Forgot your password?

typodupeerror

Comment: Brain Dead Action Trumps Philosophy & Ethics (Score 4, Insightful) 469

by eldavojohn (#43756321) Attached to: Review: <em>Star Trek: Into Darkness</em>
I haven't seen Into Darkness but a lot of this review covered what was painfully realized in the first movie: no longer is Trek about philosophy, ethics, tolerance, gray areas and real world problems. It's mostly absolute good versus absolute evil. I think the driving force behind the bad guy in the first movie was largely a misunderstanding ... which is incredibly boring. His motivation was confusingly laughable.

Unsurprisingly I'm pretty sure I heard JJ Abrams tell Jon Stewart that "he never liked Star Trek" on The Daily Show. Well, now he's had a chance to kill it by turning it 100% into a modern day blockbuster action flick and shirking any attempt to tackle an interesting philosophical or ethical dilemma as the main plot. As the modern reemergence of comic book and super hero movies have shown, those films are a dime a dozen that anyone can do. Tackling something deeper while still holding our attention is the hard part. The Watchmen was a good candidate for it but fell short. I'm sure JJ Abrams would rather cover up the complicated parts that question good versus evil with another lens flare.

Comment: No. Bad Conclusion. Bad. (Score 4, Informative) 116

by eldavojohn (#43712423) Attached to: Carnivorous Plant Ejects Junk DNA

The finding overturns the notion that this repetitive, non-coding DNA, popularly called 'junk' DNA, is necessary for life.

False. Unsurprisingly, nowhere in the paper was this dubious claim even approached. Instead you can find this even in the summary:

However, extreme genome size reductions have been reported in the angiosperm family tree.

Emphasis mine. And then further into the actual paper:

Relaxed selection pressure for unnecessary functions probably led to gene losses, whereas in other cases, gene family expansions may have been promoted by selection. Evidence for localized selection on the U. gibba gene complement, however, does not provide support for the existence of genome-wide selective forces that might favour reduction of nonessential, non-coding DNA.

There would likely be no bladderwort had there been no junk DNA in its ancestral line and other findings point to such noncoded DNA as necessary for evolution.

I believe a more prudent falsifiable hypothesis would run along the lines of (and I'm sorry, I'm only a software developer): Due to relaxed external selective pressures the bladderwort's RNA polymerase has become adept at writing coding errors to the 3% noncoded DNA during replication and this actually still serves a vital function -- especially if the bladderwort is to survive in a much larger window than a few generations.

Comment: And You Are Some Magic Insect Sorting Entity? (Score 4, Informative) 622

by eldavojohn (#43709229) Attached to: UN Says: Why Not Eat More Insects?

I say "Because OMFG, gross!!!"

If you live in the United States, you likely already engage in accidental entomophagy. Allow me to introduce you to the USDA's guide to what are the acceptable levels of insects in your food. Go head and CTRL+F on that page for 'insects.'

Having particularly good eyesight, I don't think I've ever eaten a blackberry that didn't have thrips or aphids on it. Guess what? They're delicious on blackberries!

Of course, getting my Wilderness Survival merit badge on my way to Eagle Scout gave me the opportunity to forage for edible insects and I would actually recommend the fly larvae that attach to grassland stalks and form 'bulbs' around them. Taste like walnuts! Too bad it takes forever to harvest them or I'd make a product out of that for the granola-brains community.

Earth

"Dramatic Decline" Warning For Plants and Animals 690

Posted by samzenpus
from the it's-getting-hot-in-here dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Worldwide levels of the chief greenhouse gas that causes global warming have hit a milestone, reaching an amount never before encountered by humans, federal scientists said. Carbon dioxide was measured at 400 parts per million at the oldest monitoring station in Hawaii, which sets the global benchmark. More than half of plants and a third of animal species are likely to see their living space halved by 2080 if current trends continue."

Comment: Perhaps Afsluitdijk Dike? (Score 1) 355

by eldavojohn (#43667395) Attached to: Mars One Has 78,000 Applicants

Assuming that the calculation in the summary is accurate (which is just as valid as assuming a given country) we are looking for a location that has a coast to coast distance of between 30 and 40 km.

WELL if we want to get in the business of apologetic measurements, I believe Mars One is based in the Netherlands. So assuming that back of an envelope calculation was being applied to the location of operations, we could assume they are referring to the inverted shores that are the endpoints of Afsluitdijk Dike which happen to connect North Holland province with Friesland province and measures 32 kilometers in length.

Comment: So It's An Indirect Intangible Gamble? (Score 5, Insightful) 232

by eldavojohn (#43613779) Attached to: Ask Slashdot: Would You Accept 'Bitcoin-Ware' Apps?
So basically you're proposing a move from just give me a little cash upfront to let me leech off your electricity bill in a ridiculously circuitous way to gamble for BTC (keeping in mind that the more people that adopt your model of "BitCoin-Ware" the more people will be vying for BTC the less your expected value will return)?

An interesting idea and definitely one for the mathematicians but simply unsustainable and risky and ... I guess deceptive if you don't point out the small cost to their electrical bill ...

Comment: On Hezbollah, Zetas and MDPV (Score 3, Interesting) 194

by eldavojohn (#43611709) Attached to: Interview: Ask John McAfee What You Will
Ars Technica ran an inditing article on your sanity in which you made statements on the virtues of MDPV (bath salts), having three informants in the Zeta Cartel and also informants in Nicaragua that had made contact with Hezbollah's camp. To put my question succinctly: what the hell, man? Where have your James "Psychonaut" Bond travels taken you to recently?

Comment: Why George Jung? (Score 5, Interesting) 194

by eldavojohn (#43611565) Attached to: Interview: Ask John McAfee What You Will

"Boston George" Jung (a man who has lived quite an unusual life himself) has been tapped to write McAfee's biography titled, No Domain.

I don't get it. Jung is a convicted drug smuggler. You have had no such charges ever filed against you (to my knowledge) by the United States so, if nothing more than a publicity stunt, why did you pick him to write your biography? If you feel you are wrongly accused, I can understand why you would pick someone wrongly accused to write your biography -- they can relate. But George Jung was certainly a key part of Pablo Escobar's deadly and pervasive criminal organization. You are (again, to my knowledge) far from that so why bait the readers with that author as a link? I have had very little associations with you and illegal drug activity but now I think you view yourself as a modern George Jung, am I wrong in making this assumption?

Comment: The GSU Raid and the Unnamed Politician (Score 4, Interesting) 194

by eldavojohn (#43611449) Attached to: Interview: Ask John McAfee What You Will
Almost exactly one year ago your dog was killed (my sympathies), your passport was confiscated and your house searched by a Gang Suppression Unit (GSU) while you lived in Belize. Why not publicly name names and provide as much detailed evidence as possible to reveal this horrible corruption and abuse of something that is supposed to stop crime? Who was it that tried to extort political money from you? Is there anyway to verify?

Comment: What Happened with Vice.com? (Score 5, Interesting) 194

by eldavojohn (#43611385) Attached to: Interview: Ask John McAfee What You Will
While you were moving around, Vice.com got to spend time with you. If memory serves me, it was later revealed that the image they uploaded with you had GPS data that you then claimed to be spoofed. Coincidentally the news styled documentary they were going to do with you never seemed to surface ... now that things have died down can you give more context to that whole situation?

Comment: Re: Dumb title: CO2 is not "dirty" (Score 1) 260

by eldavojohn (#43605361) Attached to: Energy Production Is As 'Dirty' As Ever

Where did you dig up that link? It's comedy gold! Successfully nailed every denialist cliche I could think of.

I'm gonna have to add this "Nongovernmental Planel (sic) on Climate Change" to my Humour feed for my morning chuckle.

Please, I don't deserve all the credit, thank H. Leighton Steward and coal baron Corbin Robertson. And from the looks of it, the Koch brothers somewhere up that chain ... did you know it's a 501(c)(3) and has a sibling (but separate!) ad-buying 501(c)(4) named CO2 is Green?

Comment: Re:Dumb title: CO2 is not "dirty" (Score 5, Insightful) 260

by eldavojohn (#43604745) Attached to: Energy Production Is As 'Dirty' As Ever

CO2 is food for plants.

You know what, you're right! And I don't know why those folks in Fukushima got all upset about their nuclear reactor getting water washed all over it! I mean, the darn thing needs water to work anyway, right? Plus plants and people drink water, why were they upset that they got extra from the ocean? It's just water!

Big whoop. Warming up this damn freezer I live in is NOT being "dirty".

Right because the possibilities of water wars, refugees, failing economies, destruction of the food chain, droughts and general destabilization of the planet will have no effect on you whatsoever.

Comment: Am I Too Old to Remember Answering This Question? (Score 3, Informative) 365

by eldavojohn (#43585309) Attached to: Can Older Software Developers Still Learn New Tricks?
No. No I am not. For reference see:

Ask Slashdot: Am I Too Old To Learn New Programming Languages?
Ask Slashdot: Am I Too Old To Retrain?

They should have a lot of the bland "buck up" responses alongside the "outta my way I know everything" youngsters.

Also, to more quickly expedite this process, I prefer your story submissions in the form of "Ask Slashdot: Am I Too Old To <X>?"
Blackberry

BlackBerry Looking To Quench 'Insatiable Demand' For New Smartphones 173

Posted by samzenpus
from the back-in-blackberry dept.
DavidGilbert99 writes "BlackBerry is on something of a roll. It finally delivered its BlackBerry 10 platform along with the first smartphone to run the OS, the Z10 in January. This weekend saw the launch of the Q10 and there is an 'insatiable demand' for this smartphone with its physical keyboard, says BlackBerry's UK head Rob Orr."

If you are going to walk on thin ice, you may as well dance.

Working...