FWIW if you're on Facebook, current VT students on Facebook are checking in via joining the group "I'm okay at VT". You might find friends checking in there.
As horrifying as this sickening act of violence is, it's sobering to recognize that this kind of random death toll is practically a daily event in Baghdad. We should be equally shocked and horrified by that.
It's interesting you say this because I had the same thought today as the events unraveled. I'll be back on campus, walking across Drillfield, without having to worry about this tomorrow, and hopefully ever again. I feel sick to my stomach right now but in a few months, it will be a dark memory. How do people survive being a possible victim to this level of violence every day of their lives?
Consider looking at non-mainstream, customizable notebooks, known as whitebooks. These notebooks are often made by the same manufacturers as those of Fujitsu, Hewlett-Packard, Dell, and other brand names. There are only a handful of ODMs (original design manufacturers), the companies that actually make the notebooks, in the world, the two largest being Quanta and Compal; ASUS lags behind them but is making its way up to the top three.
With whitebooks, you will never get a laptop cheaper than through, say, Dell, but you will get much higher quality components for the buck, greater customization options, excellent warranty options and of course, you can buy the parts! Whitebooks are normally purchased through notebook resellers. My favorite is PowerNotebooks.com, but there are plenty of others such as ProPortable.com.
Current models to check out would be the Compal HEL80 and HGL30 and ASUS S96J and W3J. Check out the reviews and the forums at NotebookReview.com (better known as NBR). That site was a tremendous resource for me and helped me decide on the Compal HEL80 for myself.
I wouldn't count on any of those stores having the same setups for the next console launch. In 2-3 years, all those Wal-mart managers will have left, replaced by new cool guys/dicks.
I own and highly recommend the Compal HEL80 This notebook is awesome! You can get it with a matte (not glossy) WSXGA+ (1680x1050) screen. Power behind it is nVIDIA GeForce Go 7600, and you can get Intel Core 2 Duo now. It's a whitebook which means you buy it from a notebook reseller, not from Circus City or Worst Buy. My favorite and most highly recommended reseller would be PowerNotebooks; if you order from them be sure to order by phone for a nice discount. ProPortable is also a good place to buy from.
+1 and a "me too" to this. Some of the Virginia Tech Linux/Unix Users Group members and I just gave a two-day crash course in using Linux. The presentations were created with OpenOffice and presented both with OOo and Evince. The presentations were distributed to our audience before-hand and remain downloadable as PDFs, created via OOo, of course. See the VTLUUG site for yourself.
Actually, Merom is compatible with Yonah chipsets. In plain English, that means that you can buy a Core 2 Duo processor and drop it into the same slot as your Core Duo processor currently occupies, possibly necessitating a BIOS update. When the Santa Rosa chipset is released in 2007, you will have to be more conscientious of what Merom processor you purchase, but until then, the upgrade is a CPU-swap away. Since this will void your notebook's warranty, though, you should probably wait to make the switch after the warranty expires.
It's not just about the proteins. As of the past decade we have begun to realize that the paradigm of DNA -(transcription)-> mRNA -(translation)-> Protein is not the end all, be all. We have regulartory elements on the DNA that affects the rates of transcription, mRNA modification which creates a wide variety of alternative splices, non-coding RNA that, despite not going to protein, still has important biological roles, and even non-coding DNA, previously disregarded as "Junk DNA" that life sciences researchers are beginning to hypothesize actually plays critical roles in gene regulation through methylation patterns, chromatin, etc.
Life sciences research has orthogonality. So what if one question's a stumper? You can still make headway on others.
I've run 7 businesses in the 15 years I've been in business.
and now you state:
I'm 31.
Is this true? I ask you, in earnest, have you really been running businesses since you were sixteen years old? That is remarkable. And seven businesses, no less. That could be remarkable, too, or not, depending on how you exited those ventures. If they ended in buyouts, it bodes well, but if they ended in closings, well...
The function of most genes that code for proteins is not known. This is a fact. Surf GenBank and see how many genes are annotated as "putative" this or "hypothetical" that. On top of this, there are very few functions that are controlled by just one gene; most functions have whole operons (strings of genes) that must act in complex feedback loops to make something biologically viable.
There's simply not enough knowledge about the genes we have sequenced right now for this "new approach" to be anything more than firing shots in the dark. This is truly arrogant and inane.
At this point, taking a known, culturable organism and dropping new genes in it is more likely to get you to your goal than starting from scratch. Maybe 100 years from now, well, who knows, maybe we'll actually know a little bit about biosystematics, but for now, no. Stop wasting my taxpayer money and give the grants to researchers who understand the limits of today's knowledge and are thus better qualified to extend those limits.
This is like trying to recreate the Linux kernel from scratch, except that we don't even know what 90% of the drivers are supposed to do!
Give time for a really good endemic/pandemic of a really nasty, contact-dependant communicable bug, and hand-based biometrics are going to look like a bad idea real quickly.
Think SARS panic plus these stupid hand/fingerprint scanners.
At the University of Georgia, they already have such systems set up for access into the dining halls, dorms, and the rec facility. Thank God on the other side of those hand scanners there's usually a hand-sanitizer dispenser. If it weren't for that, I can only imagine how much more frequently I'd be ill.
Retinal biometrics, okay, just don't blind me. But hand-based biometrics... I mean, watch what you do with your hands everyday... then think about the guy in front of you in line who's using that scanner. Hope you like mucosal exchanges...
Gov. Mike Huckabee, R-Ark., said the most reliable predictor of success in college is a student's exposure to challenging high school courses _ and that governors know they must act.
The problem here is that, in my own experience, a lot of instructors in public schools today confuse a challenging course that induces critical thinking and development of analytical and practical skills with a course that throws large amounts of busywork at students. I attended 3 high schools, one was Punahou Academy, one was Carlisle High School, and one was Patch High School. The first, being an exclusive private school, also had the most challenging curriculum, and the most creative teachers who. The second had the most busywork, and the least creative teachers. The last had a fair blend of both busywork and critical thinking, but leaned towards the truly challenging side.
These three schools stood at disparate places on the funding scale. Punahou charges a high tuition for their students, and pays their teachers wonderfully, enough to attract even those who hold PhDs. Patch was second on the list, being funded by the Department of Defense for teaching overseas military kids. Their benies were good and their pay-scale was fairly high relative to States-side schools. Carlisle was an underfunded school, where there just wasn't enough money to attract enough teachers who could deal with turning around undermotivated kids.
It's been my experience that there's a high correlation between money available to finance schools and the quality of education. Money and availability of resources attracts motivated people. I'm not saying that the public school systems should be expected to pay out what Punahou does to attract bright teachers, but when garbage-men (sorry, "sanitation engineers") make more than teachers, it's not surprising that a lot of people that end up in public education are undermotivated.
There are lots of other factors that go into schools' quality that money can't solve, but increased money and resources is a good start. Bill apparently appreciates that approach, as well, with his donation of over $700M to the cause.
Many of these open-source projects are hosted at bioinformatics.org. The site also contains great information in the FAQ such as definitions of bioinformatics, colleges and universities that offer programs, both undergraduate and graduate level, in bioinformatics, and discussion of skills required or suggested for the area of study.
Slashdot Mirror
That's a spectacularly illustrative link. Also, here's a preemptive Coral Cache link to the media file in case of a /.ed server.
And what of the 99.999999999...% of the other bacteria in the environment (which includes the Stratosphere and beyond)?...
No, it's just devoid of intelligent life.
FWIW if you're on Facebook, current VT students on Facebook are checking in via joining the group "I'm okay at VT". You might find friends checking in there.
It's interesting you say this because I had the same thought today as the events unraveled. I'll be back on campus, walking across Drillfield, without having to worry about this tomorrow, and hopefully ever again. I feel sick to my stomach right now but in a few months, it will be a dark memory. How do people survive being a possible victim to this level of violence every day of their lives?
Consider looking at non-mainstream, customizable notebooks, known as whitebooks. These notebooks are often made by the same manufacturers as those of Fujitsu, Hewlett-Packard, Dell, and other brand names. There are only a handful of ODMs (original design manufacturers), the companies that actually make the notebooks, in the world, the two largest being Quanta and Compal; ASUS lags behind them but is making its way up to the top three.
With whitebooks, you will never get a laptop cheaper than through, say, Dell, but you will get much higher quality components for the buck, greater customization options, excellent warranty options and of course, you can buy the parts! Whitebooks are normally purchased through notebook resellers. My favorite is PowerNotebooks.com, but there are plenty of others such as ProPortable.com.
Current models to check out would be the Compal HEL80 and HGL30 and ASUS S96J and W3J. Check out the reviews and the forums at NotebookReview.com (better known as NBR). That site was a tremendous resource for me and helped me decide on the Compal HEL80 for myself.
I wouldn't count on any of those stores having the same setups for the next console launch. In 2-3 years, all those Wal-mart managers will have left, replaced by new cool guys/dicks.
The category page has links to RSS feeds (far right column). =-)
I own and highly recommend the Compal HEL80 This notebook is awesome! You can get it with a matte (not glossy) WSXGA+ (1680x1050) screen. Power behind it is nVIDIA GeForce Go 7600, and you can get Intel Core 2 Duo now. It's a whitebook which means you buy it from a notebook reseller, not from Circus City or Worst Buy. My favorite and most highly recommended reseller would be PowerNotebooks; if you order from them be sure to order by phone for a nice discount. ProPortable is also a good place to buy from.
[blockquote]there's no instant gratification without years of practice[/blockquote]
This guy obviously never heard of the power chord...
+1 and a "me too" to this. Some of the Virginia Tech Linux/Unix Users Group members and I just gave a two-day crash course in using Linux. The presentations were created with OpenOffice and presented both with OOo and Evince. The presentations were distributed to our audience before-hand and remain downloadable as PDFs, created via OOo, of course. See the VTLUUG site for yourself.
Actually, Merom is compatible with Yonah chipsets. In plain English, that means that you can buy a Core 2 Duo processor and drop it into the same slot as your Core Duo processor currently occupies, possibly necessitating a BIOS update. When the Santa Rosa chipset is released in 2007, you will have to be more conscientious of what Merom processor you purchase, but until then, the upgrade is a CPU-swap away. Since this will void your notebook's warranty, though, you should probably wait to make the switch after the warranty expires.
That's not exactly the most flattering question, considering the diminutive size of today's cell phones...
It's not just about the proteins. As of the past decade we have begun to realize that the paradigm of DNA -(transcription)-> mRNA -(translation)-> Protein is not the end all, be all. We have regulartory elements on the DNA that affects the rates of transcription, mRNA modification which creates a wide variety of alternative splices, non-coding RNA that, despite not going to protein, still has important biological roles, and even non-coding DNA, previously disregarded as "Junk DNA" that life sciences researchers are beginning to hypothesize actually plays critical roles in gene regulation through methylation patterns, chromatin, etc.
Life sciences research has orthogonality. So what if one question's a stumper? You can still make headway on others.
dada21, you stated in the gp post:
and now you state:
Is this true? I ask you, in earnest, have you really been running businesses since you were sixteen years old? That is remarkable. And seven businesses, no less. That could be remarkable, too, or not, depending on how you exited those ventures. If they ended in buyouts, it bodes well, but if they ended in closings, well...
The function of most genes that code for proteins is not known. This is a fact. Surf GenBank and see how many genes are annotated as "putative" this or "hypothetical" that. On top of this, there are very few functions that are controlled by just one gene; most functions have whole operons (strings of genes) that must act in complex feedback loops to make something biologically viable.
There's simply not enough knowledge about the genes we have sequenced right now for this "new approach" to be anything more than firing shots in the dark. This is truly arrogant and inane.
At this point, taking a known, culturable organism and dropping new genes in it is more likely to get you to your goal than starting from scratch. Maybe 100 years from now, well, who knows, maybe we'll actually know a little bit about biosystematics, but for now, no. Stop wasting my taxpayer money and give the grants to researchers who understand the limits of today's knowledge and are thus better qualified to extend those limits.
This is like trying to recreate the Linux kernel from scratch, except that we don't even know what 90% of the drivers are supposed to do!
I, for one, welcome our new Debian 3.1 overlords, as I upgrade my boxen from Woody to Sarge.
Thank you, Debian developers everywhere!
Serenity now!!!
Give time for a really good endemic/pandemic of a really nasty, contact-dependant communicable bug, and hand-based biometrics are going to look like a bad idea real quickly.
Think SARS panic plus these stupid hand/fingerprint scanners.
At the University of Georgia, they already have such systems set up for access into the dining halls, dorms, and the rec facility. Thank God on the other side of those hand scanners there's usually a hand-sanitizer dispenser. If it weren't for that, I can only imagine how much more frequently I'd be ill.
Retinal biometrics, okay, just don't blind me. But hand-based biometrics... I mean, watch what you do with your hands everyday... then think about the guy in front of you in line who's using that scanner. Hope you like mucosal exchanges...
Where are you from? Arkansas? And here I thought those Foxworthy jokes about packing your school lunch with your kids' was a hyperbole.
I guess it's thanks to people like you that we're shoving birth control education down the throats of fifth graders, now.
And what's a better way to show them than through pictures Lots and lots of pretty pictures. :-)
From TFA:
The problem here is that, in my own experience, a lot of instructors in public schools today confuse a challenging course that induces critical thinking and development of analytical and practical skills with a course that throws large amounts of busywork at students. I attended 3 high schools, one was Punahou Academy, one was Carlisle High School, and one was Patch High School. The first, being an exclusive private school, also had the most challenging curriculum, and the most creative teachers who. The second had the most busywork, and the least creative teachers. The last had a fair blend of both busywork and critical thinking, but leaned towards the truly challenging side.
These three schools stood at disparate places on the funding scale. Punahou charges a high tuition for their students, and pays their teachers wonderfully, enough to attract even those who hold PhDs. Patch was second on the list, being funded by the Department of Defense for teaching overseas military kids. Their benies were good and their pay-scale was fairly high relative to States-side schools. Carlisle was an underfunded school, where there just wasn't enough money to attract enough teachers who could deal with turning around undermotivated kids.
It's been my experience that there's a high correlation between money available to finance schools and the quality of education. Money and availability of resources attracts motivated people. I'm not saying that the public school systems should be expected to pay out what Punahou does to attract bright teachers, but when garbage-men (sorry, "sanitation engineers") make more than teachers, it's not surprising that a lot of people that end up in public education are undermotivated.
There are lots of other factors that go into schools' quality that money can't solve, but increased money and resources is a good start. Bill apparently appreciates that approach, as well, with his donation of over $700M to the cause.
Yes, but this is so much cooler than selling people's own fat @$$es back to them as soap.
I think Robert Paulson would agree...
Many of these open-source projects are hosted at bioinformatics.org. The site also contains great information in the FAQ such as definitions of bioinformatics, colleges and universities that offer programs, both undergraduate and graduate level, in bioinformatics, and discussion of skills required or suggested for the area of study.