> Everything DNA related, shares a common encoding scheme
Not so sure about that. The encoding of amino acids in genes is quite well defined (though there are exceptions, such as selenocysteine which is produced when a signal in the 3' UTR changes the meaning of a stop codon).
And protein coding sequences only make up about 1.5% of the genome for humans. Other things in DNA are much less clear, everything in biology is stochastic. Many functional elements are directly involved in protein-DNA interactions where structure is more important than specific sequence. And not everything DNA related is in the genetic code. Positions of histones, DNA methylation, and other signals might be important.
Yes. There is only so much you can do in a lab to humans. Or for that matter monkeys or mice. However PETA doesn't seem to realize that bees and flys are animals so...
More seriously, we work with model organisms because they are much easier to work with. You can do experiments that would either cost much much more or simply be impossible in a mammal model. Depending on what you are interested in there are lots of popular model organisms: nematodes, flys, bees, zebrafish, xenopus, mouse, rat, macaque... all useful for investigating different aspects of biology, and all relevant to human health at some level.
The human genome projects worked from DNA samples pooled from a number of individuals, which were then assembled into a consensus "human genome". However the original sequenced reads can be aligned back to the reference to find differences (such as SNPs -- single nucleotide polymorphisms).
Substantial effort is underway to resequence the human genome in different individuals from different populations. The International Hapmap Project (http://www.hapmap.org/) is among the most high profile.
Well if you don't care about how they treat suppliers you should think about how they treat the workers and their agressive anti union actions. Especially as someone who claims not to have a lot of money.
Since half the comments so far seem to be "What is the point" I'll offer one justification.
There is still a serious lack of a good modern HTML browser for embeding in java applications. Swing provides an EditorKit which handles HTML3 reasonable well, but most of the other quality offerings are non free.
Major Java IDEs (Eclipse, NetBeans) have projects to implement something like this. Many other Java applications could potentially benefit. It's a good idea.
"""As I write this the chimpanzee genome project is beginning to gain momentum. When it is done... my guess is that [King and Wilson] wil lbe proved right, the critical differences will lie not in the genes themselves but in their regulation. Humans, I suspect, are simply greatt apes with a few unique -- and special -- genetic switches."""
For what it is worth, the raw similarity in the genome sequence doesn't need to indicate the same degree of similarity. Transcription is quite complex (much of it we still don't understand) and it is possible that small differences in regulatory regions can cause completely different parts of the sequence to be expressed.
Only my immediate conclusion on the feel of the thing. I'm sure the DC can travel great, but it just feels cheap.
As for SSX, that's the game they had at the kiosk, and it's damn cool. Doesn't mean it's the only game I'd buy the console for, but it's rare to see a really kickass launch title ( IMHO ).
Also doesn't mean the DC doesn't have good games as well.
The information in this slashdot post is FUD of the kind we rarely see from anyone out of microsoft.
The premises are flawed, and the conclusions are ludicrous.
I personally am waiting for some experimental data before drawing a conclusion on all this.
However I have one conclusion: I was going to buy a DC yesterday, but when I got to ELBO they had the ps2 and DC kiosks there. I played SSX and was very impressed.
And most importantly, the ps2 is FAR BETTER CONSTRUCTED. The DC felt so flimsy, especially that lame controller. I can't but it, it just feels so cheap!
The ps2 on the other hand just feels like quality. And you pay for it
Okay, this makes me fume. If you are reading this comment, and the parent comment, DON'T ACCEPT IT BLINDLY. If you don't know, investigate the licenses yourself. If you do know, you're already aware that this is bullshit.
Succesfull projects love BSD style licenses. Look at Apache. Commercial vendors prefer BSD style to GPL since it allows them more flexibility. GO BSD (Style Licenses)!
wp14: You may be right about where BSD is now, but the license premise is flawed.
Fair enough, but perhaps the idea of 'a whole application-developement framework' is flawed. X provides one of the bottom layers of an application development framework, and is very good in that role.
Imagine saying that ethernet just isn't up to par as a whole network infrastructure. Well of course not, but it's damn good at providing the data link layer and providing services to the more usefull interfaces on top of it.
It provides a level of abstraction on top of/dev/fb0 which gives you NETWORK TRANSPARENCY. When you write an application on X it can display on any X server.
It may not be perfect, and it may not be fast, but it's a lot more then you make it out to be.
It's a much better platform the target an app kit to then/dev/fb0. And Xlib is signifigantly more complex then/dev/fd0 anyway. X performs over a network. Compare that to VNC which is much closer to being just a frambuffer.
Better to have many thin layers of abstraction implementing standardized interfaces then one BIG standard API to do everything. This is what we've learned from n years of software engineering.
Well, I like the idea of a lightweight drawing model. Having the app kit be the bottom layer doesn't seem like good abstraction.
Building the app kit on top of a lightweight abstract drawing model makes more sense.
The other frameworks you reference don't provide X's one great advantage,/network transparency/.
I really believe the idea behind X is good, but also that it's time for it to be completely redesigned or replaced. But with something of it's own kind, not a BeOS style architecture.
I think that CDE had its taskbar long before the release of windows 95. Also, as another poster suggested, FVWMButtons was around before then. And what about the Wharf in NeXT?
I personally think that the Windows taskbar is the worst of all. That start button is just a huge waste of space, and there's nothing you can do about it. Just the windows icon would be better. GNOME gets it right: use that extra button anywhere on the bar.
As for quantum leaps, I don't think that's what people are really looking for. Getting people to use windows 95 in the first place was not easy. Users resist change.
Slashdot Mirror
> Everything DNA related, shares a common encoding scheme
Not so sure about that. The encoding of amino acids in genes is quite well defined (though there are exceptions, such as selenocysteine which is produced when a signal in the 3' UTR changes the meaning of a stop codon).
And protein coding sequences only make up about 1.5% of the genome for humans. Other things in DNA are much less clear, everything in biology is stochastic. Many functional elements are directly involved in protein-DNA interactions where structure is more important than specific sequence. And not everything DNA related is in the genetic code. Positions of histones, DNA methylation, and other signals might be important.
> Am I missing something here?
Yes. There is only so much you can do in a lab to humans. Or for that matter monkeys or mice. However PETA doesn't seem to realize that bees and flys are animals so...
More seriously, we work with model organisms because they are much easier to work with. You can do experiments that would either cost much much more or simply be impossible in a mammal model. Depending on what you are interested in there are lots of popular model organisms: nematodes, flys, bees, zebrafish, xenopus, mouse, rat, macaque... all useful for investigating different aspects of biology, and all relevant to human health at some level.
The human genome projects worked from DNA samples pooled from a number of individuals, which were then assembled into a consensus "human genome". However the original sequenced reads can be aligned back to the reference to find differences (such as SNPs -- single nucleotide polymorphisms).
Substantial effort is underway to resequence the human genome in different individuals from different populations. The International Hapmap Project (http://www.hapmap.org/) is among the most high profile.
http://tidy.sourceforge.net/
Check out the -bare and -clean options to remove microsoft cruft.
reference
> As an audiophile myself ...
> I have competed in IIASCA sound competitions
You seem to be contradicting yourself.
Nit #8: No, you are!
Well if you don't care about how they treat suppliers you should think about how they treat the workers and their agressive anti union actions. Especially as someone who claims not to have a lot of money.
You could always consume less.
Hey Waab!!! If you were a hotdog, would you eat yourself?!?!
Then clearly you have not yet spent enough time with Python.
Since half the comments so far seem to be "What is the point" I'll offer one justification.
There is still a serious lack of a good modern HTML browser for embeding in java applications. Swing provides an EditorKit which handles HTML3 reasonable well, but most of the other quality offerings are non free.
Major Java IDEs (Eclipse, NetBeans) have projects to implement something like this. Many other Java applications could potentially benefit. It's a good idea.
Just a little followup --
In his new book, DNA, James Watson says:
"""As I write this the chimpanzee genome project is beginning to gain momentum. When it is done... my guess is that [King and Wilson] wil lbe proved right, the critical differences will lie not in the genes themselves but in their regulation. Humans, I suspect, are simply greatt apes with a few unique -- and special -- genetic switches."""
For what it is worth, the raw similarity in the genome sequence doesn't need to indicate the same degree of similarity. Transcription is quite complex (much of it we still don't understand) and it is possible that small differences in regulatory regions can cause completely different parts of the sequence to be expressed.
Only my immediate conclusion on the feel of the thing. I'm sure the DC can travel great, but it just feels cheap.
As for SSX, that's the game they had at the kiosk, and it's damn cool. Doesn't mean it's the only game I'd buy the console for, but it's rare to see a really kickass launch title ( IMHO ).
Also doesn't mean the DC doesn't have good games as well.
I have yet to get enough play time to judge.
And yes, I am on crack.
This is an important point.
The information in this slashdot post is FUD of the kind we rarely see from anyone out of microsoft.
The premises are flawed, and the conclusions are ludicrous.
I personally am waiting for some experimental data before drawing a conclusion on all this.
However I have one conclusion: I was going to buy a DC yesterday, but when I got to ELBO they had the ps2 and DC kiosks there. I played SSX and was very impressed.
And most importantly, the ps2 is FAR BETTER CONSTRUCTED. The DC felt so flimsy, especially that lame controller. I can't but it, it just feels so cheap!
The ps2 on the other hand just feels like quality. And you pay for it
LICENSE PROBLEMS?
Okay, this makes me fume. If you are reading this comment, and the parent comment, DON'T ACCEPT IT BLINDLY. If you don't know, investigate the licenses yourself. If you do know, you're already aware that this is bullshit.
Succesfull projects love BSD style licenses. Look at Apache. Commercial vendors prefer BSD style to GPL since it allows them more flexibility. GO BSD (Style Licenses)!
wp14: You may be right about where BSD is now, but the license premise is flawed.
Mmmmmm...
But do you 'really' play lambda moo?
It was more a programming experience for me then anything else. Building not playing.
> Just about everyone would be a "Microsoft"
> if they could
Although everything else in the comments to this story seems to be misinformed bullshit, at least this much is true.
Well said, and thank you!
My name's James Taylor. Needless to say my usenet posts and such are not very close to the top of the list
Fair enough, but perhaps the idea of 'a whole application-developement framework' is flawed. X provides one of the bottom layers of an application development framework, and is very good in that role.
Imagine saying that ethernet just isn't up to par as a whole network infrastructure. Well of course not, but it's damn good at providing the data link layer and providing services to the more usefull interfaces on top of it.
HUGE DEAL
/dev/fb0 which gives you NETWORK TRANSPARENCY. When you write an application on X it can display on any X server.
/dev/fb0. And Xlib is signifigantly more complex then /dev/fd0 anyway. X performs over a network. Compare that to VNC which is much closer to being just a frambuffer.
It provides a level of abstraction on top of
It may not be perfect, and it may not be fast, but it's a lot more then you make it out to be.
It's a much better platform the target an app kit to then
Better to have many thin layers of abstraction implementing standardized interfaces then one BIG standard API to do everything. This is what we've learned from n years of software engineering.
Well, I like the idea of a lightweight drawing model. Having the app kit be the bottom layer doesn't seem like good abstraction.
/network transparency/.
Building the app kit on top of a lightweight abstract drawing model makes more sense.
The other frameworks you reference don't provide X's one great advantage,
I really believe the idea behind X is good, but also that it's time for it to be completely redesigned or replaced. But with something of it's own kind, not a BeOS style architecture.
This is the saddest case of completely missing the joke I've ever seen on /.
I coulda sworn G was from grin. Damn, that's some serious potential confustion.
I think that CDE had its taskbar long before the release of windows 95. Also, as another poster suggested, FVWMButtons was around before then. And what about the Wharf in NeXT?
I personally think that the Windows taskbar is the worst of all. That start button is just a huge waste of space, and there's nothing you can do about it. Just the windows icon would be better. GNOME gets it right: use that extra button anywhere on the bar.
As for quantum leaps, I don't think that's what people are really looking for. Getting people to use windows 95 in the first place was not easy. Users resist change.