The HP Way

On which planet(s)?

It seems you enjoy wordplay.

Besides the obvious use of 'creatures' in the collective sense signifying "living things in general," perhaps you missed the fact that 'creature' also means 'something created,' hence, a spoof.

Or, to play on the word 'evolve,' perhaps you mean to contend, as a non-evolving creature, that your genome is static--the same today as the day you were born. (In which case we all envy you.)

'Species' admits of all sorts of mischief, 'species' being not a real thing at all, merely a label--a convention, an agreement hammered out between men--which certainly evolves, albeit capriciously, and not necessarily in the way you intend, viz. by way of changes in the category rather than in the thing being categorized.

In the narrow sense in which you've cast 'creatures,' 'lineages' certainly do not evolve, however, chiefly owing to the difficulty revising and improving one's forebears ex post facto. My own lineage is the same as it ever was--with roots wending back to Bonnie Prince Charlie, to Rob Roy, to Frenchmen, Vikings, Indians, and Russkies, to missionaries, rogues and sea captains. A motley crew, and so it ever will be.

Cheers, James Arthur

What's amazing about evolution is how almost everybody shuts off their ability to think whenever it's mentioned.

John

You'll have a hard time convincing anyone that it is otherwise.

Tim

If you've ever got an infection and subsequently developed an immunity to the pathogen involved, you have evolved. If not, you're probably dead.

John

DNA is continuously self-modifying, self-repairing, switching genes on and off, transposing and inverting sequences, and probably doing dozens of other dynamic things we haven't discovered yet. Anybody who thinks that their DNA is static doesn't believe in evolution.

John

Hardly. Telomeres, for one, are lost with time, not to mention hair. DNA accumlates a lifetime of flaws from x-ray hits, sun damage, oxidative damage... Thank heavens we've got error-correction, but alas, 'tis imperfect.

Old genomes are not the same as new ones.

Best, James Arthur

I've read "The HP Way," but know not of Carly's "Journey." I had stock in the old HP, back when everything they made--calculators, test equipment, whatever--was superb. Then I bought an HP LaserJet 5L, which never did feed properly. "Odd," I thought.

When it was clear they'd lost their way I divested my HP, in the midst of the bubble. One of my better trades, it was.

I still love my HP-32S calculator, and an OmniBook 600c is my favorite computer, all pre- 1994.

James Arthur

That theory couldn't be imposed for long even by Stalin.

In message , dated Fri, 8 Sep 2006, Homer J Simpson writes

Stalin promoted Lamarckian evolution - inheritance of acquired characteristics. Before we understood (to some extent) DNA methylation and the complexity of the proteome, Lamarck was thought to be wrong. But there is a little evidence now that Lamarckian evolution can occur.

For example, children who are chronically malnourished, though their parents weren't, may acquire DNA methylation and/or changes in the proteome that help to resist the ill-effects, and in due course may have children who are better adapted.

My 5L fed ok for a couple of years, and when it started misfeeding I found there was a free fix-it kit available for the asking. Applied the fix, and my 5L is still going strong. Sorry, but I can't remember where to ask - you'll have to ask HP.

spend

in

issue

for

YOU

out

without

yeah like: "*Who* the f*ck was supposed to pay that DA guy off? ...." ;-)

There may be rare situations when DNA changes within the one organism (as described by John Woodgate in another post), but within a living organism, there are no DNA changes in the normal course of events - almost all errors made in copying the DNA when cells replicate are fixed during the copying. Occasionally unfixable errors occur - typically this results in either no appreciable effect, or the cell dies, and occasionally it will lead to cancer or other problems.

The human body (I presume the same applies to many other multi-cellular organisms) has a number of tricks to ensure that DNA remains intact. For example, most normal "working" cells in the body never reproduce. The cells that *do* reproduce form a chain from specialised organ stem cells which can reproduce themselves and the next step in the chain, through a series of half-way cells that can split into two more specialised cells, until you get to the final "worker" cells that can't reproduce but can do a useful job. The stem cells and others in the chain are particularly good at error-free copying to reduce the chance of the DNA being modified.

Inside a cell, DNA segments are copied to messenger RNA when there are being used by the cell. The DNA does not get mixed around or modified, nor do genes get switched on or off by modifying the DNA that encodes them.

Baring accidents, the only time DNA actually gets modified is during reproduction.

Indeed, "California Attorney General Bill Lockyer said Thursday that his office is likely to file criminal charges in the phone-record snooping scandal that has rocked Hewlett-Packard and its boardroom."

Groklaw has a good overview,

"This is the corporate governance equivalent of using an elephant gun to shoot a butterfly in a gun-free zone," said Dinh, a former Justice Department attorney and author of the Patriot Act who now teaches at Georgetown University law school. [Viet Dinh is Tom Perkins' attorney]

Someone recently modified mice genes so that the mice essentially don't age. But they don't live longer, because they die of cancer.

John

I had to replace the feed mechanism in my hp6L using a "roller kit"... all plastic junk :-(

...Jim Thompson

Thanks! -- I still have the printer. I'll look into it.

James Arthur

Bits to do with aging and repair yes, but the same basic matter is still there. It has to be there, or else you wouldn't be human anymore.

I think the state should tell their juries this one...

Tim

In message , dated Fri, 8 Sep 2006, John Larkin writes

That was actually predicted. The technique hasn't been refined enough yet. They can fix the telomeres, but keeping the DNA repair crew at peak effort hasn't been done yet.