If you are selling an "intranet web application", promoting Linux as a lower TCO alternative, put together a demo suited for the screen size and fire up a browser. If they have a LAN, plug it into their hub and browse from the client's workstation promoting the "power of Linux".
Obviously this would work best if part of the "solution" required mobile access which you would solve using a YOPY (802.11 or something). Your sales person could do it all with two of the units, without having to muck about with a bulky laptop, without having to rely on your modem connection or the potential client's internet connectivity.
As for the common user/developer, I would bet that there are more people familiar with "web programming" (who the hell coined that anyway?) using scripting langauges (perl, python, ruby, etc) than there are whatever GUI tool kit the YOPY primarily uses. I know the browser enviroment can be lacking, but prehaps it can have a place for the not-so-hardcore-geek that might want a schedualling app they can access locally and also have a nice big screen view when they plug the PDA into their lan at home.
I've used the demo quite a bit and am generally pleased with it (stability, speed, etc). The only problem I have with it (the reason it hasn't become "my" browser) is it doesn't render some foreign languages (Japanese in particular). It won't render jis, s-jis or euc and it doesn't seem like it ever will. As for unicode, the support isn't built in for it yet, even though there is an option in preferences for Japanese.
Even if they do get unicode support for it, there aren't very many Japanese sites that use it...
I have to agree with most of what you have to say. The typical "anime" out there is pretty crappy... oddly, that is all you can find out here in the States (i.e. what Americans want to see).
Just look at the Comic Book scene here. Superhero comics, X-men, etc... you get a general idea of what people want. Of course there are a few "alternative" comics that I think are wonderful (stuff from Neil Gaiman or Alan Moore) but they are definantly not main stream.
This said, the average comic reader/anime viewer in the States doesn't seem to demand high quality story lines; they just want "eye candy" be it cool looking robots or scantily clothed underaged big headed/big eyed girls. This is a shame... There is more to anime than this. I know the more sophisticated stuff is a *LOT* harder to translate (I have fansubbed a few of the Gundam episodes out there... next on my list are some of Ginga Eiyu Densetsu.) and cultural translations never do the original justice... Most of the time it makes it sound stupid (just look at Toonami).
I won't go to the extent that/. shoudn't post news on anime... but it would be nice if the Americans could get exposed to the real good stuff for a change.
Dorao
PS I can't stand dubbed anime... I refuse to watch it and so should you!:)
I bought a 6.5G Maxtor drive several years ago... After my 5th RMA, I now have a ~10G UDMA 66 drive, which just died a few days ago (it won't spin up anymore...). I have learned my lesson, I do back-ups on a regular bases:)
They have a great "no hassle" RMA policy, they are cheap, but that is about all maxtor has going for them.
80Gs? No thank you. Sure, space would be great for an mp3 server, but not if you loose all the data every 6months. Of course, I have no experience with their newer products... have they gotten any better? Maybe its just me and that has had horible luck with maxtor drives...
I really don't see what the big deal is. (enough to be posted on/.)
I am assuming that they run their own ircd; which means they lose some users. (they don't have that big of a userbase to begin with anyways; max users in a channel that I saw was 35)
Solution: Just connect to your local EFnet, IRCnet, or undernet server (with your favorite client) and find a channel that interests you or start your own!
Dorao
PS TC Pirch is supposed to prohibit malicious activity? *bah* If the script kiddie can get the other user's IP, they are still going to flood. (seems like a poor excuse to get more add revenue; which I really don't have that much of a problem with because I am not going to use their services)
The system is designed for use by molecular biologists and biochemists working with polymerase-chain-reaction (PCR) products, restriction enzyme digests or ribonucleic acid (RNA) preparations.
All this does is eliminate the use of agarose gels.(and staining with EtBr if neccesary)
The only great thing about this is the ammount of reagents you have to use (cutting down costs a bit), and cutting down the time to do an experiment.
I usually did restriction enzyme digests over night... and then have to run it on a gel, where as this can give you results in a minute or so.
This said, what really takes time is growing the cells so you can do your DNA/RNA extractions. (IIRC you need a min. of 1x10^6 cells to use UltraSpec(tm) to do the extraction). Also, PCR can take 2-3 hours depending on how many cycles. So, as long as you plan out your experiments like you should, time really isn't an issue here. (run a gel while going to lunch || think of new experiments || use the time to catch up on your lab note book *laugh*).
Therefor, I think that (especially if you are in academia) this tool is cool and all but not really too useful (unless of course you are in industry where the same thing has to be done over and over).
Inovations that I would like to see(although it might be a little off topic):
Bring Lego Mindstorm Biotech Edition into existance!!, (including attachments to handle you favorite set of pipets & ability to combine (like voltron) to take care of bigger jobs like drag around that new Tris bucket)
Have you ever had to go into lab during the weekend or during holidays? (split cells, change media/add IL-2 and/or 12F6, Southern/Western/Northern blots that you let go over night? etc) Have you had to cut lunch short cause you forgot about a gel? The solution is simple; Give all the tedious tech jobs to the lovable lego robots.
Experiments you come up get sent to the robots via the internet, so no need to go to lab! (more time for you play quake, surf the web for porn, what ever floats your boat:P)
Have them upload data into your mysql database and have a web browser interface so you can view your results at home, or get opinions from your fellow collegues in Japan. (GIFgraph for spiffy graphs of your data, pdfLib for those who want a print out so they can paste it into their lab notebook).
New techniques? New tool? No problem. Just modify your little robots. (the only reason you have to go into lab... to play with lego) now wouldn't this be cool!
On a more serious note though... What I would like to see is a PCR machine that you give primers (with the oligo sequences of course) and the DNA/RNA sample. Have the machine try multiple combinations of adjuvents & Mg2+/Buffer concentrations to tell you in the morning what combination works best (run on gel or use the lab-chip). Maybe even give you a epidorf tube labeled and full of the product you want to use in further experiments.
Although NGF may help in rejuvenating atrophied nerve cells, according to this study, it doesn't help in cases where there is nerve damage (as seems to be assumed by several of the posts).
The study, conducted in people with diabetic peripheral neuropathy, failed to show that Nerve Growth Factor (NGF) could restore function to impaired nerves.
1. What happens to modified NGF generating cells after the job is done? I wonder if it is regulated. Do they die off? If so, is there a clean up mech. within the brain? (blood brain barrier is almost impervious... although there are studies that show some of the smaller peptids do pass through (e.g. prions).) If not, might they grow like a cancer?(skin cells do multiply quickly)
2. What could be the adverse effects of too much NGF? (having too much of any growth factor that I can recall cause rather severe negative effects.)
With this in mind, couldn't it be more effective to just inject the NGF rather than the cells into the brain? (this way, you can regulate the doses + not worry about the side effects as much).
Over all, I still believe that mastering gene -> protien regulation (where we could reproduce such a thing with cells we create) will be a key to many of the issues. We can generate cells to produce any protein of our liking, but AFAIK no regulation has been mastered. (e.g. CTLs expressing modified TCRs which recognize hiv infected cells, but expression levels not great enough to overwhelm the disease).
Prehaps a receptor for the product that triggers a reaction to turn on another gene, (which produces a protien) that inhibits the the production of the inital product. (enough babbling)
This can already be done I believe... As I stated in one of the above posts, all you need to do is alter the VDJ sequence. (antibodies are very similar to t-cell receptors).
VDJ segment == CDR3 for those who are interested. (look up Kaye, et al. 1991 Structure and specificity of the T-Cell Antigen Receptor in Sem in Immunology.)
Creating lipid bi-layers is not a problem (I've used it to do transfections using a kit out by Clontech IIRC). In a simple procaryote, all you really need are proteins (a couple polymerases and ribosomes) for translation and transcription(DNA - > RNA, RNA -> protein).
Any of the simpler protiens can already be created in mass quantities using bacteria... the key here is mixing things up, putting the "artificial cells" in the correct media and pray a lot.
One interesting side note: When I was doing my thesis, the head of my lab had successfully created T-cells with receptors (which he had modified, by altering the sequence for the VDJ segment) to target HIV infected cells (I believe it targeted gp-120). The problem here was that, doing CTL-assays, he could not get enough killing (i.e. not enough of the receptors were being expressed).
The key here is that, if one could figure out exactly how genes were being expressed/regulated, and be able to reproduce this artificially with out side-effects, we could generate anything. (use a modified HIV virus to infect t-cells inserting DNA so that the CTL would express receptors that recognized a specific cancer; for example).
Just a though. (btw, I have not been in touch with the cutting edge biochem for several years now so if I said anything wrong, correct me.)
Slashdot Mirror
Use it as a marketing tool.
If you are selling an "intranet web application", promoting Linux as a lower TCO alternative, put together a demo suited for the screen size and fire up a browser. If they have a LAN, plug it into their hub and browse from the client's workstation promoting the "power of Linux".
Obviously this would work best if part of the "solution" required mobile access which you would solve using a YOPY (802.11 or something). Your sales person could do it all with two of the units, without having to muck about with a bulky laptop, without having to rely on your modem connection or the potential client's internet connectivity.
As for the common user/developer, I would bet that there are more people familiar with "web programming" (who the hell coined that anyway?) using scripting langauges (perl, python, ruby, etc) than there are whatever GUI tool kit the YOPY primarily uses. I know the browser enviroment can be lacking, but prehaps it can have a place for the not-so-hardcore-geek that might want a schedualling app they can access locally and also have a nice big screen view when they plug the PDA into their lan at home.
Dorao
I've used the demo quite a bit and am generally pleased with it (stability, speed, etc). The only problem I have with it (the reason it hasn't become "my" browser) is it doesn't render some foreign languages (Japanese in particular). It won't render jis, s-jis or euc and it doesn't seem like it ever will. As for unicode, the support isn't built in for it yet, even though there is an option in preferences for Japanese.
Even if they do get unicode support for it, there aren't very many Japanese sites that use it...
my 2 cents,
Dorao
I have to agree with most of what you have to say. The typical "anime" out there is pretty crappy... oddly, that is all you can find out here in the States (i.e. what Americans want to see).
/. shoudn't post news on anime... but it would be nice if the Americans could get exposed to the real good stuff for a change.
:)
Just look at the Comic Book scene here. Superhero comics, X-men, etc... you get a general idea of what people want. Of course there are a few "alternative" comics that I think are wonderful (stuff from Neil Gaiman or Alan Moore) but they are definantly not main stream.
This said, the average comic reader/anime viewer in the States doesn't seem to demand high quality story lines; they just want "eye candy" be it cool looking robots or scantily clothed underaged big headed/big eyed girls. This is a shame... There is more to anime than this. I know the more sophisticated stuff is a *LOT* harder to translate (I have fansubbed a few of the Gundam episodes out there... next on my list are some of Ginga Eiyu Densetsu.) and cultural translations never do the original justice... Most of the time it makes it sound stupid (just look at Toonami).
I won't go to the extent that
Dorao
PS I can't stand dubbed anime... I refuse to watch it and so should you!
I bought a 6.5G Maxtor drive several years ago... After my 5th RMA, I now have a ~10G UDMA 66 drive, which just died a few days ago (it won't spin up anymore...). I have learned my lesson, I do back-ups on a regular bases :)
They have a great "no hassle" RMA policy, they are cheap, but that is about all maxtor has going for them.
80Gs? No thank you. Sure, space would be great for an mp3 server, but not if you loose all the data every 6months. Of course, I have no experience with their newer products... have they gotten any better? Maybe its just me and that has had horible luck with maxtor drives...
Dorao
I really don't see what the big deal is. (enough to be posted on /.)
I am assuming that they run their own ircd; which means they lose some users. (they don't have that big of a userbase to begin with anyways; max users in a channel that I saw was 35)
Solution: Just connect to your local EFnet, IRCnet, or undernet server (with your favorite client) and find a channel that interests you or start your own!
Dorao
PS TC Pirch is supposed to prohibit malicious activity? *bah* If the script kiddie can get the other user's IP, they are still going to flood. (seems like a poor excuse to get more add revenue; which I really don't have that much of a problem with because I am not going to use their services)
The system is designed for use by molecular biologists and biochemists working with polymerase-chain-reaction (PCR) products, restriction enzyme digests or ribonucleic acid (RNA) preparations.
:P)
All this does is eliminate the use of agarose gels.(and staining with EtBr if neccesary)
The only great thing about this is the ammount of reagents you have to use (cutting down costs a bit), and cutting down the time to do an experiment.
I usually did restriction enzyme digests over night... and then have to run it on a gel, where as this can give you results in a minute or so.
This said, what really takes time is growing the cells so you can do your DNA/RNA extractions. (IIRC you need a min. of 1x10^6 cells to use UltraSpec(tm) to do the extraction). Also, PCR can take 2-3 hours depending on how many cycles. So, as long as you plan out your experiments like you should, time really isn't an issue here. (run a gel while going to lunch || think of new experiments || use the time to catch up on your lab note book *laugh*).
Therefor, I think that (especially if you are in academia) this tool is cool and all but not really too useful (unless of course you are in industry where the same thing has to be done over and over).
Inovations that I would like to see(although it might be a little off topic):
Bring Lego Mindstorm Biotech Edition into existance!!,
(including attachments to handle you favorite set of pipets & ability to combine (like voltron) to take care of bigger jobs like drag around that new Tris bucket)
Have you ever had to go into lab during the weekend or during holidays? (split cells, change media/add IL-2 and/or 12F6, Southern/Western/Northern blots that you let go over night? etc) Have you had to cut lunch short cause you forgot about a gel?
The solution is simple; Give all the tedious tech jobs to the lovable lego robots.
Experiments you come up get sent to the robots via the internet, so no need to go to lab! (more time for you play quake, surf the web for porn, what ever floats your boat
Have them upload data into your mysql database and have a web browser interface so you can view your results at home, or get opinions from your fellow collegues in Japan. (GIFgraph for spiffy graphs of your data, pdfLib for those who want a print out so they can paste it into their lab notebook).
New techniques? New tool? No problem. Just modify your little robots. (the only reason you have to go into lab... to play with lego) now wouldn't this be cool!
On a more serious note though... What I would like to see is a PCR machine that you give primers (with the oligo sequences of course) and the DNA/RNA sample. Have the machine try multiple combinations of adjuvents & Mg2+/Buffer concentrations to tell you in the morning what combination works best (run on gel or use the lab-chip). Maybe even give you a epidorf tube labeled and full of the product you want to use in further experiments.
Well, I have rambled long enough again.
Dorao
http://www.apla.org/apla/positiveliving/0599/ngf.h tml
(forgot to add it)
Dorao
Check this out
Although NGF may help in rejuvenating atrophied nerve cells, according to this study, it doesn't help in cases where there is nerve damage (as seems to be assumed by several of the posts).
The study, conducted in people with diabetic peripheral neuropathy, failed to show that Nerve Growth Factor (NGF) could restore function to impaired nerves.
Dorao
A couple points that interst me:
1. What happens to modified NGF generating cells after the job is done? I wonder if it is regulated. Do they die off? If so, is there a clean up mech. within the brain? (blood brain barrier is almost impervious... although there are studies that show some of the smaller peptids do pass through (e.g. prions).) If not, might they grow like a cancer?(skin cells do multiply quickly)
2. What could be the adverse effects of too much NGF? (having too much of any growth factor that I can recall cause rather severe negative effects.)
With this in mind, couldn't it be more effective to just inject the NGF rather than the cells into the brain? (this way, you can regulate the doses + not worry about the side effects as much).
Over all, I still believe that mastering gene -> protien regulation (where we could reproduce such a thing with cells we create) will be a key to many of the issues. We can generate cells to produce any protein of our liking, but AFAIK no regulation has been mastered. (e.g. CTLs expressing modified TCRs which recognize hiv infected cells, but expression levels not great enough to overwhelm the disease).
Prehaps a receptor for the product that triggers a reaction to turn on another gene, (which produces a protien) that inhibits the the production of the inital product. (enough babbling)
Dorao
This can already be done I believe... As I stated in one of the above posts, all you need to do is alter the VDJ sequence. (antibodies are very similar to t-cell receptors).
VDJ segment == CDR3 for those who are interested. (look up Kaye, et al. 1991 Structure and specificity of the T-Cell Antigen Receptor in Sem in Immunology.)
Creating lipid bi-layers is not a problem (I've used it to do transfections using a kit out by Clontech IIRC). In a simple procaryote, all you really need are proteins (a couple polymerases and ribosomes) for translation and transcription(DNA - > RNA, RNA -> protein).
Any of the simpler protiens can already be created in mass quantities using bacteria... the key here is mixing things up, putting the "artificial cells" in the correct media and pray a lot.
One interesting side note: When I was doing my thesis, the head of my lab had successfully created T-cells with receptors (which he had modified, by altering the sequence for the VDJ segment) to target HIV infected cells (I believe it targeted gp-120). The problem here was that, doing CTL-assays, he could not get enough killing (i.e. not enough of the receptors were being expressed).
The key here is that, if one could figure out exactly how genes were being expressed/regulated, and be able to reproduce this artificially with out side-effects, we could generate anything. (use a modified HIV virus to infect t-cells inserting DNA so that the CTL would express receptors that recognized a specific cancer; for example).
Just a though. (btw, I have not been in touch with the cutting edge biochem for several years now so if I said anything wrong, correct me.)
Dorao