I am just a layman, but I read the article in the first link to literally mean "Good news! The mice are pooping out the tubes instead of dying from them!"
So that's, um, good news...I guess? Thanks for sorting through all that mouse shit for us, Dai! Er, cancer doesn't stand a chance?
It's not a very confusing distinction if you think about it. Saying that you've "cured" a disease implies that you've actually created something that can restore a patient to full health, or at the very least created some kind of predicate by which infection cannot even possibly occur. Smallpox, for example, was effectively cured by way of a preemptive, widely-used vaccine. There is no evidence in the article that the nanotubes procedure does either of these things.
A cancer is by definition a cellular aberration. So to claim a potential cure for all cellular aberrations is pretty strange.
Isn't it far more likely that this group has improved on a novel but not particularly practical treatment for some types of cancer, but has run with the "cure for cancer" label for the sake of sensationalism?
Hongjie Dai, co-author of the study, had this to say about the study:
"One of the longstanding problems in medicine is how to cure cancer without harming normal body tissue."
I do not have a medical background, but what I know about cancer is that its causes are often rooted in any combination of lifetime exposure to carcinogens, dietary decisions, family history--you name it. In other words, people get cancer for reasons that can't possibly be addressed by running small tubes through their bodies.
Isn't this really just yet another potential treatment for cancer, and not by any means a cure for it? Isn't it the case that a patient with cancer could undergo extensive nanotube treatment, rid of every cancerous cell, only to have the cancer reappear due to any of the aforementioned factors?
Is this really just a semantic mistake (i.e. "Hongjie Dai" may not understand every nuanced term in the English language or just misspoke), or would this procedure really be marketed and used as a permanent cure for one of the world's worst killers?
That's great how you're so impressed with Cox, and that going with Cox has worked out so well for you. I tried Cox myself for a little while in Virginia, but it just wasn't doing it for me. But if you like Cox, then who am I to argue?
P.S. Please make sure you ALWAYS express your love for Cox using the written, rather than spoken, word. I'll explain later.
1. Electric mustache trimmers far more newfangled than the reliable steam-powered models.
2. Local beret dealer insists on selling them in outlandish, inefficient colors such as "blue" and "red" instead of the more streamlined "black" model.
3. Technological advances in promulgating human rights laws make it no longer possible to keep hyperactive co-host safely chained to a radiator in the basement between tapings.
I play the GWX mod pretty frequently, and cannot recommend it enough! It's much more than a graphics update. I love the added REALISM that the team has added to the vanilla SH3 platform. And the way the difficulty level is scaled, as things get more realistic, they also get way more difficult.
No longer can you surface and go toe-to-toe with your deck gun against a destroyer with impunity, like you could in vanilla SH3. The oceans are littered with roving convoys of war machines bent on sinking you. Planes will hound you until you dive, and one well-placed depth charge is all it takes to end your career.
Playing GWX feels like the submarine itself is working against you. In even the most advanced subs, diving times are realistically abysmal. Fuel, battery power, and CO2 levels must be carefully managed. And even your ultimate weapon scarcely helps things: Torpedoes must be precisely aimed using high school trigonometry, and you'll probably need more than one shot to safeguard against duds or glancing blows.
If you are able to sink anything at all under those circumstances, then it truly is cause for celebration.
...and can safely assure you that unless you are a fan of very minor variations on the "I have a gun, you have a gun" FPS concept, there is *nothing* for you here.
The expectation may be for some original, Portal-quality games. If that's the case, then these fan-selected winners will be a disappointment.
I used to live both on and off the campus, connected to the university's blindingly fast network. The wholesale violations of copyright law that I committed, that my dorm mates and fraternity brothers committed, that everyone within my entire social sphere committed were about on par with what you would suspect from a major state university. I could snag most full-length films in 20 minutes or less, and most full mp3 albums in a few minutes tops. Stealing went on then, and it probably goes on even now.
It might be useful to prattle on about how draconian and unjust copyright laws may be--to decry business models as antiquated and unrealistic and so on. But it would be a jury argument, not a legal one. The fact remains that these students probably *DID* do what they were accused of doing. And they probably *DID* know they weren't supposed to, and did it anyway. To couch wanton lawbreaking as political speech, as many of the more articulate "fuck the RIAA" folks tend to do, is just intellectually dishonest.
Is there a life after education that doesn't involve working at least 40 hours a week? Outside of winning the lottery or being independently wealthy anyway, most of us have to work for a living. The only variable is the rate of pay, which is usually commensurate with the quality of life you enjoy after you're out of school.
And you can bet that the machine was purchased using taxpayer money gleaned from the state or county. The e-voting machine for the town of 80 is like the bridge to nowhere of the electoral system.
It's a shame that we live in a matter of state where people have to say "don't vote for the candidate you support because it splits the vote, and in turn the guy both of us oppose will win". You should pick who you want, based on your criteria, and let the chips fall where they may.
There is a lot of wisdom in voting with political goals in mind. That's why most of us vote for the candidates who promise to do things that we want if they're elected.
But with third party candidates, the political goal is limited. The grassroots support for these people is often so anemic as to preclude any chance of their ever being elected. Candidates who run in that situation are well aware of that, as are the people who vote for them. So in their vanity, they run anyway in order to direct attention to certain issues, or (worst of all) to go on this self-important crusade to point out how limited and "broken" the two-party system is.
In that way, the act of voting is reduced to noting more than a mere forum, the votes themselves cast for empty speech over meaningful action. But voting is so much greater than that. It's supposed to be a way to elect people who will have an effect in the political sphere. It's disgraceful, because the rest of us are busy trying to elect people who will raise the minimum wage, lower interest rates on student loan debt, pay off the national debt, and in general improve the lives of everyone but the absolute wealthiest among us. While these nutjobs vote for their hopelessly unelectable, one-issue candidate, the rest of us suffer.
This reminds me of something a certain #$$# in the 30's, who was also of European heritage would have said to justify "political" ideas. Don't worry there's nothing dangerous here in spreading the idea that certain types of humans are better than others.
No no, rest assured, the man to which we attribute the transistor was batshit crazy for the idea too, and that was decades later.
You make excellent points. With regard to my first point, I would begrudgingly agree. It is a bad writer who blames his audience for not understanding, and if there was a failure to communicate, it surely must have been on my part? Still, I thought it was clear that I wasn't going for the "Oh look, he's a family man" angle at all. I guess it really, really wasn't clear at all. So then we had the situation with people like "Hitler Picture Man" making hay based on false assumptions. Oh well, it's a forum, not the end of the world.
Regarding your next point, I did of course compare the actual, documented torture perpetrated by Saddam and his sons versus the mere potential for torture under the newly passed "Torture Bill". I admit trying to slip this one past you. Kudos to you for identifying the discrepancy between the two. But you must agree, the idea that you or I could be identified by officials in the executive branch as "enemy combatants" and spend the rest of our days in a Gitmo dungeon without access to any legal process that could prove out our innocence is pretty scary stuff.
Am I supposed to forget about the slim possibility that it could happen simply because it hasn't happened yet?
I would love to see the Democrats take back at least the House. This "take away your privacy and human rights while we wage a pointless war" shit has gone on long enough. It is high time for some functional checks and balances. I guess we'll see what happens in the days to come. Good luck to you.
Thank you both for the insights! No no, I'm not flaming (but given how moderation point lottery winners are, I'll probably be modded down for some reason nevertheless). I've read your post and the poster above you. I appreciate that the people behind the NetBSD Project aren't trying for a hard sell here, just to create a useful operating system.
My question should have been read like "I'm already a nerd, what would I find most appealing about NetBSD? What would I fall in love with if I installed it?"
As it stands, I think I'll do the classic turn-the-old-computer-into-a-firewall trick with it. NetBSD looks like it could run admirably on an old, 166 MHz Pentium that I still have. The short install time and better-than-iptables CLI tools have be sold.
I've read the press release. What do I get by installing this that I can't get in a 2 year-old Gentoo Linux installation? The BSD's have always been a bit of an enigma to me. Could someone enlighten me?
Now I'm just convinced that even the people who submit articles don't read them first. This wasn't "vandalism" per se so much as it was shameless self-promotion by Anthony M. Benis, who invented the same psychological theory that he would later write about on Wikipedia. While his knowledge and authority on the theory are not in question (what with his being the creator of it), the notability of the theory in the field of psychology is in question.
It seems that the true nature of the article is far, far more boring than what the summary leads you to believe.
Actually, I was the original poster;) And I think you and Mr. Hitler Picture have completely missed the point of this discussion and of the original post, mostly because you have failed to educate yourselves about who the girl in the picture is and the circumstances that led to her fleeing Iraq. I didn't lay it out for you people in the original post because I thought you were smart enough to read the accompanying Wikipedia entry and realize the great irony in what the picture attempts to portray. I thought wrong.
I won't repeat myself. Just read what I posted here.
I wouldn't talk too loudly. You see, I just found out that if somebody wins the mod point lottery and thinks you hate their freedom, then they go back under cover of darkness and mod contrary opinions down as "flamebait." Such is the way that divergent opinions are punished on Slashdot. I'm amused at how broken the moderation system is, when one person and his or her 5 points can be enough to derail a thread with 100 different responses. But as my long-dead, ex-marine grandfather who was prone to use of colorful language used to say, "It's no sweat off of my balls." Eat shit, Slashdot.
Honestly, reading the responses to this thread has made me lose respect for Slashdot readers as even a cut above average. Clearly most are not thoughtful nor intelligent posters. Witness the vast number of responses to this thread that read like "Oh, so you see a picture and think he's a family man and you feel sorry for him? What about all the people he killed, do you feel sorry for them too?" and so on. It is a trite undervaluing of the original statement. It misses the point. It badly and embarrassingly misses the point.
I feel sorry for Saddam because, as another poster was apt to also notice, daughter and father--smiling and lovingly posing for the picture--had a relationship based in cruelty just like many of Saddam's other relationships (he killed her husband, she fled the country, etc.--READ the Wikipedia entry for more info, for godsake). The picture belies a reality--a reality that, despite the vast power he held as the undisputed ruler of Iraq--Saddam could not maintain. Saddam was no family man, simply a tyrant who knew enough to value only those within a small, trusted inner circle. When I see Hussein with his daughter, posing like that, I see a false reality. I see a relationship between father and daughter that was only aspirational. It makes me pity him like "Even this, which he was most proud of, has gone wrong for him."
The other part of my original statement is rhetorical and leads into what you have said. You are right, of course. America has already ironically outdone Saddam in terms of cruelty. Suddenly Uday and Qusay's torture rooms don't seem nearly as bad compared to the legally sanctioned torture by American operatives that is undoubtedly going on even as I type this. We once prided ourselves on being able to take the moral high road, of being better and greater than our enemies. Clearly that is the case no longer. These people (both on Slashdot and in our government) want Saddam Hussein to die painfully. Also, they want even those people only suspected of being terrorists to be tortured in secret dungeons without any hope of release or reprieve. They mock those who plead for compassion and mercy. They lack humanity, they lack wisdom.
This is not a political issue, and about whether or not you support George Bush or hate terrorism. It is only that political operatives have done a very good job of making you think that it is. No, this is a question of how human you really are. It is a question of how much you value human life, and the moral tenets we once held dear.
I agree, that seems uncalled for. I think we can discuss this issue without dropping the f-bomb, even if the AC's can't help themselves.
I think it's a little cheap to compare Hussein to Hitler. Everybody compares people they dislike to Hitler and it's probably the most tired trick in the book. Example: "I don't like George W. Bush! He's just like Hitler!" "I don't like Dixie-brand Mayonnaise. Auf wiedersehen, you fascist condiment! You're just like Hitler!" I think Slashdot posters can and should do a little better than that, know what I mean?
Slashdot Mirror
I am just a layman, but I read the article in the first link to literally mean "Good news! The mice are pooping out the tubes instead of dying from them!"
So that's, um, good news...I guess? Thanks for sorting through all that mouse shit for us, Dai! Er, cancer doesn't stand a chance?
It's not a very confusing distinction if you think about it. Saying that you've "cured" a disease implies that you've actually created something that can restore a patient to full health, or at the very least created some kind of predicate by which infection cannot even possibly occur. Smallpox, for example, was effectively cured by way of a preemptive, widely-used vaccine. There is no evidence in the article that the nanotubes procedure does either of these things.
A cancer is by definition a cellular aberration. So to claim a potential cure for all cellular aberrations is pretty strange.
Isn't it far more likely that this group has improved on a novel but not particularly practical treatment for some types of cancer, but has run with the "cure for cancer" label for the sake of sensationalism?
Hongjie Dai, co-author of the study, had this to say about the study:
"One of the longstanding problems in medicine is how to cure cancer without harming normal body tissue."
I do not have a medical background, but what I know about cancer is that its causes are often rooted in any combination of lifetime exposure to carcinogens, dietary decisions, family history--you name it. In other words, people get cancer for reasons that can't possibly be addressed by running small tubes through their bodies.
Isn't this really just yet another potential treatment for cancer, and not by any means a cure for it? Isn't it the case that a patient with cancer could undergo extensive nanotube treatment, rid of every cancerous cell, only to have the cancer reappear due to any of the aforementioned factors?
Is this really just a semantic mistake (i.e. "Hongjie Dai" may not understand every nuanced term in the English language or just misspoke), or would this procedure really be marketed and used as a permanent cure for one of the world's worst killers?That's great how you're so impressed with Cox, and that going with Cox has worked out so well for you. I tried Cox myself for a little while in Virginia, but it just wasn't doing it for me. But if you like Cox, then who am I to argue?
P.S. Please make sure you ALWAYS express your love for Cox using the written, rather than spoken, word. I'll explain later.
I'm not holding out much hope for the new Beebeardosaur I found yesterday in the Houston Museum of Natural Science! :(
His chief complaints are:
1. Electric mustache trimmers far more newfangled than the reliable steam-powered models.
2. Local beret dealer insists on selling them in outlandish, inefficient colors such as "blue" and "red" instead of the more streamlined "black" model.
3. Technological advances in promulgating human rights laws make it no longer possible to keep hyperactive co-host safely chained to a radiator in the basement between tapings.
I play the GWX mod pretty frequently, and cannot recommend it enough! It's much more than a graphics update. I love the added REALISM that the team has added to the vanilla SH3 platform. And the way the difficulty level is scaled, as things get more realistic, they also get way more difficult.
No longer can you surface and go toe-to-toe with your deck gun against a destroyer with impunity, like you could in vanilla SH3. The oceans are littered with roving convoys of war machines bent on sinking you. Planes will hound you until you dive, and one well-placed depth charge is all it takes to end your career.
Playing GWX feels like the submarine itself is working against you. In even the most advanced subs, diving times are realistically abysmal. Fuel, battery power, and CO2 levels must be carefully managed. And even your ultimate weapon scarcely helps things: Torpedoes must be precisely aimed using high school trigonometry, and you'll probably need more than one shot to safeguard against duds or glancing blows.
If you are able to sink anything at all under those circumstances, then it truly is cause for celebration.
Happy hunting!
...and can safely assure you that unless you are a fan of very minor variations on the "I have a gun, you have a gun" FPS concept, there is *nothing* for you here.
The expectation may be for some original, Portal-quality games. If that's the case, then these fan-selected winners will be a disappointment.
Thanks for the link. I was drawing an about:blank there, too. ;)
I used to live both on and off the campus, connected to the university's blindingly fast network. The wholesale violations of copyright law that I committed, that my dorm mates and fraternity brothers committed, that everyone within my entire social sphere committed were about on par with what you would suspect from a major state university. I could snag most full-length films in 20 minutes or less, and most full mp3 albums in a few minutes tops. Stealing went on then, and it probably goes on even now.
It might be useful to prattle on about how draconian and unjust copyright laws may be--to decry business models as antiquated and unrealistic and so on. But it would be a jury argument, not a legal one. The fact remains that these students probably *DID* do what they were accused of doing. And they probably *DID* know they weren't supposed to, and did it anyway. To couch wanton lawbreaking as political speech, as many of the more articulate "fuck the RIAA" folks tend to do, is just intellectually dishonest.
"No precioussssss I did not shoot stupid, fat deputy!"
I'd buy it!
Don't you mean "Who are you Tolkien about?" :)
Is there a life after education that doesn't involve working at least 40 hours a week? Outside of winning the lottery or being independently wealthy anyway, most of us have to work for a living. The only variable is the rate of pay, which is usually commensurate with the quality of life you enjoy after you're out of school.
And you can bet that the machine was purchased using taxpayer money gleaned from the state or county. The e-voting machine for the town of 80 is like the bridge to nowhere of the electoral system.
There is a lot of wisdom in voting with political goals in mind. That's why most of us vote for the candidates who promise to do things that we want if they're elected.
But with third party candidates, the political goal is limited. The grassroots support for these people is often so anemic as to preclude any chance of their ever being elected. Candidates who run in that situation are well aware of that, as are the people who vote for them. So in their vanity, they run anyway in order to direct attention to certain issues, or (worst of all) to go on this self-important crusade to point out how limited and "broken" the two-party system is.
In that way, the act of voting is reduced to noting more than a mere forum, the votes themselves cast for empty speech over meaningful action. But voting is so much greater than that. It's supposed to be a way to elect people who will have an effect in the political sphere. It's disgraceful, because the rest of us are busy trying to elect people who will raise the minimum wage, lower interest rates on student loan debt, pay off the national debt, and in general improve the lives of everyone but the absolute wealthiest among us. While these nutjobs vote for their hopelessly unelectable, one-issue candidate, the rest of us suffer.
No no, rest assured, the man to which we attribute the transistor was batshit crazy for the idea too, and that was decades later.
You make excellent points. With regard to my first point, I would begrudgingly agree. It is a bad writer who blames his audience for not understanding, and if there was a failure to communicate, it surely must have been on my part? Still, I thought it was clear that I wasn't going for the "Oh look, he's a family man" angle at all. I guess it really, really wasn't clear at all. So then we had the situation with people like "Hitler Picture Man" making hay based on false assumptions. Oh well, it's a forum, not the end of the world.
Regarding your next point, I did of course compare the actual, documented torture perpetrated by Saddam and his sons versus the mere potential for torture under the newly passed "Torture Bill". I admit trying to slip this one past you. Kudos to you for identifying the discrepancy between the two. But you must agree, the idea that you or I could be identified by officials in the executive branch as "enemy combatants" and spend the rest of our days in a Gitmo dungeon without access to any legal process that could prove out our innocence is pretty scary stuff.
Am I supposed to forget about the slim possibility that it could happen simply because it hasn't happened yet?
I would love to see the Democrats take back at least the House. This "take away your privacy and human rights while we wage a pointless war" shit has gone on long enough. It is high time for some functional checks and balances. I guess we'll see what happens in the days to come. Good luck to you.
Thank you both for the insights! No no, I'm not flaming (but given how moderation point lottery winners are, I'll probably be modded down for some reason nevertheless). I've read your post and the poster above you. I appreciate that the people behind the NetBSD Project aren't trying for a hard sell here, just to create a useful operating system.
My question should have been read like "I'm already a nerd, what would I find most appealing about NetBSD? What would I fall in love with if I installed it?"
As it stands, I think I'll do the classic turn-the-old-computer-into-a-firewall trick with it. NetBSD looks like it could run admirably on an old, 166 MHz Pentium that I still have. The short install time and better-than-iptables CLI tools have be sold.
Thanks again!
A priest, a rabbi, and buddhist monk all walk into a bar. They enjoyed each other's company and had a wonderful time.
*yawn*
I've read the press release. What do I get by installing this that I can't get in a 2 year-old Gentoo Linux installation? The BSD's have always been a bit of an enigma to me. Could someone enlighten me?
I'm afraid so. Here's what Google tells us.
Now I'm just convinced that even the people who submit articles don't read them first. This wasn't "vandalism" per se so much as it was shameless self-promotion by Anthony M. Benis, who invented the same psychological theory that he would later write about on Wikipedia. While his knowledge and authority on the theory are not in question (what with his being the creator of it), the notability of the theory in the field of psychology is in question.
It seems that the true nature of the article is far, far more boring than what the summary leads you to believe.
Actually, I was the original poster ;) And I think you and Mr. Hitler Picture have completely missed the point of this discussion and of the original post, mostly because you have failed to educate yourselves about who the girl in the picture is and the circumstances that led to her fleeing Iraq. I didn't lay it out for you people in the original post because I thought you were smart enough to read the accompanying Wikipedia entry and realize the great irony in what the picture attempts to portray. I thought wrong.
I won't repeat myself. Just read what I posted here.
I wouldn't talk too loudly. You see, I just found out that if somebody wins the mod point lottery and thinks you hate their freedom, then they go back under cover of darkness and mod contrary opinions down as "flamebait." Such is the way that divergent opinions are punished on Slashdot. I'm amused at how broken the moderation system is, when one person and his or her 5 points can be enough to derail a thread with 100 different responses. But as my long-dead, ex-marine grandfather who was prone to use of colorful language used to say, "It's no sweat off of my balls." Eat shit, Slashdot.
Honestly, reading the responses to this thread has made me lose respect for Slashdot readers as even a cut above average. Clearly most are not thoughtful nor intelligent posters. Witness the vast number of responses to this thread that read like "Oh, so you see a picture and think he's a family man and you feel sorry for him? What about all the people he killed, do you feel sorry for them too?" and so on. It is a trite undervaluing of the original statement. It misses the point. It badly and embarrassingly misses the point.
I feel sorry for Saddam because, as another poster was apt to also notice, daughter and father--smiling and lovingly posing for the picture--had a relationship based in cruelty just like many of Saddam's other relationships (he killed her husband, she fled the country, etc.--READ the Wikipedia entry for more info, for godsake). The picture belies a reality--a reality that, despite the vast power he held as the undisputed ruler of Iraq--Saddam could not maintain. Saddam was no family man, simply a tyrant who knew enough to value only those within a small, trusted inner circle. When I see Hussein with his daughter, posing like that, I see a false reality. I see a relationship between father and daughter that was only aspirational. It makes me pity him like "Even this, which he was most proud of, has gone wrong for him."
The other part of my original statement is rhetorical and leads into what you have said. You are right, of course. America has already ironically outdone Saddam in terms of cruelty. Suddenly Uday and Qusay's torture rooms don't seem nearly as bad compared to the legally sanctioned torture by American operatives that is undoubtedly going on even as I type this. We once prided ourselves on being able to take the moral high road, of being better and greater than our enemies. Clearly that is the case no longer. These people (both on Slashdot and in our government) want Saddam Hussein to die painfully. Also, they want even those people only suspected of being terrorists to be tortured in secret dungeons without any hope of release or reprieve. They mock those who plead for compassion and mercy. They lack humanity, they lack wisdom.
This is not a political issue, and about whether or not you support George Bush or hate terrorism. It is only that political operatives have done a very good job of making you think that it is. No, this is a question of how human you really are. It is a question of how much you value human life, and the moral tenets we once held dear.
I agree, that seems uncalled for. I think we can discuss this issue without dropping the f-bomb, even if the AC's can't help themselves.
I think it's a little cheap to compare Hussein to Hitler. Everybody compares people they dislike to Hitler and it's probably the most tired trick in the book. Example: "I don't like George W. Bush! He's just like Hitler!" "I don't like Dixie-brand Mayonnaise. Auf wiedersehen, you fascist condiment! You're just like Hitler!" I think Slashdot posters can and should do a little better than that, know what I mean?