Posts by J

Evolution is both fact AND theory

Anyone who has read scientific literature for laypeople (e.g. Mayr, Dawkins, Gould, etc.) should know by now, if they are not mentally challenged, that the word "evolution" usually refers to more than one thing, in common parlance.

Like the example someone gave above: gravity. We have gravity, that's a fact, and there are the theories of gravity to explain that fact. Same with evolution: it is a scientific fact that organisms change with time (and don't come with the old micro x macro BS) -- only stupid and/or ignorant people can doubt it given the current information we have. And there were/are/will be evolutionary theories explaining that fact; the current best candidate has been around for quite a few decades but lots of details are still being worked on, of course. As all scientific theories we've ever had, none of them seems likely to ever be complete and capable of explaining every minimal detail of everything to which they apply.

Disclaimer: I do have a PhD in molecular phylogenetics, and also sequence/analyze genomes for a living. Titillating, eh?

Question

We aliens here at work have a suspicion that the only people who like musicals (well, the ones that take themselves "seriously"; Blues Brothers or South Park don't count, for example) are: Americans, women, or gays -- in no particular order or combination. But given we have no real data on this, what would it be like in England, for example? Other European countries? Asia? Apparently Indians have some taste for this despicable movie gender too, from the snippets I've seen of Bollywood productions. Is that the case? It turns my stomach to see a narrative interrupted by people singing and dancing all of a sudden...

For some reason, even being very musical (and a musician) from an early age, I've always loathed musical movies (specially American ones), which used to show in afternoon TV when I was a kid.

@all the same

No, not necessarily the same. I'm not a physicist, but has that ever stopped anyone on the intertubes? So here it goes. Particles were not all created equal, as weren't stars... Otherwise why do you think NASA would be worried about the astronauts, if it was all the same?

See, a big, mean star (or other body) can output particles with different levels of energy from our little, mediocre (thankfully for us) Sun -- and to go interstellar distances with some punch, they have to be powerful. Like gamma rays and stuff. And anyone who's watched the Hulk knows that is not something to be joking about when you are chilling in outer space.

I for one welcome our new galactic cosmic ray overlords.

Funny...

"£3-4 to rent a dvd from blockbuster"

Holly crap! Is that how much you guys pay to rent a movie in Great Britain?

I rented "Das Boot" (director's cut DVD, long as hell, very good) for $1 last weekend. I don't know why this one was extra cheap, most movies are for $2. New releases are $3 or $4 max, I think. And you guys pay twice as much? Suckers...

The difference between DVD and BD prices here can be almost nothing to double or more, too. Who knows why. For example, I just looked at the site of a major retailer here, movies in the first page that displayed.

300: on BD $20, on DVD $15, on HD-DVD $45

Spider-man 3: on BD $30, on DVD $15, no HD-DVD

Pirates of the Caribbean 3: on BD $35, on DVD $15, no HD-DVD

I've seen a BD player advertised for $250 the other day. Still much more than a DVD player, but getting better. If the industry were smarter, they would get these prices to lower faster...

April and October and the world...

"This will get Sun better in phase with school and vacation schedules around the world."

OK, you guys have got the money and all that but... Speak only for your "northern-hemispheric" world. School and vacation schedules are completely different in the Southern lands. Well, at least in South America it is, but I suspect the same for other countries.

Cool.

Pun intended.

Web?

What web?

@Can we ban Harumph Yada Yada Yada?

Whoa, careful there! You're gonna get El Reg banned in Turkey with that language, sir!

Because we know El Reg people are true paragons of the Freedom of Speech cause and would *never* remove your comments "or else"...

I can already see...

The emails spreading the next malware wave: "click here fur to see the 11/9 aniverzary video that authoritys donnot want you too see!"

And there is your extra IT angle in case you needed one...

Short attention span?

The first bunch of comments up there... Did you guys read only the first part? What you said is right for photos, graphics, audio or video. The second part, which you were salivating to hard to be able to read, says (WITH MY EMPHASIS):

"(ii) With respect to Content OTHER THAN photos, graphics, audio or video you submit or make available for inclusion on publicly accessible areas of the Site, you grant AT&T the PERPETUAL, IRREVOCABLE and fully sub-licensable license to use, distribute, reproduce, modify, adapt, publish, translate, publicly perform and publicly display such Content (in whole or in part) and to incorporate such Content into other works in any format or medium now known or later developed."

OK, as someone pointed out earlier, nothing new that other sites don't do. But hardly "until you delete it", eh?

Anyway, they said "perpetual, irrevocable and fully sub-licensable"... but they did not say "royalty-free", as the Chrome one used to. Shush!

Hm...

"The money-grabbing bint in the story certainly isn't the creator of the work."

Are we *really* sure of that?

Do the phones put a time stamp on the pictures, e.g. in the file system?

Just wrong...

Wrong, wrong, wrong... Evil even. Write something new, would you?

Beyond rational doubt

Yes, evolution (the fact that organisms change with time) is beyond rational doubt. Irrational doubt on the other hand... can not be meaningfully discussed, of course. Lots of fine points in different aspects of evolutionary biology are still being discussed, tested, accepted or rejected as new data and ideas come forward. That's healthy science for you. IDiots, on the other hand, get their answer from one (wrong) book.

@Robert Harrison "When the first molecules spontaneously began replicating themselves"

Hm... what does abiogenesis have to do with evolution, exactly? That's right, nothing. Origin of life is NOT part of evolutionary biology, in spite of all the ignoramuses "critics of evolution" talking about it in their ramblings (and you swallowed it hook, line, and sinker). Evolution only enters the picture when something starts reproducing. We've got nothing to do with what happened before that -- although we are obviously very interested in that, because it's a cool topic.

8 year olds with cell phones?

That's really freaky, let me tell you... I guess I'm just getting old. When I was a lad...

I predict...

...lots of Vista jokes. Or not.

Anyway, I thought users of supercomputing apps usually had a clue about computers and technical stuff like that. In other words, not your typical Windows users. Using graphical stuff just to "make it easier" sounds kind of paradoxical here... Sounds like a cool piece of kit (fans whirring like crazy and all that) though.

other technologies thought to be more important at the time

Wot!? Is there anything more important that safely and privately surfing pr0n!? What is this world coming to... (pun intended?)

Re: Spell checkers dont beat proof reading

Hm...

perl -pae s/by/buy/

No, that would not work either, it would break many right ones in the process...

But perl -pae s/dont/don't/ would, probably. :-)

Anyway, the best the Japs will do is proving yet again that prayer does not work. Unless all those laptops are running Linux or OSX? (flames! flames! is that hell or fanboys coming for me?)

Consume your media where ever you are

I'm sorta new at this Engrisch speaking business, but is that "where ever" good form? Or is it fine, and same as "wherever"? What ever...

@Jamie

I usually find it under "Home & Home Office", then down to the "PC Operating Systems" list on the left. Not prominent, of course, but not so terrible either...

Evil...

Even without IP... weren't the search logs released by AOL a while ago enough to identify a person? I don't remember the details, but I have the impression they also "anonymized" by removing IPs or something like that -- but there must have been something linking the different searches, of course. I'm too lazy to go search for the original article though... :-)

@Louis

Hm... the Flat Earth Society must be a satirical thing then, ans I didn't know it... Makes sense though.

@fLaMePr0oF

Just stay quiet and stop making a fool of yourself, eh? Your ignorance is showing. Believe me, I'm a professional.

Hey, there is another J up there! That's not me... Couldn't El Reg have tested for uniqueness of the display name during the registration process? How hard can it be?

Hm...

"Im still living with my parents and its got bugger all to do with my literacy leval"

Well, you seem to fit the study's conclusion pretty nicely, I'd have to say from your writing there... And I'm just a bloody non-native speaker, mind you.

@the rest saying "but I... but that author... but..."

You don't understand *anything* about basic statistics, do you?

certainly wasn't lounging on a chaise eating cherries

Of course not! They were grapes after all...

"Wait, there is a side of Paris we haven't yet seen ?"

Yes! The inside, man... the inside! Don't want either, I suppose all stomachs look pretty much the same.

Yay, legit use of the icon, even if the P angle is actually there.

@I am struggling

"To see the point in this one."

Because you're either stupid or didn't read the article to the end, I'd say.

@Keith Williams

"you are also likely to be able to repair the genetic damage done by cancer"

I saw the "smiley" there but felt like I should point this out anyway just in case: cancer does NOT cause genetic damage; cancer IS CAUSED by genetic damage. Big diff.

Re: how about

"Not accepting anybody, and training up the lazy, unskilled, wastes of space that constitute a large part of the indiginous population sat on their fat ar*es claiming benefits."

No good, because that would be, in the short term, more expensive and more work than just importing cheaper labor. Welcome to capitalism.

Living in lala land? Sorry...

"Personally, I just can't be bothered with messing about downloading music (legally or otherwise) - I've simply got better things to do with my time."

What's so difficult with pressing a button? Going out to buy a CD takes less of your time? You must be truly computer-retarded then...

Unfortunately Amazon is US-only, so that is not a full solution yet for everybody. another problem: I did search for some music there that they did not have as MP3, but CD only (aMule then, until they get the digital version available at Amazon or whatever). But, being in the US, I buy from them quite a lot these days, sometimes just a single I heard on Internet radio, sometimes an album (being able to sample some 30 s from each song has led to that way too many times). It's terribly easy to buy, and gotta be careful with the impulse. Their software works beautifully in my Ubuntu machines too, which is definitely a bonus. I wasn't buying any music for quite a while, now I find myself spending some $20 per month on music (that's about 3 albuns). Everybody is happier. :-)

$3 to $4 to rent, $10 to $15 to purchase

Hell, no! That's too expensive for a download. I just rented a movie for $1.99 at a bricks and mortar video store this weekend. DVD, doble sided special edition, all kinds of crap. Why pay double for a download which will be lower quality (I'm assuming), have less features -- and not work on my Linux machines anyway? Just for the convenience of not spending the 15 minutes to go to the store? Why, a little sun is good for you, vitamin D and all that.

When they get to $1 to rent, $4 or $5 to own (without DRM crap), then I might think about it.

Dammit...

I thought this was some story about a Muslim network of religious study or something... I just can't help reading that as Quramnet, sorry.

Security through obscurity

Sure, it will work as well as it always does... Ban the information, great idea. Not.

@AmeriKKKa a third world nation

"keep AmeriKKKa operating at a third world level of network acccess"

Hm... You clearly haven't used the "network access" in the "third world", chap...

Re:HAHA

Wow, it took quite a while today for the idiot brigade to show up...

Oh my, oh my...

OK, I'm not supporting the crackers either, but some things I should say.

"No-one really believes in Naziism any more. If a few weirdos want to wear jackboots, let them -- there is not the slightest risk to the rest of us."

As some already pointed out, wake up and smell the coffee... You obviously do not read the German-language news. They are quite interested in these issues, for obvious reasons. Neo-Nazis are a BIG problem there, specially in the former Eastern Germany areas. In Russia too, the violence against anyone who the NNs don't like (foreigners, gays, whatever) is extreme and POPULAR. That's the worst, "common people" (some granny or whatever in the streets, hardly people you'd label extremists) pretend they don't see it, and when speaking anonymously they support the NNs' actions.

The political arms of these organizations are in the parliaments, and getting *low double digits* already in some regions, if I remember correctly. Don't for a moment think they are gone and not a risk. We are still naked monkeys, genocide and its relatives are alive and well, and we'll do it as soon as we can get away with it. Count on it.

@Geoff Mackenzie

"The same thought has often crossed my mind, but obviously MS can't go that way."

Sure they won't, unless they are forced. I agree with all you said, but that just reinforces what I said. With forced release of source code for "obsolete", unsupported products, they (not just MS, but all software makers) would be forced to keep supporting their products until:

a) going out of business, at which point it does not matter anyway;

b) having a *really new* product, so releasing the old code is of no harm to them.

Another way, not as good as releasing the sources, would be to compulsorily free the binaries instead. Would eliminate the incentive to innovate that forced release of the old code has, but would help somewhat. I mean, there are lots of legacy applications and hardware out there that need old OS to work. We have a couple cases in the lab, expensive stuff that can't be run any other way. If the old computer pops the clog or Windows rots (which it inevitably does), where do we buy Win 95? Not supported or sold anymore, so we should be licensed to download and use it for free.

Of course, the best solution for such problems is still the GPL or something like that anyway, but horses for courses... ;-)

"the tunes have sense been removed"

That was good sense indeed...

But gee, FBI arrests for copyright violation, sounds quite extreme. Not Extreme. But In Extremo.

Hm...

"No one wants to write a virus whose target is so miniscule."

"Miniscule" is the intellect of people writing such comments... Ever wondered what runs most of the intertubes you're surfing right now?

@Mein Führer! Mein Führer!

You forgot to mention that the squad would be called SS (for Suicidal Squirrels, of course). Oh, wait, I believe that one is taken already...

3JesusPhone?

3JesusPhone? What about the Jisus laptop?

http://linuxdevices.com/news/NS3257992292.html