If your point is that someday we'll be able to do better than nature, that's great! But I think for now, we have to adapt to what nature has already created and try to learn what we can from it. Then, at some point, we'll be able to go beyond it and control it. Eugenics is a great example of how nature has developed a wonderful means for reproduction, survival, and evolution. If we can control it, that's great. And if we can develop an even better model, that'd be truly amazing. Yes, we will definitely run out of things to copy. I think the difference between our points of view is that I believe that we have to use nature to get by it while your opinion is that we can blow right by it to something better. Do I sound about right?
Yes, this is a definite possibility. Microsoft has a lot of very intelligent people working for them, particularly in Microsoft Research. About two months ago, Microsoft and MIT announced a long-term collaboration for innovation in higher education. At the same time, they celebrated by holding a small technology fair for MIT students on campus. It wasn't a sales pitch or a recruiting event. It wasn't taken very seriously by a lot of MIT students (copies of Office 2000 raffled off were promptly thrown on the ground and stomped upon by many), but it did illustrate many new technologies that Microsoft Research is working upon. Among some of the highlights are voice recognition, image processing, video processing, facial recognition, 3-D graphics, audio technologies, and portable devices. One thing that they were showing that was very cool was an electronic pen that used tiny accelerometers to detect movement of the pen and record it as hand-writing recognition, available to pump straight into some PDA, if the pen isn't already a PDA. If you ask me, the real value of Microsoft is not in its browser, applications, or operating system. It's in the products from Microsoft Research.
I disagree. There's a lot to be learned from the biological nature of things. The most successful models and robots that have been developed so far mimic things found in the biological world. For example, distributed learning and mechanics is what ants and bees have learned to do. If a single ant or bee finds a source of food or pollen, chances are that in under half an hour, there will be a lot of its friends there. Big clunky walking machines are not the way to go: lightweight machines which have a single joint like the human knee are what works. Or, make a robotic model like a cockroac h and you'll find that you can move and get over obstacles better than anywhere else. And if you want to move in water, you should learn to swim like a tuna.
This is all practical research done at MIT right now with proven results. It's far more promising than trying to engineer something from scratch. Nature has millions of years worth of R&D to develop its solutions. Why not tap it?
Of course it's useful. I wasn't saying that it wasn't useful or that it shouldn't be patented. My point is simply that patents are being issued on biological things. Sure, microbes. But can companies really patent variants of human cells? Or patent DNA altogether? Hmm....
... that stupid patents cause stupid lawsuits. I nearly choked on my beer when I noticed the little patent number next to their One-Click thing on Amazon's site. It's such a stupid thing to grant a patent on. And now we're stuck with a stupid lawsuit that's going to have widespread, meaningful impact. Either way, consumers are going to lose.
Well, even this is flamebait... I use VB/VBA because it's fast, easy, and gets the job done. Yes, it works reliably, if you code it correctly and you maintain a clean system. When a client calls for an application that completes a simple task, you write him a simple product in the least amount of time that it takes. It's called RAD. Just yesterday, someone asked me for a program to quickly extract images from a database, process it, and put it back into the database. Use existing ActiveX components and build a little script around it, and you have a great product that the client loves in just a few hours. It's easy to debug and it's easy to pack up and send to the client. I get frustrated at times working with VB because it isn't a well structured language, but at the same time, it gets the job done.
... it's another reviewer of a *Nix in a desperate attempt to try to make it sound much better than a Microsoft product. Hey, if it is genuinely better, then that's great! I'd love to see a great non-Microsoft product just as much as any other Slashdotter... BUT, if you're going to start comparing it to MS Office, you'd better back it up with something that's a good, valid point.
The author claims, for example, that Office 97 is barely runnable on a Pentium-II 266. This is way more than enough for most people, especially if you're going to keep the document simple. Maybe it is bloated code, but it's still very responsive on this kind of system. And then raving about Applixware's documentation in hypertext format, when Office has had hypertexted help since at least Office 97, with plenty of examples, tips, and quickie-tutorials.
MS Office is very slick, but certainly not because of its silly dancing paperclip. It has a lot of features which work the way I expect them to. For example, its on-the-fly spellchecking is an extremely useful feature -- this is hardly something that can be swept under the BSD rug... Oh, and here's the kicker: Applixware has better OS intergration than Microsoft? Come on... MS just gets a Finding of Fact issued against it saying that it's too tightly integrating its products together... and Applixware is better? I've programmed all sorts of stuff in Visual Basic for Applications (VBA), and it's done everything that I needed to do quickly, easily, and reliably.
If you're going to review a product and compare it against Microsoft, stick to the real issues. If it's faster and quicker than Microsoft at doing the same stuff (which it probably is), that's great. But don't pick lame points. People are so quick to bash Microsoft these days it's sickening. It's called chauvanism.
/.ers should be trying to support the HGP as much as they can. Yeah, we joke about how it's all Open Source and all, but there's a very real possibility that chromosomes can be patented. Many organisms have already been patented (famous example: microbe that eats oil spills). Many human derivative cells have been patented and are under license right now. Companies are right now in a race against the HGP to map chromosomes and then patent them! I wish I had URL's available, but if you go to Google and type in "human genome project patent" you'll find a lot of sources where patenting DNA sequences is discussed.
Bottom line: human chromosomes may be patented. Fight it.
DNA commonly has a lot of information in it which has no apparent purpose. Lots of repeated information, sometimes long chains of the same segment over and over and over again. The theories behind its existence is speculative and no one really knows for sure. Some say that it's for redundancy checking, increasing mobility, or increasing survivability. I'm actually surprised that the amount of "junk" DNA is that low... I thought it would be higher than that.
Sure, Sprint PCS and the phones that they have aren't so great. I have a Sanyo SCP-4000 in Boston and there's no web service here! BUT, look at what's coming around the corner:
Phones big screens, dedicated toward bringing the web to your hand. Check out the Nokia 7100 series.
Watch for more advanced web services to come about. Services like maps, phone directories, and entertainment guides are rapidly moving toward deployment for such services.
Bell Atlantic Mobile will soon be offering unlimited use for a monthly fee. This is what will truly get the ball rolling. Cellular phones were executives' toys until the companies started offering free off-peak time, allowing ordinary people to benefit from them. Now cellular phones are everywhere.
Phones will get more advanced. Watch for phones with GPS built into them to come out in a year or two.
Systems like the Palm VII will become a lot more commonplace, with cellular modems built right into them.
Jeez... it's not a sign that we (or at least Apple programmers) are under eye of Big Brother; it's a judgement call from the top brass that the company needs to present itself in certain manner. It's not about code bloat or side effects (although these are valid concerns). The inclusion of such things is not part of the Apple image and it's just a dictate that it shouldn't be in there. Don't read into the decision more than what's there.
I disagree. Humans throughout history have always had a frontier to explore, and it drove humans to expand, imagine, and innovate. Those who wanted something new could always find someplace new. Granted, it's a little bit more than "Go West, Young Man" to head to Mars, but we have have a new frontier to explore.
No way. Maybe business.com might not do really well, but many people underestimate the importance of a good name. Marketing is incredibly important and a lot of/.ers don't realize this. Look at all the furor on another/. thread about Windows CE -> Windows Powered (or whatever it is)./.ers think it's a whole lot of antics, when it really isn't. Marketing is almost as important as the actual product.
You think Absolut is good vodka? Is Banana Republic better clothing than the GAP? Is a Lexus better than an Infinitiy? It's all in the marketing...
If I remember correctly, sites that they haven't already spidered out are entered by using their What's the site running interface. So the user has to actually enter in their site to have it added to the query engine. My guess is that it's pretty low. The sites that are currently listed are on there because they have actual content and are linked from other servers.
Too bad those who could have gained the most from AV going public have left the company a long time ago. I work for a company that was founded by ex-AV employees. They waited, along with every other employee, for AV to public so they could make their money. They quit waiting a couple of years ago and started a consulting firm. Apprently, many other people quit, too: VP's, managers, techies, all types. It was just too long. AV has already lost the best it had.
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If your point is that someday we'll be able to do better than nature, that's great! But I think for now, we have to adapt to what nature has already created and try to learn what we can from it. Then, at some point, we'll be able to go beyond it and control it. Eugenics is a great example of how nature has developed a wonderful means for reproduction, survival, and evolution. If we can control it, that's great. And if we can develop an even better model, that'd be truly amazing. Yes, we will definitely run out of things to copy. I think the difference between our points of view is that I believe that we have to use nature to get by it while your opinion is that we can blow right by it to something better. Do I sound about right?
Yes, this is a definite possibility. Microsoft has a lot of very intelligent people working for them, particularly in Microsoft Research. About two months ago, Microsoft and MIT announced a long-term collaboration for innovation in higher education. At the same time, they celebrated by holding a small technology fair for MIT students on campus. It wasn't a sales pitch or a recruiting event. It wasn't taken very seriously by a lot of MIT students (copies of Office 2000 raffled off were promptly thrown on the ground and stomped upon by many), but it did illustrate many new technologies that Microsoft Research is working upon. Among some of the highlights are voice recognition, image processing, video processing, facial recognition, 3-D graphics, audio technologies, and portable devices. One thing that they were showing that was very cool was an electronic pen that used tiny accelerometers to detect movement of the pen and record it as hand-writing recognition, available to pump straight into some PDA, if the pen isn't already a PDA. If you ask me, the real value of Microsoft is not in its browser, applications, or operating system. It's in the products from Microsoft Research.
This is all practical research done at MIT right now with proven results. It's far more promising than trying to engineer something from scratch. Nature has millions of years worth of R&D to develop its solutions. Why not tap it?
Of course it's useful. I wasn't saying that it wasn't useful or that it shouldn't be patented. My point is simply that patents are being issued on biological things. Sure, microbes. But can companies really patent variants of human cells? Or patent DNA altogether? Hmm ....
... that stupid patents cause stupid lawsuits. I nearly choked on my beer when I noticed the little patent number next to their One-Click thing on Amazon's site. It's such a stupid thing to grant a patent on. And now we're stuck with a stupid lawsuit that's going to have widespread, meaningful impact. Either way, consumers are going to lose.
Well, even this is flamebait ... I use VB/VBA because it's fast, easy, and gets the job done. Yes, it works reliably, if you code it correctly and you maintain a clean system. When a client calls for an application that completes a simple task, you write him a simple product in the least amount of time that it takes. It's called RAD. Just yesterday, someone asked me for a program to quickly extract images from a database, process it, and put it back into the database. Use existing ActiveX components and build a little script around it, and you have a great product that the client loves in just a few hours. It's easy to debug and it's easy to pack up and send to the client. I get frustrated at times working with VB because it isn't a well structured language, but at the same time, it gets the job done.
Professional programmers? It took me about twenty seconds to figure this one out:
Private Sub Text1_Click()
Text1.SelStart = 0
Text1.SelLength = Len(Text1.Text)
End Sub
Please correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't that solve the problem?
The author claims, for example, that Office 97 is barely runnable on a Pentium-II 266. This is way more than enough for most people, especially if you're going to keep the document simple. Maybe it is bloated code, but it's still very responsive on this kind of system. And then raving about Applixware's documentation in hypertext format, when Office has had hypertexted help since at least Office 97, with plenty of examples, tips, and quickie-tutorials.
MS Office is very slick, but certainly not because of its silly dancing paperclip. It has a lot of features which work the way I expect them to. For example, its on-the-fly spellchecking is an extremely useful feature -- this is hardly something that can be swept under the BSD rug ... Oh, and here's the kicker: Applixware has better OS intergration than Microsoft? Come on ... MS just gets a Finding of Fact issued against it saying that it's too tightly integrating its products together ... and Applixware is better? I've programmed all sorts of stuff in Visual Basic for Applications (VBA), and it's done everything that I needed to do quickly, easily, and reliably.
If you're going to review a product and compare it against Microsoft, stick to the real issues. If it's faster and quicker than Microsoft at doing the same stuff (which it probably is), that's great. But don't pick lame points. People are so quick to bash Microsoft these days it's sickening. It's called chauvanism.
Bottom line: human chromosomes may be patented. Fight it.
DNA commonly has a lot of information in it which has no apparent purpose. Lots of repeated information, sometimes long chains of the same segment over and over and over again. The theories behind its existence is speculative and no one really knows for sure. Some say that it's for redundancy checking, increasing mobility, or increasing survivability. I'm actually surprised that the amount of "junk" DNA is that low ... I thought it would be higher than that.
Jeez ... it's not a sign that we (or at least Apple programmers) are under eye of Big Brother; it's a judgement call from the top brass that the company needs to present itself in certain manner. It's not about code bloat or side effects (although these are valid concerns). The inclusion of such things is not part of the Apple image and it's just a dictate that it shouldn't be in there. Don't read into the decision more than what's there.
I disagree. Humans throughout history have always had a frontier to explore, and it drove humans to expand, imagine, and innovate. Those who wanted something new could always find someplace new. Granted, it's a little bit more than "Go West, Young Man" to head to Mars, but we have have a new frontier to explore.
You think Absolut is good vodka? Is Banana Republic better clothing than the GAP? Is a Lexus better than an Infinitiy? It's all in the marketing ...
If I remember correctly, sites that they haven't already spidered out are entered by using their What's the site running interface. So the user has to actually enter in their site to have it added to the query engine. My guess is that it's pretty low. The sites that are currently listed are on there because they have actual content and are linked from other servers.
Too bad those who could have gained the most from AV going public have left the company a long time ago. I work for a company that was founded by ex-AV employees. They waited, along with every other employee, for AV to public so they could make their money. They quit waiting a couple of years ago and started a consulting firm. Apprently, many other people quit, too: VP's, managers, techies, all types. It was just too long. AV has already lost the best it had.
"He" is an acceptable pronoun for a person when the gender is unknown unless, like someone mentioned, you're a militant feminist ...