Indeed, that was a misuse of a Latin abbreviation, i.e. "i.e.". What I really wanted
was a way of abbreviating "for example", e.g. "e.g.". Thanks! I think I've learned it now.

That sentence is absurd coming from a biologist... either it's a misquote, or this professor smoked some strong stuff... Biology is FULL of chemical defences as a response to the threat of predation, and chemical offences for that matter. They are common in the insect world, and practically universal in the plant and microbial worlds. In fact looking at Biology as a whole, the majority of what evolution does on a day-to-day basis is developing new chemical defences as a response to the threat of predation. Perhaps repellents are a little more unusual in the animal (as opposed to plant) world or less well studied, but hasn't he ever heard of i.e. skunks? By the time we narrow this sentence down to something that makes sense it's a big yawner: "This study is amongst the first to show animals incorporating a chemical repellent targeted at specific predators into secretions they use to build external structures (webs)." Hmmm.

If you don't speak SMTP as a second language you probably shouldn't have that feature.

*grin*

:j

...indistinguishable from a PC.

They keep saying that PC's are going to be replaced by: set-top boxes, game consoles, smart-phones, etc. But the moment any of these devices are advanced enough to replace the personal computer they ARE the personal computer.

That's why in the end the only thing that will truly replace the PC is another PC. Doh.

This is really just the logical continuation of our throw-away consume society. Yes, the shop that made this "drive" is committing fraud, but it's just a small step further than most consumer products made by big companies today. Like DVD players that come with firmware that's so buggy that they basically don't work (like one Sony model I bought some years ago) or cellphones that crash 20% of the time when a call comes in (like all 4 of the Nokia 1616s I recently bought).

More and more the products we buy don't really work, or work just long enough that we don't notice how broken they are before we buy the next one because the fashion (or technology) has moved on.

These Chinese con men are really just embracing the highest credo of modern capitalism... profit above product. Can you blame them?

:j

You've heard of WORM (write once read many), now we have WARN (write
always, read never).

:j

The /. post said $200 for a 1W laser... dunno where he got that idea, the wicked lasers site has the Spyder III for $200 for the 50 mW version, a 500 mW version, which seems to be the max they are selling, is $3000! I'd love to have one, but it will have to wait for Christmas, I guess.

I'm not basing my opinion on the comments, I was just pointing to them as examples. And while people may not like to admit that they "acted like pricks" even when they realize it, you don't really have any reason to think that anybody participated in this discussion ever did so.

Folks this "Google-itis" behavior can't be that common precisely because people don't want to look like idiots in front of their doctors or others. Sure there have always been hypochondriacs, and today they are armed with Google which makes them even more annoying to Doctors. But pretty much, that's all there is to this.

Google U? WTF? Look, people with political or religious agendas have always managed to find or manufacture information that supports their viewpoint, this has nothing to do with Google or even the Internet.

As for ignorance and dark ages... long before the Internet there were anti-vacciners, and flat-earthers, and black helicopter conspiracy nuts. But looking at your sig, I have to tell you... there *is* one thing moving is back to the dark ages, and that's the piecemeal enclosure of the noosphere by so-called "intellectual property".

Ok, I don't have any hard data, but it seems to me that in reality today for every patient with mis-informed "Googleitis" there are ten or more people who are getting better medical care because they are informed about their condition or even have already correctly self-diagnosed. Some of the comments right here to point.

But doctors are upset because they are not used to having informed patients. They are used being the godlike arbitors of secret knowledge whose judgement will be trusted 100% because of their degree. But in reality of course they are human and all too fallible, and even more so nowadays that they are increasingly simply pharmaceutical salesmen rather than healers and don't really have or take the time to actually know their patients.

Before doctors found it easy to be confident... because hardly anyone ever questioned them. Now things are getting a bit more difficult. Poor doctors? I'm finding it difficult to be sympathetic.

There may be a lot of information of questionable quality on the Net, but overall I have not a shred of doubt that the empowerment the Net has brought to the individual in this regard has been a boon to public health.

You know what happens to people who say "gosh" and "darn" after they die?

They burn in heck...

(attributed to some comedian, no idea who)

So Wikimedia Commons is being overwhelmed by porn, the way Usenet was 10-15 years ago, right? Well, I'd love to see some of it, but I can't seem to find it. A search for "porn" turns up i.e. pictures of pornographic actresses, almost all clothed (an occasional one topless). "Pussy" turns up some pictures of pussycats, "teats" turns up nothing because people can't spell, "tits" and "penis" finds some stuff that's highly anatomical, "fucking" gives as its top result a fucking couple... of flies! In short, if there's any porn in Wikimedia, it's less than 1 in a million.

It seems to be all just Jimmy Wales trying to get some publicity and one-upping Larry Sanger. The whole thing is even more pathetic than Larry Sanger's original fantasy-rant.

Alright people, nothing to see here...

Folks, this has nothing to do with Asian vs. Western culture in general. This is about one thing, very specificially... WITHIN the framework of modern Western society (which dominates the whole world today, including China) China's government has been more heavily promoting and rewarding success in education and research, whereas the Western governments largely reward and promote success in business. Both do what they do without any regard to ethics. The result in China is lying and cheating in academia. The result in the West is lying and cheating in business, which in its milder forms is known as marketing and has become so entrenched that it isn't even considered unethical anymore. In its more severe forms, which are equally pervasive, it leads to Enrons, Maddocks, industries totally dominated by monoplies, etc.

Simple and obvious.

:j

Of the 3 executives who were convicted only one could be called an "italian exec" (former Google Italy board member George De Los Reyes), the other two are David Drummond (Google's top lawyer) and Peter Fleischer (looks like he's an exec in charge of privacy) and are based in California.

No GMO necessary, it already exists... it is called Eucalyptus, and some species will reach those dimensions in rather less than 10 years in the right climate. It is nowadays grown in vast quantities for paper and construction (although for construction they drown it in poison after harvest because most wood-eating insects seem to think it's delicious.) I live in an area of Brazil that used to be rainforest of which now only patches are left, the rest is all eucalyptus plantations owned by one large paper factory and which together cover abpout the same area as a smaller European country.

A few cycles of planting and harvesting eucalyptus in monoculture is also an excellent way to make the soil totally unsuitable for growing anything else, and lowering the water table to boot. Eucalyptus digs deep, but eventually it will bring the water table down below its own reach, then you can forget about growing /anything/ on that land for while and even your neighbors who weren't planting Eucalyptus will be suffering.

Since large scale eucalyptus plantations outside of Australia are a relatively new thing, the scope of this particular idocy hasn't hit home yet in most places, although I hear that Southern Portugal is getting close to disaster stage already.

Mind you, I love eucalyptus, I think it is a wonderful tree... after all it's not a fault that it grows so fast and is so good at extracting the resources it needs to grow even out of poorer soil. But the big thing agro-industry (and civilization, which currently depends on it) is in denial about is that monoculture is NEVER sustainable. It will always result in a lopsided depletion of "soil resources" that can't be fixed simply by adding NPK fertilizer. Monoculture is the mining of soil fertility, and eucalyptus monoculture is some very fast and efficient mining at that. :j