The superposition of states in a quantum system can be interpreted as multiple universes, each containing a possible outcome. I'm pretty sure that this means that every quantum computer is inherently an inter-dimensionally multiplexed beowulf cluster of itself. Until you look at it.
Not all beta emitters are created equal. I worked in a biology lab for a few years, and we used a lot of Sulfur-35 and Phosphorous-32. IIRC, they are both beta emitters. S35-emitted beta particles are low energy and easily stopped by a sheet of paper. P32 emits beta particles with much greater energy, and requires a few inches of plexiglass to shield it. I don't know what the Cornell team is using, but as long as the shielding is appropriate for the energy of the radiation, it shouldn't be a problem. I'd be more worried about what happens when the batteries crack.
Like I said, I avoid any information about Buffy like the plague. The only other thing I watch on UPN is Enterprise, and I tape it and skip commercials precisely to avoid Buffy info. I do not watch any form of entertainment "news", as I believe things like the E channel and Entertainment Tonight are at least partially responsible for the decline of Western civilization.
Of course this is not on the same scale as the Lone Gunment incident, but it betrays the same lack of editorial care.
Is it too much to ask that you guys not put spoilers on the front page? This isn't nearly as bad as the Lone Gunmen Incident (LGI), but still... I'm a rather rabid fan of Buffy, and I avoid fan sites and commercials for it like the plague. I want each episode to be a surprise, in the way it was intended. And I know I am far from alone in this.
Perhaps the most unforgivable thing about this and the LGI is that the slashdot editors don't even care enough to fix their mistakes. Minutes after the LGI was posted, there were legions of howling mad West Coasters and Europeans raging about what had happened. To prevent further damage, the story could have been changed to remove any specific references to the plot. Something along the lines of "Something amazingly bad happened in X-Files tonight, click here to discuss". But instead, all they did was add an apology to it. Fecking pathetic.
So now the surprise of Faith's return has been ruined for me and thousands of others. In the next few days, thousands more will check out Slashdot and it will be ruined for them too, because the editors here don't care enough to fix their mistakes.
While I'm in rant mode, could somebody put a fecking "s/definately/definitely/ig;" into Slashcode? Even otherwise intelligent people are constantly mispelling this.
Of course primates get STDs - I just don't think that an STD could spread to the 90% of the population that they suggest was killed off. It is pretty clear that there was some catastrophic epidemic among chimps in the past, but saying that this is more related to AIDS than to any other infectious disease seems a bit tenuous. And my point is that comparing the effects of this epidemic to say, Black Plague, is not as likely to get the grant money as comparing it to AIDS.
I'm not a researcher in primate sociology, but from what I understand, chimps are very sexually promiscuous within their own group. But I'm pretty sure that they don't get together with other groups for big sex parties. So it seems pretty unlikely that a sexually transmitted disease could spread so thoroughly through the population as to cause this kind of uniformity in their genetic code. I could be completely wrong. Maybe chimps travel around a lot, and are more friendly with other chimp tribes than I think. It seems far more likely, IMHO, that the disease was airborn.
I am a researcher in biochemistry, and if there's one thing I know for sure, it's that researchers will always try to tie their discoveries to either cancer or AIDS. People will come up with the most tenuous links between their pet research projects and AIDS simply because it makes it much more likely that they will get more grant money. So the point of this post is simple - always be wary when some new scientific discovery is claimed to have relevance to (insert your favorite disease here). The people involved probably know damn well that it really isn't particularly relevant, but they hype the connection for publicity and grant money because the general public certainly doesn't know any better, and half the time, neither do the people on the grant committee.
Sound a bit cynical? Of course it does, I'm a grad student.
but can you imagine a Beowulf cluster of Beowulf clusters? That would be sweet. Or something.
Re:Trick riding possibilities?
on
This is IT?
·
· Score: 1
Sorry to reply to my own post - but Dude!!!
You could combine this with the magnetic or computer vision guidance systems being developed for cars. Find a nice, long downhill road and have races where going of the road is impossible. You could put a braking system in to keep it from reaching truly dangerous speeds. The same touch sensors that currently power the throttle could be used to amplify/correct your leans into the turn.
With some nice fluffy walls lining the course, you could go nuts with oil slicks and huge padded bats. Suddenly, Mario Kart doesn't seem so ridiculously unrealistic.
Dude!
Trick riding possibilities?
on
This is IT?
·
· Score: 1
I'm surprised noone has brought up the potential these things have for becoming a whole new sport. Or dozens of new sports, for that matter. How stable are they? Can I hang off the side, flying-dutchman style, and flail about with my mallet in a game of Segway polo?
I can imagine some sick variations on the general theme of a stabilized "scooter". You could make one that adjusts its angle while riding up and down a half-pipe. It lays out horizontal while in the air, and rotates back to vertical on reentry. It could even rotate the wheels independently of your body, so you couldn't land wrong.
Or take out the driving motors and slap some huge tires on it. It would make for one hell of a wild ride down the mountainside.
Duuuuude. Duuuuuuuuuuuude. The possibilities.... Tony Hawk Pro Skater and Jet Grind Radio don't look so ridiculously unrealistic any more. I had given up on downhill skateboarding due to repeated injuries, but now I'm taking another look at it.
I don't see it as an either/or situation. Increases in processing power will benefit both graphics and the strategic/AI aspect of the game. I like a good FPS, probably more than the next guy, but I definitely agree with you about the old-school RPGs. I've turned to the visceral, quick-thinking strategy of FPSs largely because the modern RPGs don't do it for me. (btw, don't tell me there's no strategy in CTF;)
What I'm waiting for now is for someone to come up with a brilliant fusion of flashy FPS graphics and well-written RPG/sim. Deus Ex and Thief were two very solid steps in that direction. But its not enough;)
The increase in processing power and storage in this latest round of consoles opens another interesting avenue of development - games for these consoles can be modded. More and more powerful consoles/PCs will bring more and more powerful tools for content creation to the "common man". While I don't have faith that the average guy in the street can produce a game that I'd want to play, I do have faith that if you have 100 million monkeys hammering on their computers, one of them will eventually write an interactive Hamlet.
I guess my point is that more power = better graphics = better AI = better strategy = more people playing and making games. Oh, and of course,
Yeah, I know all the stuff about various tech leaders making sweeping statements about "never needing more than 640K of memory" and such, but we really are headed for a "meaningful speed" cap on this.
Come on. You specifically acknowledge the lack of foresight of previous generations, yet deliberately make that same mistake? Give me a break.
It will NEVER be enough.
Say it with me. It will NEVER be enough. And the PCs/consoles currently around don't even come close. Terrain is rendered with huge triangles, and fog is still used as an excuse for not drawing a true horizon. Character models don't look convincingly like real people and they 'express' themselves with precomputed voice and animation. Recent attempts at AI (B&W, for instance) are sadly lacking.
When I can't tell the difference between looking at my monitor and looking out my window, maybe that will be enough. When my newest console can dynamically model a stadium full of people that look and sound like the real thing, maybe that will be enough. And when all of the people in that stadium can pass a Turing test, maybe, just maybe, that will be enough.
Most people who watch Lexx can't get past the absurd and sexual components. And while these do appear to dominate (and I do like them very much) that's not all there is to the show. At a higher level, the science fiction concepts that drive the plot are quite sophisticated, at least in comparison to a lot of the other stuff around. The theme behind the second season was the destructive potential of self-replicating machines. The musical episode "Brigadoom" was the best exploration of the pitfalls of biological immortality that I've ever seen. The third season was a bizarre, surrealist journey through...well, I can't say without spoiling.
Those of you just getting into Lexx probably haven't seen the first four movies (season 1). The second and third were really just long episodes - but the first and fourth are two of the best damn scifi movies I've ever seen.
Some other, on-topic ramblings-
Missing an episode of either Buffy or Angel is unacceptable to me.
Farscape is rock solid.
Andromeda could turn out to be really good.
Earth: Final Conflict had a brilliant first season, and has been going steadily downhill.
Invisible Man is good, but I still resent the fact that it replaced G vs E, which was incredibly good.
The Immortal is a pretty blatant Highlander ripoff.
Stargate SG-1 started out pretty good and is only getting better.
First Wave is cheesy and over-the-top. Kinda good sometimes.
I watch way too much TV, and read way too much scifi. I guess I could be considered vaguely knowledgable on the subject.
Oh boohoohoo - there's no shampoo, and the DVD screen is too small, and there's all this velcro...Dude! You may have lost sight of the fact that you are LIVING IN SPACE. I would donate my right nut to science to live in space for five months. Unfortunately, the market being what it is, spare nuts just aren't worth what they used to be. But the offer still stands.
They should integrate their neural net with Black & White's. Every time you come across a bit of tasty porn that you wouldn't want your kids to see, you just spank your monkey. What could be more natural?
Just booted into Windows for my afternoon UT session, and sure enough, that damn 'Windows Update' window pops up. But the update site is, well, I guess slashdotted is the wrong word;-), but its definitely congested beyond usage. What am I supposed to do? That stupid update window has an incredibly annoying habit of popping up and totally screwing display and input while I'm running the flag back to my base, but I can't install the update 'cuz the site is screwed. I guess I'll just have to boot back into Linux and actually do some work...nah. Maybe its a good time to check if the nvidia drivers and OpenUT are working properly together.
The whole 'evil biotech virus and cure' plot has been done many times before - A few weeks ago, the mighty Joe Bob of TNT's Monstervision aired Body Armor, which has the exact same plot. Perhaps not coincidently, it is currently (1:30PM EST) being shown on the local WB affiliate in Connecticut. Check your local listings. Its pretty amusing - it has Ron Perelman, a Dynasty chick, a bunch of stunt guys trying to act, and the mandatory comic relief in the form of Ron Howard's brother Clint. Also putting in a brief appearance at the beginning is John Rhys-Davies, of Sliders ?fame?. Don't waste the eight bucks - just watch Body Armor. Btw, if you can't stay up to watch Joe Bob, you should tape it. His analysis of movies is brilliant, brutal, and incredibly funny.
Looks like microsoft wasn't the first to come up with the name x-box. Gizmonics X-box is a huge stage designed for live action, 'in camera' special effects. Supercool. According to the site: The goal of "X-box" was to move away from the overprocessed images of television. A noble goal. Microsoft is clearly infringing on Gizmonic's branding with their new console, and will have to change the name immediately:-) I suggest a variation with something hip and GenXish - like take mega, giga, super, or something like that, then make it a even hipper pseudoname by dropping a few letters. MeX, or GiX, or wait...I've got it...the SuX Box! Has a nice ring to it, dontcha think? It has a certain 'Chevy Nova in Mexico' feel.`
Deep Space Nine, while entertaining, just didn't live up to the Star Trek legend.
You hit the nail on the head. It was entertaining, and as long as you can separate it from the heritage of the original series (which nothing could live up to) it stands on its own as some quality scifi. I think Captain Cisco in particular was great - Kirk was the swashbuckler, Picard was the proper military commander, and Cisco was the Starfleet version of Shaft. He was one bad mutha (shut your mouth). Check out the episode 'In the Pale Moonlight' if you don't know what I'm talking about.
...in a desperate attempt to save the franchise. DS9 was dying: solution throw in a huge war story arc and Ezri Dax.
Hey, I liked the war - it was very dramatic, and ended the series with a real bang. And Nicole deBoer was brought in as Ezri because Terry Farrel left the show to do that stupid sitcom with Ted Danson. She was not written out.
Yeah, Voyager kinda sucks. Don't even get me started about Captain Wrongway...I mean Captain Hepburn...aaahh you know who I mean. Or First Officer Chipotle. Or Tom 'Forget About' Paris. I blame poor writing. They are more charicatures than characters.
I noticed something a little odd in the timothy's post - he says
What would Mendel have thought of this? How about Watson and Crick?
This seems to imply that Watson and Crick are as dead as Mendel, which is just not true. Watson is the president of Cold Spring Harbor research institute. His homepage is here. Crick is also alive and doing some rather interesting research in the neurology of consciousness at the Salk Institute. his homepage is here. I met Dr. Crick while working at the Salk, and he's a really nice guy. I've met a number of famous people in my time, but he really awed me. Its hard to talk to him without thinking about the massive influence he has had on modern biology.
If I had to guess, I'd say that they are both as amazed by modern biology as the rest of us. Who could have guessed we'd be this far so soon? Biology is amazing. Computers are amazing. That's why I do both.
I've spent the better part of the last year massaging the drosophila genome with perl scripts. I am intimately familiar with it, and I can tell you that it is NOT complete. While it is 90% sequenced, it is still in a bazillion tiny pieces. This makes it difficult to get complete sequence for many genes, as they may start in one contiguous piece and end in another. From personal experience, I would guess that about 15% of the genes are split like this.
And even if it were complete, this still wouldn't tell us where all the genes are. Its very difficult to string coding regions together into a complete gene, when there may be large introns that confuse the matter. The state of the art still only identifies about 70% of genes correctly, even given complete sequence.
And even if we did know all the genes, we still wouldn't know how they interact. We can make guesses based on previous experimets, but the majority of the genes in a given genome are experimentally uncharacterized. Current attempts at molecular simulations can't even predict how these proteins will fold, let alone with what other proteins they interact, or what they do.
There is still a lot of work to be done - getting the genomic sequence is only the beginning. A significant start, but only the first step. Could you reverse engineer the entire linux kernel if you were only given the binary? Probably not. I assure you that deducing the operation of an organsim given the raw DNA code is much more difficult. The complete sequence of the E.coli (an intestinal bacteria) has been available for a couple of years, and we haven't even begun to understand it. E.coli is single celled, and the genome is only 4.5Mb (thats megabases). Drosophila is very complicated, and the genome is about 120Mb. Don't look for anyone to 'solve the fly' any time soon.
Its a great time to be in bioinformatics - tons and tons of data that noone understands. If we did understand it all, I'd be out of a job. I'm not worried.
I can't wait to toss one of these in the blender and add it to the mix in my IV bag. I'm sure my veins will really enjoy it. By eliminating solid food, and using a catheter, I never have to leave the warm comfy cradle of my recliner. I can spend 24/7 checking slashdot for new headlines, ensuring that I am always up to date and well informed.
Seriously, though, Clif Bars are rockin' geek food. Lots of protein and fiber, plus some vitamins (not complete, mostly antioxidants). And the chocolate chip peanut crunch is sooooo tasty. Nutritious candy for lazy geeks.
This should be very doable with current software. Check out swig at this link. It provides a framework for interfacing C/C++ with scripting languages like python, perl, guile, etc... I'm not sure if you can interface python and perl using swig, but you could definitely write a C library that could be called from python. This C library could then use perlembed to make the appropriate perl calls. A certain amount of annoying mucking about with internals in C would be necessary, but its probably easier than writing a dozen DBI backends in python. Maybe you could even code some common data type conversions in C and make the interface general enough to handle most modules.
Of course, you could also just write a small generic server in perl that could communicate with a separate python process using an intermediate data structure implemented in both languages. And I'm sure there are a dozen other more intelligent ways to do it. After all, perl is involved, so TMTOWTDI;-)
Slashdot Mirror
The superposition of states in a quantum system can be interpreted as multiple universes, each containing a possible outcome. I'm pretty sure that this means that every quantum computer is inherently an inter-dimensionally multiplexed beowulf cluster of itself. Until you look at it.
...and that kitten that dies when you masrutbate.
It's spelled "masturbate". Next time, use both hands while typing.
Not all beta emitters are created equal. I worked in a biology lab for a few years, and we used a lot of Sulfur-35 and Phosphorous-32. IIRC, they are both beta emitters. S35-emitted beta particles are low energy and easily stopped by a sheet of paper. P32 emits beta particles with much greater energy, and requires a few inches of plexiglass to shield it. I don't know what the Cornell team is using, but as long as the shielding is appropriate for the energy of the radiation, it shouldn't be a problem. I'd be more worried about what happens when the batteries crack.
Like I said, I avoid any information about Buffy like the plague. The only other thing I watch on UPN is Enterprise, and I tape it and skip commercials precisely to avoid Buffy info. I do not watch any form of entertainment "news", as I believe things like the E channel and Entertainment Tonight are at least partially responsible for the decline of Western civilization.
Of course this is not on the same scale as the Lone Gunment incident, but it betrays the same lack of editorial care.
Is it too much to ask that you guys not put spoilers on the front page? This isn't nearly as bad as the Lone Gunmen Incident (LGI), but still... I'm a rather rabid fan of Buffy, and I avoid fan sites and commercials for it like the plague. I want each episode to be a surprise, in the way it was intended. And I know I am far from alone in this.
Perhaps the most unforgivable thing about this and the LGI is that the slashdot editors don't even care enough to fix their mistakes. Minutes after the LGI was posted, there were legions of howling mad West Coasters and Europeans raging about what had happened. To prevent further damage, the story could have been changed to remove any specific references to the plot. Something along the lines of "Something amazingly bad happened in X-Files tonight, click here to discuss". But instead, all they did was add an apology to it. Fecking pathetic.
So now the surprise of Faith's return has been ruined for me and thousands of others. In the next few days, thousands more will check out Slashdot and it will be ruined for them too, because the editors here don't care enough to fix their mistakes.
While I'm in rant mode, could somebody put a fecking "s/definately/definitely/ig;" into Slashcode? Even otherwise intelligent people are constantly mispelling this.
Of course primates get STDs - I just don't think that an STD could spread to the 90% of the population that they suggest was killed off. It is pretty clear that there was some catastrophic epidemic among chimps in the past, but saying that this is more related to AIDS than to any other infectious disease seems a bit tenuous. And my point is that comparing the effects of this epidemic to say, Black Plague, is not as likely to get the grant money as comparing it to AIDS.
I'm not a researcher in primate sociology, but from what I understand, chimps are very sexually promiscuous within their own group. But I'm pretty sure that they don't get together with other groups for big sex parties. So it seems pretty unlikely that a sexually transmitted disease could spread so thoroughly through the population as to cause this kind of uniformity in their genetic code. I could be completely wrong. Maybe chimps travel around a lot, and are more friendly with other chimp tribes than I think. It seems far more likely, IMHO, that the disease was airborn.
I am a researcher in biochemistry, and if there's one thing I know for sure, it's that researchers will always try to tie their discoveries to either cancer or AIDS. People will come up with the most tenuous links between their pet research projects and AIDS simply because it makes it much more likely that they will get more grant money. So the point of this post is simple - always be wary when some new scientific discovery is claimed to have relevance to (insert your favorite disease here). The people involved probably know damn well that it really isn't particularly relevant, but they hype the connection for publicity and grant money because the general public certainly doesn't know any better, and half the time, neither do the people on the grant committee.
Sound a bit cynical? Of course it does, I'm a grad student.
but can you imagine a Beowulf cluster of Beowulf clusters? That would be sweet. Or something.
Sorry to reply to my own post - but Dude!!!
You could combine this with the magnetic or computer vision guidance systems being developed for cars. Find a nice, long downhill road and have races where going of the road is impossible. You could put a braking system in to keep it from reaching truly dangerous speeds. The same touch sensors that currently power the throttle could be used to amplify/correct your leans into the turn.
With some nice fluffy walls lining the course, you could go nuts with oil slicks and huge padded bats. Suddenly, Mario Kart doesn't seem so ridiculously unrealistic.
Dude!
I'm surprised noone has brought up the potential these things have for becoming a whole new sport. Or dozens of new sports, for that matter. How stable are they? Can I hang off the side, flying-dutchman style, and flail about with my mallet in a game of Segway polo?
I can imagine some sick variations on the general theme of a stabilized "scooter". You could make one that adjusts its angle while riding up and down a half-pipe. It lays out horizontal while in the air, and rotates back to vertical on reentry. It could even rotate the wheels independently of your body, so you couldn't land wrong.
Or take out the driving motors and slap some huge tires on it. It would make for one hell of a wild ride down the mountainside.
Duuuuude. Duuuuuuuuuuuude. The possibilities.... Tony Hawk Pro Skater and Jet Grind Radio don't look so ridiculously unrealistic any more. I had given up on downhill skateboarding due to repeated injuries, but now I'm taking another look at it.
Seriously dude, think about it. Dude. Duuude.
I don't see it as an either/or situation. Increases in processing power will benefit both graphics and the strategic/AI aspect of the game. I like a good FPS, probably more than the next guy, but I definitely agree with you about the old-school RPGs. I've turned to the visceral, quick-thinking strategy of FPSs largely because the modern RPGs don't do it for me. (btw, don't tell me there's no strategy in CTF ;)
;)
What I'm waiting for now is for someone to come up with a brilliant fusion of flashy FPS graphics and well-written RPG/sim. Deus Ex and Thief were two very solid steps in that direction. But its not enough
The increase in processing power and storage in this latest round of consoles opens another interesting avenue of development - games for these consoles can be modded. More and more powerful consoles/PCs will bring more and more powerful tools for content creation to the "common man". While I don't have faith that the average guy in the street can produce a game that I'd want to play, I do have faith that if you have 100 million monkeys hammering on their computers, one of them will eventually write an interactive Hamlet.
I guess my point is that more power = better graphics = better AI = better strategy = more people playing and making games. Oh, and of course,
It is NEVER enough.
Yeah, I know all the stuff about various tech leaders making sweeping statements about "never needing more than 640K of memory" and such, but we really are headed for a "meaningful speed" cap on this.
Come on. You specifically acknowledge the lack of foresight of previous generations, yet deliberately make that same mistake? Give me a break.
It will NEVER be enough.
Say it with me. It will NEVER be enough. And the PCs/consoles currently around don't even come close. Terrain is rendered with huge triangles, and fog is still used as an excuse for not drawing a true horizon. Character models don't look convincingly like real people and they 'express' themselves with precomputed voice and animation. Recent attempts at AI (B&W, for instance) are sadly lacking.
When I can't tell the difference between looking at my monitor and looking out my window, maybe that will be enough. When my newest console can dynamically model a stadium full of people that look and sound like the real thing, maybe that will be enough. And when all of the people in that stadium can pass a Turing test, maybe, just maybe, that will be enough.
Nah, who am I kidding?
It will NEVER be enough.
Repeat until enlightened.
Most people who watch Lexx can't get past the absurd and sexual components. And while these do appear to dominate (and I do like them very much) that's not all there is to the show. At a higher level, the science fiction concepts that drive the plot are quite sophisticated, at least in comparison to a lot of the other stuff around. The theme behind the second season was the destructive potential of self-replicating machines. The musical episode "Brigadoom" was the best exploration of the pitfalls of biological immortality that I've ever seen. The third season was a bizarre, surrealist journey through...well, I can't say without spoiling.
Those of you just getting into Lexx probably haven't seen the first four movies (season 1). The second and third were really just long episodes - but the first and fourth are two of the best damn scifi movies I've ever seen.
Some other, on-topic ramblings-
Missing an episode of either Buffy or Angel is unacceptable to me.
Farscape is rock solid.
Andromeda could turn out to be really good.
Earth: Final Conflict had a brilliant first season, and has been going steadily downhill.
Invisible Man is good, but I still resent the fact that it replaced G vs E, which was incredibly good.
The Immortal is a pretty blatant Highlander ripoff.
Stargate SG-1 started out pretty good and is only getting better.
First Wave is cheesy and over-the-top. Kinda good sometimes.
I watch way too much TV, and read way too much scifi. I guess I could be considered vaguely knowledgable on the subject.
Oh boohoohoo - there's no shampoo, and the DVD screen is too small, and there's all this velcro...Dude! You may have lost sight of the fact that you are LIVING IN SPACE. I would donate my right nut to science to live in space for five months. Unfortunately, the market being what it is, spare nuts just aren't worth what they used to be. But the offer still stands.
Have some perspective.
A long article about attention deficit. Hmmmm. I'd like to make an informed, interesting comment, but my attention wandered long before I finished it.
They should integrate their neural net with Black & White's. Every time you come across a bit of tasty porn that you wouldn't want your kids to see, you just spank your monkey. What could be more natural?
The distant rumbling sound you hear is simply the average IQ of the Linux user base dropping to half its former value. There is no cause for alarm.
Just booted into Windows for my afternoon UT session, and sure enough, that damn 'Windows Update' window pops up. But the update site is, well, I guess slashdotted is the wrong word ;-), but its definitely congested beyond usage. What am I supposed to do? That stupid update window has an incredibly annoying habit of popping up and totally screwing display and input while I'm running the flag back to my base, but I can't install the update 'cuz the site is screwed. I guess I'll just have to boot back into Linux and actually do some work...nah. Maybe its a good time to check if the nvidia drivers and OpenUT are working properly together.
And I don't even use Outloook. Grrrr.
The whole 'evil biotech virus and cure' plot has been done many times before - A few weeks ago, the mighty Joe Bob of TNT's Monstervision aired Body Armor, which has the exact same plot. Perhaps not coincidently, it is currently (1:30PM EST) being shown on the local WB affiliate in Connecticut. Check your local listings. Its pretty amusing - it has Ron Perelman, a Dynasty chick, a bunch of stunt guys trying to act, and the mandatory comic relief in the form of Ron Howard's brother Clint. Also putting in a brief appearance at the beginning is John Rhys-Davies, of Sliders ?fame?. Don't waste the eight bucks - just watch Body Armor. Btw, if you can't stay up to watch Joe Bob, you should tape it. His analysis of movies is brilliant, brutal, and incredibly funny.
Looks like microsoft wasn't the first to come up with the name x-box. Gizmonics X-box is a huge stage designed for live action, 'in camera' special effects. Supercool. According to the site:
The goal of "X-box" was to move away from the overprocessed images of television.
A noble goal.
Microsoft is clearly infringing on Gizmonic's branding with their new console, and will have to change the name immediately:-) I suggest a variation with something hip and GenXish - like take mega, giga, super, or something like that, then make it a even hipper pseudoname by dropping a few letters. MeX, or GiX, or wait...I've got it...the SuX Box! Has a nice ring to it, dontcha think? It has a certain 'Chevy Nova in Mexico' feel.`
You hit the nail on the head. It was entertaining, and as long as you can separate it from the heritage of the original series (which nothing could live up to) it stands on its own as some quality scifi. I think Captain Cisco in particular was great - Kirk was the swashbuckler, Picard was the proper military commander, and Cisco was the Starfleet version of Shaft. He was one bad mutha (shut your mouth). Check out the episode 'In the Pale Moonlight' if you don't know what I'm talking about.
Hey, I liked the war - it was very dramatic, and ended the series with a real bang. And Nicole deBoer was brought in as Ezri because Terry Farrel left the show to do that stupid sitcom with Ted Danson. She was not written out.
Yeah, Voyager kinda sucks. Don't even get me started about Captain Wrongway...I mean Captain Hepburn...aaahh you know who I mean. Or First Officer Chipotle. Or Tom 'Forget About' Paris. I blame poor writing. They are more charicatures than characters.
I noticed something a little odd in the timothy's post - he says
What would Mendel have thought of
this? How about Watson and Crick?
This seems to imply that Watson and Crick are as dead as Mendel, which is just not true. Watson is the president of Cold Spring Harbor research institute. His homepage is here. Crick is also alive and doing some rather interesting research in the neurology of consciousness at the Salk Institute. his homepage is here. I met Dr. Crick while working at the Salk, and he's a really nice guy. I've met a number of famous people in my time, but he really awed me. Its hard to talk to him without thinking about the massive influence he has had on modern biology.
If I had to guess, I'd say that they are both as amazed by modern biology as the rest of us. Who could have guessed we'd be this far so soon? Biology is amazing. Computers are amazing. That's why I do both.
ted
I've spent the better part of the last year massaging the drosophila genome with perl scripts. I am intimately familiar with it, and I can tell you that it is NOT complete. While it is 90% sequenced, it is still in a bazillion tiny pieces. This makes it difficult to get complete sequence for many genes, as they may start in one contiguous piece and end in another. From personal experience, I would guess that about 15% of the genes are split like this.
And even if it were complete, this still wouldn't tell us where all the genes are. Its very difficult to string coding regions together into a complete gene, when there may be large introns that confuse the matter. The state of the art still only identifies about 70% of genes correctly, even given complete sequence.
And even if we did know all the genes, we still wouldn't know how they interact. We can make guesses based on previous experimets, but the majority of the genes in a given genome are experimentally uncharacterized. Current attempts at molecular simulations can't even predict how these proteins will fold, let alone with what other proteins they interact, or what they do.
There is still a lot of work to be done - getting the genomic sequence is only the beginning. A significant start, but only the first step. Could you reverse engineer the entire linux kernel if you were only given the binary? Probably not. I assure you that deducing the operation of an organsim given the raw DNA code is much more difficult. The complete sequence of the E.coli (an intestinal bacteria) has been available for a couple of years, and we haven't even begun to understand it. E.coli is single celled, and the genome is only 4.5Mb (thats megabases). Drosophila is very complicated, and the genome is about 120Mb. Don't look for anyone to 'solve the fly' any time soon.
Its a great time to be in bioinformatics - tons and tons of data that noone understands. If we did understand it all, I'd be out of a job. I'm not worried.
ted
I can't wait to toss one of these in the blender and add it to the mix in my IV bag. I'm sure my veins will really enjoy it. By eliminating solid food, and using a catheter, I never have to leave the warm comfy cradle of my recliner. I can spend 24/7 checking slashdot for new headlines, ensuring that I am always up to date and well informed.
Seriously, though, Clif Bars are rockin' geek food. Lots of protein and fiber, plus some vitamins (not complete, mostly antioxidants). And the chocolate chip peanut crunch is sooooo tasty. Nutritious candy for lazy geeks.
ted
This should be very doable with current software. Check out swig at this link. It provides a framework for interfacing C/C++ with scripting languages like python, perl, guile, etc... I'm not sure if you can interface python and perl using swig, but you could definitely write a C library that could be called from python. This C library could then use perlembed to make the appropriate perl calls. A certain amount of annoying mucking about with internals in C would be necessary, but its probably easier than writing a dozen DBI backends in python. Maybe you could even code some common data type conversions in C and make the interface general enough to handle most modules.
;-)
Of course, you could also just write a small generic server in perl that could communicate with a separate python process using an intermediate data structure implemented in both languages. And I'm sure there are a dozen other more intelligent ways to do it. After all, perl is involved, so TMTOWTDI