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User: mhotchin

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  1. News Flash: Identical twins are not identical. on Researchers Identify Genetic Systems Disrupted In Autistic Brain · · Score: 1

    You should look up 'X chromosome Mosaicism'. In female mammals, each cell deactivates one of the two X chromosomes. It basically happens randomly, so *any* female mammal is a mix of cells with about half having an active *maternal* X chromosome, and the others having an active paternal X chromosome.

    Identical twins will have different patterns of X chromosome activation. This can be a completely visible difference, such as in tortiseshell or calico cats

    So, if any of the AD genes are on the X chromosome, they can be expressed *very* differently in otherwise identical twins.
    http://www.vivo.colostate.edu/hbooks/genetics/medgen/chromo/mosaics.html

    That's just the one mechanism I know of off the top of my head that can cause differences in twins, no doubt there are others. Once you get into environmental causes, I'm sure that does nothing but expand the possibilities.

  2. Re:Mr. Wall, please sit down... on Oracle and the End of Programming As We Know It · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Don't be stupid. In all the reporting I've seen, the vast majority of 'guilty but really innocent' problems occur because either the defence is incompetent of the prosecution is behaving illegally. The jury decides on the evidence placed in front of them, not on some 'universal truth' that they don't have access to.

  3. Re:What the hell? on Facebook 'Likes' Aren't Protected Speech · · Score: 1

    The other employees aren't armed.

  4. Re:How does the MTBF scale? on US Small-Scale Nuclear Reactor Industry Gains Traction In Missouri · · Score: 3, Informative

    The Japanese reactors are over 40 years old. Comparing modern designs to that is like saying my 2008 Lexus will have the same kind of failure rates as a 1968 .

    The two are not even comparable.

  5. Re:Well... on End of Windows XP Support Era Signals Beginning of Security Nightmare · · Score: 1

    Are you sure you have all 128 available? Many laptops take their video RAM out of the stuff on the motherboard, you may have substantially less available to the OS that you think.

  6. Re:I trust me, not other parents on Lack of Vaccination Sends Babies In Oregon To the Hospital · · Score: 1

    No vaccine is 100% effective. Some have failure rates as high as 10% or 15%. In those cases, the only thing protecting the 'vaccinated' person is herd immunity.

  7. Re:Why the anger? on Lack of Vaccination Sends Babies In Oregon To the Hospital · · Score: 1

    The *particular* bacterium that causes pertussis is, in fact, hosted only in humans. It doesn't survive for any appreciable time outside its host.

    For other deseases I'm sure your are right, just wanted to point out that for this one, it is eradicatable.

  8. Re:Is this a safe method? on Instant Messaging With Neutrinos · · Score: 1

    The reason neutrinos are hard to detect is because they don't react with anything. The sun is emitting billions of neutrinos *per second* *per square cm* (at the earth). You probably hadn't noticed.

  9. Re:Christ, on Rearview Car Cameras Likely Mandated By 2014 · · Score: 1

    No, but the math is done on cars bought per year, so the outlay is also per year. Just like the 200 deaths potentially saved.

  10. Re:Such systems have been proposed before on The Zuckerberg Tax · · Score: 2

    The term in Canada is 'deemed disposition'. On death, the ESTATE (NOT the inheritor) is required to pay taxes 'as if' the stock had been sold, i.e. on the capital gains up to the point of death. The inheritor starts at that price, and thus pays taxes on all capital gains since the first death once the item is sold.

    This is modulo a few exemptions, for example I believe a house or small business worth less than 'x' is allow to pass without the estate paying taxes.

  11. Re:20 years ago on Some Windows 8 Laptops May Come With Built-In Kinect Sensors · · Score: 2

    As usual, 'Dilbert' seems apropos...
    http://dilbert.com/strips/comic/1994-10-12/

  12. Re: citation needed on Senator Rand Paul Detained By the TSA · · Score: 1

    Don't forget anywhere within 100 miles of an International airport!

  13. Re:Then what file system should we all use? on Microsoft Announces ReFS, a New Filesystem For Windows 8 · · Score: 1

    If locating a replacement for the HW RAID card is difficult, then software RAID may be preferable. Imagine having your card explode, then find out that nothing else in the universe will put your disks back together as a filesystem.

  14. Re:Roll your own? on Ask Slashdot: Free/Open Deduplication Software? · · Score: 1

    Think about things line Virtual Machine images - they could have a *lot* in common, but not everything. DeDupe gets useful once you can work at a sub-file level.

  15. Re:yuck on Hubble Captures the Violent Birth of a Star · · Score: 1

    It's not lens flare (at least not in the classic sense)- it's diffraction around the internal supports for the secondary mirror.

  16. Re:Mod parent up! on Ask Slashdot: How To Get Non-Developers To Send Meaningful Bug Reports? · · Score: 2

    Here's one I've been using, it worked well for my purposes:
    http://www.codeproject.com/KB/debug/crash_report.aspx

  17. Re:Never underestimate the communications on Does Outsourcing Programming Really Save Money? · · Score: 1

    Similar thing in US vs UK, saying you are 'sick' or 'ill'.

    In the US these are usually the same thing, in UK 'sick' means you are going to throw up.

  18. Re:Why bother on Institutional Memory and Reverse Smuggling · · Score: 2

    There are things he can't be *told*. Everyone knows that he already knows them, that's why he was hired!

  19. Re:Seems fair... on In Australia, Immunize Or Lose Benefits · · Score: 5, Informative

    Some people (immune compromized) *can't* get vaccinated, so rely on the 'herd immunity'. Infants 'not yet vaccinated' rely on herd immunity. Also some people who do get immunized simply don't 'take', and thus are unknowingly still at risk.

    The higher the number of non-immunized people, the higher the risk of collateral damage.

  20. Re:Even better on Smart Meters Wreaking Havoc With Home Electronics · · Score: 1

    Most signal transmission schemes over power lines are completely defeated by transformers. The cost of updating every single transformer with a signal bypass likely is more than incorporating wireless into the meters.

  21. Re:The Technologist Perspective on MS To Build Antivirus Into Win8: Boon Or Monopoly? · · Score: 1

    Remember PEBKAC. Most secure OS in the world is *still* going to be vulnerable to HOT_THREESOME.EXE. Once the user has downloaded and run malware, you're going to need a way to clean it up.

    Personally, I think MS should invent a way to punch people over the internet. Anti-virus reports a positive? BAM, right in the .

  22. Re:To Tape... on Why Do Companies Backup So Infrequently? · · Score: 1

    No. Thursday's drive was an 'incremental' backup *relative to the previous thursday*, i.e. it only copies that which has changed in the last week. Once done, the drive contains a complete backup.

  23. Re:Steam can't run in a sandbox so apple can lock on Mac OS X Sandbox Security Hole Uncovered · · Score: 1

    "Watch me not care."

    BOOM

  24. Re:the way to go on Tough Tests Flunk Good Programming Job Candidates · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The saddest thing is - the 'no right answer" questions are (in my mind) one of the *best* ways of evaluating a prospective hire if the interviewer then follows up with "Why did you do it that way?".

    Rather than finding out if the hire can find the answer, I would want some insight into *how* the answer was achieved. Was it something they memorized? Did they evaluate trade-offs? Did the even *see* the trade-offs? Can they evaluate their own answer if (as happens in the real world!) new constraints are placed on the problem?

    An 'inefficient' answer is *just fine* if the code wouldn't be used much, and better if it's more maintainable, for example.

  25. Re:Please God no! on Meet Firefox's Built-In PDF Reader · · Score: 1

    ...which works perfectly for a running computer program - it is an instance of the program that resides on the disk. More than one PDF - more than one instance running.