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General Kafka › Comments
@igorthetroll I blocked you over on FriendFeed. I don't like talking with someone who is a troll. See ya.
Chris Clayton, Czar, Dewald Pretorius and 14 other people liked this
What's in a name? I don't think Igor is a real Troll ;)
- Pierre-Philippe Martin
from twhirl
A lot is in a name. I want to only see people who use their real names so I know where they are coming from.
- Robert Scoble
wait, you don't know Igor Thetro II... son of *the* Igor Thetro ??
- Alan Cheslow
oh, come one Scoble, my name is Marcus Debonaventure -- what's in a name ?
- General Kafka
I have to agree with Kafka. Why is the name important? What he does and what he writes count more.
- Morton Fox
Morton: I don't like him and I don't like someone who calls himself a troll. Especially since I've found over and over again that the name fit. I want to subscribe and see smart people. Not anonymous jerks. If you go jerky on me I WILL block you.
- Robert Scoble
The fact is, this is Robert's Twitter and FF and he can ban people if they look at him cross-eyed if it bugs him. He doesn't really have to justify that.
- Dana Franks
from twhirl
Think it's more that he looks like a troll....
- Rich
If someone harasses me or makes nasty comments, etc. I *might* block them but I would only resort to this if that person went out of their way to be a royal jerk and purposefully make my life miserable, oppress me, slander my name, say terrible things about me, my friends, etc, etc. In that rare case, I would see that they were stalking me and trying to harm my online identity and experience = EPIC FAIL = BLOCK
- Susan Beebe
Susan: there are so many distribution channels for anonymous jerks that I don't feel that I need to put up with that here.
- Robert Scoble
Robert: So true! and I bet they exist in ALL channels available to them...nice. Being able to be selective via a BLOCK feature is therefore essential for folks who are in the limelight like you are!
- Susan Beebe
More important than a real name is consistent identity... if you're "beezlecruft" on every service and your blog, then you're a recognizable persona. This is a good thing. On the downside, you make people around you feel like an idiot by writing things like: "Here's the thing, beezlecruft..."
- Roger Benningfield
There's probably an interesting post in here somewhere on why it's necessary to announce who you're blocking. I do the same thing sometimes and always catch flack for it. Unfortunately, I've been up too many hours to properly defend myself intelligently as to why I do it, so we'll see if I'm interested in this topic tomorrow enough to post on it.
- Mark "Rizzn" Hopkins
@Roger: For years, I posted anonymously on the 'Net as simply "rizzn." Up until about 2 or 3 years ago, I was the only Rizzn in Google. When I wanted to go a bit more mainstream, I wound up merging the nick with my real name, partly so that there wasn't an identity split, partly for the SEO value, and partly so that folks wouldn't have to feel silly and call me Rizzn.
- Mark "Rizzn" Hopkins
one of the advantages of having the #24 most common male first name and the #16 most common last name. I can *roll with my real name...
- Jay Martin
"My name is Diego Montoya. You killed my father, not I must kill you." My favorite introduction. I like my name, Micah. Why not use it? Plus most people dont pronounce it right, so I know if you know me.
- Micah Baldwin
"My name is Inigo Montoya... you killed my father... prepare to die!"? Very good line :P
- Chinkerfly
from twhirl
isn't the issue one of transparency, if the handle says "troll" & their actions are trollish, they're a troll, block makes sense
- mike "glemak" dunn
Cains..That's awesome. That's like having the name McLovin. :)
- Hao Chen
from fftogo
er... isn't the whole point of all these SM tools the ability to create your own conversation and experience? To be honest, I blocked "the troll" a few days ago. His comments to me and others were making me uncomfortable. Done, and done. It's not personal, it;'s just the way I choose to shape my social media experience.
- Sue Murphy
I'm with Robert on this one. That guy was the reason why I was looking for a way to block someone's comments from my feed.
- Dewald Pretorius
oops, sorry, I have been using my handle for like ever. Anyways, I'm the ONLY person on the web who uses puckman as a handle ;)
- Gerard van Schip
as I've used my handle for years, I've kept at it; and as I may post things which might be negative about my current employer, I want to make it harder for the HR(non tech savvy) types to find it......add-on to that, my names are not common, google and find me alone + a bunch of dead people with my names
- clarke thomas
I only use a handle because I have quite a common name. I'm not tryin' to hide behind anything!
- Sue Murphy
@scottbourne, I agree - people need to use their real identity online, otherwise what's the point?
- Rich
I had to block igorthetroll too! He was calling me bad names and commenting on everything I said with weird, nasty comments. What a boring life to be "that guy."
- Alana Taylor
A good handle when backed by a real person with a consistent personality should be nothing to be ashamed of. Handles are easier to remember. It's part of the personal brand.
- Chinkerfly
from twhirl
Chinkerfly, it's not about being easier or just as good. It's a principled matter. If you don't want to back what you say and what you do with your identity, you aren't playing the same game as a lot of us are. Speaking for myself and others like me, we're interested in using social media as a supplement to our real-world business, personal, and social relationships, not as a replacement or an alternative.
- Mark Trapp
for the sake of scoble, i've changed my comment name to the name I go by.
- clarke thomas
Just want to point to the fact that nicknames are soooo web 1.0... :-)
- Orli Yakuel
@Orli Yakuel This is oh so true! ^^
- Dan H. Racek
Igor the Troll is just annoying. I'm sure he has good intentions and all, but I can only take so much.
- Ben Parr
I don't see the value behind the whole "real name" push - this happens to be my real name, but how do you know that? What's the real difference between a handle and a real-seeming name that might not be real?
- David Worrell
You're straw-manning the issue, David. It's not just about the name: it's about a verifiable identity. If you can't be tied to an identity offline, you might as well use a nickname as it has the same effect on how people perceive you.
- Mark Trapp
This is so unfair, it's like blocking Loic Le Meur for being too much of a meur.
- Andy Roberts
Take a look (some quick and dirty content analysis): Igor the Troll, Noah David Simon, Israel, Mossad: http://snipurl.com/2iquj | http://snipurl.com/2iqv5 | http://snipurl.com/2iqve
- Sean McBride
So what are you trying to say, Sean?
- George Hall (Australia)
Not sure I like your inference, Sean.
- George Hall (Australia)
I am who I say I am. I'm not hard to find. I say what I mean. I don't need to hide. If some of the sites I use would allow me to change my original name (gmail/google, flickr among others) to my real name, I would. Be yourself, life's better that way.
- Robert Kenney
Obama, No you can't | Israel | Jerusalem Post - http://www.jpost.com/servlet...
Anthony Citrano, Amira, Steven Perez and 2 other people liked this
"With the world focused on the possibility of a new era of peacemaking in the Middle East led by US President Barack Obama, right-wing activists in Israel launched a campaign to counter the American efforts by trying to portray Obama as an anti-Semite whose policies would harm the Jewish state. Obama, No you can't Approximately 200 right-wing activists demonstrated outside the American Consulate in Jerusalem on Wednesday evening, shouting the slogan, "Obama! No! No you can't!," and protesting recent statements made by US officials criticizing the continued expansion of West Bank settlements"
- Sean McBride
from Bookmarklet
"Over the coming days, the activists plan to intensify their campaign by hanging posters throughout the country of the US president wearing a kaffiyeh, flanked by the words, "anti-Semite," and "Jew hater," written in red in both English and Hebrew. Another poster published by the campaign shows Obama shaking hands with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad against a background of a mushroom cloud from a nuclear explosion."
- Sean McBride
This is the same kind of incitement which resulted in the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin.
- Sean McBride
despicable tactics. they are reaching another low... not as low as the recent Gaza massacre or Lebanon disaster...
- General Kafka
from fftogo
These activities are bound to ring alarm bells in Western security services (including Israeli security services).
- Sean McBride
From one hand we should be alarmed by these rightists as they are extreme, but from the other hand they are tiny well hated minority, who earned their bad reputation, everyone who does not agree with their out of context and reality view, is Jew hater. I am a Jew I am Israeli, I am Zionist, their bad behaviour took the meaning out of being a Jew, in spite of the fact they pray and cover their head. Nothing to be worried about, a lot to be ashamed for.
- Roni Segoly
I think they have a substantial base of support among the pro-Israel mainstream (including the Christian right in the United States). Their violent rhetorical style and ideological extremism are nearly indistinguishable from that promoted by Rupert Murdoch's media outlets (Fox News especially). Israeli society as a whole has supported the settlements which this group of true believers...
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- Sean McBride
I am not understating just putting in scope. Yes a radical killed our prime minister but that shows nothing from the level of support they have, only shows how extreme they can be. They are settling all over because they believe god promised them the land, and because they believe the Palestinians are not equal as human being so they can hurt/steal/beat burn. On the other hand a big...
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- Roni Segoly
Roni -- reasonable and sane remarks and analysis like yours in the above comment almost make me believe that a peaceful solution could be found to the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. I hope that Israelis like yourself prevail in Israeli politics.
- Sean McBride
Well I am also part of minority and active in this organization (http://www.combatantsforpeace.org), the majority of our people are silent and afraid of the Palestinians, but have no ideology reasons to stay on every tiny hill in west bank, if there will be peace talks and people will be hopeful then there will be a change. We are not scared of these fanatic radical people, which claim to be part of my people. I am ashamed of the way we behave and the fact we let them
- Roni Segoly
Roni -- every ethnic group and religion in the world has problems with radicals and fanatics; the problem is certainly not unique to Israel; it's a universal problem. And Israelis seem to be more honest, forthright and aggressive in discussing their own problems on this front than are many other nations and groups. The main reason I am pessimistic about current trends in the Mideast:...
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- Sean McBride
I like the sentiments expressed on your website -- but, again, I am pessimistic that these views will prevail.
- Sean McBride
fear is an excellent motivator, but a lousy educator
- MikeAmundsen
Roni: demographics appear to be working against you and in favor of Avigdor Lieberman: "Study: Israel’s secular Jews will be minority in schools" http://jta.org/news... It's easy to see where this is going.
- Sean McBride
Sean, if I understood the article they claim Avigdor Libermann rose as answer to the fear from demographic problem of having so many orthodox Jews and Arabs. Maybe, but Orthodox Jews are not the settlers, different people different problem. My fear is also demographic, within Israel we have 20% Arabs, when we hold the west bank we have 49% Arabs, so we will lose our majority as Jews...
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- Roni Segoly
I admire your optimism, Roni; so much so that I feel like a real pill for making any comments that might undermine it. I should probably keep my mouth shut.
- Sean McBride
I thank you, so last word from me, see the attached links (I am not the only optimistic) http://tinyurl.com/oa4a5n http://tinyurl.com/oa4a5n
- Roni Segoly
I must remark: a truly inspiring article for us all.
- Sean McBride
I meant to send two different links, sorry. Here is the second http://tinyurl.com/dkj9hf
- Roni Segoly
Obama will be a bump in history like Jimmy Carter. http://ff.im/3qsfa he will not be re-elected. he has three years to wag his fingers. he won't win this as long as Iran acts like Iran. he doesn't have a leg to stand on beyond obvious bias. if there was an election today Obama wouldn't win. this is too soon for a president to lose the faith of his citizens. the charade is over.
- Noah David Simon
Go away Noah, why lurk on positive threads..do you get some kind of thrill by looming your anti Obama hate? Oh, go play with Sarah and Rush. Sorry Sean for hijacking...
- Myrna
you show your true colors now don't you Myrna? Juden Rott. you are no moderate.
- Noah David Simon
Noah -- I'm curious: I understand that "Juden Rott" is an attack term of some kind, but I don't seem to be able to find its definition or translation on Google. Did you mean "Judenrat"? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki...
- Sean McBride
Deadly drugs exposed - http://bulletin.aarp.org/states...
will Salvia be banned and even criminalized ? up to now it doesn't seem it should...
- General Kafka
from fftogo
No excuse for media to report Cheney's comments w/o giving FULL disclosure to facts that show what a fricking liar he is.
journalism has been coopted to sell sugar water for too long in this country.
- General Kafka
from fftogo
Will Higher Education Be the Next Bubble to Burst?: http://chronicle.com/free...
Iddo Friedberg, Jo Young, David Young and 14 other people liked this
Interesting quote: "According to the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education, over the past 25 years, average college tuition and fees have risen by 440 percent — more than four times the rate of inflation"
- Hilary
Wow! Looks like Elsevier...
- Björn Brembs
You can get the same education from a community college that you could get at Harvard; what the cc won't give you is the ruling class' stamp of approval. It's that certification function ("this is a wealthy, therefore a worthwhile, person") that drives higher education in the US. The financial bubble may be deliberately maintained for a long time, but in the meantime I hope the web will burst the class bubble.
- Bill Hooker
it pains me to see all those young adults with debt because Higher Education is a market in this country...
- General Kafka
from twhirl
Harvard (and others) also gives you connections (=stamp) - but isn't it true that selection is based mostly on academic capabilities?
- General Kafka
from twhirl
I agree there is value to the "stamp" from elite schools. But in my opinion, the most valuable parts of a university degree in the US are obtained from the interactions with peers and others on campus. Learning how to network, chart a career path, extra-curricular activities, etc. -- many of these things cannot be replaced by a simple online degree. And I think they can be obtained at...
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- Steve Koch
If they are thinking that acquisition of knowledge is the main point of higher education, they are doing pretty well - many think the point is getting a diploma ergo job ergo money. They do, mainly, figure things out by the time they graduate (observe traditional exodus of students out of business majors they start with into other majors they got attracted to by taking the required non-business classes).
- Bora Zivkovic
@Steve: compare the job prospects of a UNM graduate with those of a Harvard graduate. If they are different (and I'm pretty sure they are), there's a disparity in access (to the stamp of approval), since Harvard costs whatever ridiculous amount it costs and UNM is ~free. My whole point is that education doesn't matter a damn, what counts is the stamp.
- Bill Hooker
When I say that I hope the web will burst the class bubble, I mean that I hope wider access to online resources will lead to more and more emphasis on competence and less on the stamp. I'm not gonna hold my breath though.
- Bill Hooker
Lets not kid ourselves, Harvard should not be compared to any CC.
- Vedran Agovic
Fact is today we students have a lot more options to attain their degree. They can go ground, online, flex etc. It all depends on the student. No matter the economy, people go to school. They will continue to go to school especially with many more options available. Students may not go to their first choice due to rising costs but there is plan B, C, D that will offer similar degree programs for the price.
- Vedran Agovic
This article does pose a solid question that we must ask, it is that important and much depends on the higher education institutions.
- Vedran Agovic
Some of the dif between public vs private is the class size. For my undergrad, I would've had a hard time learning in class sizes of 100+. So I chose small liberal arts private. (good financial aid also helped.) For my masters, class size and teacher interaction wasn't as much a problem, but local geog helped me pick a public U. I do see the cost of private educ getting out of control. (I work at a medium private non religious U.). Something is going to break. Not sure what colleges or Univs. or when.
- Joe
Also, many grad students or adjuncts may teach at public or CC places, particularly the intro courses. Now, I have had some great adjunct teachers, but there is more variability.
- Joe
Things may certainly be changing with doing science using Web2.0 tools - one benefit is that the person's contributions can be accepted without knowing their credentials. I take great pleasure in the thought that some of our contributors on our ONS projects could be precocious 14 year olds. These people get known by their work and thoughts alone and will quite possibly find their future...
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- Jean-Claude Bradley
Great point, Jean-Claude. That's where I was trying to go by saying "simple online degrees" miss the point. As far as I know a basic online degree does nothing to build your network or networking skills. @Bora, yeah I agree, it's a huge step and a good one to get to the point of thinking that there's more to school than just the degree (e.g. useful knowledge). @Bill, I guess we're miles...
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- Steve Koch
I'm not sure the Harvard vs UNM argument extends very well to most PhD graduate programs though. With higher degrees, it seems to depend more on your thesis advisor, his/her recommendation, and your publication history. That's just been my experience. The last 4 graduate students here got post docs at Harvard, UCSF, Stanford, and the 4th went straight to an industry job. Of course,...
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- Brian Krueger - LabSpaces
@Steve -- "I don't really care how ridiculously expensive or elitist Harvard becomes" -- that's fine so long as you also don't really care how the country is run. Ivy League = roughly 1/3 of US Senators, 1/3 of Forbes richest list, 20-50% of degrees held by Presidential cabinets since Nixon. Pretty heavy over-representation, given that it's just 8 schools. (Note source = quick Google around, not exactly rock solid, but it accords with my prejudices...)
- Bill Hooker
@Bill, any problem I have with that is dwarfed by the problem I have with almost 100% of them being politicians.
- Steve Koch
@Steve: OK, now there's something we agree on.
- Bill Hooker
:)
- Steve Koch
"Facebook announces $10B valuation": http://www.businessinsider.com/live-fa... @FacebookEconomy
that's odd. After using FB for >2 years, I don't think I EVER clicked on an ad...
- General Kafka
from twhirl
General Kafka liked this
good point. I guess if ppl could see *how* Arrogance works in them to make brain-dead decisions, they might learn to recognize and ditch it?
- General Kafka
from fftogo
I've come to take you. Your time on earth is over. / But you can't. I haven't time. I have my performance/ It's cancelled, due to the death of the actor -- 7th seal dialogs.
dude u r really depressing me.
- Michael Jones
ah! in the movie (7th seal) most characters find death a deliverance. The movie is beautiful.
- General Kafka
http://twitpic.com/4jglh - Vespa and Smart cars parked illegally LOL
 |
always wondered how illegal is parking a motorcycle on the sidewalk...
- General Kafka
Lawn Mower Saves Man's Life From Misplaced Hand Grenade http://gizmodo.com/5236556...
Roberto Bonini, Nia, matthew john ernisse and 4 other people liked this
"A 39-year-old man who was mowing the lawn ran over a hand grenade, which proceeded to blow up. The man was not injured, however, because his trusty mower took the brunt of the explosion."
- Shevonne
from Bookmarklet
many children in mine infested areas of this world are not as lucky...
- General Kafka
"misplaced" hand grenade?
- Brian Sullivan
+1 Brian. "Hmm. Can't find that grenade. Oh well, it'll turn up eventually."
- You.
"Every time I try to do something, it blows up in my face."
- Dawn
Who "misplaces" a Hand Grenade?
- Nicholas James
twittering workshop 'utilize CTMS to enable adaptative trials' - does it belong in this FF room?
workshop covers evolution of CTMS, their ability to help facilitate adaptive clinical trials, the role of EHR, +case studies
- General Kafka
from fftogo
evolution of CTMS: manual, automated, adaptative, then increased integrity of real time data
- General Kafka
from fftogo
adaptative clinical trial design: changing many elements during the conduct of the trial - decided upon a set of complex sequential interim analysis -
- General Kafka
from fftogo
... without negatively impacting on the statistical integrity of the trial...
- General Kafka
from fftogo
adaptative: usr a fraction of current data to approrpriately change or adjust design options that were based on less reliable initial ASSUMPTIONS.
- General Kafka
from fftogo
adantage: expose less patients to unnecessarily risky steps, save resources & time, find more optimal strategies, increase effectiveness/robustness of your data
- General Kafka
from fftogo
yes, this belongs in this FF room because early discovery tools like gene expression & other biomarkers can be used as signals to do interim analysis in adaptive trials ... it's all about curing more people with more effective therapies in the end, and for that you need clinical trials ...
- Steve
impact on #CTMS of #adaptative : amendments of protocol +investigator contract, +/- investigators, inv assignments, patient visit details, patient cohorts, inc/excl criteria, plans&metrics
- General Kafka
from fftogo
all 'features' of CTMS ought to adapt to change in adaptative trials. ALL.
- General Kafka
from fftogo
porn in public. are you registered or have you been hacked?
- General Kafka
from fftogo
define porn. I guess you will have to go to the supreme court. these are works of "art" from "artists" that I follow. they passed the flickr safety feature I guess. I do claim to be a "Conservative" Republican, but my selections are not intended for children. I sometimes deal with complex issues. This is not a Disney profile and when I deal with politics I analyze sexual issues which is often the root of power. the women is bare breasted, but many publications that are fashion oriented are
- Noah David Simon
this is not CNN http://www.youtube.com/watch...
- Noah David Simon
cool. art is great. just checking you were not hacked. porn is bondage, bondage is bad.
- General Kafka
from fftogo
porn is what is considered obscene. you can have willing porn. don't believe the 70s and Gloria Steinem. all those experiments were lacking the proper axioms for truth. I've read the book by David copp and Susan Wendell. they aren't objective stats at all. did you read the post feminist article in the NYTimes last month. pretty much throws all those lies out http://simonstudiotheatre.blogspot.com/2009...
- Noah David Simon
here is the article http://www.nytimes.com/2009... it claims that victimization in women is libidinal
- Noah David Simon
most of the stats that claim the mental distress from porn is based on the idea that it causes pain in both genders. that is a lie. it is relaxing to many. it causes a loss of status for women... but soap operas do the same to men. the final finding from those Copp/Wendell studies were based on levels of aggression towards women. it also claims that women also feel aggressive to other...
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- Noah David Simon
I imagine these images provoke a lot of sexual tension. but not necessarily thoughts of affection
- Noah David Simon
Just saw Watchmen and I have to say that I didn't like it at all.. What did you think about that movie? - http://watchmenmovie.warnerbros.com/
Moses Kpetigo, Mahdi Ebrahimi, Bluesun 2600 and 8 other people liked this
A 6-7 out of 10 http://friendfeed.com/e...
- RAPatton
After 30 minutes I thought that.. ok.. so this is it.. the next 1,5hour I was "watching my clock".. in the end.. last 30 minutes or so.. watchable.
- Nia
Not sure which was worse.. this or Sin City. Too graphic and packed with pointless violence. Much too long. Didn't have any background knowledge about it, but the "heroes" were quite ridiculous.
- Jemm
@Jemm, I totally have to agree.. not my cup of tea.
- Nia
Loved Sin City. So much so that mentioning it now makes me want to pop in the DVD.
- Michael W. May
@Michael, I liked the style in Sin City.. but the rest of that.. just made me feel sick. Nice to hear that you like it thought:)
- Nia
Like it but wouldn't sit through the whole movie again. The longest and best sequence was the ending... everything else was mish-mash of past and present and I really didn't like that -- I think, though, they were trying to satisfy the audience that read the novel... I was not part of that group.
- Brandon
@Brandon, I felt pretty much the same way.. end was good, didn't really care about the other part. Haven't read the novel either...
- Nia
Loved it
- Craig Eddy
What's with the blue penie?
- Russell Wagner
@Russell, :o no idea
- Nia
Don't go there. You start thinking about blue penis, the next thing you know, you're Googling for smurf porn and... well, don't go there. :)
- Morton Fox
Question: did you read the graphic novel before hand?
- Mike Nayyar
@Russell, which colour would you have preferred it to be? :P
- Vicky
Like mine- crimson red...with a black tip. And spiked scales.
- Russell Wagner
I read one of the Watchmen book ("graphic novel" ? bah!) and that was enough to convince me that this was pretty dull... Spiderman rules.
- General Kafka
Jim Rogers Doesn't Mince Words About the Crisis - BusinessWeek - http://www.businessweek.com/magazin...
@lesliecarbone - you'll love this...
- General Kafka
For decades the money shufflers, the paper shufflers, have been the captains of the universe. That is now changing. The people who produce real things [will be on top]. You're going to see stockbrokers driving taxis. The smart ones will learn to drive tractors, because they'll be working for the farmers. It's going to be the 29-year-old farmers who have the Lamborghinis.
- General Kafka
Technology Review: TR10: Biological Machines - http://www.technologyreview.com/read_ar...
panda and Russell Wagner liked this
"Michel Maharbiz's novel interfaces between machines and living systems could give rise to a new generation of cyborg devices." Hell yeah!! :)
- Ricardo Vidal
from Bookmarklet
It is the height of arrogance to think that WE are the end product of evolution... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki...
- Russell Wagner
Russell: that's not Transhumanism at all...
- General Kafka
I was reading this and was certain that there would be a bunch of folks that would have something to say about it. I agree with you Russell but General Kafka is right, imho.
- Ricardo Vidal
Jon Stewart Shakes His Fist At Twitter - http://www.youtube.com/watch...
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General Kafka liked this
oh! goodness, my stalker just grunted on my twitter....
- General Kafka
Sacco's bowling haven: tufts weekly 23 jan 1958 - tuition raised to $150
I wonder if the person who saved this thought it was a historical hike or ... Would make us smile now...
- General Kafka
from email
No drug for job haemorrhage, Pfizer, Wyeth, Pharmaceutical company, Career View, Naturejobs - http://www.nature.com/naturej...
"Company executives at Pfizer and Wyeth aren't revealing where merger-related job cuts would be. A merger between pharmaceutical giant Pfizer and drugmaker Wyeth would shed some 19,500 jobs, but company executives are not saying where the cuts would be made nor how many will be in scientific positions."
- Maxine
from Bookmarklet
I bet they're not "cutting cost" on their eggregious marketing campaigns...
- General Kafka
The weird thing is though, Pfizer appear to be hiring in certain areas (yes, marketing) so this may well be a 'cut the fat' operation
- Sally Church
Civilization is based on a clearly defined and widely accepted yet often unarticulated hierarchy. Violence done by those higher on the hierarchy to those lower is nearly always invisible, that is, unnoticed. When it is noticed, it is fully rationalized. Violence done by those lower on the hierarchy to those higher is unthinkable, and when it does... - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki...
Violence done by those lower on the hierarchy to those higher is unthinkable, and when it does occur is regarded with shock, horror, and the fetishization of the victims. -- Derrick Jensen
- General Kafka
Roche CIO on SAP, consultants, certification, and system integrators - http://blogs.zdnet.com/project...
General Kafka and Aaman (Clone of FF) liked this
liked it -- too bad the sound is not that great...
- General Kafka
It was one recorder in a large room - I agree about the sound quality
- Michael Krigsman
Jobs: Map shows states hit hardest; forecasts for rebound - USATODAY.com - http://www.usatoday.com/money...
"Software engineer Risoldi, 25, learnt that Feb. 26 will be his last day at the company (IBM). He owns a home and pays $2,750 a month on his mortgage." -- what immoral banker sells mortgages like that ?
- General Kafka
from Bookmarklet
Creationism Slips Into a Peer-Reviewed Journal | NCSE: the Warda and Han article was the #2 "most accessed" article for all of 2008 in the journal Proteomics - even though it was retracted. - http://ncseweb.org/rncse...
Allyson Lister, Andrew, Jo Brodie and 8 other people liked this
"A strange thing happened in the scientific literature recently. A pair of creationists, who have seemingly legitimate scientific credentials, attempted to publish some creationist assertions in a peer-reviewed journal. Their effort was nearly successful, mostly because they hid their pseudoscience in the middle of the article, surrounded by legitimate scientific discussion of unrelated topics. Luckily, they were caught just in time, and it turned out that they were pretty clumsy. In fact, if they had been just a bit more clever, they might have gotten away with it."
- Attila Csordas
from Bookmarklet
That would have been an embarrassment for Proteomics. Well, I suppose it's still fairly embarrassing.
- Chris Lasher
What a bunch of muppets -- the journal AND the reviewers AND the incompetent godists
- Andrew Clegg
+1 Andrew. I'd hardly say their claims were hidden in the middle - the title sets the tone. A big fail from editors and reviewers.
- Neil Saunders
As a long time fan, I protest the use of the term "muppets" as any kind of perjorative!
- Bill Hooker
Sighs very deeply... and the creationists will claim suppression no doubt
- Sally Church
quite shocking..hopefully transparent peer-review suggested by EMBO will improve the quality of reviewers work...
- Yaroslav Nikolaev
ever played 'Toblerone'?
- General Kafka
What's Toblerone? Apart from the obvious.
- Andrew Clegg
I think that people are way too hard on the reviewers in this case. I actually think that they likely should not be blamed at all. Imagine the following scenario: I submit a manuscript without nonsense; you review it and recommend "minor revision"; I revise manuscript addressing your few points and silently add some nonsense elsewhere in the manuscript. Would you go through the entire manuscript again just to ensure that I did not silently change the parts that you have already approved?
- Lars Juhl Jensen
I do acknowledge that the title is odd - but usually the title of a review paper is decided between the authors and the editor, and journals like titles that grab the readers attention. So the reviewers do not have much to say on that front. The worst "crime" committed by the reviewers is in my view to overlook one strange sentence that was likely added to the abstract during revision.
- Lars Juhl Jensen
Lars, is there any evidence that the dodgy bits were added during revision and weren't there all along? Anyway, the title alone should have been enough to sound alarm bells, and I'm sure they would have noticed if that changed after the first submission
- Andrew Clegg
Andrew, at a party in Heidelberg someone from Wiley told me that this was in fact what happened. Also, the editor-in-chief wanted to be open about what had happened, but he was silenced by the PR department of Wiley. I agree with you that the title should cause alarm bells to ring. But imagine that you are a reviewer, your alarm bells ring, you read the manuscript carefully, but you find that there is no nonsense in it. You then receive what should be a minor revision. Would you search for nonsense again?
- Lars Juhl Jensen
Fair point. Before this incident, probably not. Now... Definitely :)
- Andrew Clegg
Reading a boring review paper of 23 pages for a second time just to make sure that things have not changed ... I still would not do that now. I am not a masochist ;)
- Lars Juhl Jensen
Journals should insist on Track Changes for Word submissions. Or just ask for everything in .tex format so you can just run diff :-)
- Andrew Clegg
Here's one for the programming fans. I'm good at Java & competent at Perl. I'm itching to learn a new language that's less wordy than Java and less easy than Perl to write bad code with. I'm thinking Python, Ruby, or maybe Groovy or Scala to leverage my Java. Suggest a language and persuade me :-)
Attila Csordas, Matt Wood, Lucas Brouwers and 7 other people liked this
Python. Easy of learning, fast prototyping, lots of free packages available, "endorsed" by Google... and, one of the most important: it's a pleasure to write python code. And, if you need to do math with it, good package: http://www.sagemath.org/
- Arnaldo M Pereira
Any experience of Jython? I like the idea of being able to use all the Java libraries as well...
- Andrew Clegg
Ruby. Pure obect-orientation, elegant idioms, powerful meta-programming. And just plain fun.
- Louis Simoneau
Never heard of it, until now. The idea seems weird to me..
- Arnaldo M Pereira
If you've spent 6 months learning a specific Java toolkit (in my case Apache CXF for web services) the idea of being able to keep that investment seems appealing. But only if the implementation's good...
- Andrew Clegg
Groovy would be the easiest one to pick up given your Java experience. It's much more concise than Java but it's easy to leverage the Java APIs if you need them. It'll definitely give you the most seamless fit with Java.
- Tom Walsh
Python and Ruby are broadly similar in ease of use and elegance. In general I think Python has a stronger base for the sciences, while Rudy is a little more focused on the web. For a while it looked as if Ruby was going to overtake Python, but recently Python has gained traction and is moving up the popularity ladder fairly quickly. There's a significant advantage in using a popular language; better support and less reinventing the wheel.
- Ian York
Ruby: because whitespace shouldn't matter :)
- Chris Miller
+1 What Chris said, I hate the idea of significant whitespace in a language, and it's always put me off learning Python I'm afraid :(
- Daniel Swan
You can't go wrong with ruby or python. Personally, for some of the reasons listed, I prefer Ruby
- Deepak Singh
Python. And I don't need to persuade you, the language does. You wouldn't go wrong with Ruby too.
- Paulo Nuin
In all seriousness, if you're familiar with Perl, Ruby won't be much of a stretch. In a lot of fundamental ways, it's like perl, sans the ugly syntax that gets in your way, plus real OO.
- Chris Miller
+1 ruby. Although you won't do wrong with python either.
- Jan Aerts
''C'' . yes I know, in this world of modern 'frameworks', OOP, scripting, web applications it's a little bit provocative. But 1) I've got the feeling that less and less people know C and learning it can be an asset. 2) the BLAST algorithm was written in C, and BLAT, and... 3) managing the memory yourself can be a challenge. Oh ? did you say less wordy than java ?... hum ;-)
- Pierre Lindenbaum
You can write very bad code with ANY language. Of course, with Java/C# code is wordy so you think a little more before writing too much crap - but that's it.
- General Kafka
for something mind transforming, learn a functional programming language, such as ML.
- General Kafka
Instead of a new language entirely, you could learn some new facets of development: additional skills in testing, automation, patterns and anti-patterns are useful in any language.
- Matt Wood
Surprised no one has mentioned C or Assembly. Once you have a good foundation on exactly what a language is abstracting you'll find that learning new languages is trivial. Following Matt's guidance, learning basics of things like file systems and network protocols is a good idea.
- Paul J. Davis
Oh, missed Pierre's comment. But I think we agree on the why.
- Paul J. Davis
+ 1 ruby. May be R if you want to do a lot of statistics :) ! There was a poll about *Which computer language are you most interested in learning (next) for bioinformatics R&D?* in Bioinformatics.org http://www.bioinformatics.org/poll...
- Khader Shameer
You all are going to hate it when we start sharing all the LabVIEW code we're writing :)
- Steve Koch
Interesting that Ruby and Python are about half and half here but Python's waaay ahead in that poll. Re. C, dabbled ages ago, but it's not where I'm at now really. And too wordy :-) @Kafka yeah I was thinking about that, hence mentioning Scala. But you can do functional in Python and Ruby too right?
- Andrew Clegg
Doesn't it depend why you're learning it? I think if you already know Perl, Python or Ruby shouldn't be much of a leap, so personally, I would only bother if it was needed for a specific project. As suggested, maybe C or network protocols if you want to get a better grasp of computing. R / Bioconductor looks good on a bioinformatics CV and is genuinely handy to know. Not a new language, but have you had a look at Moose.pm? Takes some of the *urgh* out of OO Perl.
- Cass Johnston
Groovy, Ruby and Python all support some functional programming idioms; Groovy's FP goodness is one of the things that makes it much more palatable than Java for those of us who prefer dynamic languages. If you really want to experience FP then Scala looks like the one to go for. Clojure (Lisp on the JVM) is also worth a look and there's always Haskell if you're willing to leave the Java world completely.
- Tom Walsh
+1 for Cass's recommendation of Moose for Perl.
- Tom Walsh
If anyone else in interested in Moose, there's a London.pm techtalk this month: http://londonpmtech.appspot.com/
- Cass Johnston
@Cass - London.pm techtalk looks v. cool and if I lived about 600 miles closer to London I'd definitely be there. Would be nice if the slides from the talks are online at some point.
- Tom Walsh
@Tom Walsh: You on the london.pm mailing list? If not, I'll give you a yell when they post the slides.
- Cass Johnston
@Cass Thanks for that Moose link. I might go along. One of my workmates uses it extensively and it's about time I learnt about it.
- Andrew Clegg
Python is definitely my vote, but like Cass said above it will be very dependent on what type of project you want to use it for. For instance, using Jython to call CXF libraries will not give as much exposure to thinking about problems in the way python programmers learn to do. That's the major advantage of learning a new language, since you can take away the concepts to your regular daily work.
- Brad Chapman
Chatroom partner calls police to avert suicide - http://www.google.com/hostedn...
Unsung hero had a MySpace page and is now all over the news. Not unsung anymore. Bravo though.
- General Kafka
from Bookmarklet
who said: "it's lucky it's dark. I haven't blushed so much since Madam Pomfrey told me she liked my new earmuffs." ??
nobody wants to take a guess ? I'll give a hint in a few hours.
- General Kafka
who said in Harry Potter: "it's lucky it's dark. I haven't blushed so much since Madam Pomfrey told me she like my earmuffs." ?
- General Kafka
who said in Harry Potter: "it's lucky it's dark. I haven't blushed so much since Madam Pomfrey told me she like my earmuffs." ?
- General Kafka
ok - this was : Albus Dumbledore
- General Kafka
Tree of Life video HD - http://www.youtube.com/watch...
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really neat. But when a branch on the tree of life splits, the fathering animal is no more -- who will remember them ?
- General Kafka
FDA OKs 1st Embryonic Stem Cell Trial - US News and World Report - http://health.usnews.com/article...
Yaroslav Nikolaev, Ricardo Vidal, Alexey and 7 other people liked this
instrumentalization of embryos.
- General Kafka
Here's to hoping it works
- Benjamin Tseng
LOL I think a whole bunch of us were sharing this today, it's potentially a ground breaking idea http://friendfeed.com/e...
- Sally Church
Yes, see this Niche post (linked here a few items down) for a round-up of links to why this did not get approval earlier - some doubts about the proposal: http://blogs.nature.com/reports...
- Maxine
Those are really cogent remarks, Maxine. Geron doesn't think teratomas are an issue. As someone who has worked to bring adult stem cell therapies to market, I worry that a big failure here could set things back. Everyone working on clinical trials is really careful to weigh quality issues. However, this is just phase one, so this is the appropriate place to bring these issues out.
- Mr. Gunn
well, finally after year of discussions in FDA and putting trial on hold. Everybody predicted this event more the a year ago when FDA gave ok.
- Alexey
teratomas is issue which came up in immunodeficient mice, so nobody sure that will happen in human. It was published indian trial before (2 years ago) when they injected hESC-hematopoietic derivates into the patients with notumors observed in one year follow-up.
- Alexey
I wonder if the approval so soon after the new administration was a coincidence?
- Sally Church
Much as I'd like to think so, I doubt it. Unless they were sitting on it, waiting for the change to happen just in case
- Deepak Singh
End the conflict - israeli tv commercial hamifkad.org.il - http://www.youtube.com/watch...
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maybe the soldier should wear something else to make peace happen... ?
- General Kafka
Oaf of Office - NYTimes.com - http://www.nytimes.com/2009...
The fumbling of Roberts & Obama blamed on hijacked grammar in Law school. Lawyers are idolized in this country - they now have egg on their face ...
- General Kafka
The American Dream (English) - http://www.youtube.com/watch...
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Watch this - it's just one minute.
- General Kafka
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