Sure enough, as we learn more about DNA we find that these inactive DNA areas keep a lot of valuable information. I wonder if the amount of "extra" inactive DNA each species keeps is itself an adaptation, how quickly a species wants to be able to evolve.
No. evolution has no foresight, it has no intent and a species can not want to evolve in a certain direction. The way it happens, an error happens in duplication and if the error adversely affects the survival, that lineage goes extinct. Some of the errors and complete duplication of an entire gene. Some times duplication is harmful and in that case they too die off. If it has no effect both copies survive. Even if one copy gets a corruption the other copy does the job. If the error in the copy is beneficial it survives. If it is harmfull it dies off. If it is neutral but just deactivates the original job of the gene it becomes a pseudogene.
No I bashed creationists. Nice try lumping creationists with Christians to provoke a reaction. But most Christians are quite strong in their faith and they dont have any problems with evolution. And Creationists come in from all religions, Christians, Muslims, and a sprinkling of Jews, Hindus and Buddhists.
To be fair it is only the Christian Creationists who use unfair tactics and blatantly violate the commandment against bearing false witness.
The summary says "dismissively called junk DNA". That language does not occur in the serious study done by Nitya Venkataraman. I found the passage in the article, it says n
"Previous reports revealed that aminoglycoside antibiotics could suppress the termination codon of pseudogenes and disease-associated nonsense mutations [19â"25]. In bacteria, "
People be careful when you summarize research in evolution. Creationists are known to quote mine and they repeatedly quote the mistaken summary (like the one posted here in slashdot) but attribute it, wrongly and knowlingly to the science article. No matter how many times you correct they continue to persist in their misrepresentation. Finding pseudogene is quite common and it actually strengthens the argument for a common ancestor. Like all mammals can make their own Vitamin C. But we primates cant. The gene to make the vitamin exists as a mutated pseudogene in our genome. Such pseudogenes are quite common.
But somehow in the mind of a creationist, gaining understanding of the original function of a pseudogene is somehow an evidence against evolution. Don't feed these trolls with sloppy summaries.
I am very sure, creationists will trumpet "Scientists have pie in their face. New function found in junk DNA. Death of Evolution is neigh. Halleluja!" quoting this very summary.
There are things that can't be warrantied away like that(and in some cases, this is a good thing; but; I just don't think that software is one of them). "Delicious candy may contain succulent lead, eat at own risk, non-toxicity not warrantied" would not make selling tainted food any less problematic.
But if I just give away my leftovers from my restaurant to some soup kitchen free, would I still be liable? May be. If I give away left overs from my home to a passing vagrant would I be held liable? What if I brown bag my lunch and in the work place they order pizza for some reason and I give my brown bag to the homeless guy on the way to the trolley stop without even opening to check if the sandwich has spoiled, would I still be liable?
So you could be liable if you knowingly ship defective software. The correct solution is then not to look at bug reports and other feedback. Then you could not be accused of knowingly shipping defective software. That is why Microsoft refuses to acknowledge the existence of security holes widely reported and widely being exploited. By saying "We are still investigating the alleged security violations" and making these "inspectors" not communicate with developers and mangers charged with shipping the products, Microsoft evades responsibility. It takes money and bigger infrastructure to pull of this trick. Now that Red Hat has also finally grown up and joined the big boys (now it is part of S&P 500) it can afford to pull the same trick. And so it is scaring the hobbyist. Once the hobbyist and enthusiasts stop contributing code the big commercial guys can divvie up the market between themselves. That seems to be the strategy here.
Send bug reports directly by email to managers in Microsfot and Red Hat. Make them "know" the defect. That will level the playing field.
Typed in "why are microsoft products insecure?". 3rd hit: "Why use open source when Microsoft products are so inexpensive?"!
Also why mac books are so expensive. and it gets worse after that.
I hate the flashing banners, pop ups, pop unders, and distracting flash animations etc as much as anyone. But I do not mind the content providers making a little money selling my eye ball time, if the ads are not distracting and if the ad load is not too much.
In the non-cyber world, we all accept ads in the magazines and newspapers, realizing the subsidy they provide to the mags and papers. Same way here.
I wish there is a way to set my browser agent to tell the websites something like:
Will accept text ads.
Will reject all animations gif, flash or javascript.
Will allow 20% of screen real estate to ads.
Content load time not less than 0.33 times ad load time.
Currently looking for ads with keywords : digital camera, DVD cases/sleeves, air tickets to India
I'm an OSS advocate. I use Ubuntu and openSUSE at home. My kids run Ubuntu.
Really? You think you are an advocate?. More like user. If a large market segment decides to award a contact without even looking at OSS and you think it is fair, you are not much of an advocate. If a private company does that, we can leave it to the market to correct it. But the government is often the only provider of some services and all its vendors to be tied to a proprietary system where the vendor has to pay (Microsoft) to play is very very unfair. Further, being government, it is much less susceptible to market forces, with its ability to tax the population and pay the fees.
Ability to avail services of the government and to be a vendor to it without having to pay some third party fees is one of the fundamental rights of the people. How would you react if the government posts all the contract details in some private club with access restricted only to the members? Do you think it is fair?
"The parallel in military terms is a standing army," said Matthias Nahrendorf, an author of the report. "You don't want to have to recruit an entire fighting force from the ground up every time you need it."
One of the first thing the US Government did after defeating England in the Revolutionary War is to dismantle and demobilize the army. Curiously most Americans today who support strict and original interpretation of the constitution are also enthusiastic support of military adventurism. Just saying.
Then the microbook will grow to be 17" screen full keyboard QuadCore 64 bit CPU with Nvidia graphics card and all the users will abandon this and flock to Nanobook that has a 7" screen and all the marketing gurus of these hardware vendors will sign and start it all over agin.
I am a super student with a GPA of 2.7 and a near perfect (>89%) attendance record. I am going to sue these guys who are building this big thingie in a hole in the ground for not finding me and giving me a job. If they had done that, the project would be in A-OK shape.
In the inter- and intra- IIT cultural festivals, one of the perennial favorite skit theme
is a student suing the univ for not getting enough education to get a job.
The univ forms a committee of profs tasked to declare the student
"passed" no matter how ridiculous the answer is. And the student
trying very hard to fail giving ridiculous answers.
Q: How long was the six-day war?
A: Six meters
Prof Swaminathan: According to therory of relativity... mumbo jumbo...
six meters = six days. QED. So full credit to the student.
You get the drift.
Well, at least this suit brought back fond memories. Thanks.
MsWord has too large an installed base and there is too much inertia for people to change.
Somewhere near 600 million to 1 billion people know how to use MsWord. It might not die.
Even if it does it wont die swiftly.
I really don't want Microsoft or Word to be dead and be replaced by another monoculture.
Just inter operate nicely with non patent encumbered, open, software. We will live in peace.
Is it possible to tow a tiny dolly that carries a small gasoline powered generator? Will there be franchises at highway entrances that will rent you one for long trips?
Ansoft is the world's leading provider of FEM based design software. They also have circuit simulation products Designer Nexxim etc. All have free student versions. It is something your students can put on their resume. www.ansoft.com.
Everyone knows that when a muggle or a wizard buys a goblin made object, it is not really sold. It is licensed to the user but eventually it should be returned to the maker.
"You don't understand, Harry, nobody could understand unless they have lived with the goblins. To a goblin, the rightful and true master of any object is its maker, not the purchaser. All goblin-made objects are, in goblin eyes, rightfully theirs."
"But if it was bought ---"
"---then they would consider it rented by one who had paid the money. They have, however, great difficulty with the idea of goblin-made objects passing from wizard to wizard. [snip] I believe he thinks, as do the fiercest of his kind, that it [the Sword of Gryffindor] ought to have been returned to the goblins once the original purchaser died. They consider our habit of keeping goblin-made objects, passing them from wizard to wizard without further payment, little more than theft."
MS might be pressured to reduce prices sooner or later though.
That is the key. As long as Microsoft is maintaining the huge margins in Office and OS franchises and keeps running the upgrade treadmill at full speed, it will generate so much cash, it can simply wait out any competition. On the other hand it has grown to be a huge bureaucracy with many fifedoms and personal empires built inside. So throttling the cash generation even by small amount would play havoc in the internal palace intrigues within the company.
Using vaporware to create congestion in the cash flow of the "enemy" is quintessentially a Microsoft tactic. Just the game is played by the other party now. That the difference.
It is a game invented by Microsoft. Some start up creates a product. Looks like the product has some legs. Microsoft feels, that product could threaten its monopoly or it feels it wants that piece of the market also for itself, or it thinks sabotaging that product would somehow strengthen its position. All it used to take to kill it would be a press release. "Microsoft is planning to release a competitor in the next release Or would make the functionality part of Windows." That is it. Venture capital would evaporate and the product would never see the light of the day.
Now Microsoft is facing the same game from the other end. Very carefully timed announcement by Google that all the OS you would need to run a netbook is coming soon. Vendors do not commit wholeheartedly to Microsoft. Device driver writers do not just hack something that will work in Windows alone and be done with it. Consumers also do not rush out to buy the latest and greatest. Corporations add another action to their evaluation. "What about Chrome OS?". That buys some time. Most vendors cite Chrome OS and demand hefty discount for Win7 in netbook market. Microsoft is forced to sell its OS at bargain basement prices in the fastest growing segment of PC market.
but the predominant economic theory is that everything is fine, markets correct themselves and all of that nonsense.
You are wrong. Markets do correct themselves.
But the time constants in the Market's reaction is measured in years, decades, centuries and even millenia. Even something as stable as the feudal system that lasted 1000 years eventually collapsed under its own inefficiency.
Second, when the market corrects itself it is not going to compensate the people who have been hurt. It will find new winners and the old losers will not get anything. For example, taking Walmart example, it undercuts competition by encouraging forced labor, environmental degradation far away and drives "good" producers out of business. Then with the monopoly attained it should over charge, recoup the losses. As the price goes up to support "good" producers again, the Market will create good producers again fresh. By that time the old good producers who were driven out would be long dead. This is the theory.
The difference between communism and complete free market capitalism is that, communism won't work even in theory. Once you decouple reward from effort, there is no incentive for any one to produce anything. Communism loses at the starting block. Free market capitalism will work in theory. Free markets with enough Government control to prevent monopolies, trusts and cartel forming would speed up the cycle time and work.
Most free market radical libertarians who have a visceral contempt for the government and have convinced themselves that Government never produces anything, and all taxes are confiscatory do not really understand the importance of cartel breaking, trust busting, monopoly preventing, in getting the economy to work. Don't get me started on the government role in preventing a cash economy from
developing.
I bet the passage closes up again in 3 or 5 years right on schedules.
You bet what you have. You don't have the right to bet my children's future. You don't even have the right to bet your children's future. Why don't you bet what you do have? Buy Exxon Mobil call options now. With all your money. Put your money where your mouth is.
Slashdot Mirror
No. evolution has no foresight, it has no intent and a species can not want to evolve in a certain direction. The way it happens, an error happens in duplication and if the error adversely affects the survival, that lineage goes extinct. Some of the errors and complete duplication of an entire gene. Some times duplication is harmful and in that case they too die off. If it has no effect both copies survive. Even if one copy gets a corruption the other copy does the job. If the error in the copy is beneficial it survives. If it is harmfull it dies off. If it is neutral but just deactivates the original job of the gene it becomes a pseudogene.
To be fair it is only the Christian Creationists who use unfair tactics and blatantly violate the commandment against bearing false witness.
People be careful when you summarize research in evolution. Creationists are known to quote mine and they repeatedly quote the mistaken summary (like the one posted here in slashdot) but attribute it, wrongly and knowlingly to the science article. No matter how many times you correct they continue to persist in their misrepresentation. Finding pseudogene is quite common and it actually strengthens the argument for a common ancestor. Like all mammals can make their own Vitamin C. But we primates cant. The gene to make the vitamin exists as a mutated pseudogene in our genome. Such pseudogenes are quite common.
But somehow in the mind of a creationist, gaining understanding of the original function of a pseudogene is somehow an evidence against evolution. Don't feed these trolls with sloppy summaries.
I am very sure, creationists will trumpet "Scientists have pie in their face. New function found in junk DNA. Death of Evolution is neigh. Halleluja!" quoting this very summary.
Of course, suing someone doesn't restore...revenue. Uhhh, yes it does. That's the whole point of suing.
Nah, Winning a suit restores revenue, (if the defendant had not already gone bankrupt). Suing only costs money to both.
But if I just give away my leftovers from my restaurant to some soup kitchen free, would I still be liable? May be. If I give away left overs from my home to a passing vagrant would I be held liable? What if I brown bag my lunch and in the work place they order pizza for some reason and I give my brown bag to the homeless guy on the way to the trolley stop without even opening to check if the sandwich has spoiled, would I still be liable?
Send bug reports directly by email to managers in Microsfot and Red Hat. Make them "know" the defect. That will level the playing field.
Typed in "why are microsoft products insecure?". 3rd hit: "Why use open source when Microsoft products are so inexpensive?"! Also why mac books are so expensive. and it gets worse after that.
In the non-cyber world, we all accept ads in the magazines and newspapers, realizing the subsidy they provide to the mags and papers. Same way here.
I wish there is a way to set my browser agent to tell the websites something like:
Will accept text ads.
Will reject all animations gif, flash or javascript.
Will allow 20% of screen real estate to ads.
Content load time not less than 0.33 times ad load time.
Currently looking for ads with keywords : digital camera, DVD cases/sleeves, air tickets to India
What? Apple hired the ex Microsoftee who strategized to kill DR-DOS? The modus operandi is unmistakable!
I'm an OSS advocate. I use Ubuntu and openSUSE at home. My kids run Ubuntu.
Really? You think you are an advocate?. More like user. If a large market segment decides to award a contact without even looking at OSS and you think it is fair, you are not much of an advocate. If a private company does that, we can leave it to the market to correct it. But the government is often the only provider of some services and all its vendors to be tied to a proprietary system where the vendor has to pay (Microsoft) to play is very very unfair. Further, being government, it is much less susceptible to market forces, with its ability to tax the population and pay the fees.
Ability to avail services of the government and to be a vendor to it without having to pay some third party fees is one of the fundamental rights of the people. How would you react if the government posts all the contract details in some private club with access restricted only to the members? Do you think it is fair?
One of the first thing the US Government did after defeating England in the Revolutionary War is to dismantle and demobilize the army. Curiously most Americans today who support strict and original interpretation of the constitution are also enthusiastic support of military adventurism. Just saying.
oooooooooooooosh!
Surprised no one called you an insensitive clod.
Then the microbook will grow to be 17" screen full keyboard QuadCore 64 bit CPU with Nvidia graphics card and all the users will abandon this and flock to Nanobook that has a 7" screen and all the marketing gurus of these hardware vendors will sign and start it all over agin.
I am a super student with a GPA of 2.7 and a near perfect (>89%) attendance record. I am going to sue these guys who are building this big thingie in a hole in the ground for not finding me and giving me a job. If they had done that, the project would be in A-OK shape.
Q: How long was the six-day war?
A: Six meters
Prof Swaminathan: According to therory of relativity... mumbo jumbo... six meters = six days. QED. So full credit to the student.
You get the drift.
Well, at least this suit brought back fond memories. Thanks.
I really don't want Microsoft or Word to be dead and be replaced by another monoculture. Just inter operate nicely with non patent encumbered, open, software. We will live in peace.
Is it possible to tow a tiny dolly that carries a small gasoline powered generator? Will there be franchises at highway entrances that will rent you one for long trips?
Ansoft is the world's leading provider of FEM based design software. They also have circuit simulation products Designer Nexxim etc. All have free student versions. It is something your students can put on their resume. www.ansoft.com.
So Apple is going to join Microsoft in the Ye Olde Convicted Monopolists' club?
"You don't understand, Harry, nobody could understand unless they have lived with the goblins. To a goblin, the rightful and true master of any object is its maker, not the purchaser. All goblin-made objects are, in goblin eyes, rightfully theirs."
"But if it was bought ---"
"---then they would consider it rented by one who had paid the money. They have, however, great difficulty with the idea of goblin-made objects passing from wizard to wizard. [snip] I believe he thinks, as do the fiercest of his kind, that it [the Sword of Gryffindor] ought to have been returned to the goblins once the original purchaser died. They consider our habit of keeping goblin-made objects, passing them from wizard to wizard without further payment, little more than theft."
That is the key. As long as Microsoft is maintaining the huge margins in Office and OS franchises and keeps running the upgrade treadmill at full speed, it will generate so much cash, it can simply wait out any competition. On the other hand it has grown to be a huge bureaucracy with many fifedoms and personal empires built inside. So throttling the cash generation even by small amount would play havoc in the internal palace intrigues within the company.
Using vaporware to create congestion in the cash flow of the "enemy" is quintessentially a Microsoft tactic. Just the game is played by the other party now. That the difference.
Now Microsoft is facing the same game from the other end. Very carefully timed announcement by Google that all the OS you would need to run a netbook is coming soon. Vendors do not commit wholeheartedly to Microsoft. Device driver writers do not just hack something that will work in Windows alone and be done with it. Consumers also do not rush out to buy the latest and greatest. Corporations add another action to their evaluation. "What about Chrome OS?". That buys some time. Most vendors cite Chrome OS and demand hefty discount for Win7 in netbook market. Microsoft is forced to sell its OS at bargain basement prices in the fastest growing segment of PC market.
You are wrong. Markets do correct themselves.
But the time constants in the Market's reaction is measured in years, decades, centuries and even millenia. Even something as stable as the feudal system that lasted 1000 years eventually collapsed under its own inefficiency.
Second, when the market corrects itself it is not going to compensate the people who have been hurt. It will find new winners and the old losers will not get anything. For example, taking Walmart example, it undercuts competition by encouraging forced labor, environmental degradation far away and drives "good" producers out of business. Then with the monopoly attained it should over charge, recoup the losses. As the price goes up to support "good" producers again, the Market will create good producers again fresh. By that time the old good producers who were driven out would be long dead. This is the theory.
The difference between communism and complete free market capitalism is that, communism won't work even in theory. Once you decouple reward from effort, there is no incentive for any one to produce anything. Communism loses at the starting block. Free market capitalism will work in theory. Free markets with enough Government control to prevent monopolies, trusts and cartel forming would speed up the cycle time and work.
Most free market radical libertarians who have a visceral contempt for the government and have convinced themselves that Government never produces anything, and all taxes are confiscatory do not really understand the importance of cartel breaking, trust busting, monopoly preventing, in getting the economy to work. Don't get me started on the government role in preventing a cash economy from developing.
You bet what you have. You don't have the right to bet my children's future. You don't even have the right to bet your children's future. Why don't you bet what you do have? Buy Exxon Mobil call options now. With all your money. Put your money where your mouth is.