gregladen | February 5, 2008Natural Selection is the key creative force in evolution. Natural selection, together with specific histories of populations (species) and adaptations, is responsible for the design of organisms. Most people have some idea of what Natural Selection is. However, it is easy to make conceptual errors when thinking about this important force of nature. One way to improve how we think about a concept like this is to carefully exam its formal definition.
[repost from gregladen.com]
In this post, we will do the following:
Discuss historical and contextual aspects of the term "Natural Selection…
gregladen | February 5, 2008This has been a difficult decision. Clinton or Obama, either one, is a good candidate and would make a good president. McCain will be the Republican nominee. Clinton has been leading in the polls all along, but Obama is surging. In the last few days I've spoken to a dozen people who each know four or five people who will vote for McCain against Clinton, Clinton against Romney, Obama against either Romney or McCain.
Sorry Hillary. I truly, honestly mean that. I have to do what is most likely to result in a win in November. On the other hand, I'm not at all regretful to vote for Obama…
gregladen | February 5, 2008Concentrate a bunch of geeks in the Boston Area (like, at MIT), and eventually one of them will get a driver's license and discover how bad the traffic is. And invent something...
At the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), researchers are testing a Linux-based automotive telematics system intended to reduce traffic congestion. CarTel is a distributed, GPS-enabled mobile sensor network that uses WiFi "opportunistically" to exploit brief windows of coverage to update a central traffic analysis program.
[source]
Meanwhile, in California, where people just have a different view of the…
gregladen | February 4, 2008Possibly, according to this piece in the New York Times.
Microsoft's $44.6 billion bid for Yahoo, pushed by Mr. Ballmer, was hostile. And during a conference call Friday with analysts and in a subsequent interview, he never once uttered the word "Google," referring to the Internet search giant that has humbled Microsoft only as "the leader" in the online world.
Mr. Ballmer, 51, is a famously fierce competitor. To him, failure is never an option. "If we don't get it right at first, we'll just keep coming and coming and coming and coming," he said in an earlier interview.
Microsoft's bid for…
gregladen | February 4, 2008... until you've read this.
I have been using Vista for well over a year now (since Beta 1). Of course Vista is slow, its bloated (over 10x the size of XP), aero kills system performance (even though this should be done on the video card), networking is pathetically slow, etc etc. We all know Vista sucks.
But recently my blood has been set to a rolling boil by the fact that most of my games just don't work in Vista. At all. Its so bad that out of spite I have decided to make a list of games that work better in Linux under Wine than in Vista. These are games that were originally written to run…
gregladen | February 4, 2008I still can't decide whom to vote for. I don't have much time. Must assimilate more data.
gregladen | February 4, 2008Determining where a genome has been produced or altered by an intelligent designer is a matter of some importance. Consider the claims that the HIV virus was engineered as a biowarfare weapon, or the concern that virulence genes from other organisms could be inserted into viruses and bacteria to "weaponise" them. For example the engineered mouse pox virus that turned lethal (Nature. 2001 May 17;411(6835):232-5 see also Nat Genet. 2001 Nov;29(3):253-6) and limits on the sequencing of the 1918 strain of the flu to stop flu from being weaponised (Fed Regist. 2005 Oct 20;70(202):61047-9,). A…
gregladen | February 4, 2008But probably too late for this year's election ...
The controversial decision to implement various types of electronic voting machines in place of paper ballots is garnering little public attention, while many states hastily implement flawed electronic voting machines and related election procedures, according to the Electronic Frontier Foundation
...
Criticism of the current crop of voting machines focuses mainly on the lack of clear requirements for a paper record of electronic votes. Part of this ongoing dispute is the disagreement between legislators and voting machine vendors on any…
gregladen | February 4, 2008You may remember some time ago a brouhaha erupted when an upper Midwestern Blogger was told he had to erase a post that said something bad (yet truthful) about Cheri Yecke, who was at that time competing for the job of head of Florida Education. The company was a "scrubber" which promised to find bad things on the internet about a client, and get rid of them (the bad things, not the client) for a fee.
My response to the company's efforts to scrub the Yecke is here: Arrrrg. Avast ye 'defenders' ...
Well, not this sort of company has evolved (ha! evolution is real!) from "scrubber" to "…
gregladen | February 4, 2008Or, if you want to spell something with a phone number, is there an easy way to do that? For instance, I made a joke on this comment using this cypher.
Here is a site, called "PhoneSpell" tht facilitates this sort of shenanigans.
gregladen | February 4, 2008Musician and activist Bono accepts the 2005 TED Prize with a riveting talk, arguing that aid to Africa isn't just another celebrity cause; it's a global emergency. He argues passionately that mere charity won't solve the serious problems facing the world's second-largest continent. The solution, he says, is equal human rights. And it isn't just our moral obligation; it's an economic and strategic necessity. He ends by unveiling his TED Prize wishes, calling for TED's help to build a new social movement for Africa.
gregladen | February 4, 2008The first time I read the following passage from The Voyage, I was reminded of my own first experience in a rain forest (in Zaire). Evident in this passage is at least a glimmering of Darwin's appreciation for the complexity of ecosystems. Darwin could be considered the first scientific ecologist. Enough of my commentary ... this passage very much stands on it's own ...
BAHIA, OR SAN SALVADOR. BRAZIL, FEB. 29TH.--The day has past delightfully. Delight itself, however, is a weak term to express the feelings of a naturalist who, for the first time, has been wandering by himself in a…
gregladen | February 4, 2008And, why were they cut? An interesting analysis of the effects of the cut or damaged undersea cables is available, and conspiracy theories about the reason for this event begin to emerge.
There is no way that the damage to four undersea cables in the same region of the world is a coincidence. Well, OK, maybe it is a coincidence. But there may be a connection. One suggestion is that these cables were cut in preparation for an invasion of Iran, or at least, the insertion of special forces to carry out some covert activity. What a dumb idea that is. Another possibility is that the weather…
gregladen | February 3, 2008A fourth undersea cable has broken, this one linking Qatar and the UAE. The cause is said to be unknown at this time, but there are reports that it was due to a power breakdown rather than a physical break in the cable. [source]
Meanwhile, the two cables that broke a few days in Egypt may not have been damaged because of ships' anchors, according to the Egyptian Ministry of Transport. [source]
Thanks to commenter David for the tip.
gregladen | February 3, 2008I am utterly undecided. Feel free to make a suggestion.
To me, it is simply not the case that in most regards one candidate has better positions than the other. The main difference I see is in that Clinton has articulated her positions in more detail than Obama. Obama seems to be running more of a hope and charisma campaign.
I liked Bill Clinton, and I never had negative feelings towards Hillary Clinton, as many people seem to. I hear Hillary Clinton supporters expressing the thought that she would be a good president and the best possible campaigner against any of the Republicans,…
gregladen | February 3, 2008The next version of Ubuntu is getting closer to a new release. My one version old installation is working so well, I have not actually upgraded to the most current version. Here is an overview from a group that tested this new Alpha version, in which they discuss some of the new features and stuff.
gregladen | February 3, 2008Mel Gibson broke off relations with recently departed actor Heath Ledger after he spurned Gibson's advice not to accept the role of a gay cowboy in "Brokeback Mountain."
...
"Ledger asked Gibson whether he should take the role of Ennis Del Mar in 'Brokeback,'"...
"Gibson strongly counseled against it. The role apparently ran counter to Gibson's morality. And he felt that it would ruin Heath's career.
[source: newsmax.com]
gregladen | February 3, 2008What does the undersea world of the internet look like? This:
Click the image to see the full size version at The Guardian.