Dak

easy both. it's not that inconcievable that he came up with the idea without having heard of it from technocracy. i concidered it before i'd ever heard of technocracy, and, when you get right down to it, it's pretty much just the archaic 'council of wizemen' govournance, which is hardly that difficult to think of. one thing im still curiouse about: why scientists? in a technocracy, for example, science would be govourned by scientists, education by teachers, the economy by economists*, etc... why do scientists do all the govournance in your proposed political system? ----------- *yeah, i know, but i was running out of examples

sounds a bit like a fashist technocracy (not saying that makes it inherently bad). whilst i'd be the first to admit that scientists are generally all-round brilliant people -- espescially molecular genetisists -- what do you think makes scientists better at making economic, ethical, military, and all other non-scientific desisions? or are you proposing that everything be descided via a scientific method of some kind?

and that randomly unlocked your car door. but, even given the security worries, you still can't remove it, 'cos it's wired in serial with your headlights, so if you take the sterio out your lights wont work anymore and your car will crash.

oh. so it's not like, if i go from this page to another, SFN could insert stuff into my header that i send to the next page? You know, ever since i heard the term 'private header' -- from a free trial of zone alarm pro -- i suspected that it was a normal thing made to sound 'scary', in a "oh noez, i must buy this program to protect my bank details from teh evil private headorz!" kinda way.

the eu descided that microsoft was misusing it's monopoly, and made certain demands of microsoft. one, for example, was either to stop bundling IE with their OS's, or to provide an uninstaller for it (can't remember which). given that m$ have been warned, if they now bring out vista and it has IE fully integrated (and thus unremovable) with the OS then, tbh, m$ have no right to complain if they get sued as a punishment. Its not really any different from what the US govournment did to m$ because it felt that it was misusing its monopoly. one car manufacturer doesnt stand gargantuan over the others.

indeed. theres plenty of evidence to support the claim that HIV initially spread through the gay population (in developed contries, that is). Political correctness shouldn't get in the way of facts, espescially when peoples lives are at stake. all of which is getting slightly off of the original topic

ok... then im still a tad confused as to what headers/private headers are

Cheers. At a guess, is this a header? GET /forums/showthread.php?t=12388 HTTP/1.1 Host: www.scienceforums.net User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.7.8) Gecko/20050511 Firefox/1.0.4 Accept: text/xml,application/xml,application/xhtml+xml,text/html;q=0.9,text/plain;q=0.8,image/png,*/*;q=0.5 Accept-Language: en-us,en;q=0.5 Accept-Encoding: gzip,deflate Accept-Charset: ISO-8859-1,utf-8;q=0.7,*;q=0.7 Keep-Alive: 300 Connection: keep-alive Referer: http://www.scienceforums.net/forums/...splay.php?f=54 Cache-Control: max-age=0 which would make Referer: http://www.scietc, and possibly the cache-control, the 'private header', that was inserted by the server rather than my own PC? maybe?

yes. either your processor is wussy, you have too many programs running, or some program is eating up your CPU cycles, possably due to a glitch. I had it happen once to me once simply because I pressed print-screen... something went wrong, and my CPU usage went up to 100%, even after a reboot. eventually, i figured out what it was and deleted the pending print job, and my CPU usage went down to normal again. If you have windows xp, open the task manager and select 'show processes from all users', and then look down the 'CPU' columb to see if any of the processes are using a huge amount of CPU power. Also, if you dont know your CPU speed, go to start > run, and type in dxdiag, and a screen should pop up telling you, amongst other things, your CPU speed... anything tiny like 500MHz, and you probably wont be able to expect it to drop below 100% usage.

what are private headers? i googled, and am now confused

And with a crack of thunder, the rotting corpse of an ancient thread rose from the archives, its dried posts creaking in complaint at being forsed to move, once again, amongst the first page of the forum; it's HTML moaning in protest at being forced to mingle with the living threads... And then, the scent of the living threads filled whatever passes for nostrils to a thread. 'coooooommennttttsss' it moaned, the scent of the crypt heavy upon it's breath; 'must... consume... coooommennnntttts', as it shuffled ever nearer to the quick and easy experiments thread, which thrashed heplessly in an atempt to unstick itself from the forum and make it's escape. little did anyone suspect that soon... sooner than anyone would have thought possible... the forums would be over-run by SELF REPLICATING ZOMBIE THREADS OFF DOOM!!!!!!!!! (bum bum BUM!) anyway, loads of inportant advances in science -- the genetic sequencing array being the first that springs to mind -- have been developed because someone eventually got too bored of doing some tediouse task, and developeed a quick and easy way to do it, so one option is to try to design an easyer way to do whatever it is that you are doing. alternatively, trick someone else into doing it for you. What!? don't look at me like that. watson and crick did it

sorry if it seemed that i was jumping on you, i just wanted to clear a few things up in general OK, my bad... thought you were talking about ToE. (also, the 'again no' bit is 'cos i was mentioning something i stated earlyer in the post; not meant to imply that i'd had to repeatedly tell you)

prepare to be amazed by the wonder that is the ultimate boot cd (tan-tan-tan-TAAA!!!) It has many-a-partition tool. First one i checked -- Ranish Partition Manager -- looks like it does what you want.

I think that the answre that you're looking for is that it has undoubtably been concidered, but there was probably insufficient evidence supporting the theory, and/or evidence supporting the theory could be more likely attributed to other phenomena, that the theory was abandoned as unlikely and not worthy of further thought. although, with the amount of conspiracy theorists etc, i've no doubt that there are many people actively thinking about the possibility and tring to develope theories.

The closest thing that i can think of is panspermia theory, which is an alternative to abiogenesis theory -- that meteorites may have crashed into earth carrying alien microbes, which then populated the earth. I believe the theory was designed to explain the sudden and huge boom in bacterial numbers when life first emerged on this planet. I dont think it's given as much credence as abiogenesis theory, but it's still a possibility. as for what you're suggesting... okrams razor: in the absence of any specific evidence to suggest the direct involvment of aliens, abiogenesis is the more acceptable theory; and all of your opening points can be explained by more mundane means that aliens. I suppose if all of the abiogenesis theories get disproven, then it'll come down to a match-off between panspermia and little-green-men. Or, of course, if we find a ruined space ship, or find aliens cheking in on us every now and again, that might lend credence to the theory.

I'd just like to clarify a few things: Well... strictly speaking, no. 1/ as previously stated, the ToE is valid, reguardless of wether the first life evolved, came from mars, or was made by a god. 2/ strictly speaking, evolutionary theory is the mechanisms by which species adapt, change, and by which new species emerge -- the historical order in which this happened is a branch of natural history, and covers evolution, paeleontology, molecular biology etc, and is slightly different from ToE. In other words, ToE describes how cells could evolve into humans; evolutionary history describes the likely path that they took; the two are very closely related and support each other, but are still seperate (as an example of what i mean, if a flaw were found in the ToE, evolutionary history would become suspect; were a flaw found in evolutionary history, then the ToE would still be valid). again, no. ToE describes the mechanisms of change. evolutionary history attempts to describe the creation of all contemporary lifeforms from the original life form. and that's it. theres no commentry, from either the ToE or evolutionary history, as to how the universe got to the state where the earth, sun, and first life existed, it just assumes (pretty justifyedly so) that, at some point, these things were somehow created. abiogenesis theory attempts to describe how the first life could have emerged from non-life; big-bang theory describes the creation of the universe, and variouse astrophisical stuff plugs in the gaps. as do variouse religiouse theories -- whichever is true is irrelevent to the ToE; that certain things existed is treated as axiomic in the ToE. So... as far as explaining nothingness --> human, no! ToE does not do this. as far as explaining bacteria --> human, no! ToE does not do this. a combination of empirical evidence in the form of paleontology and molecular examination of preserved remains, along with cladistic and phylogenetic analysis, reveal the probably cource of all modern animals evolutionary history. obviously, this relys upon the ToE for validity, but it is still NOT THE ToE.

Any 'beliefs' in this matter that evolutionists have will be coincidental, and nothing to do with the theory of evolution. If you ask an evolutionist how the atmosphere and air came into existance, they'd probably say "I dont know, go ask a geologist or someone". Current theory in this matter, afaik, is that the big bang made matter, which then coalesced over ages into planets; our one holds it's atmosphere due to a combination of gravity and, i believe, the ozone layer (possibly... im not sure). As Edtharan and cap'n said, the atmosphere has changed (NOT evolved) over time as a result of the emerging life-forms converting atmospheric gasses from one form to another. Indeed. the theory of evolution -- and i want to stress this -- concerns itself with the change of allele frequency over time within populations. it PRESUMES the existance of stuff like planets, atmosphere, and lifeforms and then explains how these lifeforms change over time. Whatever theory/religiouse teaching you accept, i think we can all agree that, at some point, the sun, earths atmosphere, and life were somehow created; evolution picks up the story from there. if you want to know how the first life, that evolution first acted upon, was created, then the variouse abiogenesis theorys are what you should look into; the creation of the sun and earth etc is in the domain of phisysics. Anyway, my point was that the theory of evolution works, reguardless of wether the earth, the sun, the atmosphere etc, and the first life, were created naturally or by a god -- whichever, after life had emerged, it then evolved into more complex forms over an extremely long period of time. the big bang? Anyway, 'we dont know how it happened' doesn't prove that a god did it.

^^^ lol Indeed. abnormal = not normal, heterosexual is pretty easy to observe as the norm, for whatever reason, hence homosexuality = abnormal. Whilst there is evidence to suggest that genetics can play a role in causing homosexuality, it is by no means the only possible cause of homosexuality. so, saying '[homosexuality] is a genetic abnormality' is a tad off-the-mark. plus the statement would not neccesarily be true even if 100% of instances of homosexuality were completely genetic in nature. if the allele were recessive -- and especially if it involves more than one gene -- the 'gay allele(s)' could quite easily hide themselves amongst the population and survive the 'negative' selective doo-hickies of homosexuality simply by not being expressed in most cases. many genetic deseases, with unarguably negative reproductive concequences, survive like this. not to mention that, if the genetic cause were a 'breaking' of a functional 'heterosexual allele', then even if the 'homosexual allele' were naturally selected out of existance, it would likely spontaniously reappear due to base mutation rates. also, bisexuals could be a vector for propogating the 'gay allele'. empirically, homosexuality has been around for ages, more-than-likely since we were all hanging around in the jungle going 'ook', and has not been bread-out yet. and besides... not so. there are many theories put forward as to why homosexuality would be benificial, ranging from playing a role in social bonding (see bonoboe's, and their pecking-order establishment which involves some hot monkey-on-monkey lesbian bonoboe action), to the 'gay uncle' theory, whereby a persons genes are passed on by caring for their siblings off-spring, to a simple form of population control (as mentioned above, the more older brothers you have = the more chance you have of being gay, thus possibly being a mechanism of limiting reproduction rates), etc etc. also, many gay people do still get the urge to have heterosexual sex atleast the bare minimum amount of times nessesary to have kids.

No. the atmosphere does not evolve' date=' as it doesnt posess the neccesary attributes to, eg capable of reprodusing, capable of passing on its information to it's offspring, limitation of resorses etc. I'd like to point out at this point that 'evolution' merely means the change in species over time... NOT the complete adeistic creation of everything from nothingness. Thats the religiouse fundie definition of evolution, not the scientific one. many life forms -- plants, bacteria, jelly fish, etc -- do not have eyes. they just sence in other ways.

|a |b |c |d |e | |---------------------------------------- |f |g |h |i |j | |---------------------------------------- |k |l |m |n |o | |---------------------------------------- |p |q |r |s |t | |---------------------------------------- |u |v |w |x |y | will blur into: |A |B |C |D |E | |---------------------------------------- |F |G |H |I |J | |---------------------------------------- |K |L |M |N |O | |---------------------------------------- |P |Q |R |S |T | |---------------------------------------- |U |V |W |X |Y | if we say that # = the number of squares surrounding the square + 1 (for the square itself), then A = (a+b+f+g)/# B = (a+b+c+f+g+h)/# or A# = a+b+f+g B# = a+b+c+f+g+h rearranging gives A# = a+b+f+g B# = a+b+f+g+c+h combining gives A#-B# = c+h as A, B, and # are known, the sum of c+h can be worked out. similarly, the difference between A# and F# would be equivelent to k+l, Now, if we look at G. G# = a+b+c+f+g+h+k+l+m rearranging gives G#-(c+h)-(k+l) = a+b+f+g+m G and # are known from the blurred picture; (c+h) and (k+l) were previously worked out. and, a+b+f+g = A#, so G#-(c+h)-(k+l)-A# = m if you carry on like that, it'll probably be possible to deduce every original value from the blurred picture.

glue string to the centre of either side of a yo-yo and suspend weights from them -- the yo-yo should rest on the fishing wire without falling off due to the 'keel' effect of the weights. now, wind the yo-yo up, rest it on the fishing wire, and attach another weight to the end of the main bit of string: the weight should make the yo-yo spin as the string unwinds, and thus roll along the fishing wire. maybe?

well, WiSci seems to be floundering. May i suggest that the students amongst us type our notes up as articles when revising? It'd be an easy way to get articles made (as we have to do the work anyway to revise), it might kick-start WiSci again, and who knows, people might add to your article and you'd end up essentially getting some free revision help. i'm busy with my dissertation atm, but in about a months time when im finished, i'll start whaking up some forensics articles, as i have two forensix exams coming up.

i believe that you might be talking about retroviral gene vectors? retroviruses invade cells, and then stick their genomes into the host genome, which then has some extra (viral) genes. in retroviral gene vectors, the viral genes are replased with (insert gene of choice here), and then packaged into viral capsids/envelopes in the lab. these genetically modified retroviruses will then invade cells, and stick their genomes (which now consist of (insert gene of choice here)) into the host cell's genome; et voila, you have now stuck a new gene into an organism's genome. sorta like lambda phage, but designed to work on eukaryotes?

No it isn't. Communism is the opisite of capitolism, NOT the oposite of democracy; it's entirely possible to have a democratic communism. And, whilst im not the biggest fan of capitolism: theres no reason why communism would be less poluting. Capitolist govournments allow levels of pollution for money, communisms may well allow it for the good of the people (if being less polluting = being less productive, then less stuff will be produced for the population). tbh, i see this as more of a failing on the part of the govournment, rather than capitolism. close the tax holes that allow some companies to do this. Some. Not most. most problems caused by capitolism, imo, could be fixed by better regulation of companies (ie, they're more of a failing of the govournment than of capitolism itself).

iirc, freewebs offers some server-side gubbins, but i can't remember which, and it might be limited to server-side includes. i remember seing something about password-protecting folders in the FAQ section on the freeweb account page, so the answre should be there.