Sonic hedgehog is the name of a gene - it was named over a decade ago. It was called that because it was a new member of the 'hedgehog' family of genes. The only other gene name that has been changed after corporate intervention was a gene in the fruitfly that was called 'velcro' and was renamed 'puckered'. Fruitflies have a large number of whimsically named genes - my favourite (also a possible trademark violation) being 'Ken and Barbie' since flies lacking the gene have no external genitalia.
I am terminally indecisive with most online shopping, comparing prices, similar producst, looking for reviews etc etc...
EXCEPT with buying music. Music I don't want to wait for, I want it NOW!
Indeed. I always preferred Cyberpunk myself. In an industry where the more dedicated roleplayers tend to buy LESS product than novices, aiming for the munchkin market is probably a wise idea...
Oh yes! The 3D version looks top! Seems also to includes the cities and knights edition. The little figure which is presumably the robber is very amusing...
I second Vinci as a great game. Not as time consuming as as civ (a game takes a couple of hours), but a well thought out strategy game that benefits from playing again and again.
This is because each player plays a number of civilisations during the game, and gets too choose from a number of different civs. Each has 2 'special abilities' picked from a big bag of them, that determines its strengths and weaknesses and thus the best strategies to play. You can change to another civ (at a cost...) so if you think you made a bad decision you can get yourself back into the game.
Anyway, I like it a lot, it has plenty to think about and enormous variety.
Chihiro
Re:Related News: New Warhammer Roleplaying Game
on
NYT on Warhammer
·
· Score: 1
WHFRP, now that's a proper game. Classic table top and by far the best thing ever to have come out of GW. I was very sad to see Hogshead Publishing (who had the rights to WHFRP) cease business a while back. They published some of the most imaginative and well crafted roleplaying games the Industry has ever seen.
I await with some curiosity what Green Ronin Press do with it.
Completely different kettle of fish to 40K etc - which is why GW never seemed to know what to do with it...
As far as GW the company is concerned - for a while I hated them for marginalising WHFRP, and turning White Dwarf into a sales catalogue, but have now calmed down on that and consider it a good thing that a UK based gaming company has managed to survive at all.
I agree that BioMedCentral is the more innovative journal and deserves to succeed, but sadly the profile of journals is SO central to the way that funding is awarded (and reputation is gained) that I believe that the effort and money that PLoS has put into this is warranted.
Take Cell for example. A Cell paper has enormous weight and every biologist wants a Cell paper. Does that mean that the best papers always get into Cell? Goodness no! But while Cell's reputation (and impact factor) remain high everyone will try to publish their best work there - its a self sustaining cycle.
Whether or not PLoS's business model is unsustainable I'm not in a position to judge, but for better or worse, if Open Publishing is to succeed it needs to pander to the baser instincts of scientists as well as their idealistic ones. And that means making sure that its impact factor is a great as possible, and thus making a PLoS paper look as good on a CV as possible.
It would be nice to think that the best papers will rise to the top and always have the most positive influence on teh careers of scientists, but sadly this isn't really the case. A dodgy Nature or Cell paper looks better on a CV than a really solid paper elsewhere.
Name recognotion is crucial, which is why PLoS Biology stands a good chance. It has had a pretty high profile in the Biosciences. A number of well respected scientists were instrumental in starting PLoS up, and the editor was poached from a big journal (Nature I think, but I may have misremembered).
The papers I've seen it PLoS Bio so far have been pretty good. Not as 'high profile' as Nature but solid work, and with papers long enough to avoid the 'tabloid' tendency that Nature sometimes has (short papers, exciting results, very little detail)
All power to PLoS, lets hope the other PLoS journals also meet with success.
I think business users are going to use Office, whatever. I think the good thing about Pages is that it offers a cheap home alternative for those who just wouldn't buy a full copy of office for 400 odd quid, and who only want to write and read letters.
1. Music capacity is based on 4 minutes per song and 128Kbps AAC encoding.
**2. Do not chew iPod shuffle.**
3. Rechargeable batteries have a limited number of charge cycles and may eventually need to be replaced. Battery life and number of charge cycles vary by use and settings. See www.apple.com/uk/batteries for more information.
4. Some computers require either the optional iPod shuffle Dock or a USB cable extender (sold separately).
http://www.apple.com/uk/ipodshuffle/
I for one am very disappointed that chewing functionality has been omitted from the shuffle. I personally was waiting for the blueberry flavored version. Maybe next year....
> 4) People who've studied in the UK at the MSc, MPhil, MEngg level - how did you fund your education? Were you able to get things like teaching or research assistantships and how much of your costs did these cover?"
PhD courses in the UK, usually have funding associated with the positions, Masters on the whole don't. So I suspect you'll have to fund yourself, for the period required to complete a masters (usually a year, full-time in the UK).
You may well be able to get RA work, or other ways to help fund yourself, but these tend to vary depending on the University, and there are no guarantees.
The alternative is to do things part time. I am currently doing a (self funded) Masters in Bioinformatics in my spare time - It will take about 4 years - I'm about half way through. Or some courses allow you to work half time, and study half time (so the degree takes 2 years).
> the coolest thing about plos is that every table, figure and any other bit of info has its own URL
Actually, better than using URLs PLoS uses DOIs.
http://www.plosbiology.org/plosonline/?request=g et -document&doi=10.1371%2Fjournal.pbio.0000057 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pbio.0000057
I'm not an expert in this field but, this is taken from http://www.doi.org/
"The Digital Object Identifier (DOI) is a system for identifying content objects in the digital environment. DOIs are names assigned to any entity for use on digital networks. They are used to provide current information, including where they (or information about them) can be found on the Internet. Information about a digital object may change over time, including where to find it, but its DOI will not change."
The crucial part here is the last line. even if URLS change the DOI will not, so will remain a stable identifier for that online article.
More and more of the open source and other Internet Journals are adopting this system, but it is by no means universal yet, though probably should be.
the Guardian online section has an article on this speech. It doesn't mention communism though, concentrating mainly on the relationship between MS and Consumer electronics companies.
Slashdot Mirror
Sonic hedgehog is the name of a gene - it was named over a decade ago. It was called that because it was a new member of the 'hedgehog' family of genes. The only other gene name that has been changed after corporate intervention was a gene in the fruitfly that was called 'velcro' and was renamed 'puckered'. Fruitflies have a large number of whimsically named genes - my favourite (also a possible trademark violation) being 'Ken and Barbie' since flies lacking the gene have no external genitalia.
I am terminally indecisive with most online shopping, comparing prices, similar producst, looking for reviews etc etc... EXCEPT with buying music. Music I don't want to wait for, I want it NOW!
Indeed. I always preferred Cyberpunk myself. In an industry where the more dedicated roleplayers tend to buy LESS product than novices, aiming for the munchkin market is probably a wise idea...
Oh yes! The 3D version looks top! Seems also to includes the cities and knights edition. The little figure which is presumably the robber is very amusing...
I second Vinci as a great game. Not as time consuming as as civ (a game takes a couple of hours), but a well thought out strategy game that benefits from playing again and again.
This is because each player plays a number of civilisations during the game, and gets too choose from a number of different civs. Each has 2 'special abilities' picked from a big bag of them, that determines its strengths and weaknesses and thus the best strategies to play. You can change to another civ (at a cost...) so if you think you made a bad decision you can get yourself back into the game.
Anyway, I like it a lot, it has plenty to think about and enormous variety.
Chihiro
WHFRP, now that's a proper game. Classic table top and by far the best thing ever to have come out of GW. I was very sad to see Hogshead Publishing (who had the rights to WHFRP) cease business a while back. They published some of the most imaginative and well crafted roleplaying games the Industry has ever seen.
I await with some curiosity what Green Ronin Press do with it.
Completely different kettle of fish to 40K etc - which is why GW never seemed to know what to do with it...
As far as GW the company is concerned - for a while I hated them for marginalising WHFRP, and turning White Dwarf into a sales catalogue, but have now calmed down on that and consider it a good thing that a UK based gaming company has managed to survive at all.
Still don't go to their shops though...
Chihiro
Brings a tear to the eye... brings back memories of my youth, playing it on my trusty. Back when in the age of proper computer games...
"When I were a lad we only had 48K to play with on my spectrum"
"48K! luxury! My ZX81 had 1K and a 16K RAM pack that crashed as soon as you breathed on it"
I agree that BioMedCentral is the more innovative journal and deserves to succeed, but sadly the profile of journals is SO central to the way that funding is awarded (and reputation is gained) that I believe that the effort and money that PLoS has put into this is warranted.
Take Cell for example. A Cell paper has enormous weight and every biologist wants a Cell paper. Does that mean that the best papers always get into Cell? Goodness no! But while Cell's reputation (and impact factor) remain high everyone will try to publish their best work there - its a self sustaining cycle.
Whether or not PLoS's business model is unsustainable I'm not in a position to judge, but for better or worse, if Open Publishing is to succeed it needs to pander to the baser instincts of scientists as well as their idealistic ones. And that means making sure that its impact factor is a great as possible, and thus making a PLoS paper look as good on a CV as possible.
It would be nice to think that the best papers will rise to the top and always have the most positive influence on teh careers of scientists, but sadly this isn't really the case. A dodgy Nature or Cell paper looks better on a CV than a really solid paper elsewhere.
Name recognotion is crucial, which is why PLoS Biology stands a good chance. It has had a pretty high profile in the Biosciences. A number of well respected scientists were instrumental in starting PLoS up, and the editor was poached from a big journal (Nature I think, but I may have misremembered).
The papers I've seen it PLoS Bio so far have been pretty good. Not as 'high profile' as Nature but solid work, and with papers long enough to avoid the 'tabloid' tendency that Nature sometimes has (short papers, exciting results, very little detail)
All power to PLoS, lets hope the other PLoS journals also meet with success.
I think business users are going to use Office, whatever. I think the good thing about Pages is that it offers a cheap home alternative for those who just wouldn't buy a full copy of office for 400 odd quid, and who only want to write and read letters.
Not a moment too soon...
Official advice from Apple:
1. Music capacity is based on 4 minutes per song and 128Kbps AAC encoding.
**2. Do not chew iPod shuffle.**
3. Rechargeable batteries have a limited number of charge cycles and may eventually need to be replaced. Battery life and number of charge cycles vary by use and settings. See www.apple.com/uk/batteries for more information.
4. Some computers require either the optional iPod shuffle Dock or a USB cable extender (sold separately).
http://www.apple.com/uk/ipodshuffle/
I for one am very disappointed that chewing functionality has been omitted from the shuffle. I personally was waiting for the blueberry flavored version. Maybe next year....
Chihiro
> 4) People who've studied in the UK at the MSc, MPhil, MEngg level - how did you fund your education? Were you able to get things like teaching or research assistantships and how much of your costs did these cover?"
PhD courses in the UK, usually have funding associated with the positions, Masters on the whole don't. So I suspect you'll have to fund yourself, for the period required to complete a masters (usually a year, full-time in the UK).
You may well be able to get RA work, or other ways to help fund yourself, but these tend to vary depending on the University, and there are no guarantees.
The alternative is to do things part time. I am currently doing a (self funded) Masters in Bioinformatics in my spare time - It will take about 4 years - I'm about half way through. Or some courses allow you to work half time, and study half time (so the degree takes 2 years).
> the coolest thing about plos is that every table, figure and any other bit of info has its own URL
g et -document&doi=10.1371%2Fjournal.pbio.0000057: 10.1371/journal.pbio.0000057
Actually, better than using URLs PLoS uses DOIs.
http://www.plosbiology.org/plosonline/?request=
DOI
I'm not an expert in this field but, this is taken from http://www.doi.org/
"The Digital Object Identifier (DOI) is a system for identifying content objects in the digital environment. DOIs are names assigned to any entity for use on digital networks. They are used to provide current information, including where they (or information about them) can be found on the Internet. Information about a digital object may change over time, including where to find it, but its DOI will not change."
The crucial part here is the last line. even if URLS change the DOI will not, so will remain a stable identifier for that online article.
More and more of the open source and other Internet Journals are adopting this system, but it is by no means universal yet, though probably should be.
Chihiro
the Guardian online section has an article on this speech. It doesn't mention communism though, concentrating mainly on the relationship between MS and Consumer electronics companies.
4 586,00.html
"Gates grins and bears it
The Microsoft boss endured a few jokes at the US gadget show, but the software giant is starting to overcome consumer mistrust, reports Jack Schofield"
http://www.guardian.co.uk/online/news/0,12597,138