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"In a discovery that raises questions about the validity of a huge volume of animal research, not to mention the personal hygiene of male scientists, a study has found that mice dislike the smell of men.
Scientists found that even the presence of a T-shirt that had been worn by a man was enough to trigger a stress response and this appeared to blunt the rodents’ experience of pain." Times UK: "Scientists sniff out the truth of mice and men" April 29, 2014 [^].
I've thought that to the degree contemporary western psychology has been based on research carried out on mice, rats, and select college students, that it is dubious, and its correlations and generalizations often unwarranted. I'm not saying, however, that I have some bias against quantitative research !
I am utterly fascinated by what current advances in the technology of monitoring the human brain are telling us about the biological basis on consciousness, and I have been fascinated by this topic since the 1970's when Dr. Joe Kamiya (a pioneer in the development of bio- and neuro- feedback) was carrying out his research on physiological response to meditation at UC San Francisco.
Among the delightful highlights of Kamiya's studies: those assigned to "meditate on mantras" of syllables chosen at random had the same physiological responses that those using mantras given to them by their "Transcendental Meditation" teachers (Maharishi Mahesh Yogi flavor meditation) had. Please note that by mentioning that study I do not mean to imply that there may not be many other significant, but difficult-to-quantify, effects ... social, emotional, behavioral ... of meditation shaped by the social context, and belief-systems, in which it occurs.
Interviews with Kamiya here: [^].
p.s. I bet we stink to chimps, too.
“I speak in a poem of the ancient food of heroes: humiliation, unhappiness, discord. Those things are given to us to transform, so that we may make from the miserable circumstances of our lives things that are eternal, or aspire to be so.” Jorge Luis Borges
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All we need to find out now is that Drosophila is biologically harmed by captivity and frankly the whole medicine cabinet will need to be thrown out...
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BillWoodruff wrote: I am utterly fascinated by what current advances in the technology of monitoring the human brain are telling us about the biological basis on consciousness
My gf is getting her MA in psychology and we've been having a few philosophical discussions regard consciousness. What I'm particular interested in is the middle ground. Let me explain. The neuroscientists et al look for consciousness strictly in the physical processes of the brain, while the "metaphysicists" (I use this term loosely because I can't think of anything else, and philosopher / theologian / spiritualist is too wordy and incomplete as well) looks for consciousness connected to the unmeasurable concepts of the soul, the spirit, the breath of God, etc., usually to the exclusion of any physical basis (or as so many new-agers demonstrate, any grasp of the physical basis, to the point of even complete denial.)
What I'm curious about is, what about the middle ground, in which the brain, as a physical organ, must exist because it's part of the physical world, but there is, in addition, an aspect of consciousness that cannot ever be measured but none-the-less still exists. Along the lines of what Alan W. Watts writes (I'll paraphrase), consciousness is the result of a completely unconscious evolutionary process. For me, that is quite a statement to contemplate, because I don't think we can separate what we call consciousness from the processes that created consciousness -- they are intimately intertwined. Or, in different words, consciousness is something that exists both worlds -- in the "measurable" physical world and the unmeasurable (or immeasurable?) non-physical world. Take, for example, an idea. It has a certain concreteness to it in that it can be conveyed to another person, and yes, you could even possibly determine and measure the neurons the fire when the person thinks "the idea", but you cannot capture the essence of what the idea actually is by physical measurement alone. And I personally don't believe we ever will, not matter how fine and advanced our instruments become.
Marc
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How would you classify states of matter? They obviously exist and it is natural for us to think about them, however they only exist as a statistical relationship between a collection of objects. Water molecules exist, but what level of existence do you assign to the concept of ice? The only difference between that and an idea is a difference of degree.
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Werner Heisenberg: "Atoms are not things." quoted by Richard Rhodes in his masterpiece, "The Making of the Atomic Bomb" [^]. A book so compelling I have read it three times, and still feel it has much to teach me.
“I speak in a poem of the ancient food of heroes: humiliation, unhappiness, discord. Those things are given to us to transform, so that we may make from the miserable circumstances of our lives things that are eternal, or aspire to be so.” Jorge Luis Borges
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I'll put that on my wish list, thanks.
BillWoodruff wrote: Werner Heisenberg: "Atoms are not things."
I think I understand the quote, but I'm not sure how you think it relates to my earlier statement. Things that we consider the most permanent and solid, exist purely as statistical relationships between the smaller elements that make them up. I don't know where you stand on Mark's statements that thoughts belong to another realm, but is it impossible to believe that our thoughts and selves could exist in the relations of billions of much more complicated building blocks.
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What is the current status of Silverlight in the Microsoft technology stack?
The last time I used Silverlight was 2010 or so, and I'm aware that v5 was the last major release made. I'm interviewing for a new job and I want to be able to speak with authority regarding the viability of using it. Beyond the fact that MS isn't updating it anymore, is there any reason not to recommend it? The only other alternative is MVC, but I'm much more comfortable with Silverlight.
".45 ACP - because shooting twice is just silly" - JSOP, 2010
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You can never have too much ammo - unless you're swimming, or on fire. - JSOP, 2010
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When you pry the gun from my cold dead hands, be careful - the barrel will be very hot. - JSOP, 2013
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John Simmons / outlaw programmer wrote: What is the current status of Silverlight in the Microsoft technology stack?
Dead? 
Anything that is unrelated to elephants is irrelephant
Anonymous
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The problem with quotes on the internet is that you can never tell if they're genuine
Winston Churchill, 1944
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I'd just like a chance to prove that money can't make me happy.
Me, all the time
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Looking at the Microsoft Silverlight Support Lifecycle page, it looks like V5 will be the last version. Supported through 2021, but I don't see anything about new development.
http://support.microsoft.com/gp/lifean45[^]
Hope that helps.
Tim
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Silverlight, as a pure web development platform is no longer under active feature enhancement development. This doesn't mean that there won't be bug fixes and the likes, only that the main plugin based component will not see significant new features.
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I think you're right Pete, but as I mentioned in my brief but eloquent post, for all in tents and porpoises, it might as well be dead. Surely, nobody in their right mind would use it to start developing a major and/or important piece of software NOW? 
Anything that is unrelated to elephants is irrelephant
Anonymous
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The problem with quotes on the internet is that you can never tell if they're genuine
Winston Churchill, 1944
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I'd just like a chance to prove that money can't make me happy.
Me, all the time
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I'm being very careful in my wording as the plugin is no longer going to be enhanced significantly, but Silverlight itself is now the underpinnings of things like Windows Phone (including the strategy of XAML development across the board with the Universal apps proposition).
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Pete O'Hanlon wrote: but Silverlight itself is now the underpinnings of things like Windows Phone
I think it's more accurate to say - it transformed into WinRT...
I'm not questioning your powers of observation; I'm merely remarking upon the paradox of asking a masked man who he is. (V)
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Pete O'Hanlon wrote: but Silverlight itself is now the underpinnings of things like Windows Phone
Actually that would be WPF, silver light is just a subset of WPF targetting the Web:
Windows Phone 8.0 Roadmap[^]
I wouldn't invest anything in Silverlight itself. WPF on the other hand is far from dead IMO. The only threat to WPF is microsft itself with javascript and HTML5 support on Windows 8 and Phone.
To alcohol! The cause of, and solution to, all of life's problems - Homer Simpson
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Our heads are round so our thoughts can change direction - Francis Picabia
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I know what Silverlight is, but if you look at WP and WinRT, they share a much closer model to Silverlight than they do with WPF.
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Pete O'Hanlon wrote: I know what Silverlight is
Sorry, didn't mean to imply otherwise. What I mean is that Silverlight is not going anywhere anymore, but WPF is. And they are very similar to each other except, Silverlight is focuses the web. And you're right, silverlight's navigational flow resembles well WP model.
To alcohol! The cause of, and solution to, all of life's problems - Homer Simpson
----
Our heads are round so our thoughts can change direction - Francis Picabia
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This is quite true, Silverlight as a technology is no longer being developed, however Microsoft will support it for many more years.
However, the bigger issue is that Chrome will likely start to block Silverlight (and other plug-ins) in the near future:
http://blog.chromium.org/2013/09/saying-goodbye-to-our-old-friend-npapi.html[^]
The FireFox browser is also following suite (although I can't find a reference to that right now).
RIP Silverlight!
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It seemed to me that Silverlight didn't end...it evolved into Windows 8 Metro 'Apps'?
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I think it's 'no further development' but it looks like they are committed to supporting the client runtime until at least 2021, which should be well long enough for a web app. So I don't think there are any obsolescence reasons not to recommend it.
However, like Flash or Java applets, it relies on users installing browser plugins, and if it's a public release some of them may not want to do that. In general I'd recommend against using plugin-based thick clients unless the application requires it.
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BobJanova wrote: it relies on users installing browser plugins
Yeah, and that might be the biggest roadblock. If the users don't already have Silverlight installed, it probably won't get installed (DoD computers, and admin rights are required to install/update the plugin). Also, if access will include mobile devices, that's also a deal killer as far as Silverlight goes.
".45 ACP - because shooting twice is just silly" - JSOP, 2010
-----
You can never have too much ammo - unless you're swimming, or on fire. - JSOP, 2010
-----
When you pry the gun from my cold dead hands, be careful - the barrel will be very hot. - JSOP, 2013
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We run under the same strictures and Silverlight is a PITA to get through the policy nuts, while we are still working on SL development we are looking at retraining to MVC.
Although POH's comment about it being the underpinning of some other strategy will need investigating, even when we get up to speed in MVC I think we will be doubling our delivery cycle.
Never underestimate the power of human stupidity
RAH
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