I second this -- there is nothing that can give her the full functionality of hands or feet. But if that can be avoided by a horde of Slashdotters googling for alternatives to this medicine, that'd be better.

As far as possible, Do NOT work for companies that do this.

In fact try to *not* have a mobile at all... (Its possible). Try to keep your work to daytime, non-weekend hours only.

Hannibal... is that you?

I find that Apple's "locked in" ecosystem does not extend to OSX. Personally, I find the OSX command line much more open and extensible with perl, python, shell and friends. YMMV.

Is it open in the sense of Open Source? Of course not. But that's not what I'm going for, and Apple gives me a good compromise. So I'm happy with OSX.

Indeed, but then your priorities change in life and the right tool changes along with it.

Started out with Windows because I did not know any better, and switched to Linux in high-school. Now, several degrees and more than a decade later, I switched to OSX for the sake of convenience.

Windows is too closed; and Linux isn't supported by enough third party software vendors to do my job effectively. When your time is money, you make a compromise -- and that is OSX.

Apple makes good hardware, great software, and I can have both command shell and run Excel *and* Keynote (and boot into Windows if I need to run anything else). Plus, good, stable UX and a great repertoire of software. Besides, anything open source and good that's available on Linux is usually available on OSX (or could at least be compiled if you're so inclined).

So, at the end of the day, right tool for the job, and at this time, that's Apple and OSX.

I found this comment on the RTFA to be of particular interest. It offers a lot more insight into what may have driven Harvard to shut down the center.

This article only touches the surface on what happened. It wasn't about Harvard wanting to destroy a "vibrant" center (and I'm very curious as to who the "most well-funded faculty members" who left are and when did they leave?). It may not have even been the most recent horrible press that the primate center gave Harvard, because as in sports, bad behavior and bad press would have been forgiven by Harvard if the science at the primate center was stellar. But the primate center decidedly wasn't stellar.

It has been almost 20 years since anyone currently working at the primate center and directly working with monkeys had a first author publication (other than a review article) in a top tier science journal. For a Harvard department, that was a pitiful track record. Even in the rather limited world of primate research, Harvard's primate center was second tier. That was why when IAVI (the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative) wanted to figure out how attenuated SIV worked (the attenuated SIV was long considered the domain of Harvard's primate center) it ended up giving the vast majority of its money to other primate centers. Moreover, even at HMS, the best primate research was coming from researchers NOT associated with Harvard's own primate center, those researchers were outsourcing their needs to other primate centers.

This made Harvard's own primate center expendable and a potential net liability for Harvard especially given all its recent negative press. To make matters worse, the primate center's prior director, a man largely responsible for the center's recent decline, sluggish scientific output, and at least some of the mismanagement at the primate center, was tone deaf to the negative publicity, acting like he had nothing to apologize for, and must have further antagonized the center's position at Harvard. Even after he was forced to resign, Harvard never attracted a first rate primate researcher to take over and energize the place. In the end, Harvard must have decided it was better to just outsource its primate needs and reduce its negative publicity.

The more interesting question is whether this will turn out to be an isolated event or really a nod to the increasing power of animal rights activists.

Props for the Wayne Gretzky reference, eh.

Ahh, the Calvinistic work ethic.

> > Stop pushing your line of work down her throat.
> Agreed. The last thing the STEM field needs is an influx of people thinking our careers require no self-sacrifice and aptitude.

Self-sacrifice and even an 'aptitude' towards most things, can be developed by parents in the vast majority of children. E.g., the Polgar and Williams sisters.

What GP really needs is to stop pushing _his_ ideology down the parent's throat.

Sooner... At what cost?

I think you are conflating belief in no god with no belief in god.

Atheists have no belief in god given the unlikeliness of god's existence. However, I do not believe the English language has a term for someone who believes in "no god".

As an atheist, I have no belief in god, or any religions. That is not the same as believing with certainty that there is no god.

I do not believe in flying green monsters or fairies, either. That does not mean I am in denial about their existence. It merely means that debating their existence merits little effort, and for all intents and purposes, it is unlikely that they exist.

Similarly, god in the traditional, religious sense of the word is also quite likely a human fantasy, and merits little debate. That's not to say there isn't a miniscule probability of god's existence -- sure, anything is possible. But it's just pretty unlikely, and for all intents and purposes, I will treat it as a non-entity unless proven otherwise.

Atheism, by definition is non-belief, and agnostics, unless they believe, are also atheists. The distinction is important.

The burden of proof is upon those who make extraordinary claims.

I am happy to pay for these publications because they are well written, well edited, and have content that is not easily available elsewhere.

Sure, except that they're all available online or in a digital format (e.g. eBook).

You seem to be equating elsewhere with not online. I made no such distinction. I merely meant that I am happy to pay for the content, immaterial of where it is published (online or in print).

Similar quality publications are not available for, say, free, or easily accessible on someone's blog. Elsewhere includes the realm of both online and print media.

So, it is rather impossible to find the same quality and type of content elsewhere (online or otherwise) consistently, which was my point.

Although I do prefer the print editions because I am less distracted, and more likely to finish my magazines cover-to-cover.

Indeed. I couldn't agree more. There are some magazines that I continue to read regularly.

The Economist, National Geographic, Harper's, Paris Review, NY Review of Books, Granta, and Foreign Affairs to name a few.

The content in some of these magazines are unique and not available online. More importantly, it keeps these publishers and writers in business, which to me is a great incentive.

I am happy to pay for these publications because they are well written, well edited, and have content that is not easily available elsewhere. They are not just sensationalism and raw data that's poorly written by a 20 year old (e.g. cnn.com) -- they are well written pieces with commentary, insights, and opinions that I value.

I think you're conflating absolute disbelief from simply not giving an idea any credence.

Well said.