Since legal immigrants are required to get polio vaccines if they're from a location that still hasn't eradicated polio, we are left only with illegal immigrants.
Not everybody who enters the US from a foreign country is an immigrant, illegal or otherwise.
The problem with gravity is that it's easy to test it. Don't believe it, try it. You usually don't have that luxury with Evolution, unless you got access to a time machine. I'd fear that if you teach theories this way and point out that every other theory taught can be proven, while it's kinda hard to "prove" Evolution to a school student, the message could be the wrong one.
Evolution is easy to test. I've done it myself. It is trivial to demonstrate the evolution of antibiotic resistance using bacteria and a petri plate. Now perhaps you want to quibble that all of the other genetic differences between species might not be due to evolution, even though they match the kinds of genetic changes that are produced by evolution.
But I could just as well argue that gravity might have been different a billion years ago, or in the far distant reaches of the universe, or that it might stop working tomorrow? Can you prove me wrong? Without a time machine?
But Newtonian physics is not wrong. It's limited in its useful scope.
No, the equations of Newtonian physics are always wrong. Sometimes they are wrong by such a small amount that the error is not practically important, but being only a little bit wrong is not the same as being right.
Any scientist will tell you that evolution is a theory, just like gravitational theory, or atomic theory. ALL scientific explanations and generalizations are theories. The only facts are observations: "I dropped a pencil and it fell to the floor" may be a fact. "Dropped objects fall toward the ground" is a theory.
As a result, it is never acceptable to single out some area of scientific knowledge as "only a theory," because this conveys the false impression that it is less well established than all of the other theories that make up the rest of the body of scientific knowledge.
As a biologist, I'm not aware of any "weaknesses," in terms of inconsistency with the evidence. I've read those promoted by ID/creationists, and all are false or downright fraudulent.
But there are certainly areas of evolutionary theory where unresolved questions remain. These are appropriate for discussion in classes at the appropriate educational level--graduate courses, or high-level undergraduate college courses--where students have the educational background to understand the issues.
Netflix is not a movie review site intended to help you decide what movie to see in the theater. There are plenty of those. But Netflix is a movie rental site. The reviews are there to help people decide what movies to order. By time a movie is actually available on Netflix, the handful of pre-release reviews will be swamped by many more reviews from people who saw the movie during its theatrical release. So it doesn't really matter to anybody whether those early bird reviews are from people who happened to get an advance screening (of which there are often quite a few) or from enthusiasts who are reviewing how much they expect to like the movie.
Yes, the results can seem magical even though the underlying mechanism is simple. This is probably why many people are misled into seeking a magical explanation.
Get a life: the fact they mutate positively, towards an end of creating "better" enzymes: they were designed.
No, the mutation procedure used for in vitro evolution is unintelligent and nonspecific and produces both "better" and "worse" enzymes. It is selection that picks out the "better" mutations and discards the worse ones. No intelligence as to what changes will make the enzyme better is required.
So you're saying the people who devised these experiments are stupid ?
They could be smarter than most people and still not be intelligent enough to figure out what specific sequence will produce the most efficient catalysis.
But the wonder of unintelligent design is that you don't have to be smart enough to know the answer--just smart enough to set up a system that exploits the power of random mutation and selection to discover novel information.
Not entirely. According to the paper, they were in part designed by in vitro evolution, an "unintelligent" design method that makes use of random mutation and selection to derive better enzymes. The power of "unintelligent" design mechanisms (of which evolution is one) is that they do not require that the specific solution to a design problem be known in advance.
iWork '09, among other things, finally becomes a serious contender for an MS Office alternative, because it fully supports "OLE" type capabilities. I can finally make a chart in "Numbers" and link it to a Pages doc or Keynote presentation, and have the chart change dynamically when I update figures in the spreadsheet. Without this functionality, it really was kind of "second class" as Office suites go.....
It also helps that Office 2008 was a dud (sort of like Vista). No more full compatibility with Widows version, no Visual Basic, no Solver in Excel--basically lacking all of the features that made me use Office.
And it's compatible with EndNote. That is big for me, although frankly I'd rather have compatibility with Sente.
There is no trade off. You make the battery removable. You might get a seam on your casing. Oh no. But you most certainly do not lose 28.5% of your space! (1 - 1/1.4)
That's kind of foolish. You need a separate case for the battery. You need some sort of robust compartment that won't be damaged by people popping the battery in and out, and that will hold the battery in place. You need foolproof connectors on the laptop and on the battery. You need some sort of latch that won't break or come loose unexpectedly. All of that adds weight and take up space. And you gain what? Avoiding the slight inconvenience of taking the case apart every few years to replace the battery?
It isn't that hard to take a laptop apart, either, especially if you only have to do it once every few years. I think that substantially increased battery time is well worth that slight inconvenience.
Until bandwidth increases substantially, downloadable and broadcast HD will never match the quality of BluRay. For example, I can almost always see a frame of pixelation after a sudden scene change in broadcast HD. And there are also all of the extras and features that the larger size of the BluRay disk allows, which is a big part of the appeal of a disk.
BluRay will almost certainly replace DVD. But it probably won't happen until BluRay disks and players are price-competitive with standard DVD players. Most consumers are not willing to pay a premium for BluRay. It's better, but on the modest screen size TVs that are owned by most people, the difference is fairly subtle--perhaps worth an extra dollar on the disk and an extra $10 on the player, at most. Netflix has it about right by charging an extra dollar for BluRay subscriptions.
The Street Fighter II HD update looks great, and is as much fun as I remember, but I wish that they'd also improved the resolution of the animation by adding more frames.
You do to install OS X. A user agreement appears when you launch the installer, and you must click an "Accept" button to continue. If you choose not to install, you can return it and get your money back.
So you concede that there is precedent for the validity of the EULA. Can you provide any example of a court decision in which it has been ruled that EULA's are not valid under US law?
Since copyright law is defined by the document I cited, please reference the clause that says "with the author's permission". Hint: there is none. If you own software, you can run it. The law says so.
Copyright law only concerns copying. All it says is that it is not a violation of copyright to back up the software or copy the software to memory in the course of a legitimate use.
Copyright law has nothing to say about whether a particular use is legitimate. That is covered by contract law--the license agreement that you have to accept in order to install the software.
This probably doesn't help Psystar's case but I would suspect that it would help someone making a Hackintosh for their own use.
It would be interesting to see this argued in court, but I doubt if it will ever happen, since it is clearly not in Apple's interest to sue individuals who hack OS X to run on non-Apple software. This has been going on for some time with no hint of legal action from Apple.
I have boxed copies of 10.{1,2,3,4,5} at home. Never once have I signed any agreement or acknowledgement or waiver of rights.
It is stated in the documentation and presented on screen when the software is installed. To install, you must click a button to agree to the license restrictions. If you choose not to do so, you are entitled to return the software to Apple for a refund.
Pystar are trying to make that claim that the Mac OS X bootloader detects their hardware and refuses to run on it. That's illegal - so says the Supreme Court - as it denies competition.
If this were true, game consoles would not exist. PS3 software detects the hardware and will not run on anything other than a PS3. XBox software detects the hardware and will not run on anything else. Nintendo games detect Nintendo hardware and will not run on anything else. Conversely, PS3 consoles will only run games approved by Sony and XBox consoles will only run games approved by Microsoft.
It may be legal for a competitor to get around such software/hardware restrictions (for example, to produce a game that will run on a PS3 without paying Sony for the privilege), so long as they can do it without violating patents or DMCA restrictions.
Slashdot Mirror
Not everybody who enters the US from a foreign country is an immigrant, illegal or otherwise.
Evolution is easy to test. I've done it myself. It is trivial to demonstrate the evolution of antibiotic resistance using bacteria and a petri plate. Now perhaps you want to quibble that all of the other genetic differences between species might not be due to evolution, even though they match the kinds of genetic changes that are produced by evolution.
But I could just as well argue that gravity might have been different a billion years ago, or in the far distant reaches of the universe, or that it might stop working tomorrow? Can you prove me wrong? Without a time machine?
No, the equations of Newtonian physics are always wrong. Sometimes they are wrong by such a small amount that the error is not practically important, but being only a little bit wrong is not the same as being right.
Any scientist will tell you that evolution is a theory, just like gravitational theory, or atomic theory. ALL scientific explanations and generalizations are theories. The only facts are observations: "I dropped a pencil and it fell to the floor" may be a fact. "Dropped objects fall toward the ground" is a theory.
As a result, it is never acceptable to single out some area of scientific knowledge as "only a theory," because this conveys the false impression that it is less well established than all of the other theories that make up the rest of the body of scientific knowledge.
As a biologist, I'm not aware of any "weaknesses," in terms of inconsistency with the evidence. I've read those promoted by ID/creationists, and all are false or downright fraudulent.
But there are certainly areas of evolutionary theory where unresolved questions remain. These are appropriate for discussion in classes at the appropriate educational level--graduate courses, or high-level undergraduate college courses--where students have the educational background to understand the issues.
Netflix is not a movie review site intended to help you decide what movie to see in the theater. There are plenty of those. But Netflix is a movie rental site. The reviews are there to help people decide what movies to order. By time a movie is actually available on Netflix, the handful of pre-release reviews will be swamped by many more reviews from people who saw the movie during its theatrical release. So it doesn't really matter to anybody whether those early bird reviews are from people who happened to get an advance screening (of which there are often quite a few) or from enthusiasts who are reviewing how much they expect to like the movie.
Yes, the results can seem magical even though the underlying mechanism is simple. This is probably why many people are misled into seeking a magical explanation.
No, the mutation procedure used for in vitro evolution is unintelligent and nonspecific and produces both "better" and "worse" enzymes. It is selection that picks out the "better" mutations and discards the worse ones. No intelligence as to what changes will make the enzyme better is required.
They could be smarter than most people and still not be intelligent enough to figure out what specific sequence will produce the most efficient catalysis.
But the wonder of unintelligent design is that you don't have to be smart enough to know the answer--just smart enough to set up a system that exploits the power of random mutation and selection to discover novel information.
Not entirely. According to the paper, they were in part designed by in vitro evolution, an "unintelligent" design method that makes use of random mutation and selection to derive better enzymes. The power of "unintelligent" design mechanisms (of which evolution is one) is that they do not require that the specific solution to a design problem be known in advance.
iWork '09, among other things, finally becomes a serious contender for an MS Office alternative, because it fully supports "OLE" type capabilities. I can finally make a chart in "Numbers" and link it to a Pages doc or Keynote presentation, and have the chart change dynamically when I update figures in the spreadsheet. Without this functionality, it really was kind of "second class" as Office suites go.....
It also helps that Office 2008 was a dud (sort of like Vista). No more full compatibility with Widows version, no Visual Basic, no Solver in Excel--basically lacking all of the features that made me use Office.
And it's compatible with EndNote. That is big for me, although frankly I'd rather have compatibility with Sente.
You do know that this is pure horse shit, right?
There is no trade off. You make the battery removable. You might get a seam on your casing. Oh no. But you most certainly do not lose 28.5% of your space! (1 - 1/1.4)
That's kind of foolish. You need a separate case for the battery. You need some sort of robust compartment that won't be damaged by people popping the battery in and out, and that will hold the battery in place. You need foolproof connectors on the laptop and on the battery. You need some sort of latch that won't break or come loose unexpectedly. All of that adds weight and take up space. And you gain what? Avoiding the slight inconvenience of taking the case apart every few years to replace the battery?
It isn't that hard to take a laptop apart, either, especially if you only have to do it once every few years. I think that substantially increased battery time is well worth that slight inconvenience.
Until bandwidth increases substantially, downloadable and broadcast HD will never match the quality of BluRay. For example, I can almost always see a frame of pixelation after a sudden scene change in broadcast HD. And there are also all of the extras and features that the larger size of the BluRay disk allows, which is a big part of the appeal of a disk.
Yes, I've bought more download titles than disks
BluRay will almost certainly replace DVD. But it probably won't happen until BluRay disks and players are price-competitive with standard DVD players. Most consumers are not willing to pay a premium for BluRay. It's better, but on the modest screen size TVs that are owned by most people, the difference is fairly subtle--perhaps worth an extra dollar on the disk and an extra $10 on the player, at most. Netflix has it about right by charging an extra dollar for BluRay subscriptions.
The Street Fighter II HD update looks great, and is as much fun as I remember, but I wish that they'd also improved the resolution of the animation by adding more frames.
You do to install OS X. A user agreement appears when you launch the installer, and you must click an "Accept" button to continue. If you choose not to install, you can return it and get your money back.
So you concede that there is precedent for the validity of the EULA. Can you provide any example of a court decision in which it has been ruled that EULA's are not valid under US law?
Since copyright law is defined by the document I cited, please reference the clause that says "with the author's permission". Hint: there is none. If you own software, you can run it. The law says so.
Copyright law only concerns copying. All it says is that it is not a violation of copyright to back up the software or copy the software to memory in the course of a legitimate use.
Copyright law has nothing to say about whether a particular use is legitimate. That is covered by contract law--the license agreement that you have to accept in order to install the software.
It would be interesting to see this argued in court, but I doubt if it will ever happen, since it is clearly not in Apple's interest to sue individuals who hack OS X to run on non-Apple software. This has been going on for some time with no hint of legal action from Apple.
Certainly, so long as it is a use that is permitted under the license -- which in this case is limited to installing it on an Apple computer.
It is stated in the documentation and presented on screen when the software is installed. To install, you must click a button to agree to the license restrictions. If you choose not to do so, you are entitled to return the software to Apple for a refund.
If this is so definitively settled, then it should be easy for you to find a court decision supporting your claim.
Still waiting....
If this were true, game consoles would not exist. PS3 software detects the hardware and will not run on anything other than a PS3. XBox software detects the hardware and will not run on anything else. Nintendo games detect Nintendo hardware and will not run on anything else. Conversely, PS3 consoles will only run games approved by Sony and XBox consoles will only run games approved by Microsoft.
It may be legal for a competitor to get around such software/hardware restrictions (for example, to produce a game that will run on a PS3 without paying Sony for the privilege), so long as they can do it without violating patents or DMCA restrictions.