Comment information could be a good thing (Score 1) 950
It might be a doctor saying "This arrythmia dates back to 7th grade? With that vital piece of information, we should really..."
It might be a doctor saying "This arrythmia dates back to 7th grade? With that vital piece of information, we should really..."
I'm trying to figure out why the researchers are using DNA. Is it...
A - some unique and intrinsic property of DNA that makes it suited for the job.
(If so, then is it just coincidence that our genetic information is stored in a molecule that has these unique properties?)
B - just that DNA has been so well-studied in the last half century that we can manipulate it better (and cheaper) than most other complex micro-structures?
(If so, then that's just one more example of basic research leading to unforeseen breakthroughs.)
Anyone know which it is?
The company gets a punitive fine, okay. But who gets the money?
A Michigan-based company lies on the internet, so giving the money to the State of New York doesn't make sense to me. I'm having a tough time specifying just which group was wronged by the company -- Michigan consumers, American consumers, all consumers who have access to the internet, suckers? Wouldn't the money be more appropriately given to the FTC?
Is it possible to have national taxes/benefits without a federal database? Drivers' licenses are issued by state, and each state has a database of its licensees. Federal income tax is federal, and there's a federal ID for it (SSN).
Slashdot readers, little help? If universal healthcare were implemented in the US, wouldn't we need a federal database for it?
2. We expected that the genomes of different ethnic groups would be very different. They aren't.
Seriously, how surprised can we be? We share 98% of our DNA with chimps. Hell, we share tons of DNA with single-celled algae.
Think of the genome as a computer program, and genes are little subs that do helpful things. Lots of subs are sitting unused, abandoned, all over our genomes. Lots are called at different times by barely-related parts of our 'human program'. Very different programs can share lots of lines, lots of entire subs. Very different creatures can share lots of DNA, lots of entire genes.
(Statements like "siblings share half their genes" are super misleading. Yes, you get half from Mom and half from Dad, but 99.9% of those genes are the same anyway.)
Seriously. Obviously 12% fewer cattle is the methane equivalent of "half a million cars off the road," according to their PR lady. So if everyone ate 12% less beef/dairy...
If you eat beef twice a week, then a 12% reduction is skipping one beef meal a month. One of the biggest 'vegetarian movement' mistakes was to paint vegetarianism as a black & white issue. If one meal a month can make this kind of environmental difference, vegetarians might do more for their cause if they applauded and promoted meat in moderation.
This tech + Legos = awesome!
One of the reasons my folks didn't allow video games was because the games weren't social or creative enough. Video games today can certainly be more social, but I still think they lack user creativity. But this! All the castles we built with Legos, all the forts we designed with construction paper... a way to integrate that kind of creativity into video games just sounds awesome. And it wouldn't hurt video game reputation, either.
We should deal with the fact that more people are passionate about topics like Art and Humanities than Math and Computer Science. It's just the reality of academia right now.
Of course it is, because we have these ridiculous stigmas:
Art is passionate, frivolous, and beautiful.
Math is boring, uninspiring, and useful.
What?! There is no such thing as frivolous beauty; no utility is uninspiring and cold. Lockhart, I fear, misses this point. I understand the frustration Lockhart feels at the 'math = boring' stigma, but countering that 'math = art' is just as damning in our obsessed-with-mutual-exclusion society.
Beauty and utility have long been a happy couple. The false rumors of their divorce is, I think, the root of Lockhart's (and my) frustration.
Gold at 30% extra is swell deal if you are faced with possibility that your cash would be worth 50% less tomorrow.
No it isn't, because one of your other options is gold without the 30% premium. If you don't like fiat currency, fine, invest in whatever you like. But why you'd pay a premium over the market value is beyond me.
Vending machines work for candy bars. I'm willing to pay a markup because I want my snack in my hand right now. What could possibly be the urgency with gold?
(Yeah, yeah, hyperinflation in post-WWI Germany or late '80s Argentina or current Zimbabwe. You think what Zimbabwe needs are vending machines for gold?)
Software, like science, produces a non-rival public good. (Nonrival means it is not consumed when somebody uses it.) But there are private research companies just like there are private software companies.
I used to work in a publicly-funded virology lab studying Hepatitis C Virus (HCV). My biggest result was finding this particular human gene that HCV required in order to infect a person. If you took liver tissue, knocked out that gene, and tried to infect it with HCV... no infection. Has anyone seen this before? Nothing in the scientific literature, but we found a dusty old patent from a company that had clearly found this connection years earlier, but never published it or followed it up. The company was likely hedging its bets in case it wanted to follow up later. HCV kills tens of thousands of people a year (liver cancer). Just makes me so frustrated.
Most people are already familiar with negative market externalities like pollution or overfishing. Science and software both exemplify positive externalities, which are just as problematic in free market capitalism. If only there were a clear way to internalize externalities!
Unlike homeowner's insurance, where you ARE playing against the house. Or car insurance. Or the state lottery. Or mutual funds. Or health insurance.
We manage risk all the time, and happily pay people for the privilege. I've never understood why poker got such a bad rep.
The internet-justice connection is also about making information easily accessible to the public. And sometimes the public know what the police don't.
Ted Kaczynsky was identified by his brother somewhat due to his reversed (though also correct) use of the phrase 'you can't eat your cake and have it too.' I imagine many aspects of a crime could be identified through that kind of esoteric data, if only the right people saw it.
GPS shoes could track... anyone wearing the shoes. Wandering children, suspicious spouses, prisoners, whomever you want.
Am I missing something, or is this story less "new tech" and more "we finally found a relatively non-controversial market." Congrats for the shareholders, but hardly newsworthy.
Sorry to be pedantic, but guano comes out of a cloaca, which is kinda like a combined urine/feces vent. Humans, and most placentals, have separate urine and feces vents.
We usually equate urine with water and salt regulation, but it's also our way of getting rid of nitrogenous waste (ammonia mostly), which we expel as urea. (Incidentally, the word 'urea' derives from 'urine,' and not vice-versa.) Since birds don't urinate, they convert their nitrogenous wastes into uric acid, which is what stains rocks and statues white. So, especially given the point of this article, the guano/feces precision is relevant.
...from his residence under a highway bridge.
Sometimes you just gotta hand it to a troll for sheer dedication. (+1, troll?)
"The four building blocks of the universe are fire, water, gravel and vinyl." -- Dave Barry
