in deed. also, one has to remember that it's not just applications that drive technology/infrastructure, but technology/infrastructure also drives applications.
BBC has sorta taken it upon themselves to be a technological leader and trendsetting influence in the modern information age. this has been demonstrated in their sponsorship of the bbc.co.uk:Reboot competition a few years back, their BBC Backstage developer network, their promotion of open industry standards and continual support of open innovation & "public-spirited developers and designers."
promoting technological progress is part of the BBC's mission statement and "long-term transformational strategy." other companies don't embody the same idealism and are primarily concerned with their bottom line. in such general cases, they aren't going to develop an application making use of high-speed broadband until there's already widespread infrastructure to support it.
you don't ever have to worry about providing more bandwidth than people can use. people will naturally make full use of the technology available to them. their usage, and even lifestyle, will change to adapt to new technologies. people never really traded movies or ISOs online until broadband DSL & cable became widely available. likewise, streaming media content didn't become popular until broadband made such applications practically possible. obviously you can't take advantage of technology that doesn't exist or you don't have access to. so we're not going to see very many applications relying on 10Mbps connections until such speeds become standard.
no, it's not. it's based on the assumption that social networks are for social networking, that is, meeting new people. which could be for romance, for friendship, or for professional/business connections. but none of those objectives would be served by genetic profile matching.
things like personality, interests/hobbies, tastes (in art/music/literature/film/etc.), occupation or professional interests, goals, etc. are all major factors in social networking whether you are looking for romance, friendship, or professional networking. a genetic profile just doesn't rank up there as a useful social networking tool.
i'm sure there are many people interested in genealogy, but that's not an application with very broad appeal. it's sorta like putting "favorite blue-grass musician" as a profile field. i mean, yea you can create a facebook application for it--you can make a facebook application for anything. but it'll be marginally useful novelty at most. and it definitely won't ever be a built-in feature on a general social networking site like facebook or myspace.
it'd be more appropriate to just create a separate social networking site dedicated to genealogy. maybe it'll help people reunited with long lost relatives or something, i dunno. but generally speaking, there are much more meaningful considerations for practical social networking than genetic similarity. i mean, just because you're black/white/asian/hispanic/arab/jewish doesn't mean you have to arbitrarily limit your associations to your ethnic social group.
first off, the people whom this is aimed at are already running all 3 layout engines. so what difference does it make that they have the bugs all in one application or in 3 different applications?
second off, a browser might be more than a rendering engine, but the purpose of a triple-engine browser is to test cross-browser compatibility of websites--that only concerns the layout engine. you don't need to replicate a browser's UI or plug-in system in order to test whether a page layout will render properly in it.
if a site renders properly in a gecko-based browser, then it will look exactly the same in any other browser using gecko to render pages. and if your site uses ECMAScript, then the scripting behavior will be exactly across all browsers using that layout engine as well. so what else why would you need to test in different browsers?
because you want to date your cousin? or because you want to find people who are susceptible to the same diseases as you?
genetic profiles don't seem very useful for social networking. they don't describe personality traits. at most you might be able to find people who share the same mental health issues as you (e.g. ADHD/ADD, bipolarism, schizophrenia, Asperger syndrome, etc.), but it wouldn't be much help in finding friends or potential dates.
something like a personality profile generated by user surveys would be much more useful. there's no gene that's responsible for making someone like football/horror movies/snowboarding/sci-fi/Chuck Palahniuk/Chinese food/rock climbing/etc. and there isn't even a specific gene that causes people to be artistic/creative, intelligent, kind, etc. so what kind of traits would you be able to match using genetic profiles? risk of heart disease or prostate cancer?
and if you're looking for romantic relationships, finding someone who closely matches your genetic profile is a bad idea. there's a reason why inbreeding is taboo. if anything, you'd want someone who's MHC (major histocompatibility complex) genes are very different from you. that way your offspring will inherent a more diverse set of MHC genes, giving them a more robust immune system.
that's insane. i wonder how far in advance he knew about the blood test. seems like that type of operation would be a pretty invasive procedure if you're gonna make it look convincing. and it would take a while before the stitches could be removed and scarring went away.
in any case, i don't think there's anything wrong with searching for similar DNA matches as long as law enforcement treat it as such. it's just like searching for a suspect based on a physical description. yes, you'll have to interrogate people who are likely innocent, but that's why we have due process and proper police procedures.
if they find a partial match in the criminal database, they can interview and investigate the criminal who might be a relative of the perpetrator. if that turns up leads (like in the North Carolina case where the man's brother lived near the crime scene) and the police are able to collect enough circumstantial evidence to get a warrant, then they can investigate that family member just like they would any other suspect.
however, if the police cannot turn up any leads or enough circumstantial evidence to obtain a warrant, then they shouldn't treat family members as suspects. in other words, just because you're related to someone who has a partial DNA match to the perpetrator, that doesn't mean the police can secretly spy on you, or tap your phone, look at your cellphone records, or try to surreptitiously obtain a DNA sample. if the partial match is the only lead the police have, then they should just openly ask family members for a DNA sample and/or interview them.
hrmm... i'll try that. i was thinking about using separate profiles as well, but i never could get the profile manager to work right. is there an extension you use for switching profiles?
RTFA. it provides more useful information than Symantec's alert page. if you just want Symantec's Threatcon alerts then install their anti-virus or use their "DeepSight Threat Management System."
the article's not just "some random.au page" (as if a random.com domain would be any better) the article reports on not just Symantec's announcements, but also McAfee and Microsoft's responses that contradict Symantec's assessment. it also gives a link to a REN-ISAC report that supports Symantec's claims. it's good to have a little context when reading security alerts from AV software vendors.
it's been a while since i've taken physics, so please excuse my ignorance. but how would the liquid nitrogen provide any additional cooling (compared to water) if it's in a closed system? i mean, doesn't the liquid nitrogen have to boil off/evaporate in order to provide cooling? so if it remains a pressurized liquid then isn't it just the same as a cooling pump or radiator? i mean, theoretically you could let the liquid nitrogen evaporate and then re-compress in a separate chamber, but i don't know how practical that is (i think you need Ammonia or HCFC for closed-cycle refrigeration).
Despite its reputation, liquid nitrogen's efficiency as a coolant is reduced by the fact that it boils immediately on contact with a warmer object, enveloping the object in insulating nitrogen gas. This effect is known as the Leidenfrost effect and applies to any liquid in contact with an object significantly hotter than its boiling point. More rapid cooling may be obtained by plunging an object into a slush of liquid and solid nitrogen than into liquid nitrogen alone.
but solid nitrogen is probably more expensive and difficult to come by.
why is it always the clueless ones who try to act like smartasses?
the whole point of remotely forcing the laptop to shutdown is so that it triggers the full disk encryption, which is OS independent and done from the BIOS.
it doesn't matter how "intelligent" your OS is. once the laptop has been shutdown, you're going to need the recovery password to get it to even boot up the OS. it doesn't matter if the OS doesn't execute any BIOS code. the BIOS runs before the OS. it's called Pre-boot authentication for a reason.
Bookmark Backup - creates automatic daily backups of your bookmarks. Console2 - advanced error console for JavaScript, CSS, XML for open pages and/or Chrome. Context Search - expands the context menu's 'Search for "$highlighted"' item into a list of installed search engines. CookieSwap - tool for saving & swapping out sets of cookies on the fly. CSSViwer - displays basic CSS properties of any object you point at. Dictionary Tooltip - displays the definition of a highlighted word as a tooltip without having to open a new tab. DOM Inspector - allows you to inspect the structure and properties of a window and its contents. DownloadThemAll! - batch downloader that accepts regexps. Execute JS - lets you test/execute JavaScript on any window via a debugging console. Foxmarks Bookmark Syncrhonizer - synchronizes bookmarks across multiple machines. Gmail Manager - automatically logs into specified Gmail accounts, notifies user of new e-mails, allows mailto: links to be handled by specified Gmail account. Greasemonkey - user script manager. Html Validator - uses Tidy or SGML Parser from W3C to validate page source. IE Tab - enables easy testing of IE-compatibility. JavaScript Debugger - advanced JavaScript debugger and profiler. Modify Headers - lets you add, modify and filter HTTP request headers. PDF Download - prompts user for what to do (save to disk, view externally, or view as HTML) when a PDF link is clicked. Redirect Remover - removes redirects from links and images. Resurrect Page - allows you to view cached versions of dead pages. Sage - lightweight RSS and Atom feed aggregator. ScribeFire - full featured blog editor that integrates with browser for easy blog posting. SearchStatus - displays Google PageRank and Alex ranking. Stylish - customizes the look of websites and user interface. Tamper Data - lets you view and modify HTTP/HTTPS headers, cookies, etc. View Source Chart - generates color-coded source chart of rendered page layout. Web Developer - toolbar menu with various web developer tools. XML Developer Toolbar - like above, but for XML development. XPath Checker - lets you try out XPath expressions on current page. XPather - rich XPath generator, editor, inspector and simple extraction tool.
additionally, Firefox's Search Keywords are an extremely useful feature. you can simply right click on the search box on any website and add a search keyword that you can use from the address bar in the future. so i can type "imdb *" and search for a movie, "subs *" to find subtitles off of opensubtitles.org, "anime *" and search the Anime News Network, "php *" to look up a PHP function on php.net, "thesaurus *" to look up a word in the thesaurus, or type "wayback " in front of a dead URL to use the wayback machine, etc.
i don't think there's any other browser out there that is this useful.
Firefox usually takes about 30 seconds to start on my 2.80 GHz P4 (1GB RAM). and after it's been started it usually takes 15~20 seconds to open a new window (the reason i hate popups).
i'm sure it'd start much faster if i didn't have so many extensions (i have around 50 enabled, 5 of which are different versions of the Java Console), but i use most of the ones i have installed. also, i have Firefox 2.0.0.18, so maybe Firefox 3 is faster.
in any case, it's unfortunate that Firefox has become so sluggish and resource-intensive, especially when netbooks and smartphones show that you don't need that fast a processor to surf the web.
sure, "no-kill" shelters seem like a noble policy, except that no shelter can retain unclaimed animals indefinitely since they don't have infinite capacity. so these so-called "no-kill" shelters are just passing the problem on to other shelters who end up with their unplaceable animals.
the whole "PETA kills animals!" meme is getting really old. it's a trite sensationalized non-story. any responsible animal rights group is going to be involved with animal shelters and humane societies. that PETA works with shelters that have reasonable policies is hardly a fault.
if you want to criticize direct-action animal rights groups like ALF, fine. but PETA is primarily involved in disseminating information and bringing visibility to animal rights issues. at least come up with some valid criticisms rather than that cliched, uninformed nonsense.
well, it takes care of germs if you boil it for long enough (3-5 minutes seems to be the majority consensus), but what about other (chemical) pollutants?
you can probably get away with just boiling water most of the time when you're out camping in reasonably pristine wilderness. but if you go somewhere like China where there's severe industrial pollution, boiling the water won't do you much good. in those situations distillation would be required. or you could bring a reverse osmosis filter and activated charcoal with you, which can also remove most toxic solutes.
wouldn't you need a lot of sand for that to be safe? and the coffee filter seems a little pointless if you have something that can filter germs and bacteria beneath it. it's like putting a pasta strainer above a sieve. with conventional filters you would use a sediment filter to prevent clogging, but if you're using sand and charcoal as your primary filter rather than a microporous membrane you won't need to worry about clogging. though you'll need a lot of sand/charcoal.
seems like a better solution is just to use:
a sediment filter like a piece of cloth that you can easily replace/clean to reuse the filter. you could use a coffee filter, but that wouldn't give any advantage over a more porous material, and it would greatly increase the filtration time.
activated (or impregnated) charcoal for filtering out organic molecules. silver impregnated charcoal also has an added antibacterial function, but it's probably not necessary with the next component.
a disposable micron filter--a 1 micron filter will remove cryptosporidium, which causes diarrhea and is one of the most common pathogens found in water. however, a micron filter rated for.20 micron or less is recommended. though since the smallest known bacteria measure about.3 micron, you can probably get by with a.22 micron filter, which is what's usually used for medical IV applications.
another layer of activated charcoal to capture remaining chemicals.
optional UV lamp to disinfect any microbes that manage to slip through
however, even the best micron filter will not remove soluble pollutants like salt ions. so distillation is still the best way to have guaranteed safe drinking water. another option that is perhaps more portable is a Reverse Osmosis filter, which is what is most often used for drinking water filtration.
what are their entirely specious or bizarre and untrue claims? sounds like you're just exhibiting a typical knee-jerk reaction to being told that something you use/enjoy is not perfect.
despite the inflammatory title on Gametrailers.com the Greenpeace commercial isn't railing against video games. in fact, they seem to be primarily trying to reach out to gamers and raise awareness about the environmental hazards involved in manufacturing electronics. the PTFE (teflon) and epoxy resin used in PCB manufacturing, and various dopants and other chemicals used in IC fabrication are in fact toxic and can be bad for the environment.
that doesn't mean you have to give up video games or throw away your computer, but disseminating such information encourages consumers to make more environmentally conscious decisions. and it's not just Greenpeace that's pushing for more sustainable development in the electronics industry. green computing is increasingly attracting the attention of more and more computer manufacturers.
thanks to Greenpeace, a lot of companies like Apple are starting to clean up their act and even taking the initiative to encourage more corporate responsibility regarding sustainable development.
but in the end, it's the consumers who have the most influence on manufacturers. it's only because consumers are demanding greener computers now that manufacturers are starting to pay attention to their environmental impact. so what's wrong with Greenpeace trying to encourage gamers to do the same? modern consoles are just very specialized gaming/media PCs. and pushing console manufacturers to be a little more environmentally conscious can only be a good thing.
i found a loophole! the constitution only prohibits "cruel and unusual punishment." therefore, if you call it a prize/reward instead of a punishment, then you can make it as cruel and unusual as you want! right?
congratulations Mr. Guerbuez, you have been selected as the winner of the Philip Lemarchand Puzzle Box Sweepstakes. as the grand prize recipient, you are being granted the once in a lifetime opportunity to experience the full gamut of hedonistic pleasures that the Lament Configuration has to offer. so get ready, because we are sending you on an all-expenses-paid vacation for one through the dimensional Schism to visit all of your favorite Cenobites.
here's what you can expect from this all-inclusive vacation of unspeakable horrors(TM):
upon stepping through the Schism, our patented skin hooks will be the first to welcome you to this dimension of endless pain & suffering.*
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forget exfoliating with chemical peels or microdermabrasion, our Surgeons from Beyond specialize in decortication using _macro_dermabrasion techniques--they will literally skin you alive. prepare to get flayed!
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i guess that's true in the same sense that Windows XP Embedded is the same as Windows XP, as it's a componentized version of Windows XP (using the same Windows NT kernel)--same with Windows Vista Embedded and Windows Vista.
but sharing the same kernel, while using completely different UIs and not being able to run any of the same programs, is meaningless to end users as it offers no advantages over having two completely different OSes built separately from the ground up. whereas if you could simply disable some eye candy and other non-essential services in Windows XP or desktop OS X and run all of your existing desktop applications in an OS environment with the same tiny footprint as the mobile/embedded counterparts then that would really mean something to end users.
is KIO cross platform compatible? and is it as user-friendly as Google Apps? and can you access your documents this way from any computer with internet access without having to install new software?
xiang-qi/chi is definitely more analogous to "Chinese chess" than Go. it's even a possible predecessor of western chess given the great similarities.
in any case, games have always been an excellent teaching tool. video games are simply an extension of that using virtual reality to create more complex/advanced games. however, educational games are rarely successful due to most suffering from poor implementation. most of the time educational games are simply adopted for the novelty rather than providing any practical benefit. a lot schools & instructors like to buy flashy new technologies that they think will somehow automatically improve student performance. but you can't just buy a good education system like you buy gym equipment. it takes a lot of thought, research, and innovation to design a good curriculum and hire good instructors.
i think the same applies to military training/education. i'm sure whatever games they develop will look really impressive and high-tech (like most multi-million-dollar video games), but i really don't see how this would be better than real-world training exercises using blanks or paintball rounds. it just seems like more unnecessary military spending feeding the MIC.
i'm cool with that. when a consumer sells their game to a second-hand buyer or to a video game store, they usually don't make any profit from it. but the game store usually resells it at a huge markup from what they paid the original game owner. the same is true with used textbooks and used CDs & records.
the latter in particular usually get totally reamed when they sell their used record collection to a record shop. this girl i work with is also a manager at a local record store, and even she admits that their store completely rips off their customers. they offer fixed rates for purchasing used records, and the more you bring in the more you're ripped off. so they might pay someone $2-3 for a vintage record and then put it up in the store for $100 the very next day.
i don't even understand why people would sell their used games/music/books/etc. to brick & mortar stores that offer pennies for the used product and then turn around and flip them at 1000% markup. i mean, why not just sell the stuff yourself on eBay or craigslist?
obviously there are some really determined inmates in the prison system. perhaps we just need to redirect or refocus their drive towards productive tasks. for instance:
if they want unfettered access to communication with the outside world, give them a computer with just a basic OS installed and an internet connection. no browser, no e-mail client, no instant messenger. just offer voluntary classes on Java, C++, Perl, or whatever, and give them books on TCP/IP and socket programming.
erect a firewall to block access to all websites except a whitelist of online resources on network security, firewalls, the OSI model, NAT traversal, etc. so if they want access to porn, e-mail, Myspace, whatever, they'll need to learn how to bypass the firewall.
once they've mastered the above topics and overcome the obstacles put in place, take away their computer and reformat it. this time install the OS without any networking drivers. do this only after they've gotten used to having free internet access, being able to chat or webcam with their friends/relatives, surfing the web 12 hours a day, etc.--basically, wait until they've developed an internet/information addiction.
repeat step 3 using new obstacles until inmates are able to build a computer from scratch out of a blank PCB, a paper clip, a chunk of quartz, some toilet paper, and a few strands of dental floss.
in addition to keeping inmates occupied (rather than just having them shank one another all day) and mentally stimulated through environmental enrichment, they'll also develop useful skills helping to rehabilitate them for reintegration with society. a convict who knows how to reverse engineer hardware, write their own device drivers, understands tunneling protocols, and has other advanced technical skills/knowledge is not likely to go back to petty crimes or even associate with petty criminals who don't know a compiler from a screen saver.
and there are probably other ways to motivate different types of inmates. for instance, rather than trying to stop inmates from smuggling drugs into the prison, just give them some raw opium and a chemistry set, and have them learn how to extract/purify the morphine themselves. once they've mastered basic alkaloid extraction from plant matter, stop giving them raw opium and just have them synthesize synthetic opioids from scratch, etc. by the time an inmate finishes a 15 year sentence they should have a PhD in organic/biochemistry.
you're right, many criminals are sociopaths who commit crimes because of a lack of consideration for others. you could almost say that this disregard for others results from their complete lack of empathy.
but it's rather naive to think that everyone in prison is "bad," or that everyone who's free is "good." and the statistics would seem to suggest that, either the legal system is screwed up, or for some reason the United States has the highest population ratio of insensitive jackasses in the world.
i personally would lean more towards the former. due to the "War on Drugs" the U.S. prison population has quadrupled since the 1980's (despite a decline in violent crime and property crime), causing a nation with only 5% of the world's population to have 25% of the world's incarcerated population. therefore it's doubtful that every prison inmate is a murderer, rapist, thief, or bank robber.
so perhaps you should reconsider your holier than thou attitude and try not to be a jackass. it really isn't that hard.
it'd only be a catch-22 if, regardless of whether the author uses a pseudonym or not, he gets fucked over.
but as the myriad of authors who publish books under pen names illustrates, regardless of whether you use a pseudonym or not, you won't get fucked over. that would be the opposite of a catch-22.
i see your point. i guess i just feel that we live in a society where corporate industries have much more political power than normal individuals, and yet there seems to be much less accountability in the corporate world than the world of ordinary individuals who, meanwhile, are being subjected to increasingly draconian laws. so if the NSA can spy on private citizens using wiretaps without obtaining warrants, then i feel no sympathy for corporations having to archive their e-mails.
but you're right; this could present a lot of logistical problems if not implemented properly. however, i don't think a company with only 30 employees would need to spend that much on e-mail archival. even most small-to-medium-sized companies have a back-up system in place. the company i work at is only comprised of 3 regular employees. and we even have a file server that does automatic backups.
as long as the regulatory requirements are reasonable, it should be alright no matter what size a company is. as long as companies aren't being asked to keep e-mails indefinitely or record and transcribe every single phone call, it should not present too big a problem. also, the amount of regulation a corporation is subjected to should be directly proportional to their size and power. so by limiting the power of corporations through unobtrusive regulations there'd be less of a need for this sorta thing.
for example, things like telecommunications, internet access, water, electricity, etc. are vital public utilities. such utilities are natural monopolies where they either, must be operated as a monopoly or operate most efficiently as one. additionally, being vital components of public infrastructure like roads and the sewage system, these utilities also exhibit inelastic demand. these two things combine to give telecoms, ISPs, and other utility companies a lot of power, which also create tremendous potential for abuse. so either these industries have to be nationalized, or they have to be tightly regulated.
OTOH, small businesses which don't have a lot of power, and thus can't do a lot of harm to the public, obviously don't need as much regulation. i'd say that a company like Apple sits somewhere in between. the computer industry isn't a vital public utility; and while Apple is a pretty big corporation, they're not as big as Microsoft; and they also don't hold a powerful monopoly. as long as all members of their upper-management retain their e-mails for 1-2 years that should be enough.
Slashdot Mirror
in deed. also, one has to remember that it's not just applications that drive technology/infrastructure, but technology/infrastructure also drives applications.
BBC has sorta taken it upon themselves to be a technological leader and trendsetting influence in the modern information age. this has been demonstrated in their sponsorship of the bbc.co.uk:Reboot competition a few years back, their BBC Backstage developer network, their promotion of open industry standards and continual support of open innovation & "public-spirited developers and designers."
promoting technological progress is part of the BBC's mission statement and "long-term transformational strategy." other companies don't embody the same idealism and are primarily concerned with their bottom line. in such general cases, they aren't going to develop an application making use of high-speed broadband until there's already widespread infrastructure to support it.
you don't ever have to worry about providing more bandwidth than people can use. people will naturally make full use of the technology available to them. their usage, and even lifestyle, will change to adapt to new technologies. people never really traded movies or ISOs online until broadband DSL & cable became widely available. likewise, streaming media content didn't become popular until broadband made such applications practically possible. obviously you can't take advantage of technology that doesn't exist or you don't have access to. so we're not going to see very many applications relying on 10Mbps connections until such speeds become standard.
no, it's not. it's based on the assumption that social networks are for social networking, that is, meeting new people. which could be for romance, for friendship, or for professional/business connections. but none of those objectives would be served by genetic profile matching.
things like personality, interests/hobbies, tastes (in art/music/literature/film/etc.), occupation or professional interests, goals, etc. are all major factors in social networking whether you are looking for romance, friendship, or professional networking. a genetic profile just doesn't rank up there as a useful social networking tool.
i'm sure there are many people interested in genealogy, but that's not an application with very broad appeal. it's sorta like putting "favorite blue-grass musician" as a profile field. i mean, yea you can create a facebook application for it--you can make a facebook application for anything. but it'll be marginally useful novelty at most. and it definitely won't ever be a built-in feature on a general social networking site like facebook or myspace.
it'd be more appropriate to just create a separate social networking site dedicated to genealogy. maybe it'll help people reunited with long lost relatives or something, i dunno. but generally speaking, there are much more meaningful considerations for practical social networking than genetic similarity. i mean, just because you're black/white/asian/hispanic/arab/jewish doesn't mean you have to arbitrarily limit your associations to your ethnic social group.
first off, the people whom this is aimed at are already running all 3 layout engines. so what difference does it make that they have the bugs all in one application or in 3 different applications?
second off, a browser might be more than a rendering engine, but the purpose of a triple-engine browser is to test cross-browser compatibility of websites--that only concerns the layout engine. you don't need to replicate a browser's UI or plug-in system in order to test whether a page layout will render properly in it.
if a site renders properly in a gecko-based browser, then it will look exactly the same in any other browser using gecko to render pages. and if your site uses ECMAScript, then the scripting behavior will be exactly across all browsers using that layout engine as well. so what else why would you need to test in different browsers?
because you want to date your cousin? or because you want to find people who are susceptible to the same diseases as you?
genetic profiles don't seem very useful for social networking. they don't describe personality traits. at most you might be able to find people who share the same mental health issues as you (e.g. ADHD/ADD, bipolarism, schizophrenia, Asperger syndrome, etc.), but it wouldn't be much help in finding friends or potential dates.
something like a personality profile generated by user surveys would be much more useful. there's no gene that's responsible for making someone like football/horror movies/snowboarding/sci-fi/Chuck Palahniuk/Chinese food/rock climbing/etc. and there isn't even a specific gene that causes people to be artistic/creative, intelligent, kind, etc. so what kind of traits would you be able to match using genetic profiles? risk of heart disease or prostate cancer?
and if you're looking for romantic relationships, finding someone who closely matches your genetic profile is a bad idea. there's a reason why inbreeding is taboo. if anything, you'd want someone who's MHC (major histocompatibility complex) genes are very different from you. that way your offspring will inherent a more diverse set of MHC genes, giving them a more robust immune system.
that's insane. i wonder how far in advance he knew about the blood test. seems like that type of operation would be a pretty invasive procedure if you're gonna make it look convincing. and it would take a while before the stitches could be removed and scarring went away.
in any case, i don't think there's anything wrong with searching for similar DNA matches as long as law enforcement treat it as such. it's just like searching for a suspect based on a physical description. yes, you'll have to interrogate people who are likely innocent, but that's why we have due process and proper police procedures.
if they find a partial match in the criminal database, they can interview and investigate the criminal who might be a relative of the perpetrator. if that turns up leads (like in the North Carolina case where the man's brother lived near the crime scene) and the police are able to collect enough circumstantial evidence to get a warrant, then they can investigate that family member just like they would any other suspect.
however, if the police cannot turn up any leads or enough circumstantial evidence to obtain a warrant, then they shouldn't treat family members as suspects. in other words, just because you're related to someone who has a partial DNA match to the perpetrator, that doesn't mean the police can secretly spy on you, or tap your phone, look at your cellphone records, or try to surreptitiously obtain a DNA sample. if the partial match is the only lead the police have, then they should just openly ask family members for a DNA sample and/or interview them.
hrmm... i'll try that. i was thinking about using separate profiles as well, but i never could get the profile manager to work right. is there an extension you use for switching profiles?
RTFA. it provides more useful information than Symantec's alert page. if you just want Symantec's Threatcon alerts then install their anti-virus or use their "DeepSight Threat Management System."
the article's not just "some random .au page" (as if a random .com domain would be any better) the article reports on not just Symantec's announcements, but also McAfee and Microsoft's responses that contradict Symantec's assessment. it also gives a link to a REN-ISAC report that supports Symantec's claims. it's good to have a little context when reading security alerts from AV software vendors.
it's been a while since i've taken physics, so please excuse my ignorance. but how would the liquid nitrogen provide any additional cooling (compared to water) if it's in a closed system? i mean, doesn't the liquid nitrogen have to boil off/evaporate in order to provide cooling? so if it remains a pressurized liquid then isn't it just the same as a cooling pump or radiator? i mean, theoretically you could let the liquid nitrogen evaporate and then re-compress in a separate chamber, but i don't know how practical that is (i think you need Ammonia or HCFC for closed-cycle refrigeration).
also, according the Wikipedia:
but solid nitrogen is probably more expensive and difficult to come by.
why is it always the clueless ones who try to act like smartasses?
the whole point of remotely forcing the laptop to shutdown is so that it triggers the full disk encryption, which is OS independent and done from the BIOS.
it doesn't matter how "intelligent" your OS is. once the laptop has been shutdown, you're going to need the recovery password to get it to even boot up the OS. it doesn't matter if the OS doesn't execute any BIOS code. the BIOS runs before the OS. it's called Pre-boot authentication for a reason.
Bookmark Backup - creates automatic daily backups of your bookmarks.
Console2 - advanced error console for JavaScript, CSS, XML for open pages and/or Chrome.
Context Search - expands the context menu's 'Search for "$highlighted"' item into a list of installed search engines.
CookieSwap - tool for saving & swapping out sets of cookies on the fly.
CSSViwer - displays basic CSS properties of any object you point at.
Dictionary Tooltip - displays the definition of a highlighted word as a tooltip without having to open a new tab.
DOM Inspector - allows you to inspect the structure and properties of a window and its contents.
DownloadThemAll! - batch downloader that accepts regexps.
Execute JS - lets you test/execute JavaScript on any window via a debugging console.
Foxmarks Bookmark Syncrhonizer - synchronizes bookmarks across multiple machines.
Gmail Manager - automatically logs into specified Gmail accounts, notifies user of new e-mails, allows mailto: links to be handled by specified Gmail account.
Greasemonkey - user script manager.
Html Validator - uses Tidy or SGML Parser from W3C to validate page source.
IE Tab - enables easy testing of IE-compatibility.
JavaScript Debugger - advanced JavaScript debugger and profiler.
Modify Headers - lets you add, modify and filter HTTP request headers.
PDF Download - prompts user for what to do (save to disk, view externally, or view as HTML) when a PDF link is clicked.
Redirect Remover - removes redirects from links and images.
Resurrect Page - allows you to view cached versions of dead pages.
Sage - lightweight RSS and Atom feed aggregator.
ScribeFire - full featured blog editor that integrates with browser for easy blog posting.
SearchStatus - displays Google PageRank and Alex ranking.
Stylish - customizes the look of websites and user interface.
Tamper Data - lets you view and modify HTTP/HTTPS headers, cookies, etc.
View Source Chart - generates color-coded source chart of rendered page layout.
Web Developer - toolbar menu with various web developer tools.
XML Developer Toolbar - like above, but for XML development.
XPath Checker - lets you try out XPath expressions on current page.
XPather - rich XPath generator, editor, inspector and simple extraction tool.
additionally, Firefox's Search Keywords are an extremely useful feature. you can simply right click on the search box on any website and add a search keyword that you can use from the address bar in the future. so i can type "imdb *" and search for a movie, "subs *" to find subtitles off of opensubtitles.org, "anime *" and search the Anime News Network, "php *" to look up a PHP function on php.net, "thesaurus *" to look up a word in the thesaurus, or type "wayback " in front of a dead URL to use the wayback machine, etc.
i don't think there's any other browser out there that is this useful.
Firefox usually takes about 30 seconds to start on my 2.80 GHz P4 (1GB RAM). and after it's been started it usually takes 15~20 seconds to open a new window (the reason i hate popups).
i'm sure it'd start much faster if i didn't have so many extensions (i have around 50 enabled, 5 of which are different versions of the Java Console), but i use most of the ones i have installed. also, i have Firefox 2.0.0.18, so maybe Firefox 3 is faster.
in any case, it's unfortunate that Firefox has become so sluggish and resource-intensive, especially when netbooks and smartphones show that you don't need that fast a processor to surf the web.
sure, "no-kill" shelters seem like a noble policy, except that no shelter can retain unclaimed animals indefinitely since they don't have infinite capacity. so these so-called "no-kill" shelters are just passing the problem on to other shelters who end up with their unplaceable animals.
the whole "PETA kills animals!" meme is getting really old. it's a trite sensationalized non-story. any responsible animal rights group is going to be involved with animal shelters and humane societies. that PETA works with shelters that have reasonable policies is hardly a fault.
if you want to criticize direct-action animal rights groups like ALF, fine. but PETA is primarily involved in disseminating information and bringing visibility to animal rights issues. at least come up with some valid criticisms rather than that cliched, uninformed nonsense.
well, it takes care of germs if you boil it for long enough (3-5 minutes seems to be the majority consensus), but what about other (chemical) pollutants?
you can probably get away with just boiling water most of the time when you're out camping in reasonably pristine wilderness. but if you go somewhere like China where there's severe industrial pollution, boiling the water won't do you much good. in those situations distillation would be required. or you could bring a reverse osmosis filter and activated charcoal with you, which can also remove most toxic solutes.
wouldn't you need a lot of sand for that to be safe? and the coffee filter seems a little pointless if you have something that can filter germs and bacteria beneath it. it's like putting a pasta strainer above a sieve. with conventional filters you would use a sediment filter to prevent clogging, but if you're using sand and charcoal as your primary filter rather than a microporous membrane you won't need to worry about clogging. though you'll need a lot of sand/charcoal.
seems like a better solution is just to use:
however, even the best micron filter will not remove soluble pollutants like salt ions. so distillation is still the best way to have guaranteed safe drinking water. another option that is perhaps more portable is a Reverse Osmosis filter, which is what is most often used for drinking water filtration.
what are their entirely specious or bizarre and untrue claims? sounds like you're just exhibiting a typical knee-jerk reaction to being told that something you use/enjoy is not perfect.
despite the inflammatory title on Gametrailers.com the Greenpeace commercial isn't railing against video games. in fact, they seem to be primarily trying to reach out to gamers and raise awareness about the environmental hazards involved in manufacturing electronics. the PTFE (teflon) and epoxy resin used in PCB manufacturing, and various dopants and other chemicals used in IC fabrication are in fact toxic and can be bad for the environment.
that doesn't mean you have to give up video games or throw away your computer, but disseminating such information encourages consumers to make more environmentally conscious decisions. and it's not just Greenpeace that's pushing for more sustainable development in the electronics industry. green computing is increasingly attracting the attention of more and more computer manufacturers.
thanks to Greenpeace, a lot of companies like Apple are starting to clean up their act and even taking the initiative to encourage more corporate responsibility regarding sustainable development.
but in the end, it's the consumers who have the most influence on manufacturers. it's only because consumers are demanding greener computers now that manufacturers are starting to pay attention to their environmental impact. so what's wrong with Greenpeace trying to encourage gamers to do the same? modern consoles are just very specialized gaming/media PCs. and pushing console manufacturers to be a little more environmentally conscious can only be a good thing.
i found a loophole! the constitution only prohibits "cruel and unusual punishment." therefore, if you call it a prize/reward instead of a punishment, then you can make it as cruel and unusual as you want! right?
congratulations Mr. Guerbuez,
you have been selected as the winner of the Philip Lemarchand Puzzle Box Sweepstakes. as the grand prize recipient, you are being granted the once in a lifetime opportunity to experience the full gamut of hedonistic pleasures that the Lament Configuration has to offer. so get ready, because we are sending you on an all-expenses-paid vacation for one through the dimensional Schism to visit all of your favorite Cenobites.
here's what you can expect from this all-inclusive vacation of unspeakable horrors(TM):
* - comes with a free face-lift.
disclaimer: all prizes are final and mandatory. extradimensional vacations not redeemable for cash and no substitutes are allowed. limited time offer expires 01/01/2012.
i guess that's true in the same sense that Windows XP Embedded is the same as Windows XP, as it's a componentized version of Windows XP (using the same Windows NT kernel)--same with Windows Vista Embedded and Windows Vista.
but sharing the same kernel, while using completely different UIs and not being able to run any of the same programs, is meaningless to end users as it offers no advantages over having two completely different OSes built separately from the ground up. whereas if you could simply disable some eye candy and other non-essential services in Windows XP or desktop OS X and run all of your existing desktop applications in an OS environment with the same tiny footprint as the mobile/embedded counterparts then that would really mean something to end users.
is KIO cross platform compatible? and is it as user-friendly as Google Apps? and can you access your documents this way from any computer with internet access without having to install new software?
xiang-qi/chi is definitely more analogous to "Chinese chess" than Go. it's even a possible predecessor of western chess given the great similarities.
in any case, games have always been an excellent teaching tool. video games are simply an extension of that using virtual reality to create more complex/advanced games. however, educational games are rarely successful due to most suffering from poor implementation. most of the time educational games are simply adopted for the novelty rather than providing any practical benefit. a lot schools & instructors like to buy flashy new technologies that they think will somehow automatically improve student performance. but you can't just buy a good education system like you buy gym equipment. it takes a lot of thought, research, and innovation to design a good curriculum and hire good instructors.
i think the same applies to military training/education. i'm sure whatever games they develop will look really impressive and high-tech (like most multi-million-dollar video games), but i really don't see how this would be better than real-world training exercises using blanks or paintball rounds. it just seems like more unnecessary military spending feeding the MIC.
i'm cool with that. when a consumer sells their game to a second-hand buyer or to a video game store, they usually don't make any profit from it. but the game store usually resells it at a huge markup from what they paid the original game owner. the same is true with used textbooks and used CDs & records.
the latter in particular usually get totally reamed when they sell their used record collection to a record shop. this girl i work with is also a manager at a local record store, and even she admits that their store completely rips off their customers. they offer fixed rates for purchasing used records, and the more you bring in the more you're ripped off. so they might pay someone $2-3 for a vintage record and then put it up in the store for $100 the very next day.
i don't even understand why people would sell their used games/music/books/etc. to brick & mortar stores that offer pennies for the used product and then turn around and flip them at 1000% markup. i mean, why not just sell the stuff yourself on eBay or craigslist?
don't forget used food, used condoms, and used needles!
those damn heroin-addicted family-planning-conscious hobos!
obviously there are some really determined inmates in the prison system. perhaps we just need to redirect or refocus their drive towards productive tasks. for instance:
in addition to keeping inmates occupied (rather than just having them shank one another all day) and mentally stimulated through environmental enrichment, they'll also develop useful skills helping to rehabilitate them for reintegration with society. a convict who knows how to reverse engineer hardware, write their own device drivers, understands tunneling protocols, and has other advanced technical skills/knowledge is not likely to go back to petty crimes or even associate with petty criminals who don't know a compiler from a screen saver.
and there are probably other ways to motivate different types of inmates. for instance, rather than trying to stop inmates from smuggling drugs into the prison, just give them some raw opium and a chemistry set, and have them learn how to extract/purify the morphine themselves. once they've mastered basic alkaloid extraction from plant matter, stop giving them raw opium and just have them synthesize synthetic opioids from scratch, etc. by the time an inmate finishes a 15 year sentence they should have a PhD in organic/biochemistry.
you're right, many criminals are sociopaths who commit crimes because of a lack of consideration for others. you could almost say that this disregard for others results from their complete lack of empathy.
but it's rather naive to think that everyone in prison is "bad," or that everyone who's free is "good." and the statistics would seem to suggest that, either the legal system is screwed up, or for some reason the United States has the highest population ratio of insensitive jackasses in the world.
i personally would lean more towards the former. due to the "War on Drugs" the U.S. prison population has quadrupled since the 1980's (despite a decline in violent crime and property crime), causing a nation with only 5% of the world's population to have 25% of the world's incarcerated population. therefore it's doubtful that every prison inmate is a murderer, rapist, thief, or bank robber.
so perhaps you should reconsider your holier than thou attitude and try not to be a jackass. it really isn't that hard.
i don't think you understand what a catch-22 is.
it'd only be a catch-22 if, regardless of whether the author uses a pseudonym or not, he gets fucked over.
but as the myriad of authors who publish books under pen names illustrates, regardless of whether you use a pseudonym or not, you won't get fucked over. that would be the opposite of a catch-22.
i see your point. i guess i just feel that we live in a society where corporate industries have much more political power than normal individuals, and yet there seems to be much less accountability in the corporate world than the world of ordinary individuals who, meanwhile, are being subjected to increasingly draconian laws. so if the NSA can spy on private citizens using wiretaps without obtaining warrants, then i feel no sympathy for corporations having to archive their e-mails.
but you're right; this could present a lot of logistical problems if not implemented properly. however, i don't think a company with only 30 employees would need to spend that much on e-mail archival. even most small-to-medium-sized companies have a back-up system in place. the company i work at is only comprised of 3 regular employees. and we even have a file server that does automatic backups.
as long as the regulatory requirements are reasonable, it should be alright no matter what size a company is. as long as companies aren't being asked to keep e-mails indefinitely or record and transcribe every single phone call, it should not present too big a problem. also, the amount of regulation a corporation is subjected to should be directly proportional to their size and power. so by limiting the power of corporations through unobtrusive regulations there'd be less of a need for this sorta thing.
for example, things like telecommunications, internet access, water, electricity, etc. are vital public utilities. such utilities are natural monopolies where they either, must be operated as a monopoly or operate most efficiently as one. additionally, being vital components of public infrastructure like roads and the sewage system, these utilities also exhibit inelastic demand. these two things combine to give telecoms, ISPs, and other utility companies a lot of power, which also create tremendous potential for abuse. so either these industries have to be nationalized, or they have to be tightly regulated.
OTOH, small businesses which don't have a lot of power, and thus can't do a lot of harm to the public, obviously don't need as much regulation. i'd say that a company like Apple sits somewhere in between. the computer industry isn't a vital public utility; and while Apple is a pretty big corporation, they're not as big as Microsoft; and they also don't hold a powerful monopoly. as long as all members of their upper-management retain their e-mails for 1-2 years that should be enough.