New Mars Forums

probably raped him too.

I just want to mention that here in New York, we have many many more aliens than in Arizona. They are more educated too. They don't adbuct you for sex or organ transplantation or to retrive Al Gore on the Moon, they are nice and cool people, very liberal. They support Kuccinich for the election. You can talk to them and invite them in the best french restaurant of New York. They order wine for diner and they pay the check. Really fantastic aliens, we might have 1 or 2 in this forum by the way (no it's not me ).

reinstalled 6 times W2K in a single year ? you should panic, donpanic, it seems a lot to me. Unless it's on a different PC of course.
why did you have to reinstall  6 times ?
and don't you have a limited ****** of installations allowed ?

Exactly, reinstalling windows, in the actual situation, must be the rule for almost everybody that browse internet, run softwares, games, multimedia etc.
The problem is that the number of activation is limited, with 3 allowed, "every 6 months"  means that you have to buy a new copy of windows every 1.5 years.  I wonder how many people have been confronted with that issue.

So maybe Microsoft should sale Windows with an unlimited number of activation.

Yes, if you take Lamarck word for word, he is wrong and you are right.
Lamarck said that acquired or improved traits through repetitive use, such as fast speed for predators that run all the time and become faster run after run, or long necks for giraffes that feed on higher and higher trees, are transmitted to the descendance. And so generation after generations, the usefull characters are improved  a little bit, and so you can understand how guepard are so fast and giraffes have a so long necks. Some facts also 'seemed' to fit with that theory, like the baby camels have callosity on their knees at birth, 'as if' their parents have transmitted the character through the repetitive habbit to seat on their knees.
Now I agree 100% that this is false, these acquired characters are not transmitted through genes.
But what about behavior. This is a trait particularly important in mamalian species.
I've seen several documentaries about tigers displaced in Africa. Not only they learn to hunt, not only they improved their skills at hunting but they also transmit these acquired skills to their offspring. Same for lions that can learn how to hunt new preys like elephants and teach it to their youngs.
Survival of the fitest is the base of the darwinian theory, but these animals do not become the fittest 'by chance' like a darwin model would assume, they become the fittest because their parents have learn, improved and transmitted new skills to them.
For the youngs, these transmitted skills are probably as much important for their survival than the small genetic variations inherited by chance. So in another thread I suggested than in reallity, evolution proceeds through darwinian AND lamarckian mode. And that the 'dumber' the animal, or primitive if you want, the more Darwinian the evolutionary mode is, the smarter the animal, the more lamarckian component there is.
And I took the analogy of the chemical liason, that can be purely ionic like in salts, or purely covalent like in some molecule like H2, but rarely. Most molecules are linked by both forces, ionic and covalent and not by a single pure force.
In the case of the biological evolution of our species Homo sapiens, I think that the 'lamarckian component' is much more important than the 'darwinian component' and that at the opposite, a bacteria just follows a darwinian law of evolution.
Now it would be nice to mesure quantitatively these components to test this theory, but I am not working in the field of evolution. This is just my guess.
The neo-darwinian theory would certainly be stronger if it integrated quantitatively this Lamarckian behavior.

Also, the reason why anglosaxons reject Lamarck in the theory of evolution, beside that he was french, is that this acquired skills theory put more responsability on what happens to the animals that follow Lamarck, rather than Darwin. In social biology, Darwin is conveniently used to explain why we live in the best world possible. Everybody is at his place by reason of random chances or by bad luck, that some call 'bad genes' and you can do nothing about it.  With Lamarck, you really fight to create your own evolutionary path. You can litteraly fight against your genes if they are bad. You fight for your genetic freedom and you get more responsability for what you or your offspring are. So their is a political side here, the establishment  /conservative don't like Lamarck.
Don't be too tough with Lamarck, he didn't know about genes.
But did Darwin knew more about genes ? no, no more than Lamarck.

Jean-Baptiste de Lamarck. (They forgot the 'de' in the link):
[http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/history/lamarck.html]http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/history/lamarck.html

It's fixed now, no problem. No, I don't believe in secret governmental conspiracy, i just believe that computers, especially the PCs, will have to face this reallity : computer virus are there and they won't go away. Better accept it, they are part of the OS almost.
The antivirus software are not 100% efficient, so over time, a computer linked to internet, must accumulate corruptions.
The question of this thread is how long will it take for the computer to need a clean reinstall. In my experience it is about one year, for you it might be longer, i don't know. It certainly depends a lot of the usage intensity and internet connection.

Probably microsoft has statistics about that.

Rxke, yes there is a limit of reinstall allowed. Since you have 30 days to activate your copy of the OS, they know how many times you used it. At least with Windows Xp Home, I could reinstall 3 times before it was denied. But then I called microsoft, telling them that I was reinstalling on the SAME computer and they give me a new key to activate the Xp copy again. Now, I have Xp pro, maybe the total number allowed is different.

Here is my personnal experience :

I have a PC, a cable connection that gives 24/24 h internet connection and Windose Me. I browsed internet, after about 1 year, the system declined, became unstable with a fatal crashed soon after. I used the 'factory recovery' first but soon after again the system, again became unstable, with some progs freeezing or not working anymore, culminating in a fatal, dead computer. No Hard drive recognized, etc. Decided to upgrade to Xp Home full, not upgrade, to start on a brand new system. After complete reformating and some data lost, the system ran fine for a while. This time a firewall was included, always with a cable connection to internet.
Since the system was healthy, decided to add some new hardware, graphic card, memory etc.
The system started to crash again. Three times I  reinstalled Xp, with a call to Microsoft because it tracks the number of time you install Xp, they gave me a new key number, generously. I also figure out that the unstability was caused by a 250 Mb micron DDR ram. The ram caused random crashes with different programs and even forbid me to install properly Xp from the CD. After I figure that out and some data lost again, I did a complete clean reinstallation of Xp. That was about 1 year from the last reformating. But I had exhausted all my windose Xp home reinstallation capacity.
Since the system was now healthy, I decided to upgrade the hardware again,  New Mother board (Gigabyte), new processor (athlon Xp 2400+), more memory and since I knew I was out of  OS reserves, I bought Xp pro for a clean install. This time I had also 2 Hard drives , one with the OS (Xp pro) and the other with data.
haha, virus hackers haha ! 'bring them on !'

That was 6 months ago. Feb14, at the latest online Xp upgrade, I had a frozen screen and had to flip back the system to Feb 12. Reboot....disaster : no HD recognized at all....Boot Master failed...fatal error.
"Xp cannot reinstall, there is no HD on your system".
ggrrrrrrrr ! what do you do ?
Dickbill smart, he has a third HD in reserve with W2000 on it.
Pluged it, removed the DATA driver, reformat the driver with the OS, reinstall Xp pro on it (pfff, I was scarred by a messsage like "you have intalled windose 3 times, this is too much, buy a new one, bye bye")
Removed the HD with W2000 and put back the HD with data. Still, some data lost, like keys and password and pictures. Had to reisntall some softwares, took me the week end and surprise, surprise :
A folder named 52874hj3423j5hs7jgdHFa something like that was on my data HD, never seen that before. Access denied, cannot open it, cannot delete it. It's still there by the way. cannot even quarantine it with Norton antivirus.  I guess it's a worm a trojan and that my computer has been hidjacked for a time. The folder was also probaly on the drive with the OS, but after complete refomatting, I guess it's gone. I won't reformat the DATA drive to get rid of of it becuase obviously I want to keep the data. But I could delete an executable inside the folder (I THINK it is deleted at least).
Anyway, after clean reformating of the drive with the OS, a brand new Norton antivirus pro + Norton personnal firewall, and my beloved cable connection to internet (through a router) the question is :
"How long before it crashes again and need a clean reformating  ?"
If you think about it, this is all good for Microsoft, because after a time I wont be able to reinstall Xp, I will have either to buy a new one, or an upgrade. The fact that my problems arose during an online Xp upgrade also make me suspicious to turn "automatic upgrade" ON.

Cable connection to internet is fast, but obviously it is dangerous for the computer. I don't surf on dangerous sites believe me. No porn if this what you think. I got a lot of spam though. Deconnection to internet is not an option : you need internet now, for softawre upgrades etc.
But my opinion is that no matter what, firewall, antivirus etc, the system will be corrupted in about 1 year, at best, with a 24/24h connection to internet.
Since these fatal corruptions request clean Windose reinstallation, and if you are lucky enough that the first reinstall works, you might go with a legal copy of windose at best for 2 years, before you cannot legally install it again.

So, maybe Microsoft fights hackers, how hard I don't know, but I have the feeling that all these hackers are not so bad bussiness for Microsoft finally. What's your opinion ?

yes you're right, gills come from embryonic branchial archs, that transform into ancestral jaw, ear bones or pharyngeal cartilages. Keeping these branchial archs fonctional as gills might not necessarily make you death however. We could imagine "duplicating" an embryonic branchial arch, one that doesn't transform in the above mentionated structures, so that it would keep differentiating into a gills without removing the ear or pharyngal functionalities.
So you could breath the O2 dissolved in the ocean of Ganamedie. But on Mars, and Arizona, doesn't help much.
In New York, as you mention, that could be useful for breathing in the East river or for a new fashion that would invade the world. Like top models with gills and fish brains.
But that's science fiction, what is not science fiction is what you said about the introns :
I was looking for a good antivirus software recently and I found McAffe Antivirus pro. (I actually bought the Norton for its data recovery functionalities) but look :
Mc Affe provides a new function called "sensitive data shreding" . In addition to spy and hacker monitoring, this function just does what it says, it shreds  sensitive data, such as credit card numbers, password etc, into small packets spread on the HD. I think it's a different process and purpose that the fragmentation of files in the HD.
But isn't it the definition of exons for the DNA ?
I've heard that theory before that the DNA exon structure is actually a defense startegy against early transposons or other integrative foreign DNA that could otherwise hidjack a full gene functionality if they integrated in front of a full gene or promoter. By shreding the genes, retro-transposons/virus have less chance to inactivate the gene or hidjacking its functionality. 
So, 3.8 billions years later, computer softwares re-invent that old stategy of shreding "sensitive data". amazing.

McAfee should follow and call its strategy the "Mcaffe Intron data security" : the exon/intron computer data structure that best fights worms, virus and other bad hidjackers.
(the word Intron sounds better than Exon for sale purpose, I think)

well, NASA's caption says:

"Original Caption Released with Image:
This sharp, high-resolution image shows a rock target dubbed "Robert E," on a rock called Stone Mountain at Meridiani Planum, Mars. It is one of the highest-resolution images ever taken while looking at a rock on another planet. Scientists are studying this area, which measures 3 centimeters (1.2 inches) across, for clues about how the rock formed. The image was created by merging five separate images taken at varying distances from the target by the microscopic imager, an instrument located on the Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity's
instrument deployment device, or "arm". "

no reference to 3d mapping, they just talk about superimposing  five 2D pictures...

but anyway, I'm not gonna fight forever on that issue. I am not convinced, that's it.

I understand that. But why is it so obvious that it's a 3d representation ?
The edges right ? they follow the topographic contour. But as I said before, for what I know, the microspcopic imager doesn't focus on objects, it just moves towards them, with the angle problem that I described. Objects directly in axis with the lense will have a change of distance but no angle, while objects off axis, meaning in the edge of the picture,  will have a change of angle as well, that means that the superimposition of the pictures won't be nice on the edges. So I understand that NASA prefered to cut the edge artifacts.
Why they just didn't crop nicely a square, I don't know.

Do you have an information that suggest it's a 3d mapping ?

I lived in Europe most of my life, I never noticed all that water.
But anyway, of course we should colonize Europe. France first, then Germany then Maroc etc.
Evrything should be terraformed like in New York, big buildings, yellow cabs and cream cheese bagels for everybody. And no slow drivers.

I received other mails from offcial MS members, and last year I was lucky enough to receive a letter with a poem from M. Zubrin, but that's about it. Ah, I forgot the acre ownership on Mars.
Now I would like to receive an offcial martian passport and the official martian citizenship and of course, more acres on Mars.

Nope, I got nothing.
I am a MS member though, and for 2 years now.