides) that tend to interact with ion channels. Ion channels are the proteins in neurons that basically transmit electrical information from one end of a neuron to the other. So if you can clog up ion channels, you can stop information transfer - including pain information. There are lots of ion channel types, and lots of different ion channel blockers and it's long been one of the promises of understanding ion channels that if we can block specific ones with high potency and specificity we'll be able to stop pain. The hope is that you'd be able to block the channels involved in transmitting information about pain, but not interfere with the channels that transmit signals from the brain to the muscles. This is all similar to how drugs like lidocaine work where they will 'break' an ion channel for awhile and so you can't feel pain from those neurons. However, this is different from other pain treatments which function by changing your perception of pain (things like morphine or other opiates).
So anyway, that's why toxins can be used to treat pain. The earlier drugs developed were (omega)-conotoxins, which tend to target the voltage-dependent calcium channels. This is from the (mu-O)-conotoxins which is a different family that tends to block the voltage-gated sodium channel, which is actually the channel I've done most of my PhD research on. In fact, I was in the process of writing a research proposal to do pretty much what the experimenters in this study have done. It looks really interesting, but there are still tons of problems involved in using peptides therapeutically (your digestive system tends to be remarkably good at tearing peptides to bits, for example). Oh well, you can't win 'em all.
As to the rest of the comment, I'll raise my eyebrows at it. I'm thoroughly skeptical that tunneling would be involved in smell though, but it would be amazing if it were. We'll find out soon enough I'm sure.
Fantastic post. I wish I had mod points today, but don't. So I'll just post here and say, cheers.
I play Gemstone, an older (to put it lightly) text-based MMORPG. In it, someone's "popularity" or whatever comes from interacting with other characters etc. Having a game mechanic to tell you if someone was a jerk to someone else seems very very strange, and would definetly be out of character. So, for "role playing" games I don't feel like that is something that's useful or good. On the other hand, if the game has on objective, and you are trying to "win" WoW or whatever, I guess having that feedback system could save you time and frustration. I guess one way to rationalize this in character is to have some little cottage where you would go in and greet a jolly fat man in a little red suit who keeps track of who's "naughty" or "nice".
I played WC3, SC, etc but then took a long break from gaming, and then when I decided that I had some disposable time to waste gaming again, it was basically a decision between WoW and Gemstone IV. even caming into a n00b into an environment where it seems most people have been playing for 5-10 years, it's been really fun. it's really intricate and involved and a ton of fun. so yes, I'll back that text-based games are great, and my typing skills really speeded up, which is impressive considering how much time I waste on IM. I guess typing as fast as you can to not get your character pwned is more of a motivation than keeping my friends entertained.
the downside is that now on unix systems where I spend the working time of my life, i'll often type LOOK when i'm confused about where i am... oh well. i then made an alias on my work systems that chides me for using LOOK there...
the battery development problem is a frontier that is being worked on very frantically in such research areas as the people who want to bring you electric cars, as well as the fuel-cell development folks. the fuel cell/battery researchers are trying to solve the exact same problems as far as i can find out: easily moving electrons around in solution without protons (or other ions, such as Li+) going along for the ride. so rest assured, someone is trying to make you a better battery.
so, Thom Patterson - CNN reported last night that it was a 1.5" piece of tile. MARCIA DUNN, AP Aerospace Writer - on the yahoo! news - says that it's a "sizable chunk of foam insulation -- the very thing that doomed Columbia" - but then later says that it was indeed a 1.5" piece of tile while in the latest report from yahoo! it's simply "a large piece of foam insulation broke." interesting to see this evolve. at least it's not being sensationalized...
this may be off-topic or whatever, but one of my coworkers was a big jackass and installed norton AV on our G5 Powermac. the next time i used it there was a huge slowdown of the system and a quick check of the process monitor showed it using something like 80% of my cpu time for "AutoProtect." after a prompt uninstall, i've noticed a couple other G5's around here getting wasted by that same software (i'm at a university where grad students, who may or may not be very computer-saavy maintain the systems). does anyone else think this software is just garbage?
thx. that's the one i had searched for and couldn't find. i wanted to see which isotope of fluorine they were using...
this topic is indeed huge, and something that would be very important to know. therefore i'm surprised that a finding that was actually real would be published in a garbage journal like new scientist. a google scholar search returns about 3,230 hits for articles in this area, most of which many are in peer-reviewed journals. i'm skeptical of this find unless i could see a real paper...