Gender stats of this newsgroup?
Halsted Mencotti Bernard
newsgroup? It seems to be predominantly male and European, and as an
American female, I'm quite curious about "others like me" who might be
lurking.
Reply by post or email if you like. Thanks!
_halsted._
--== Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/ ==--
---Share what you know. Learn what you don't.---
RTR
R(ichard)TR
Halsted Mencotti Bernard <hal...@my-dejanews.com> wrote in message
news:7hpehu$kbc$1...@nnrp1.deja.com...
Galadriel
I'm an English female.
Galadriel
Ginnie Redston
time - and am also interested by the educational bias. There seem to be
gigabytes of (surely not all male? Too
stereotypical!)programmers/maths/science people. Galadriel and I are both
English graduates - as is Helga Tsukasa, if she is using her real identity
and hasn't carried out her threat to depart permanently. Isn't there an
Italian female translator who posts sometimes, or was that on the Philip K.
Dick ng?
Ageing and easily confused :))
Ginnie
Halsted Mencotti Bernard <hal...@my-dejanews.com> wrote in message
news:7hpehu$kbc$1...@nnrp1.deja.com...
Jacqui McKernan
(History graduate, now working as a software engineer - don't ask :-))
Jacqui
Ginnie Redston wrote in message <7hpqba$mnp$1...@gxsn.com>...
DJ Millington
Archaeology graduate working as an 'Analyst/programmer' - likewise don't
ask. I also lurk but mainly because there are so many perceptive Banks
lovers that my own observations seem partially digested compared to
some.
Dave M.
In article <7hprek$ejh$1...@news1.cableinet.co.uk>, Jacqui McKernan
<mcke...@cableinet.co.uk> writes
--
DJ Millington
Ross Burton
themselves Halsted Mencotti Bernard <hal...@my-dejanews.com>
scribbled:
> Does anyone have a good guess of how many females frequent this
> newsgroup? It seems to be predominantly male and European, and as an
> American female, I'm quite curious about "others like me" who might be
> lurking.
British Male, Computer Scientist student (2nd year at KCL). Can get
rather geeky at times...
Ross
Sex is not the answer. Sex is the question. "Yes" is the answer.
Slipstream: http://come.to/slipstream
The Culture: http://come.to/theculture
Email: rossyb at email dotty com
ICQ: 5167146
Chris Lynas
>
> What on earth is a Autocthon? (Am I missing some really, really obvious
> joke?)
>
IIRC it's something to do with being a native of the bit of the world
that you're in. Could be wrong though.
Chris
> Jacqui
>
> Librarian Gregory, of Toronto wrote in message <7hqiic$fc9>>
> >
> >Canadian (mixed Anglo-Irish-Scottish-Welsh-Autocthon [if my grandmother's
> >tales are told true] ancestry), homosexual male, paper-collar librarian,
> >vegetarian (except when I'm eating meat).
> >
> >Gregory
Chris Lynas
currently nursing a jar of Nutella and feeling sorry for himself.
Chris
http://members.tripod.com/~excession
http://www.excession.swinternet.com
Halsted Mencotti Bernard wrote:
>
> Does anyone have a good guess of how many females frequent this
> newsgroup? It seems to be predominantly male and European, and as an
> American female, I'm quite curious about "others like me" who might be
> lurking.
>
John Forbes
<hal...@my-dejanews.com> wrote:
>Does anyone have a good guess of how many females frequent this
>newsgroup? It seems to be predominantly male and European, and as an
>American female, I'm quite curious about "others like me" who might be
>lurking.
>
>Reply by post or email if you like. Thanks!
Scottish (British?), Male, late 30s, science graduate, (though I
studied at an Art College) now working in IT in London.
What is wrong with being a programmer?
"The more control, the more that requires control.
This is the road to chaos"
Mark Fletcher
"systems analyst". Folks, a word of advice. IMHO, if you ever get the chance
to work for NEC, DONT! Worst company to work for *ever*. Now if anyone out
there wants to offer a graduate a trainee job in the IT industry, you now
know who to contact :-)
Mark
John Forbes <For...@dial.pipex.com> wrote in message
news:3741cd4...@news.dial.pipex.com...
Loznik
Richards) suggested:
>On Mon, 17 May 1999 16:02:08 GMT, the readership of
>alt.books.iain-banks was astounded to hear from Halsted Mencotti
>Bernard <hal...@my-dejanews.com>:
>
>Australian male - 43 - student...
>Probably not much else that warrants sweeping generalisations.
>
Len is, of course, being entirely over-modest, as he is a musician of
no mean ablility. His latest release, "AllGrey@Night", gets regular
capstan action.
Len - when are you going CD???
>Len Richards
>wondering if there's a drone to do cat litter boxes...
But of course there is ...
Loznik {:-)>
"All the lies, all the truth,
All the things that I offer you."
Jim Hayes
Loznik
<xs...@dial.pipex.com> suggested:
>UK Male 23, lives 15 mins away from where Banks lives, working for NEC as a
>"systems analyst". Folks, a word of advice. IMHO, if you ever get the chance
>to work for NEC, DONT! Worst company to work for *ever*. Now if anyone out
>there wants to offer a graduate a trainee job in the IT industry, you now
>know who to contact :-)
>
>Mark
>
LOL! Are you expressing the "official" NEC line, Mark? :-)
Loznik {:-)>
An Anglo-American male living in the UK, currently awaiting delivery
of 152 NEC networked PCs for his office.
I occasionally write crap music reviews for the otherwise excellent
www.dailyvault,com, indulge in Usenet to a moderate degree and muse
on the possibility of getting another motorcycle, one that doesn't
positively resent me and desire my demise.
I would love to meet Iain Banks and *actually be able to speak to him
without dribbling*.
ND: Voddie & Tonic
Anne Purvis
<hal...@my-dejanews.com> wrote:
>Does anyone have a good guess of how many females frequent this
>newsgroup? It seems to be predominantly male and European, and as an
>American female, I'm quite curious about "others like me" who might be
>lurking.
British female
Anne
Ginnie Redston
> studied at an Art College) now working in IT in London.
>
> What is wrong with being a programmer?
Nothing at all. I'm impressed by anyone who made it past Maths "O"
level/GCSE.
(I'm waving a very large white flag!)
Ginnie
Ginnie Redston
Ginnie
Matthew Stanfield <Matthew....@Dial.Pipex.com> wrote in message
news:37417282...@Dial.Pipex.com...
> Ooops, hit cancel cos forgot to do a spellcheck. The software decided to
> send anyway. Why offer a cancel button if it's not going to do it? Tune
> into the drivel channel to find the answer to this and other fundamentally
> dull questions.
>
> ..matthew
>
> P.S. Maybe I need a screen break?!
Galadriel
> What is wrong with being a programmer?
After the day I've had (which has so far included being spoken to rudely
by boss and avoiding a potential disaster in which I thought I had deleted
a drive from my work's network) don't even tempt me to answer this
question.
Galadriel
---------
Soon to be ex-legal secretary (!)
Wendy Shaffer
<hal...@my-dejanews.com> wrote:
> Does anyone have a good guess of how many females frequent this
> newsgroup? It seems to be predominantly male and European, and as an
> American female, I'm quite curious about "others like me" who might be
> lurking.
>
I'm American, and female. Graduate student in chemistry.
--wendy
--
Wendy A. Shaffer
wsha...@uclink4.berkeley.edu
Josh Brandt
In article <7hpqba$mnp$1...@gxsn.com>,
Ginnie Redston <gin...@globalnet.co.uk> wrote:
>Another English female. I've been vaguely wondering about the same for some
>time - and am also interested by the educational bias. There seem to be
>gigabytes of (surely not all male? Too
>stereotypical!)programmers/maths/science people.
I'm a stereotypical white male programmer. Whee, thanks for throwing me in a
big bin.
I punted college two years in and went the high-tech job route instead.
Josh
--
all the clouds turn to words / all the words float in sequence / eno
no one knows what they mean / everyone just ignores them / sky saw
J. Brandt / mu...@sidehack.gweep.net
Len Richards
alt.books.iain-banks was astounded to hear from Halsted Mencotti
Bernard <hal...@my-dejanews.com>:
Australian male - 43 - student...
Probably not much else that warrants sweeping generalisations.
Len Richards
Sod Enfopol98
finger to keyboard on the Mon, 17 May 1999 16:02:08 GMT. In doing so,
they felt we would all like to know:
>Does anyone have a good guess of how many females frequent this
>newsgroup? It seems to be predominantly male and European, and as an
>American female, I'm quite curious about "others like me" who might be
>lurking.
Scottish male university drop-out/kicked-out (depends very much on
your perspective) and currently in-between employment.
And decided to be productive by getting round to setting up the linux
box i've been threatening to sort out for a while now. As soon as the
weekend comes, i'll just hook minicom up to my ISPs number, and
configure my DNS servers, log-in and out just to check everything's
working without breaking the phone connection but i need the cheapo
weekend calls as this can be time-consuming...
So, til then, i'll still be posting using my Windoze set-up. But it's
nice to be back using a meta-environment that i like and isn't
inherently unstable...
I suppose now, that i'll have to track down several DLLs that have
accidentally been eradicated as well as cleaning up the registry for
my M$ environment...
Then shift partitions about, and try and track down a second-hard
drive so that i don't have PQMagic complaining about the number of
partitions...
Hmmm, that sort of meandered way OT. Apologies.
Temporarily resident about two miles down the road from where Iain
Banks lives...
Although i would never ever contemplate the notion of going and
banging on his door in order to request a final-draft manuscript of
his next novel ;-_)
__
***Currently Playing: FF6 using SNES emulation
***Desperately Seeking: Eng lang trans of Secret of Mana 2
***Don't point me to: The boys at RPGe... they ain't got it
***Contact me at: flat...@freeuk.com (PGP key available)
"We have orders not to fire on anybody but Greenpeace"
- Homer Simpson, 'Simpson Tide'
"I guess being paranoid is kind of like being psychic."
__
GCUzakalwe
occationally post. I am an American Male (sounds like a magazine title). I
have a degree in broadcasting and currently work in video production for a
large southern university, home of the current national football champs.
(that's american football, not soccer.) Mostly make documentaries and
government training films. It sucks.
Steve
John Braine
<gin...@globalnet.co.uk> wrote:
>Another English female. I've been vaguely wondering about the same for some
>time - and am also interested by the educational bias. There seem to be
>gigabytes of (surely not all male? Too >stereotypical!) programmers/maths/science
> people. Galadriel and I are both English graduates - as is Helga Tsukasa, if
You got an Irish blue-collar worker here, so I guess that throw the
stats a wee bit.
/John
Librarian Gregory, of Toronto
>newsgroup? It seems to be predominantly male and European, and as an
>American female, I'm quite curious about "others like me" who might be
>lurking.
>
>
>
Ivan Rayner
Another Australian Male, 28, programmer.
Actually, I believe it says on my card that I'm an R&D Software Engineer.
Sounds cool, don't it?
I usually lurk, but I'll pop in if there's a quick'n'easy joke to be made.
Ivan
________________________________________________________________________
Ivan Rayner ivan....@sgi.com
xplanet
> wondering if there's a drone to do cat litter boxes...
Actually, Len,
I just read about a someone marketing a computerized cat litter box.
Skimmed over it, figuring it would cost 3000 bucks or sumpin.
Where I read it (stack of magazines, stacks of newspapers)
or heard it (radio, TV) I can't place. I'll try to remember.
As for the survey:
Canadian male. 43. Family business.....
I read the group a couple times a week.
Not often enough cuz my ISP disappears the postings within 36 hours
(but they promise to improve by summer. And I believe them)...
Andy.
Matthew Stanfield
Male-European-British-English, Artificial Intelligence graduate, hence my
love of The Culture - as Horza points out The Culture is its machines.
..matthew
P.S. No lurker - high volume poster!
Matthew Stanfield
Matthew Stanfield
R P H Boyce
person?! I actually spend far more time reading IMB/IB than I do reading
my textbooks so I'm probably a typical student...
Rich
PS. any more students out there?
In article <7hpqba$mnp$1...@gxsn.com>,
"Ginnie Redston" <gin...@globalnet.co.uk> writes:
> Another English female. I've been vaguely wondering about the same for some
> time - and am also interested by the educational bias. There seem to be
> gigabytes of (surely not all male? Too
CountV
Not a programmer by any stretch of the imagination. Writer, graphic designer
- former professional comedian, musician, sound engineer, translator and a
few other things.
CountV
--
"My enormous (word deleted) is in between your lips / You clasp my (crossed
out plural) with one hand on my hips / I feel your warm (unsuitable), I'm
about to (slang, taboo) / I love being (questionably phrased), You clearly
love it too" - Momus, "My Kindly Friend, the Censor"
Jacqui McKernan
joke?)
Jacqui
Librarian Gregory, of Toronto wrote in message <7hqiic$fc9>>
>
Oliver
>PS. any more students out there?
Yep.
Irish student studying English and Sociology.
And next year I'm planning on doing a quick postgrad diploma in software
development.
Well, I've always wanted to. Ever since programming in assembly on my wee
C64.
Oliver.
Librarian Gregory, of Toronto
>What on earth is a Autocthon? (Am I missing some really, really obvious
>joke?)
>
>Jacqui
auto-kthonos, "self-land"...
Autocthons: the indigenous peoples of a particular place, aborigines, Indians,
natives, "redskins", etc.
(How soon we forget that we all came from somewhere else, some of us a really
long time ago.)
Gregory
Sod Enfopol98
Tue, 18 May 1999 14:11:28 +0200. In doing so, they felt we would all
like to know:
>Are you me? No, I've got a job. Ex H-W now another
>fucker struggling with life, programming for a living when
>I'd rather be doing what I studied. There's a lot of it about.
When i can get the money together, i fully intend to return and study
Human Genetics - it's about time someone got around to genofixing in
those drug glands... and applying a Comp Sci mentality would make
sense, as i can't see what the difference would be between object
oriented programming and really nitty-gritty genetic engineering. I'm
going to create the field of Genoprogramming/Genoscripting i tell
you!!! Or not, as the case may be...
>My link is via that nice linux box in the corner
>of the room there. It's been running about a
>year now and HAS NEVER CRASHED
>of it's own volition, power-cuts, it reboots
>with no problem. LINUX IS WONDERFUL.
Accidentally killing my boot copy of LILO has been the only problem
that i've ever experienced...
>> Temporarily resident about two miles down the road from where Iain
>> Banks lives...
>> Although i would never ever contemplate the notion of going and
>> banging on his door in order to request a final-draft manuscript of
>> his next novel ;-_)
>
>Oh go on. What would it take?
A removal of the stalking laws ;-_)
Sod Enfopol98
keyboard on the Tue, 18 May 1999 21:50:08 +0100. In doing so, they
felt we would all like to know:
>UK Male 23, lives 15 mins away from where Banks lives, working for NEC as a
>"systems analyst". Folks, a word of advice. IMHO, if you ever get the chance
>to work for NEC, DONT! Worst company to work for *ever*. Now if anyone out
>there wants to offer a graduate a trainee job in the IT industry, you now
>know who to contact :-)
Oooohhh.... South Queensferry?
The Bay is about 10 mins, Rosyth is five mins as is Inverkeithing.
Dunfermline is about 10 mins. Could live in Charlestown, but that
would require a serious breach of the law to make it down the
Kincardine road towards the Forth Road Bridge - and Admiralty Road can
get seriously slow.
Sod Enfopol98
keyboard on the Tue, 18 May 1999 23:36:10 +0100. In doing so, they
felt we would all like to know:
>On Tue, 18 May 1999, John Forbes wrote:
>
>> What is wrong with being a programmer?
>
>After the day I've had (which has so far included being spoken to rudely
>by boss and avoiding a potential disaster in which I thought I had deleted
>a drive from my work's network) don't even tempt me to answer this
>question.
rm all... a very dangerous scenario...
At a guess, dismounting a drive can cause you problems on a network,
unless of course you don't mind the risk of any fool runnig riot. But
surely only the super-user should be assigned privileges on mounting
of anything other than the CD drives and floppies...
Patrick Down
> > Does anyone have a good guess of how many females frequent this
> > newsgroup? It seems to be predominantly male and European, and as an
> > American female, I'm quite curious about "others like me" who might be
> > lurking.
Male, Artificial Intelligence student, Scottish/English, aged 21...so
fairly stereotypical, except I came to the sci-fi through the non-sci fi
stuff...and prefer the latter.
Paddy.
patr...@dai.ed.ac.uk
http://members.tripod.com/~PatrickD/index.html
Tel-0131-661-3189
Machines are made for people who can't cope with reality.
Sleep is for those who can't cope with themselves (anon)
CountV
statistical breakdown and a chart or two, once this thread runs its course.
CountV
--
"Tambay's hopes, which were nil before, are absolutely zero now." - Murray
Walker
David Mitchell
>Does anyone have a good guess of how many females frequent this
>newsgroup? It seems to be predominantly male and European, and as an
>American female, I'm quite curious about "others like me" who might be
>lurking.
>
>
>
British male, 36, Contract Programmer.
--
==============================================================================
==[ David Mitchell ]=========================================
==[ da...@edenroad.demon.co.uk ]=========================================
==============================================================================
Simon J Grimshaw
> <hal...@my-dejanews.com> writes
> >Does anyone have a good guess of how many females frequent this
> >newsgroup? It seems to be predominantly male and European, and as an
> >American female, I'm quite curious about "others like me" who might be
> >lurking.
> >
> >Reply by post or email if you like. Thanks!
> >
> >
anything to anyone here!) Really want to be writing books and playing guitar in
a funky band, but rather tricky to earn money doing that...
(Oh, and the last time I wrote a program it was on a Spectrum 48k - those
were the days!!)
Simon
Matthew Stanfield
> statistical breakdown and a chart or two, once this thread runs its course.
I nominate Halsted - she started it. An Excel spreadsheet will be
suficient as long as it has appropriate demograpic breakdowns. ;-)
..matthew
Rob Davison
Matthew Stanfield <Matthew....@Dial.Pipex.com> wrote:
> Male-European-British-English, Artificial Intelligence graduate, hence my
> love of The Culture - as Horza points out The Culture is its machines.
28, New Zealand European Male. (English/Scottish/Northern Irish mix)
Sheep Farmer/Nurseryman (thats plants, not kiddies!)
Oh, and to help even out the stats, I dabble with the odd spot of
recreational programming (bitmap gfx mainly)...
Rob. (lurker)
--
Rob Davison.
http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/7320
Richard Horton
<hal...@my-dejanews.com> wrote:
>Does anyone have a good guess of how many females frequent this
>newsgroup? It seems to be predominantly male and European, and as an
>American female, I'm quite curious about "others like me" who might be
>lurking.
OK. American Male, 39. (I must just about the oldest here!) And,
yes, I'm a computer programmer (or as we like to say, Software
Engineer).
--
Rich Horton
fraud
>
> When i can get the money together, i fully intend to return and study
> Human Genetics - it's about time someone got around to genofixing in
> those drug glands... and applying a Comp Sci mentality would make
> sense, as i can't see what the difference would be between object
> oriented programming and really nitty-gritty genetic engineering. I'm
> going to create the field of Genoprogramming/Genoscripting i tell
> you!!! Or not, as the case may be...
>
Now there's a project worth pursuing. I feel we should have
a whip-round to help with your funding. Actually there must
be enough folks around here with advice as well to help you
get started. Perhaps we should start with an actual Genetics
expert?
>> Temporarily resident about two miles down the road from where Iain
> >> Banks lives...
> >> Although i would never ever contemplate the notion of going and
> >> banging on his door in order to request a final-draft manuscript of
> >> his next novel ;-_)
> >
> >Oh go on. What would it take?
>
> A removal of the stalking laws ;-_)
>
Point. Maybe you could sort of 'bump into' him in the pub?
R P H Boyce
"Oliver" <moo...@deletethis.clubi.ie> writes:
> Well, I've always wanted to. Ever since programming in assembly on my wee
> C64.
I never got much further than dabbling in BBC basic... and a bit of
JavaScript (well you have to these days!). Just thought I'd say, as
everyone else seems to be software engineers/programmers...
Rich
R P H Boyce
s...@sig.of.post (Sod Enfopol98) writes:
> When i can get the money together, i fully intend to return and study
> Human Genetics - it's about time someone got around to genofixing in
> those drug glands... and applying a Comp Sci mentality would make
> sense, as i can't see what the difference would be between object
> oriented programming and really nitty-gritty genetic engineering. I'm
> going to create the field of Genoprogramming/Genoscripting i tell
> you!!! Or not, as the case may be...
Sounds like fun... if you need a capable(ish) lab-tech without morals,
drop us a line... :-)
Rich
R P H Boyce
fraud <fr...@my-dejanews.com> writes:
> My link is via that nice linux box in the corner
> of the room there. It's been running about a
> year now and HAS NEVER CRASHED
> of it's own volition, power-cuts, it reboots
> with no problem. LINUX IS WONDERFUL.
I've got an ancient 286 which I proudly tell people has never crashed, but
then they ask what I can actually do with it... well, playing Civ I is
important to me!
Rich
Matthew Stanfield
> a whip-round to help with your funding. Actually there must
> be enough folks around here with advice as well to help you
> get started. Perhaps we should start with an actual Genetics
> expert?
I don't qualify as a Genetics expert but Artificial Life is my thing and
I've ended up reading plenty about genetics. Getting started is easy - get
a PHd. in Bio Chemistry. Me thinks we are a few centries away from Drug
Glands though. :(
Oh well...
Scott Strong or Elizabeth Rideout
>
> Oh, well, may as well pitch in: 44 year-old Canadian living
> in Newfoundland, graduate, School of Life, Technical Writer
> Scott Strong
Ah. Right. "Gender" stats. Oops.
Male, I think. Let me have a quick check...
Yup. Just as I thought.
Scott Strong or Elizabeth Rideout
>
> On Mon, 17 May 1999 20:11:13 +0100, "Ginnie Redston"
> <gin...@globalnet.co.uk> wrote:
>
> >Another English female. I've been vaguely wondering about the same for some
> >time - and am also interested by the educational bias. There seem to be
> >gigabytes of (surely not all male? Too >stereotypical!) programmers/maths/science
> > people. Galadriel and I are both English graduates - as is Helga Tsukasa, if
>
> stats a wee bit.
> /John
Ross Burton
themselves loz...@garbage.bigfoot.com (Loznik) scribbled:
> I would love to meet Iain Banks and *actually be able to speak to him
> without dribbling*.
Well, you can try again on the 9th! Which reminds me... any one else
want to come a little party Loz and I are arranging, to go with the
Banksie reading in London?
> ND: Voddie & Tonic
Seems like you drank a lot of that last night... how were you this
morning? :-)
Ross
Sex is not the answer. Sex is the question. "Yes" is the answer.
Slipstream: http://come.to/slipstream
The Culture: http://come.to/theculture
Email: rossyb at email dotty com
ICQ: 5167146
Loznik
suggested:
>On Tue, 18 May 1999 21:23:32 GMT, a mysterious wanderer calling
>themselves loz...@garbage.bigfoot.com (Loznik) scribbled:
>> I would love to meet Iain Banks and *actually be able to speak to him
>> without dribbling*.
>
>Well, you can try again on the 9th! Which reminds me... any one else
>want to come a little party Loz and I are arranging, to go with the
>Banksie reading in London?
>
>> ND: Voddie & Tonic
>
>Seems like you drank a lot of that last night... how were you this
>morning? :-)
>
I was fine, but everyone else seemed to be rushing past like
blue-arsed flies this morning. What was up with them, d'ya think?
Loznik {:-)>
"All the lies, all the truth,
All the things that I offer you."
Charlie W
<hal...@my-dejanews.com> writes
[Since about fifty of you have fessed up your ages and sexes so far I've
got no excuse left]
English male (but mum's a Scot FWIW), 28. English/French BA, Comp Sci
MSc.
My official job title is "Technical Consultant" (yes, I'm a programmer).
Mainly a lurker but have posted.
Oh, and I'm one of those literary snobs who only reads Banks' mainstream
novels. I just can't handle the spaceships. Too big.
------------------------------------------------------------
Charlie
Gilles Baudrillard
(main focus on AI )
My first post in this group :)
Gilles
Halsted Mencotti Bernard wrote:
>
> Does anyone have a good guess of how many females frequent this
> newsgroup? It seems to be predominantly male and European, and as an
> American female, I'm quite curious about "others like me" who might be
> lurking.
>
> Reply by post or email if you like. Thanks!
>
> _halsted._
>
> --== Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/ ==--
> ---Share what you know. Learn what you don't.---
Andy Mulhearn
wrote:
>On Mon, 17 May 1999 16:02:08 GMT, a mysterious wanderer calling
>themselves Halsted Mencotti Bernard <hal...@my-dejanews.com>
>scribbled:
>
>> Does anyone have a good guess of how many females frequent this
>> newsgroup? It seems to be predominantly male and European, and as an
>> American female, I'm quite curious about "others like me" who might be
>> lurking.
>
>British Male, Computer Scientist student (2nd year at KCL). Can get
>rather geeky at times...
>
English, 38 year old IT Consultant, currently a Project Manager but
only to fill in the gaps between being geeky. Got into Banks on the
recommendation of a friend often described as a Dalek without the tin
suit who now refers to himself a T1000.
Andy
Chris Lynas
>
> On Tue, 18 May 1999 21:23:32 GMT, a mysterious wanderer calling
> themselves loz...@garbage.bigfoot.com (Loznik) scribbled:
> > I would love to meet Iain Banks and *actually be able to speak to him
> > without dribbling*.
>
> Well, you can try again on the 9th! Which reminds me... any one else
> want to come a little party Loz and I are arranging, to go with the
> Banksie reading in London?
>
on the 'things to do after exams' Bristol reading currently pencilled,
anybody else going?
> > ND: Voddie & Tonic
>
> Seems like you drank a lot of that last night... how were you this
> morning? :-)
>
> Ross
>
> Sex is not the answer. Sex is the question. "Yes" is the answer.
>
> Slipstream: http://come.to/slipstream
> The Culture: http://come.to/theculture
>
> Email: rossyb at email dotty com
> ICQ: 5167146
--
Chris Lynas
http://members.tripod.com/~excession
http://www.excession.swinternet.com
Andy Mulhearn
wrote:
>Galadriel <al...@sofa.home.elephant.org> decided to put finger to
>keyboard on the Tue, 18 May 1999 23:36:10 +0100. In doing so, they
>felt we would all like to know:
>
>>On Tue, 18 May 1999, John Forbes wrote:
>>
>>> What is wrong with being a programmer?
>>
>>After the day I've had (which has so far included being spoken to rudely
>>by boss and avoiding a potential disaster in which I thought I had deleted
>>a drive from my work's network) don't even tempt me to answer this
>>question.
>
>rm all... a very dangerous scenario...
As in:
$ rm -rf /*
"Hmm, why is the prompt taking so long to come back? Oh s**t that
should have been rm -rf */"
Ross Burton
themselves unxm...@netcomuk.co.uk (Andy Mulhearn) scribbled:
> $ rm -rf /*
>
> "Hmm, why is the prompt taking so long to come back? Oh s**t that
> should have been rm -rf */"
Oh dear - let's not start this again...
For you young'uns out there - I did that "joke" last year and the
resulting thread was something to see...
Some people have yet to forgive me! Sorry again!!
Anyway, Don't go There.
Loznik
<ch...@excession.swinternet.co.uk> suggested:
>Ross Burton wrote:
>>
>> On Tue, 18 May 1999 21:23:32 GMT, a mysterious wanderer calling
>> themselves loz...@garbage.bigfoot.com (Loznik) scribbled:
>> > I would love to meet Iain Banks and *actually be able to speak to him
>> > without dribbling*.
>>
>> Well, you can try again on the 9th! Which reminds me... any one else
>> want to come a little party Loz and I are arranging, to go with the
>> Banksie reading in London?
>>
>Mail me (&/or post) details, changed news servers before I wrote it down
>on the 'things to do after exams' Bristol reading currently pencilled,
>anybody else going?
>
I have emailed a reply to Chris.
Anyone interested in the get-together should contact Ross Burton or
myself for details ... the tentative total so far is four abibers (I
think - maths is tricky this time of night).
It might have been five, but somebody came up with a lame excuse about
foreign holidays or somesuch :-)
Loznik {:-)>
To reply by email, take out the "garbage" Easy!
Die in agony, Spammers {:|>
Ginnie Redston
go! Am shortly to go into about five weeks of A level marking hell. If I
come out alive - maybe . . . .demographic breakdown? Graphs and stuff?
(Groan!)
Ginnie
Matthew Stanfield <Matthew....@Dial.Pipex.com> wrote in message
news:37428C09...@Dial.Pipex.com...
ROU Make My Day
Halsted Mencotti Bernard wrote in message <7hpehu$kbc$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>...
>Does anyone have a good guess of how many females frequent this
>newsgroup? It seems to be predominantly male and European, and as an
>American female, I'm quite curious about "others like me" who might be
>lurking.
>
>
>
>_halsted._
>
>
>--== Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/ ==--
>---Share what you know. Learn what you don't.---
British Male 23
Computer programmer (what else)
Graduated with BSC hons in Computing
Basically your average Banks fan really
Ivan Rayner
>In article <7hpehu$kbc$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>, Halsted Mencotti Bernard
>
>> Does anyone have a good guess of how many females frequent this
>> newsgroup? It seems to be predominantly male and European, and as an
>> American female, I'm quite curious about "others like me" who might be
>> lurking.
>>
>
>
>--wendy
>
>--
>Wendy A. Shaffer
>wsha...@uclink4.berkeley.edu
I haven't done an exhaustive study or anything, but it seems to me that
all the males are supplying their age, and the females aren't.
Wonder why ...
It's gonna be annoying for the person who eventually plugs all this into
a spreadsheet.
Ivan
________________________________________________________________________
Ivan Rayner ivan....@sgi.com
fraud
Matthew Stanfield wrote:
Perhaps, I was thinking about this (no, really) and surely it
shouldn't be too hard to mimic what the body does with
adrenalin and endorphins. I've noted research into
development of nerve interfaces wrt conscious
control. Of course I know nothing about these
subjects really, but it seems like we do have a start
point. If artificial organs can be grown then so can
drug glands. Anyone want to take this on from
here?
fraud
See what you mean. Well, that linux box runs ppp to serve
windows clients for inet. Plus it's the gateway between the
windows network and the other unix machines. Everyone
ftps through it, we mount CDs on it to read from the HP-UX
box because I can't mount CDs on there for some reason.
BTW if anyone knows why this
/etc/pfs_fstab IS
/dev/dsk/c0t2d0 /SD_CDROM pfs-iso9660 xlat=unix 0 0
&
# pfs_mount /SD_CDROM
gives this:
Version: 2.8.2 (UNLIMITED) Built: Sun Sep 5 14:49:09 PDT 1993
pfs_mount: pfs_mountd at
machine_name_changed_to_protect_the_innocent:/dev/dsk/c0t2d0 not responding: :
RPC_UNKNOWNH
OST
pfs_mount: retrying /SD_CDROM
pfs_mount: giving up on /SD_CDROM
I'd be extremely grateful.
If I mount using mount -F cdfs /dev/dsk/c0t2d0 /SD_CDROM
it mounts and I can read the files but I can't translate
from iso9660 and high sierra file name to unix and so nothing runs.
BTW it's HP-UX B.10.20 A 9000/867
R P H Boyce
fraud <fr...@my-dejanews.com> writes:
(snippy-snip-snip)
>
> Perhaps, I was thinking about this (no, really) and surely it
> shouldn't be too hard to mimic what the body does with
> adrenalin and endorphins. I've noted research into
> development of nerve interfaces wrt conscious
> control. Of course I know nothing about these
> subjects really, but it seems like we do have a start
> point. If artificial organs can be grown then so can
> drug glands. Anyone want to take this on from
> here?
>
fellow students/postgrads... hey, it might not be that far off!
The real problem would be the ethical side of it. Once you start tinkering
with the human genetic code then all hell could be let loose. As you
know from all the hoo-ha about G.M. food, it's a total minefield in that
area at the moment.
What we need is a Dolly the Drug-gland; someone who just pops up and says
'look what we've just done! Sorry, was it unethical? Oh well...' :)
(Nothing against the scientists who created Dolly, BTW... don't really
want to get into an arguement about this one!)
Rich
PD Macfarlane
:
:
:
: Perhaps, I was thinking about this (no, really) and surely it
: shouldn't be too hard to mimic what the body does with
: adrenalin and endorphins. I've noted research into
: development of nerve interfaces wrt conscious
: control. Of course I know nothing about these
: subjects really, but it seems like we do have a start
: point. If artificial organs can be grown then so can
: drug glands. Anyone want to take this on from
: here?
(male, english, 22, vet student)
It would be quite possible to develop a glandular organ which had the
functions described in the Culture citizens. We have quite a good
understanding of how the Endocrine systems of h.sap mk1 work, and adapting
them should not prove too much of a challenge. The tricky bit IMHO would
be the VR interface which the cultures organic denzins use to control
there bodies (ref Excession), we dont fully understand how our interface
with the external world is organised, or indeed how conciousness itself
works, so it may be some time.
But I bet with 25 years time, a team of bright sparks and the UK's trident
Budget, we could have humans with wierd in glands, but no ability to use
them.
Dr.Strangeglove-Nothing Explains A Lot
--
"But he had not brought anything. His hands were empty, as they had
always been." The Dispossessed, Ursula K. Le Guin
James Durie
>
> Does anyone have a good guess of how many females frequent this
> newsgroup? It seems to be predominantly male and European, and as an
> American female, I'm quite curious about "others like me" who might be
> lurking.
>
>
> _halsted._
>
> --== Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/ ==--
> ---Share what you know. Learn what you don't.---
Edinburgh Male, 28, Living in London.
Pedantic side note:
In Whit when Isis comes ashore at cramond *why* does she walk all the
way to Granton Road to get on to the cycle paths?
Thats miles out of her way.
James
--
James Durie Phone: +44 171 749 7908
Anvil Software Limited Fax: +44 171 749 7916
51-53 Rivington Street e-mail: jdu...@anvil.co.uk
London EC2A 3QQ
Matthew Stanfield
> : drug glands.
Agreed - it's the time scale that's the question, not so much 'whether
it's possible or not'.
Much research is needed into appropriate drugs (I could do with Quicken
today, that's for sure!). Prozac, hash, coke, lithium, Xtasy, etc - are
simply not good enough. Don't Culture humanoids have 200 or so to play
with.
> The tricky bit IMHO would be the VR interface which the
> cultures organic denzins use to control there bodies...
You've hit the big nail on its head here!
> we dont fully understand how... conciousness itself works...
Umm, as a Cognitive scientist it has been my painful duty (a few times) to
point out to a.b.i-b that, far from knowing 'how consciousness works', we
can't even define it! And, rather unusually, everyone in the field seems
to agree on this. :(
> But I bet with 25 years time, a team of bright sparks and the UK's trident
> Budget, we could have humans with wierd in glands...
Lets lobby Blair! (That's weird wired in glands is it?)
> What we need is a Dolly the Drug-gland; someone who just pops up and says
> 'look what we've just done! Sorry, was it unethical? Oh well...' :)
I wish. ...and totally agree with all your ethics points.
I'm sticking to my original comment: "Me thinks we are a few centuries
away from Drug Glands..."
..matthew
Galadriel
> myself for details ... the tentative total so far is four abibers (I
> think - maths is tricky this time of night).
>
> It might have been five, but somebody came up with a lame excuse about
> foreign holidays or somesuch :-)
>
Well, if my passport is not ready on time (it's meant to be ready the day
before we fly!) then I could be attending the get-together!
Galadriel
"The train is always late. Unless you are."
Simon J Grimshaw
> fraud (fr...@my-dejanews.com) wrote:
> :
> :
> :
> : Perhaps, I was thinking about this (no, really) and surely it
> : shouldn't be too hard to mimic what the body does with
> : adrenalin and endorphins. I've noted research into
> : development of nerve interfaces wrt conscious
> : control. Of course I know nothing about these
> : subjects really, but it seems like we do have a start
> : point. If artificial organs can be grown then so can
> : drug glands. Anyone want to take this on from
> : here?
> :
> (male, english, 22, vet student)
> It would be quite possible to develop a glandular organ which had the
> functions described in the Culture citizens. We have quite a good
> understanding of how the Endocrine systems of h.sap mk1 work, and adapting
> be the VR interface which the cultures organic denzins use to control
> with the external world is organised, or indeed how conciousness itself
> works, so it may be some time.
>
> them.
Huh, yeah good point - you can plumb some new cool glands in no
trouble, but can you hook them up to the conscious brain? We can't simply
sit here and request a huge dose of endocrine to be dumped into our blood
stream (well, I suppose it depends *exactly* what you're doing as you're
reading this, but I'll let that go).
The kind of patterning genes that would be required to actually
"hard-wire" a whole new organ into the body aren't fully understood yet.
Even in simpler systems such as the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster there's
still an enormous amount of research to be done before the whole system is
understood (though they can do some fairly funny things, e.g. one gene when
mutated results in legs growing where antennae should do!) I mean, you've
got to code where in the body you want the new organs, what they're going to
develop from, when you want them to stop developing (useful anti-cancer
code!), what you want them hooked into, which nerves go in & out.
I'm not sure what the best way to go about the whole thing would be...
errrr... I suppose in a purely Pavlovian idea of learning you could hook the
new glands into the endocrine system, then gradually your body would adapt if
it was done early enough in your life (probably result in huge stresses on
an adult body if normal responses to situations suddenly changed due to the new
glands). But those kind of responses aren't really governed by the conscious
mind...
I haven't a clue, basically!
Simon (who's spent more time think about this than the experiments he's run
today)
Loznik
<al...@sofa.home.elephant.org> suggested:
>> Anyone interested in the get-together should contact Ross Burton or
>> myself for details ... the tentative total so far is four abibers (I
>> think - maths is tricky this time of night).
>>
>> It might have been five, but somebody came up with a lame excuse about
>> foreign holidays or somesuch :-)
>>
>I don't know what you are talking about! *gazes at the sky innocently*
>Well, if my passport is not ready on time (it's meant to be ready the day
>before we fly!) then I could be attending the get-together!
>
You'll be welcome in that case, Galadriel. :-)
Loznik {:-)>
"A man would simply have to be as mad as a hatter
To try to change the world with a plastic platter"
BaldiePete
>> Does anyone have a good guess of how many females frequent this
>> newsgroup? It seems to be predominantly male and European, and as an
>> American female, I'm quite curious about "others like me" who might be
>> lurking.
Scottish, Male, 37 years old. Software Engineer. Mostly bald !!
>Pedantic side note:
>In Whit when Isis comes ashore at cramond *why* does she walk all the
>way to Granton Road to get on to the cycle paths?
>Thats miles out of her way.
Further pedantic side note for Edinburghers only
Quite right. She should have gone along the Esplanade (dodging the in-line
skaters) then gone up Silverknowes Road and joined the cycle path at
Davidsons Mains.
BaldiePete
Librarian Gregory, of Toronto
Greeks used to drain abscesses. Aside from an unfortunate thousand years or so
medicine has tended to accumulate technique and knowledge about our physical
structure and how to deal with its malfunctions. Generally the technique and
knowledge has tended to move from the macro- to micro-level: tin shunts and
moldy bread to Prozac and in vitro fertilization.
We might want to be absolutely certain that drug glands wouldn't have some
sort of permanent and unfortunate side-effect(s). Tin shunts are relatively
neutral in the body, but what if lead had been used instead? We all use
shampoo (a big assumption, I know), but what of the distinct possibility that
some oh-so-innocent chemicals in it are doing a subtle number on our endocrine
system? A few drug-sticks on the weekend may have no gross effect on us, but
an internal gland to produce the same effects has to live in us all the
time--not a matter to be taken lightly.
Most of our bodily functions are self-regulating subroutines, but many of
these can be brought under para-conscious control with a goodly amount of
biofeedback. Drug-glands (and physical responses to greater gravity, etc.)
will likely be possible to design and incorporate into our genome sooner or
(probably much) later with all the structures available to bring them under at
least the same control we can, with a bit of training, already exercise over
all sorts of different bits of our anatomy.
Despite my cautious attitude...I can hardly wait! But I doubt this poor body
will last that long.
Gregory
Sod Enfopol98
finger to keyboard on the Wed, 19 May 1999 16:40:55 +0100. In doing
so, they felt we would all like to know:
>I don't qualify as a Genetics expert but Artificial Life is my thing and
>I've ended up reading plenty about genetics. Getting started is easy - get
>a PHd. in Bio Chemistry. Me thinks we are a few centries away from Drug
>Glands though. :(
Well, if we can boost the lifespan of nematodes by 400% with no
adverse genetic damage apparent despite several generations having
been culled thru the engineered stock, then living for several
centuries might not be that far away. I got the impression that it was
achieved using in vivo viral recombinance, but i could be totally
wrong and they just electroplated one of those poor little gits...
Immortality plague!!! Yeah!!!
And if they want to stop me... hey, i'd be a genetic engineer with
absolutely no grasp of such minor concepts as morality. Sod em, i'd
just release a targetted viral. And you know what? I bet you that not
one of those peeps who say we shouldn't be playing around with such
technology would take their lives when there three-score-and-ten is up
- they'll want to live plenty long like the rest of us.
>Oh well...
Oh well !!!
__
***Currently Playing: FF6 using SNES emulation
***Desperately Seeking: Eng lang trans of Secret of Mana 2
***Don't point me to: The boys at RPGe... they ain't got it
***Contact me at: flat...@freeuk.com (PGP key available)
"We have orders not to fire on anybody but Greenpeace"
- Homer Simpson, 'Simpson Tide'
PGP key info...
ID: 0x6727BC70 Type: DH/DSS Size: 4096/1024 Cipher: CAST
Fingerprint: C682 C76D 9BE0 3220 212C 1AE5 6D66 C14F 6727 BC70
__
fraud
Matthew Stanfield wrote:
> > : If artificial organs can be grown then so can
> > : drug glands.
>
> Agreed - it's the time scale that's the question, not so much 'whether
> it's possible or not'.
>
> Much research is needed into appropriate drugs (I could do with Quicken
> today, that's for sure!). Prozac, hash, coke, lithium, Xtasy, etc - are
> simply not good enough.
Oh, I don't know, they'd do for a start.
> > What we need is a Dolly the Drug-gland; someone who just pops up and says
> > 'look what we've just done! Sorry, was it unethical? Oh well...' :)
>
> I wish. ...and totally agree with all your ethics points.
Hmm, let's not go down that road.
>
>
> I'm sticking to my original comment: "Me thinks we are a few centuries
> away from Drug Glands..."
>
I hope you're wrong, I don't see why it must be that long.
fraud
Simon J Grimshaw wrote:
> In article <FC1G4...@fsa.bris.ac.uk>, pm5...@ncs.bris.ac.uk (PD Macfarlane) writes:
> > fraud (fr...@my-dejanews.com) wrote:
> > :
> > :
> > :
> > : Perhaps, I was thinking about this (no, really) and surely it
> > : shouldn't be too hard to mimic what the body does with
> > : adrenalin and endorphins. I've noted research into
> > : development of nerve interfaces wrt conscious
> > : control. Of course I know nothing about these
> > : subjects really, but it seems like we do have a start
> > : point. If artificial organs can be grown then so can
> > : drug glands. Anyone want to take this on from
> > : here?
> > :
> > (male, english, 22, vet student)
> > It would be quite possible to develop a glandular organ which had the
> > functions described in the Culture citizens. We have quite a good
> > understanding of how the Endocrine systems of h.sap mk1 work, and adapting
> > them should not prove too much of a challenge. The tricky bit IMHO would
> > be the VR interface which the cultures organic denzins use to control
> > there bodies (ref Excession), we dont fully understand how our interface
> > with the external world is organised, or indeed how conciousness itself
> > works, so it may be some time.
> >
Once I read a story where this guy goes into a cave and a 'thing'
land on his head, it enters his consciousness and takes control
over the, normally, automatically controlled things, like metabolic
rate, cell-reproduction etc. It thought only one heart stupid so
it grew a backup one in the stomach cavity with new arterial
connections etc, so, we need to
1. identify the genetic code that produces our current drug glands.
2. Copy, alter, this and reinsert where appropriate. Making use
of DNA patterns from opium poppies (scratch that endorphins
will do there), Cannabis plants, coca plant, did someone say
quicken? Anyone know a good natural source of speed?
3. Link control to the brain in a similar way to the way
we currently can fire off adrenalin e.g., the brain seems
to go into some sort of 'panic' condition, pushing the
buttons. Maybe this control must be learnt in the
same way artificial limb users can learn to control
them, Doesn't anyone know about new research
to interface to aids by thinking? I've definitely seen
some reports.
>
> > But I bet with 25 years time, a team of bright sparks and the UK's trident
> > Budget, we could have humans with wierd in glands, but no ability to use
> > them.
>
I'm not so sure, why so negative anyway?
>
> The kind of patterning genes that would be required to actually
> "hard-wire" a whole new organ into the body aren't fully understood yet.
> Even in simpler systems such as the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster there's
> still an enormous amount of research to be done before the whole system is
> understood (though they can do some fairly funny things, e.g. one gene when
> mutated results in legs growing where antennae should do!)
So the research is proceeding, perhaps as a start, the organs could be
grown separately and then surgically inserted, linking to the nervous
system - somehow.
> I mean, you've
> got to code where in the body you want the new organs, what they're going to
> develop from, when you want them to stop developing (useful anti-cancer
> code!), what you want them hooked into, which nerves go in & out.
>
> I'm not sure what the best way to go about the whole thing would be...
> errrr... I suppose in a purely Pavlovian idea of learning you could hook the
> new glands into the endocrine system, then gradually your body would adapt if
> it was done early enough in your life (probably result in huge stresses on
> an adult body if normal responses to situations suddenly changed due to the new
> glands). But those kind of responses aren't really governed by the conscious
> mind...
> I haven't a clue, basically!
>
Yes you do.
Jacqui McKernan
Sod Enfopol98 wrote in message <37435e94...@news.freeuk.net>...
>Immortality plague!!! Yeah!!!
>
>And if they want to stop me... hey, i'd be a genetic engineer with
>absolutely no grasp of such minor concepts as morality. Sod em, i'd
>just release a targetted viral. And you know what? I bet you that not
>one of those peeps who say we shouldn't be playing around with such
>technology would take their lives when there three-score-and-ten is up
>- they'll want to live plenty long like the rest of us.
Hmm, OK, but if you're going to do this, we'd better make sure we've got
resources, and room, on the scale that the Culture have first. It's not
like there's a shortage of people as it is. You infect us all with a 400%
life extension, we all go on having children, who get infected too...well, I
suppose it'd be one way to increase budgets for space exploration :-)
Jacqui
Sam Superbad
Occupations:
Mechanical Engineering student and bum.
Halsted Mencotti Bernard wrote in message <7hpehu$kbc$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>...
>Does anyone have a good guess of how many females frequent this
>newsgroup? It seems to be predominantly male and European, and as an
>American female, I'm quite curious about "others like me" who might be
>lurking.
>
Royster
English
Age 25
IT Consultant (ERP, MRP systems) for my sins
Lurker.
And while we're here. Fav IMB book: Player of games.
Halsted Mencotti Bernard <hal...@my-dejanews.com> wrote in article
Kevin Trickey
English, Male, 31, Programmer (surprise, surprise), bored stupid and looking
forward to the weekend.
Kevin
Halsted Mencotti Bernard <hal...@my-dejanews.com> wrote in message
news:7hpehu$kbc$1...@nnrp1.deja.com...
Michael Fitzpatrick
PD Macfarlane
Distribution:
fraud (fr...@my-dejanews.com) wrote:
: Some interesting insights. I can't stop now.
snip
:
: Once I read a story where this guy goes into a cave and a 'thing'
: land on his head, it enters his consciousness and takes control
: over the, normally, automatically controlled things, like metabolic
: rate, cell-reproduction etc. It thought only one heart stupid so
: it grew a backup one in the stomach cavity with new arterial
: connections etc, so, we need to
:
eh?-why not go for the Games Workshops Space Marine physiological package?
: 1. identify the genetic code that produces our current drug glands.
:
should be quite easy, once the human genome project is complete. I can
think of a very unethical way to ID the appropriate genes, best to do it
in mice
And organ of choice would be adrenal gland
: 2. Copy, alter, this and reinsert where appropriate. Making use
: of DNA patterns from opium poppies (scratch that endorphins
: will do there), Cannabis plants, coca plant, did someone say
: quicken? Anyone know a good natural source of speed?
:
cant just splice in the gene that encodes for a specific substance, need
to ensure that the cell environment will produce the required product,
plant and animal cells are quite a lot different and you may need to do
some complex jiggery-pokery
: 3. Link control to the brain in a similarway to the way
: we currently can fire off adrenalin e.g., the brain seems
: to go into some sort of 'panic' condition, pushing the
: buttons.
hmm, this does not match the function of the cultures glands very well,
they have a lot of concious control over the glands (and other
physiological functions).
Maybe this control must be learnt in the
: same way artificial limb users can learn to control
: them, Doesn't anyone know about new research
: to interface to aids by thinking? I've definitely seen
: some reports.
The reports I have seen, center around pretty crude massive changes in
brain activity which are detected by eeg and used to alter the position of
say a cursor.
:
:
: >
: > > But I bet with 25 years time, a team of bright sparks
and the UK's trident
: > > Budget, we could have humans with wierd in glands,
but no ability to use
: > > them.
: >
:
: I'm not so sure, why so negative anyway?
because I think that we can make the organ quite easily, but we are a long
way off understanding how to construct interfaces with organs.
snip
:
:
: > I mean, you've
: > got to code where in the body you want the new organs, what they're going to
: > develop from, when you want them to stop developing (useful anti-cancer
: > code!), what you want them hooked into, which nerves go in & out.
:
Which is why copying a pre-existing organ like the Adrenals is such a good
plan. most of the really clever bits are done already, you just need to
alter the position and wiring codes slightly (just!) and then make the
required biochemical changes at a cellular level
: :
:
: >
: > I'm not sure what the best way to go about the whole thing would be...
: > errrr... I suppose in a purely Pavlovian idea of learning you could hook the
: > new glands into the endocrine system, then gradually your body would adapt if
: > it was done early enough in your life (probably result in huge stresses on
: > an adult body if normal responses to situations suddenly changed due to the new
: > glands). But those kind of responses aren't really governed by the conscious
: > mind...
: > I haven't a clue, basically!
: >
:
: Yes you do.
concepts, and general plan-yes, execution no.
fraud
PD Macfarlane wrote:
> <FC1G4...@fsa.bris.ac.uk> <7i1g65$4kp$1...@pegasus.csx.cam.ac.uk> <37450E71...@my-dejanews.com>
> Distribution:
>
> fraud (fr...@my-dejanews.com) wrote:
> : Some interesting insights. I can't stop now.
> snip
> :
>
> : 1. identify the genetic code that produces our current drug glands.
> :
> should be quite easy, once the human genome project is complete. I can
> think of a very unethical way to ID the appropriate genes, best to do it
> in mice
What's that then? Let's leave the morals to one side for arguments sake.
> And organ of choice would be adrenal gland
> : 2. Copy, alter, this and reinsert where appropriate. Making use
> : of DNA patterns from opium poppies (scratch that endorphins
> : will do there), Cannabis plants, coca plant, did someone say
> : quicken? Anyone know a good natural source of speed?
> :
> cant just splice in the gene that encodes for a specific substance, need
> to ensure that the cell environment will produce the required product,
> plant and animal cells are quite a lot different and you may need to do
> some complex jiggery-pokery
How do they modify sheep/pigs to produce insulin? Haven't they
tweaked the gene pettern there?
> : 3. Link control to the brain in a similarway to the way
> : we currently can fire off adrenalin e.g., the brain seems
> : to go into some sort of 'panic' condition, pushing the
> : buttons.
> hmm, this does not match the function of the cultures glands very well,
> they have a lot of concious control over the glands (and other
> physiological functions).
That was a start point. Control would be learned, so instead of
the automatic reaction, just thinking the right way can trigger
production. Even the culture had to start somewhere.
> : Doesn't anyone know about new research
> : to interface to aids by thinking? I've definitely seen
> : some reports.
> The reports I have seen, center around pretty crude massive changes in
> brain activity which are detected by eeg and used to alter the position of
> say a cursor.
Uh-huh, that sounds like how speach-impaired people can
now communicate. Refinement could lead to a more accurate
interpretation of the brain activity which could be linked via
an embedded transducer to the new glands.
> :
> :
> : >
> : > > But I bet with 25 years time, a team of bright sparks
> and the UK's trident
> : > > Budget, we could have humans with wierd in glands,
> but no ability to use
> : > > them.
> : >
> :
> : I'm not so sure, why so negative anyway?
> because I think that we can make the organ quite easily, but we are a long
> way off understanding how to construct interfaces with organs.
> snip
Well, you must know your own mind, (sic . JOKE)
but from what I can see it's not so hard to imagine.
> :
> :
Roger Gray
<djmill...@huginn-munninn.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> English male.
>
> Archaeology graduate working as an 'Analyst/programmer' - likewise don't
> ask. I also lurk but mainly because there are so many perceptive Banks
> lovers that my own observations seem partially digested compared to
> some.
>
Cool, partially digested means that they are easier to swallow.
Roger.
English male. Ad agency exec and script writer.
Librarian Gregory, of Toronto
---snip!---
>Cool, partially digested means that they are easier to swallow.
>Roger
Ah, the sweet memories of childhood!
(Ooooo, yuck, Yuck, YUCK! Sorry, folks, some evil daemon of bad humour
momentarily possessed me.)
Gregory
Roger Gray
> > Temporarily resident about two miles down the road from where Iain
> > Banks lives...
> > Although i would never ever contemplate the notion of going and
> > banging on his door in order to request a final-draft manuscript of
> > his next novel ;-_)
>
> Oh go on. What would it take?
A wasted journey, I know Iain, (one of my best mates) and he's never at home.
> seriously considering purchasing my first
> hardback in years, /The Business/.
Do so, read the manuscript (name dropper) and in my oppinion it's a
non-culture Culture novel. Mentioned this to Iain and he is allegedly
mulling over the concept.
Roger.
Part time contributer/full time piss head.
Josh Brandt
In article <kaf23-25059...@useraj84.uk.uudial.com>,
Roger Gray <ka...@dial.pipex.com> wrote:
>A wasted journey, I know Iain, (one of my best mates) and he's never at home.
Huh. I hope he's out writing somewhere...
Josh
--
all the clouds turn to words / all the words float in sequence / eno
no one knows what they mean / everyone just ignores them / sky saw
J. Brandt / mu...@sidehack.gweep.net
Simon J Grimshaw
> clip
> > > Temporarily resident about two miles down the road from where Iain
> > > Banks lives...
> > > Although i would never ever contemplate the notion of going and
> > > banging on his door in order to request a final-draft manuscript of
> > > his next novel ;-_)
> >
> > Oh go on. What would it take?
>
>
>
> > hardback in years, /The Business/.
>
> Do so, read the manuscript (name dropper) and in my oppinion it's a
> non-culture Culture novel. Mentioned this to Iain and he is allegedly
> mulling over the concept.
... in the same way that Inversions is a non-Culture Culture novel, or
in some other way?
-- Simon: scientist, guitarist, piss artist
PD Macfarlane
: Does anyone have any good cross-post ideas for this thread?
alt.sf.science or something similar (might be a .fan. in there as well)
: > : 1. identify the genetic code that produces our current drug glands.
: > :
: > should be quite easy, once the human genome project is complete. I can
: > think of a very unethical way to ID the appropriate genes, best to do it
: > in mice
:
: What's that then? Let's leave the morals to one side for arguments sake.
I dont know how they are doing it in the human genome project( and it Wont
be this way) but you could excise a gene and see what happens in the
developing embryo. You need a lot of embryos for this and some effects
would be subtle and require full term development, pretty crude.
: :
: > to ensure that the cell environment will produce the required product,
: > plant and animal cells are quite a lot different and you may need to do
: > some complex jiggery-pokery
:
: How do they modify sheep/pigs to produce insulin? Haven't they
: tweaked the gene pettern there?
:
itself, not the mass of genes which encode for the plethora of cell
structures which can affect the production of a product. Pigs are a lot
more like humans in terms of cellular physiology then plants are.
: :
: > : 3. Link control to the brain in a similarway to the way
: > : we currently can fire off adrenalin e.g., the brain seems
: > : to go into some sort of 'panic' condition, pushing the
: > : buttons.
:
: > hmm, this does not match the function of the cultures glands very well,
: > they have a lot of concious control over the glands (and other
: > physiological functions).
:
: That was a start point. Control would be learned, so instead of
: the automatic reaction, just thinking the right way can trigger
: production. Even the culture had to start somewhere.
:
need to learn (AFAIK) to see, it's just an inate function of the CNS
setup.
:
:
:
: > : Doesn't anyone know about new research
: > : to interface to aids by thinking? I've definitely seen
: > : some reports.
: > The reports I have seen, center around pretty crude massive changes in
: > brain activity which are detected by eeg and used to alter the position of
: > say a cursor.
:
: Uh-huh, that sounds like how speach-impaired people can
: now communicate. Refinement could lead to a more accurate
: interpretation of the brain activity which could be linked via
: an embedded transducer to the new glands.
:
:
: Well, you must know your own mind, (sic . JOKE)
: but from what I can see it's not so hard to imagine.
:
<grin>
Having thought about glands some more, it seems to me that with the
cultures ability to set up visually orientated interfaces between the
concious mind and various internal organs, and by implication a sound
grasp of how the mind works, Glands are a pretty crude idea. Why
not just have a purely cerebral system where the Culturnik commands his
CNS to behave in a slightly different fashion in a given instant, which is
all the glanded products are doing anyway.
i.e.
instruct the brain to make you feel happy, rather than glanding a
substance which will affect the brain in such a way as to make you feel
happy.
Dr.Strangeglove-Nothing Explains A Lot
Loznik
(Librarian Gregory, of Toronto) suggested:
Back to bloody Unix jokes :-\
Spencer Davies
<hal...@my-dejanews.com> wrote:
Hmmm, male, white, 28 years old, graduate from the university of life
(all the people I work with have doctorates and degrees so why
shouldn't I claim a university education ;-) and currently working in
distributed platform strategy and design for a rather large telecomms
company (involves everything from OS's to programming).
God, this thread is beginning to sound like one of those horrid dating
shows. I'm expecting Cilla Black to pop up any minute now <shudder>!
Spencer
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Remember, if replying REMOVE the SPAMTHIS part from my email address.
spe...@maelstromSPAMTHIS.freeserve.co.uk
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Harald Radke
>
>
> God, this thread is beginning to sound like one of those horrid dating
> shows. I'm expecting Cilla Black to pop up any minute now <shudder>!
>
girlfriend will ever have a look at this NG (;
Greez,
Harry
--
Hugh ! Die Ratte hat gesprochen !
--------------------------------------------------------
harryrat == Harald Radke (harr...@kawo1.rwth-aachen.de)
=> University Of Technology Aachen, Germany <=
Roger Gray
(Simon J Grimshaw) wrote:
Mini Spoiler on the business
In a different way. It's about a long standing 'invisible' multinational
that is involved in long term projects. Don't want to go to far into it
but the culture reference from me was about the moral and ethical
similarities in the corporate structure of The Business and the Culture.
to go farther before the thing is even published would be mean of me to
iain and anyone else on this group. as i said he's mulling the idea over?
Roger Gray
mu...@sidehack.sat.gweep.net (Josh Brandt) wrote:
> In article <kaf23-25059...@useraj84.uk.uudial.com>,
> Roger Gray <ka...@dial.pipex.com> wrote:
>
> >A wasted journey, I know Iain, (one of my best mates) and he's never at home.
>
> Huh. I hope he's out writing somewhere...
>
> Josh
Nope getting pissed mostly. And driving one of his fuck off cars. Though
not at the same time. And a teensy little bit more carefully since he
rolled one of the Porsche's last year. Oh and at the moment the line he's
most proud of. After completely rolling the car twice it ended up back on
its wheels in front of some shocked kiwi tourists. Iain kicked open the
door and climbed out. He was literally brushing himself down, removing
the broken glass as the tourists arrived. Looking up he announced with a
grin "Aren't air bags wonderful" Who said writing was always done on your
own.
Roger.
Iain Gaskin
PD Macfarlane <pm5...@ncs.bris.ac.uk> wrote in message
news:FCAqo...@fsa.bris.ac.uk...
Whilst being in favour of such wonders for each and every member of the
human race, I can't help but feel that the greatest barriers to progress are
not scientific but social. My brother recently returned from Nigeria, where
he had worked for a brief 5 day task, and was awestruck by the level of
poverty and degradation he saw (all the while protected by armed guards).
One of the aspects I enjoy about Iain's not-quite-utopia is the assumption
that all these problems have been solved at some point prior to the tale (at
least if you are a member of the Culture). Surely though the technical
problem is minute compared to the social problem of bringing all of humanity
to a level that can benefit equally from such technology?. It has to be
borne in mind that most technological innovation now is linked to corporate
profit, not social benefit (and yes, the arguments for a Capitalist approach
seem to hold true in the West), and with such an assumption in place, what
is the future of the World's poor?.
Please post your thoughts.
Iain
Tony
Gaskin <none@?.?> writes
>It has to be
>borne in mind that most technological innovation now is linked to corporate
>profit, not social benefit (and yes, the arguments for a Capitalist approach
>seem to hold true in the West), and with such an assumption in place, what
>is the future of the World's poor?.
Not Good in my opinion.
For example the sale of seed hybrids to third world farmers that produce
slightly increased yields, but cannot be used to produce next years
seeds. Therefore forcing the farmer to buy more seed next year from the
company.
--
Anthony Cox
"Technological progress is like an axe in the hands of a pathological criminal."
- Albert Einstein
Spritt Schapiro
Desktopper/sys.admin.mac, formerly professional piercer (just to change
the stats a bit).
Spritt :-)
---
There is no spoon.
Ginnie Redston
If your machine will read Excel I'll send you the file - let me know.
(Oh dear - please, if a Swedish female is lurking out there somewhere,
please can she declare herself? You know how CountV likes to keep the
Dane/Swede stats even! :)) )
(Total responses now 61. Anyone else want a copy?)
Ginnie
Spritt Schapiro <spr...@startrekmail.com> wrote in message
news:1dsfjdw.1mv...@vlb-210-13.ppp.uni2.dk...