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k48r

@ k48r @lemmy.world

Posts
1
Comments
18
Joined
2 yr. ago

  • Developer patches Wine to make Photoshop 2021 & 2025 run on Linux — Adobe Creative Cloud installers finally work thanks to HTML, JavaScript and XML fixes

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  • I've been using bitwig on Linux for hobby production for about a year now. It works but it's fairly buggy, with very sluggish controls and more frequent plugin crashes. I despise windows so won't go back, but I'd also love to see continued improvement. One big step would be for more plugin developers to release CLAP versions.

  • A friend likes the idea of a personalized "DNA artwork" but has privacy concerns. Any ideas for creating a unique marker artwork ourselves?

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  • I don't know the full process for making these, but I can take a fairly educated guess.

    First they are going to take the DNA sample and use a reaction called PCR to amplify it. This will copy a small section of DNA, not the whole sequence. For the PCR to work for all of their customers, this has to be a region* that nearly everyone has in their DNA.

    They then take the PCR product and treat it with different enzymes that are like molecular scissors which will chop at specific sub-sequences. The personal nature of the art comes from small differences between people in the region amplified in the original PCR. Different sequence = different cuts = different lengths of pieces.

    They then run the enzyme digests on a gel, which is like a slab of thick jello. The bigger the piece, the slower it moves so the pieces separate. The lanes on the sides are a standard "ladder" of known sized pieces. You can visualize these gels under a UV lamp.

    They can either use molecular tags or, more likely, photoshop to make the art piece look more interesting.

    There is not any actual sequencing of the DNA happening in this process, and the band patterns are pretty low-resolution so it's unlikely that this could be used to identify someone.

    If this is a legitimate operation, then there is not a situation where the art company has an unsecured disk with lots of DNA sequences on it.

    All that said, the concern about sharing genetic material with random companies is valid because they could also sequence it if they wanted to, but that would be relatively expensive and actively malicious. I believe the risk is low but non-zero, and everyone will have a different comfort level with that.

    If you want alternative options you might be able to find an open lab or local college that will work with you to run your own PCR and gel, then photoshop the result yourself.

    Hope that helps you make a more informed decision.

    *To be a little more pedantic, everyone has to have the same ends of the region where the copying starts and stops. The part in between, which is a small fraction of your total DNA, can still be different.

  • Favorite Kim Stanley Robinson book?

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  • He tends toward extreme optimism about humanity which can be a nice change from constant doom but also rings hollow and feels trite sometimes, depending on my mood.

  • Favorite Kim Stanley Robinson book?

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  • The Years of Rice and Salt changed my brain

  • Scientists May Have Found Signs of a Hidden Universe on the Ocean Floor

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  • Popular Science/Mechanics have been clickbait since before the dawn of the internet. I wish I knew how to filter them out of my feed

  • Wobble wobble

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  • More like 16,000 x g for a normal desktop centrifuge and 80,000 x g+ for an ultracentrifuge

  • What came to mind when I saw that stock photo

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  • Completely agree with your comment about "hitting a wall at running speed" . I switched my music production PC to Linux in a fit of pique at Microsoft. I have used Linux/unix for 25 years at this point, but this move and the resulting technical hurdles took my output to 0% and it hasn't recovered in a couple of months.

    I don't want to switch back but I also really miss my hobby and main creative outlet

  • YSK that in 2024, Kristi Noem publically bragged about shooting a puppy

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  • Isn't that the same as "organizing a campaign"?

  • Are people even licensed anymore?

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  • I feel like this is a phenomenon that should have a name, but I don't know what it is...

    As you get older and more experienced, you get better at driving. The average driver, though, generally does not get better because of turnover due to age on both ends. This means that from your relative perspective people seem to be getting steadily worse at driving.

    Of course there is day to day fluctuation, and some factors (e.g. cell phone use) may have large impacts, but I'm convinced that most of what we feel is connected to the former effect.

  • U.S. Republican lawmakers call on Canada to curb wildfire smoke

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  • Going full Infinite Jest

  • A Prophesied Disaster (Likely) Won’t Strike Japan This Weekend | Though perhaps there’s no harm in being prepared?

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  • The harm comes from the mental health and societal impacts of the "always be afraid" mentality pushed by public figures and the media

  • Deleted

    Permanently Deleted

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  • Academic publishers are parasites.

    I have been working through a textbook this week that has a copyleft statement on every page, and was written by a government scientist who did not get paid to do it. When you access it through the publisher website there is a copyright and they're charging $200 for access.

    Replacing the human expert with a word-guessing machine is a logical progression in their unabashed rent seeking.

  • Nice one

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  • The university is exploiting your idealism to get you to work without being paid enough. You aren't "in a position to help people", you are doing a job for an organization with revenues. They could allocate more revenue to accomplish this work without forcing you to work until 1 AM, but they have made the choice that the work is not worth paying for.

    That being said, most good people will go the extra mile if they think it can make a difference, but I see too many who take full responsibility on themselves and "cover" for financially-motivated organizational decisions, which in turn encourages the people who make those decisions to cut even more.

  • It's good work

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  • That's a reference to the Blues Brothers movie

  • Toxic pesticide levels found in tampons 40 times higher than legal limit for water

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  • according to a report by the Pesticide Action Network UK (Pan UK), the Women’s Environmental Network and the Pesticide Collaboration

    At least two of the groups behind the study have an axe to grind here. This isn't good science.

  • Asking the important questions.

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  • Based on my experience with GCMS, if you fart into some activated carbon, you might be able to store it for a long time. To release the smell you'd heat your "sample" up to about 250°C, which you could do in a hot oven or maybe stovetop burner

  • Wider tires on a Cannondale Synapse?

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  • I looked into doing this a few years ago. FWIW I think my bike was built around 2013. I used the synapse for a ton of road riding and loved it, so I wanted to try to keep it around even though I wasn't doing endurance rides on the road much anymore.

    The clearances weren't great with the stock fork, so I wasn't confident about it and decided it would be better to go with a different frame given that swapping wheels and fork, plus probably upgrading the disc brakes, was going to be costly.

    How much space do you have with the 28s?

  • Science Memes @mander.xyz
    k48r @lemmy.world

    It started off so well