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Open-Source Biology
nicholast writes with this "article describing the growing use of open-source collaboration methods in biology. The subtitle and main question is: Can a band of biologists who share data freely out-innovate the corporate researchers who hoard it?"
The Hiz-at trick, bitches!
No! But wishit could
early post for me
wahoo
Can we open source Natalie Portman's biology?
First Post---- wa ha ha ha ha!
schweeeet.
By a worthy opponent. I salute you, mr. cheez. Down with closeted karma whores...down with ACs!
Liberate your mind in two clicks or less.
I'm all for the free flow of information, expecially in science. But if there isn't an opertunity to make bundles of money, where is the funding going to come from? Government grants only go so far, after all.
Personally, I think that corperate funded science is a must...though I'm glad to see that some scientists are freely sharing information. The best way to do science is to combine both (which will never happen) and show corperations that they can get rich even when they share their data.
--
http://nemilar.net - Not your grandmother's soup kitchen
I Agree With This Post.
Think about it. One group shares information, one group doesn't. So, the group that doesn't share takes information from the group that does, and *boom*, automatically one group knows more. It's a nice idea though.
Condemnant quod non intellegunt.
Can a band of biologists who share data freely out-innovate the corporate researchers who hoard it?
No, because the corp. researchers can always just look and take the innovations of the open source. Not to menntion the millions of corporate dollars backing these projects and fanatical secrecy.
For instance, we're doing an open source phylogenetic project called The Tree of Life, which promotes both the open access to phylogenetic information, and open source software through the code itself. Many biologists are using open source software to further their research - case in point in O'Reilly's recent Bioinformatics conference.
"What we have here, is a failure to communicate." - Cool Hand Luke
Using OSS software, they'll be too busy dealing with the dreaded blue screen of death (BSOD).
I hope they can find someones with an MCSE to support it!
"The subtitle and main question is: Can a band of biologists who share data freely out-innovate the corporate researchers who hoard it?"
Answer: No, certainly not. That will never work. Why do you ask such silly questions?
Sincerely,
NiftyNews
Automated Response Unit for Data-Hoarding Corporate Researchers, Inc.
------
Today's Top Deals
"No dear, I'm not having an affair with my secretary! It's... open source biology!"
Gnutella developper possibly murdered Why isn't this on the front page? Did CmdrTaco receive any threats from the RIAA/MPAA? This is SERIOUS SHIT!
Research is hard, and experiments aren't cheap.
Biologists who "hoard" their work do it because they're better. They have something to gain by protecting their research.
By contrast, the open-source looters don't invent anything, so they have something to gain by removing protections on research or intellectual property.
especially when studying the
(drumroll please)
female anatomy.
Seriously folks, I don't want to read about sharing and caring groups of biology folks working together for a the betterment of mankind. I mean, it's nice and all but against companies with bottomless pockets they are hopelessly out gunned.
What I really want is for greedy out the ass corporations to start cloning dinosaurs and creating new kinds of pets like squirrels with four asses.
That and some kind of new food that's blue. Ever notice there isn't any naturally occurring blue food? Don't say Blueberries cause the darned things are really just purple.
Appended to the end of comments you post. 120 chars.
Back when it was possible to read all the journals relating to a particular field cover to cover, it made sense for scientific dscoveries to be published in journals. Now, however, there is just too much data out there and what is needed is a curated (by online volunteers) heirarchichal database. From the article, it sounds like Gilman is doing just that. I wouldn't be surprised if scientific journals become obsolete in the next 20 years.
Can a band of biologists who share data freely out-innovate the corporate researchers who hoard it?
Ron Jeremy doesnt hoarde his biologly and hes as successful as they come... Ohhh Scientists... well Ron was a school teacher before he became a star, maybe he was a biologly teacher.
"All I can tell the "lesser of two evils" folks is that if they keep voting for evil, they'll keep getting evil."-Lp.org
The subtitle and main question is: Can a band of biologists who share data freely out-innovate the corporate researchers who hoard it?"
Who says you won't be able to have your very own clone of yourself someday? Now if we could just get some of the other fields to go this route, we could make our own antibiotics at home, have a horde of clone slaves, and power our houses with cold fusion reactors.....
I Am My Own Worst Enemy
I work in the power industry. While we do not necessarily share our source code outright (well, no one has asked), we share data like crazy. We don't hoard it because it wouldn't make sense. Our matrices and equations and system solving methods HAVE to be shared with our clients so they can ensure that we're actually giving them something that does what they think it does. Does this mean that other people are going around doing what we do? Not really, because we do it better.
If you are really good at something, other people aren't going to bother trying to do what you do because it's not worth the trouble. Just like the way I paid for someone to move my piano today. I could have gotten a bunch of friends together to do it and rented a dolly and truck, but that took way too much effort.
Convenience, much like advancements in science are going to benefit everyone. Someday, everyone who doesn't add value to society in some way is going to operate on the fringe (well, they already do to some extent), and all information will be shared for the greater good of all. If we collaborate with other industry leaders to come up with new features for our software or to help our clients do things better, it will always benefit us in the long run. The same will be true for the biologists and eventually corporations will get a clue as well.
Liora
Not if the corporate researchers have access to the open work too. You would need a group of researchers who share information only amongst themselves, but then it wouldn't be "open research".
One reason why this won't work, is that researchers depend on their discoveries in order to write papers and grants, which gives them more money to make more discoveries. If a small lab of a few people were to share all their information, then right before completion a huge corporation comes in and takes all credit, then that little lab is screwed.
Another problem is that researchers can go months, even years on wrong information, and theories. If these were published, yes theres a possibility they could be discounted, but they could be perpetuated, with lots of wrong data all over the place.
Finally, there is alot of information being shared within the biomedical industry. Many experiments are based on those found in published papers, there are guest speakers bi-weekly telling people about their successful research and we can take that information and test it, or we can tell them we have found that method doesn't work.
I believe that adding an extra layer of communication would further cloud things.
This
As a scientist involved in a largescale database (www.pbdb.org) that is trying to build a large collaborative project I can say a couple of things about my experience.
1. Working in groups can be very difficult... i.e., when people don't share the same priorities, or see the same sources of bias as important.
2. It can be very helpful... often times getting other people's perspective is very informative. Generally in science we get feedback at the end (publication review), but here it happens at all stages, including data collection. This is really good.
3. People tend to start off thinking that they need to protect and hide data, but once they start to share data they tend to become big fans of sharing data.
4. Data transparency is essential to good science, these type of projects make that more and more possible. It does not take people long to realize how useful it is to have open and easily excessible data.
5. It is very important to open code used in analyses. I am in the process of working on a couple of papers where we have written some code to perform some fairly complex calculations. While I would like to say I am a great programmer, reality has a way of intruding. Collaboration has vastly improved the code, and I fully intend to post the code when I am finished with it. (for fear of being slashdoted I will not post the URL here).
Although to control the knowledge is an extreme source of power, we must remember there is a plethera of unfound, hidden talents and ideas out there. Corporate research is bound by the limits of their budgets, organization, internal abilities, etc... Where open research has many advantages, such as being able to slip into research projects with universities, possibly coming across some great innovations that would have otherwise remained hidden. I would equate it to mining and processing. When your mining, you may get lucky and strike it rich. When your processing, your rather constant and steady. It does have interesting aspects though!
Can a band of biologists who share data freely out-innovate the corporate researchers who hoard it?"
Competition is sometimes relevant, but not in general. The scientist seeks to further the knowledge base, to reinforce his hypotheses, and their sub-hypotheses, etc. The corporation wants to make money.
Now, the scientist, in his quest to further knowledge, has no responsibility to avoid the intellectual property of others. If something is copyrighted, he cites it. If something is patented, he uses it anyway for research, with no necessity to pay to use the patent (unless, of course, there is no other way to get the invention).
The corporation, in its quest to make more money, need not even establish that something will work before it can establish IP. Knowledge is not directly relevant - they only need to set up tolls on the highway to commerce in the form of patents and copyright.
Sometimes, conflict exists. Celera is patenting genes, but only if they find them before NIH (which makes their database public). But in general the goals are different, patents can come from the work of scientists without interfering in the future work of the scientist (it is important to avoid conflicts of interest, usually by the scientist having no control or material interest in patent licensing - this is often not the case), and corporations establish their tolls without even paying attention to knowledge.
"question is: Can a band of biologists who share data freely out-innovate the corporate researchers who hoard it?"
Unless this isn't 'biology' the human genome project has already succeeded in beating out a private commercial project with the human genome map.
Adults are obsolete children. - Dr. Seuss
Indeed. I'm an undergrad doing ecology research with computers. The Bio* (bioperl, biolisp, &c) projects have nothing to do with a lot of other branches of biology and bioinformatics. Perhaps they should all just rename their projects to genetic* (geneticperl, &c).
At least some of bioinformatics stuff (eg bioperl) includes some phylogeny stuff. Or, so I was told by someone on #bioinformatics on OPN.
Working toward a usable PDA environment in the spirit of Newton OS: Dynapad
can you imagine a beowulf cluster of these?
they should release biology under the GPL!
Again, a first post claimed for the first worldwide AC congress at /. frist post.
-- quality AC claiming at work
But it did make me think of one thing. All of the following are true:
Research is hard
Experiments aren't cheap
Many excellent biologists will hoard their work out of enlightened self interest. There will of course be individuals who see farther than that.
Some of those embracing the open source idea in this area (and anywhere an approach like that is used) will be riding coat tails and merely opportunistic. There will of course be a greater number of these men and women who are genuine in their desire to collaborate regardless of their abilities.
The real opportunity for something exceptional to come of this is when someone who IS better than his peers at what he does shares what he has with those other biologists.
Then you have a chance for one or more of those people to see that information from a different perspective and that's when the benefits are going to be obvious. It's a more optimistic take but I think in this case it's also more realistic as well.
Appended to the end of comments you post. 120 chars.
Whooops. I forgot to mention what Free/Open Source Software I use. The open source software I use for ecology research is: a lot of custom software in Squeak Smalltalk (including a dataset visualizer), CLISP Common Lisp, perl, and gnuplot. On top of Linux sometimes even.
Working toward a usable PDA environment in the spirit of Newton OS: Dynapad
The only thing that worries me is the six day schedule to ship...
"Prepare for the worst - hope for the best."
But didn't we all really hate Nedrey anyway? Besides when we have control...
Appended to the end of comments you post. 120 chars.
Is it just me, or does getting to the front page of Slashdot involve adding certain statements to articles.
"And that's what I think about Australian jumping elephants... oh and:
Linux, Open Source, and Microsoft Sucks"
"Open Source" science was practiced long before "Open Source" programming. In fact, it was the rule, rather than the exception until just recently. Bonding science to the corporate marketplace, while extremely profitable, also leads to a great deal of "Re-inventing the wheel". Hopefully this is the beginning of a trend back toward a detached scientific community.
With my dying breath, I curse Zoidberg!
yeh right like corp. america wont steal
the work of the group because one of the
group is greedier than the rest !!
doesnt anybody read the paper, let me elucidte !
Enron, VP Cheynee, Stewart, Global Crossing, Merrill lynch, WorldCom, Anderson, Xerox, IBM,
blah blah blah blah blah.
thievery and greed is among us because our
universities, colleges, parents, mentors
have taught win at all cost, screw the next
guy, who gives a damn just WIN !!
I think a pretty sad state of affairs for the
human race but thats reality wed. 7/10/2002 !!!
Does that mean my brain is GPL'ed?
In college, really poor, need a flatscreen.
The open source model is something I readily dream about in finance research. The greatest proportion of papers published in journals come from universities with big reputations, not because of there being smarter people at Havard, for example, although to a certain extent that's true, but because of the amount of money they are free to spend on data, and the amount they already have, whereas smaller, lesser known universities, with never-the-less, a capacity for valuable output must scrape the bottom of the barrel just to get enough data for a decent conference paper.
I think there is a sort of un-uttered agreement that the journal review process exists, and that data is kept tightly protected because the establishment ensures proper quality of published output. In days gone by, perhaps that was a feasable approach, but with the advent of open source, and the thousands of developers forums throughout the web, I believe that finally there is a tangible example that argues for a complete overhaul in approach.
Despite the massive size and wide distribution of the community, there is still some, nay much, order to open source. There is some sort of consensus on the best distro, or the best app. for this or that. Reliable, secure and stable abound in open source; the bolts of excellent software are clear despite the storm. Open source has tipped arguments for the Cathederal, or a stuffy establishment that upholds integrity, on its head. The Bazaar works. People can be rewarded for the value of their output, and not their ability to horde.
In terms of a long term world view, I believe open information is the future in all areas of human endevour. How does a company create value by selling the same data, the same idea, a billion times. Let them be fairly recompensed for their effort in gathering the data, or putting the idea into a servicable form, and leave it at that.
Open source has demonstrated that the Bazaar is able to sort the elite from the mundane, and what's more, the volume and value of the output would not have been possible within a single closed establishment.
Oh, I wish, I wish, I wish that data and information was open. I wish that governments would legislate against data and idea hording; I believe such intervention passes the test of expediency. All hording does is hold back the ability of so many people to produce so much valuable output. This is the future for all important areas of human endevour if we ever want to make more of our precious progress before the earth is consumed by the sun.
I have much more to rant about, but you've probably stopped reading by now anyhow.
I have no sig
Two points:
1) The idea of sharing information within and beyond the scientific community is hardly a new one. On the contrary, if anything secrecy has increased in recent decades, partly because of industrial applications but mostly becuase science is much bigger and more cutthroat than when it was a wealthy gentleman's pursuit.
The sort of collaboration described here is new and is driven by the Internet and by the large data sets in current biology. But to say that scientists got the idea to share information from Linus Torvalds is idiotic. That's not even where computer scientists got the idea.
2) Claiming that patents encourage "hoarding" of information is the sort of thing you expect to see in +1 Slashdot comments. The whole point of patents is to _encourage_ the sharing of information instead of relying on secrecy. Inventors trade disclosure for a temporary monopoly.
Again, there's a germ of truth here that companies after a patentable discovery need to be closed-mouthed about their progress, but that's probably given the author too much credit.
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
I don't mean taking courses in bio either, strictly amateur stuff or neat books that are readable by people with limited bio knowlege.
What would be involved in say splicing the cannabis gene for THC into a peanut plant..?
Eat at Joe's.
All IP laws are against libertarian thought. They are too much government. If you want to protect your IP, do it through technology, but don't expect government to prosecute anyone for stupid IP offenses.
Yeah, at a party last weekend, Timothy's sister gave me and some friends a demo of some "open source biology", so to speak.
"You're just scared like a little white pussy. I'll fuck you till you love me, you faggot!"
While I'd love to see more blue foods, I'd be content with a personal blue slushee machine. Ah, to be back at my alma mater, with the blue slushee machine in the dining hall...
Some of my favorite recipies:
-Greg "C'mon, try it! It's really good!" Mulert
Corporations are patenting human genes as they find them, without even knowing what they do. Hence, any gene-related answers found by "open source" methods of research are pretty much screwed if theres a related patent. Just take a look at this for an example of how that method of profiteering already works, albeit for M$ vs OpenGL.
You know, I'm pretty sure I heard an American (!!!) president say something to the tune of "The human genome belongs to the human race!"... Hmmm, nevermind.
Ali
Ph33r m3!!!
The article uses the tag "public domain" very loosely. Is the information on these sites really placed into the public domain, or is it copyrighted but released with a free license like the GPL? Can bigpharma copy some data from one of these databases, then patent it and prevent the real discoverer from publishing the same data?
Scientific journals already facilitate the coined "open source" approach in sciences like biology. The scientific community validates experimental findings through duplication -- something made possible by the fact that researchers publish their methods and results.
I've been doing research for GE Medical for the past year in the area of monitoring the heart. Our study on skin types and signal degradation will be published for all to gain from and, at the same time, GE will use the data for implementation of more advanced detection features. Perhaps the exchange of info could be more direct, but biology simply isn't program code. There are different rules.
Credits: anonymous
"Mmmm... this feels good..." I sighed.
"Shhh!" hissed Hemos. "We don't want Mark to come in here!"
True. Having Hemos's 16 year-old brother walk in on us at that moment would not be good. I didn't think he'd be too cool with finding his 12 year-old brother lying naked with me, holding my 11 year-old dick in his hands. But, in all fairness, my hands were eagerly playing with Hemos's dick and balls at that moment, too.
Hemos's mom and dad had gone to the drive-in, leaving his big brother in charge. In our favor, leaving Mark in charge pretty much guaranteed that we weren't to bother him, and in turn, he'd leave us alone unless we were making too much noise or breaking something. Well, we were being careful to keep quiet because we very much wanted to be left alone.
We were in Hemos's twin bed, snuggled under the covers with our underwear pushed down to the foot of the bed. The only illumination in the room came from the faint sliver of light that crept in under his bedroom door. Even in the shadows I could make out the shape of my friend; about my height, but heavier. (Hell, I was such a skinny runt that everyone was heavier than me.) Hemos had a crew-cut of white-blonde hair, and was only starting to sprout some pubic hair. But, you had to feel for it because what little pubic hair he possessed was as blonde as the short hair on his hea and could not yet be seen by even a minimal distance.
And, I was happily feeling for it, running my hands all over Hemos's slightly larger erection and fondling his larger testicles while he courteously stroked my dick. I could tell that he didn't possess the same enthusiasm for cockplay as I did, unless you count his appreciation for the attention devoted to his member. And I knew that my willingness to satisfy his sexual urges was one of the few reasons he even had me sleep over at his place. But, I didn't let that stop me from finding pleasure in the handling of his meat.
I'd recently had an "introduction", of sorts, to seeing what someone could do with a man's dick with their mouth. While spending the night with my Uncle Jerry a couple weeks before, while I watched in secret, I was treated to a visual display of the intensity and unabashed pleasure that my uncle had obviously enjoyed having another man suck on his cock. From that moment on, I had a yearning that I needed to satisfy. With who was my only question.
I guess it was time to find out.
"I... heard that sucking on it feels even better than playing with it." I ventured.
In the darkness, I could feel a slight jerk of revulsion in Hemos's body.
"Put a dick in your mouth?" he croaked.
"Well, " I countered, my heart pounding with anxiety, "I think adults do it all the time."
"Well, I'm not gonna do it!" Hemos hissed. "That's homo stuff!"
"Yeah." I sighed disappointedly, while still playing with Hemos's dick. "I guess it is."
As I stroked his shaft in a steadier, milking rhythm, I could sense Hemos's breaths getting quicker. His manipulations of my dick began to falter as I could feel his body tense beside me. His hips rocked slightly in time with my pumping of his cock, and I cradled his balls tenderly in my other hand. When any attentions to my own dick has completely ebbed, I knew what was about to happen, so I picked up the pace just a bit more while lending a touch more pressure in my grip. Finally, Hemos's breath caught in his throat, and he turned his face fully into his pillow to stifle the moans that broke free as his cock pulsed and throbbed in a dry orgasm within my hands. I continued to massage him and didn't release him from my grasp until his member had gone fully soft.
"Man," sighed Hemos dreamily after finally catching his breath. "You are so good at that, CmdrTaco."
At least I had something to be proud of, I guess, as my friend gently withdrew himself from me and rolled onto his back.
Even though I was only eleven, the irony of Hemos's words and actions were not lost on me. My sucking on him would have been a "homo" thing, but beating him off was okay. Go figure. Within the few moments I had spent mulling over the irony of the thoughts, Hemos had drifted off to sleep. I slipped out from under the covers and down to the cool floor so I could masturbate without shaking the bed. As I toyed with my own dick, I imagined Hemos's cock in my mouth, wondering if the chance would ever really come. Finally, my own climax washed over me, and I got back into the bed.
I don't sleep real well to begin with, and even worse when I'm not in my own bed. And now, with the thoughts of a dick so close to me, as well as the vivid memories of secretly seeing man-to-man cocksucking pleasure floating through my prepubescent, sex-filled brain, I was not about to fall asleep anytime soon. Lying awake until around 11:30, I finally decided that I needed to do something to satisfy my hungers, or I'd never be able to let it rest. The trick was in finding the guts to follow through.
I knew that whenever Hemos fell asleep, he pretty much stayed asleep. So, since he was sleeping soundly, lying on his back, I took a deep breath and gingerly ducked my head under the covers and scooted down as much as I could to the foot of the bed. That put my head right at Hemos's hip level. I raised my head and upper body to help create a tent over his crotch. Sniffing around, I found the faint scent of young penis flesh. I inhaled deeply, both in the love of the scent, and in an attempt to slow my pounding heart. I opened my mouth wide over the area where I sensed Hemos's dick to be, and lowered my mouth squarely over his soft cock and balls until I could feel his sparse pubic hairs tickling my cheek. I finally had a dick in my mouth! I just wasn't sure what I'd do if Hemos woke to find his "homo" friend in this situation.
I remained like that for a long moment, partially in fear of trying anything more, and partly to savor the moment. I carefully let my tongue start to explore his tender penile flesh, enjoying the texture. Then came the excitement that welled within me as his cock began to respond to my attentions and harden in my warm and wet mouth! Butterflies seemed to explode in my stomach and drown out my heartbeat as I felt his dick get to its full size in my mouth. Concentrating in that dark environment, I found myself beginning to identify the shape of his member by taste. The shaft actually seemed to taste different than the head, and the thin skin of his scrotum seemed to harbor another distinct flavor.
I started to softly suck on Hemos's dick, becoming fascinated at how it just seemed to, well, 'fit' in my mouth... how the head lent itself to the back of my tongue, and how the shaft rested between my tongue and the roof of my mouth. My excitement was so great that my own recently satisfied dick was responding again, inviting me to play. I was sucking a cock, and I was in heaven!
However, within seconds, Hemos seemed to get restless. In fear, I quickly pulled my mouth away from Hemos's candy stick and held still. The covers rustled, and pulled back.
"Whatcha doin'?" mumbled Hemos.
"I... uh... was trying to find my shorts down here," I lied, starting to fumble near our feet. Well, partial lie, because it was a good idea to do so, anyway, and now was as good a time as any.
"Oh, yeah," said Hemos. "Get mine, too, willya?"
"S-sure" I stammered, relieved.
I located the two items of clothing and scooted back up towards the head of the bed. Thankfully, our underwear were pretty easy to distinguish since Hemos wore boxers, and I wore briefs. We both fumbled to put them on in the dark, and then settled back into the bed. I lay stiffly on my back, still harboring some fear that my friend discovered more than he let on, but Hemos simply rolled onto his side, facing away from me, and promptly went back to sleep.
And, here I was again, so close to my fantasies, yet still so far.
And very much awake.
After hearing the clock in the hallway chime midnight, I finally got up to go to the bathroom. Figuring it was late enough not to be an issue, and since even if Hemos's parents were home that they would be in their own bedroom downstairs, I didn't bother to slip on my pants for the short trip down the hall. I walked softly to the bedroom door, and then stepped out into the hallway, illuminated dimly by a bare-bulb night light. I walked past big brother Mark's door to the bathroom at the end of the hall and turned on the light as I shut the door.
Peeing into the toilet, I looked up at my reflection in the large mirror and smiled slyly to myself. I actually sucked on a dick, even if for only a moment! At that moment I was Rob Maldo, secret agent double-O-seven, who could sneak in and suck a dick, and sneak away without being caught!
I flushed the toilet and switched out the light as I headed back down the hall. Slipping past Mark's door once again, the door flew open, and a hand covered my mouth while a muscular arm snapped around my waist and drew me into the room. Squirming in the arms of Hemos's athletic older brother was a waste of effort, and he only squeezed harder until I settled down.
"You'll keep quiet if you know what's good for you,' growled Mark into my ear. "You gonna be quiet?"
I nodded. Mark let go of my mouth and reached over to close his bedroom door, the other hand and arm still holding me firmly with my feet off the ground. I heard something click, and recalled, and not without a certain amount of childish fear, that Mark had a lock on his door.
The room had a yellowish glow from the large lava lamp next to Mark's bed. He took me over to the bed and tossed me face down onto it, kneeling next to me. I thought briefly about trying to get up and run, but to where?
When I felt Mark's hands on me again, I was determined to fight him off, but I was no match for him as he flipped me onto my back and straddled me, sitting squarely on my upper chest, his knees pinning my shoulders and my arms locked between his legs. I gazed up at his lean, muscled torso, his stern blue eyes under a tussled mane of reddish-blonde hair. I could feel the soft fabric of his boxers against my chin.
"Can't get up, can ya?" he said, grinning down at me, all snide and victorious.
I struggled a bit, more out of obligation, but knew it was no use. Mark was just too big for me.
"Whatsamatter?" huffed Mark. "You too weak to fight? Or, maybe you just like laying there, sniffing dicks?"
I started squirming a bit harder, but Mark's legs only clamped tighter. At least he had scooted down a bit, and was no longer suffocating me with his weight on my chest.
"Yeah! Maybe you're a homo-boy who just likes sniffing dicks. Maybe you wanna sniff my big dick?"
I didn't care for where this was going, and I wasn't too comfortable with the tone of Mark's voice. But, I was also not being given much of a choice in the matter. Especially when Mark reached into the fly of his boxers and pulled out his cock.
"Here you are, homo-boy... a nice, fresh big-man dick!" grinned Mark fiendishly. "Ain't it a beaut?"
He held it out for me, then leaned forward and started to rub his cock on my face, tracing my cheeks and nose with the bulbous head. His testicles soon followed his dick through the opening, until they were dangling on my chin, the coarse pubes tickling my lips. Their faint musky scent began to fill my nostrils.
"CmdrTaco's just a little dick-faced homo-boy, ain't he?" sneered Mark, sliding his cock across my face. "I saw you in there, your head under the covers. What were you doing? Giving my little brother a blow job?"
I didn't answer. I was at once shocked at the thought of having been discovered, and confused by Mark's remark. I then guessed that he meant sucking a dick was called a 'blow job'. But... you're not blowing, you're sucking, and-
"You were, weren't you, you little homo!"
It was obvious what had happened; that Mark had looked in on us to find my head under the blankets. I thought I had sensed a miniscule change in the light, but assumed that to be part of my excitement. That must have been what woke Hemos up so suddenly.
"So, maybe you aren't just dick-faced, " he said, rubbing his cock on my face again. "Maybe you're a dick sucker!" He leaned forward, mashing his hairy ball sack into my nose, then pulling back to trace my features again with his member. But, even as Mark taunted me, treating his cock as a threatening weapon, there was something else happening.
He was getting a boner.
And as I closed my eyes, I could feel his cock thickening against my face. I could sense the heat of his hardening dick directly on my flesh. And, I found I was enjoying the sensations of this older cock against my face. There would soon be no way of hiding the fact that I was getting excited, too.
"So, dick-sucker-CmdrTaco... you're gonna suck my dick, now."
My eyes sprung open to see Mark's fully erect cock pointing at my face. While it wasn't huge (I had already seen 'huge' with my Uncle Jerry), it was still big enough to scare me.
And excite me to no end.
"Open wide, homo-boy."
Without another moment of hesitation, or taking my eyes off of Mark's sleek tool, I opened my mouth as wide as I could and watched as he leaned down and slid that beautiful cock into my waiting mouth. I then settled my tongue against the bottom half of his shaft while I could feel the upper half press against the roof of my mouth. Its texture was soft, yet hard; smooth, yet distinct.
"There," he sighed. "Now, you have a real dick to suck on. Now, get started, suck-boy!"
It was so much bigger than Hemos's young dick, I wasn't sure if I could get enough suction worked up to suck on it. It was then that I found out what sucking a cock is really all about: friction.
Mark held the base of his dick to guide himself and started to pump into my mouth, sliding his dick in and out of my salivating lips. He would slip in precariously between my teeth until he was near to choke me, then pull back out until the base of the bulbous head was just close to popping free from my lips, held in place by the suction of my mouth. Then he... we... would do it all over again... over and over... and gloriously over again.
"Oh, you are good, CmdrTaco," he moaned softly. "You suck cock real good."
I don't know about that; it seemed he was doing all the real work. But, I wanted it to be good. I wanted to have this dick in my mouth. And I wanted it again and again. I was definitely enjoying the oral sensations as his near-adult dick worked back and forth in my hungry mouth, and I wanted so much to please him so he would want my mouth again.
Mark placed his other hand on the top of my head to steady me as his thrusts became a little more erratic. His breath quickened, and I could sense that he was trying hard not to ram himself all the way down my throat and choke me. He was making little grunts with each thrust, and I could feel his dick turn to stone in my mouth when, in a mix of fear and excitement, I suddenly recalled what would happen next.
"Oh, baby... oh, fuck..."
Mark's movements got all quick and jerky. I was almost afraid to breathe.
"OHHHH!!!" he moaned, pulling out of my mouth and letting loose with a burst of white goo that seemed to splatter all over as he pumped his dick with his fist. My head still held firmly in his other hand, the warm liquid flew partly into my still open mouth, and all over my nose and eyebrows. I swallowed briefly, not sure whether to gag or hope for more, tasting fully the salty and musky liquid, then opened my mouth once more as Mark stuck his creaming cock back in and worked the thick fluid throughout my young mouth.
I sucked until Mark went soft and withdrew his spent dick. He smiled down at me, obviously proud of what he had done. He finally got off of me (good thing since I thought my arms were going to fall off) and stood there for a moment, an interesting picture with his hands on his hips, and his drained cock and balls hanging out of the fly of his plaid boxers. I just lay there with his juices clinging to my skin, wanting to do it all over again.
Mark bent down and picked up a t-shirt, and proceeded to wipe the remainder of his goo off my face. Finished with that, he tossed the shirt into a hamper and walked over to his bedroom door to unlock it as he tucked his manhood back into his underwear.
"You better get back into Hemos's bed before mom and dad find you here," he said softly.
I reluctantly got off Mark's bed and walked to the door. As I was about to exit, he reached out to stop me briefly.
"You liked that, didn't you, homo-boy?"
I nodded, not sure where he was going with this inquiry.
"Your first taste of cum?"
I shrugged, then nodded again.
"If you're good, maybe I'll let you suck my dick again some time, CmdrTaco. Now, get your ass out of here before I kick it."
I stepped out of the room and felt the door close harshly behind me. I could still taste traces of Mark's cum in my mouth, could still sense the friction of his cock on my tongue. I smiled in remembrance.
I was hooked.
- poopbot: information likes to be narrow
The subtitle and main question is: Can a band of biologists who share data freely out-innovate the corporate researchers who hoard it?"
The short answer: No
The long answer: Man, you guys sure are stupid. Didn't you learn anything from the whole genome thing.. the windows thing.. the hardware thing.. the cpu thing.. the web browser thing. Let's do a study.. something along the lines of how much bandwidth is wasted in opensource projects versus their closed source counterparts. The costs of bandwidth alone in all of the nonsensicle bickering and babbling should help make a decision as to wether or not it's worth it. I've never seen so many people talk about something they can't do in my whole life. It's like Seinfeld or something.
1. GRANT OF LICENCE. $PERSON1, along with the cooperation of $DIETY (hereafter known as the GRANTOR) grants you, $PERSON2 (hereafter known as the GRANTEE) a non-exclusive, non-transferable licence to the GRANTOR's genetic material. GRANTEE accepts that she cannot tranfer the EULA to anyone without GRANTOR's concent.
2. RESTRICTIONS. The GRANTOR 0wnz j00. GRANTOR can change the licence at any time and can withhold all genetic material at any time without the GRANTEE's concent. The GRANTOR has all right. The GRANTEE has none. Amen.
3. LIMIT OF LIABILITY. THE GRANTOR TAKES NO GODDAMN REPONSIBLITY FOR ANYTHING. THE GRANTOR IS ALWAYS RIGHT WITH EVERYTHING AND ANYTHING. SHOULD YOU DISAGREE GO FUCK YOURSELF. IF THERE IS ANYTHING YOU WILL GET IS THE BURDEN OF RAISING ANY DERIVIATIVE OF THE GRANTOR'S AND GRANTEE'S GENETIC MATERIAL. OFFER VOID FOR EVIL DOERS AND ANYONE GRANTOR THINKS IS UNACCEPTABLE.
Do you agree to the licence terms? [I have no choice] [Screw you, I actually read the EULA!]
Karma whorin' since 1999
It's so simple, wonder why people don't think of it more often. If you hoard and use IP, and everybody else does, then everyone gets only what they can personally create. If you share information, and everyone else does, then everybody gets everyone's methods and information for free! Plus, with independent scrutiny and examination, redundancy, etc.
But it's nature is not to be blue. It's "normally" for the sake of argument a different color and so unless a certain number of circumstances were met then it would be disallowed by the judges.
If it was rendered cold and thus turned blue naturally then you are still in the game however if it had to become so cold that it was rendered un-eatable in order to get the color than it would be hard to consider it food. Artifically making it cold enough to turn blue would put it the same catagory as a multitude of man-made blue foods that are all better tasting and more palatable than cold raw chicken.
It could be chicken-sickle on a stick I guess.
Appended to the end of comments you post. 120 chars.
There is naturally occurring blue food!
Lookee!
The four assed version is coming soon, watch for it!
Bitchslapped. Neat.
When do you stop wishing she will come back and go out and get laid?
Today. No. NOW. Trust me, it's better that way. She can go fuck herself
out innovate.
The purpose of a corporation is to create wealth for the shareholders. Wealth is created in markets. Corporations produce marketing first and foremost. People commonly confuse marketing with innovation. Just because a label says "New and Improved" or "Upgrade" doesn't represent a genuine innovation in the academic sense. To the consumer it is often enough to produce a sale and so it's a valuable corporate tool. But confusing this image of innovation with genuine innovation as the term is used in universities is foolish in the extreme.
Moreover, the patent strategies of major corporations, particularly since the formation of the pro-monopoly Court of Appeals of the Federal Circuit in 1982, has been to stifle innovation by staking a claim around a certain financially rewarding intellectual avenues by flooding those patent areas with patents to be used as offensive weapons. This is not innovation by any means although it involves applying for many patents which can be used to provide a false argument that such corporations are innovators when they are, in fact guided by financial and legal experts rather than technicians.
Almost all innovation takes place in schools and not by professors, but by their students. It has been this way all along and people who don't understand this can be forgiven because the history of education is a boring subject for many of today's youth. However, it is not mysterious by any means and the subtitle of the paper suggests the authors are uninformed at best.
The subtitle and main question is: Can a band of biologists who share data freely out-innovate the corporate researchers who hoard it?" The true question is whether those biologists can make more money their corporate rivals. Innovation is useless unless there is a profit to be made!
Scott
For the author of that disturbingly ignorant question:
Here's an easy metric, and consequently imperfect metric to sanity check your question...
Count the Nobel prizes in Physics, Chemistry, or Medicine awarded to people for work done at companies like Monsanto or Bristol-Meyer-Squibb vs. "open source" institutions like The Max Planck Institute or UCLA.
Check out the Linux for Biotechnology cdrom at www.randomfactory.com
So who completed a reasonable map first, Venter or Collins?
(Hint: it was a tie)
It seems backwards to say that biology is copying the methodology of open-source. If anything, I thought that the open-source/free software movement was created to bring the openness of scientific research communities (in academia, at least) to computer programming.
Cheers,
IT
Power corrupts. PowerPoint corrupts absolutely.
Many excellent biologists will hoard their work out of enlightened self interest. There will of course be individuals who see farther than that.
;-)
One of the nice points of the current scientific system is that there's no (academic) reward for hiding your results or failing to disclose some special secret technique you invented. No results = no publication. No publication = no reputation. No reputation = no grant funding and no tenure, or at least inglorious obscurity if you're already tenured
Of course, once money is involved, there's a tendency to want to keep everything under wraps until it's patentable. And to be sure, often labs will withhold their data from competitors until it's been submitted to a journal. But that's only fair, and even competitors will usually cooperate on some level in "academic" science. I remember a friend saying how her lab and another lab agreed to publish their very similar papers in the same issue of a journal, so neither one was "scooped". As a result, they reinforced each others' credibility instead of fighting over it.
Freedom: "I won't!"
So the people who win Nobel Prizes are a primary source of most innovation? Is that right? It's not the millions of students filtering through the universities doing unpaid research under the guidance of people who may or may not have been rewarded Nobel Prizes that develop innovations, but rather the recipeints themselves posses a shamen like aura that produces a constant stream of this substance called "genius" that is then converted to innovation in these places called corporations.
Huh. Man, you must be one of these fucking geniuses.
Most of the non-commercial science (including biology) has been done according to this 'open-source' model since eons ego. It has always been the cycle: read publicly available papers on a given topic - do something new - publish results in a publicly available, peer reviewed journal.
Did I say "ADAM"? Er, uh, I meant "ADIM." Honest.
"Prepare for the worst - hope for the best."
The "open-source" Cell Signalling Alliance may not be a great example of truly open-source biology. This alliance has been set up to share information between, and only between a select group of researchers. Information is not freely available to those outside the hand-picked circle of alliance members.
The article spins this alliance as a step forward for biology. Unfortunately, the alliance's motives are to bring success to those laboratories who earn the political favors of the founding members. This is politics and monopolies in the sciences, not an open-source revolution. sorry..
Get open source bioinformatics tools from:
bioinformatics.org
bioperl.org
biojava.org
and even www.cvbig.org for a talk on bioinformatics with PHP/Ming
First entomology, then virology, and finally bioinformatics systems. Bugs follow me wherever I go.
Other than Breast Cancer, most conditions which could be tackled by genetic medicine do not seem to support a population which could afford the development cost of the treatment. Take the bubble boy syndrome. There is now a gene based cure, and yes it has saved the 2-6 boys born with this condition each year from life in a sterile bubble.
But, did their insurance pay $5 million for the treatment-- of course not....
The same thing will happen if a cure to Alzheimer's comes about-- there would be no way to recoop the "development" costs of the treatment. The public could not afford it.
Then again, that's why I'm betting a significant part of this "secretive" research is in some form taxpayer funded. (Usually indirectly through university, government, and corporate connections).
So I think the Open Source Bio stuff will do all the "basic" research, and the companies will spend their time trying to apply it. They will patent and try to charge a ton for it, but if history has proved anything, there is always a limit to how much they can charge before public outcry will cause their patents to be ignored by governments. Even Canada breaks medical patents if they cause too much of a burden on the population. In Africa and South America, it's pretty much status-quo to ignore medical patents.
So the system seems fair-- heavily taxpayer funded, but the company that does make the breakthough will never become a MicroSoft.
This title of the article seems to suggest that this is a contest to see who "wins", the open source guys or the secretive corporate guys. I just don't think that really matters.
The parallels to open source programming run rather deep. There are many advantages to open source software (or open data science). However, there will always be room for people to work on propriatary projects. Micro$oft currently co-exists with open source developers. There is room for both. Sure, they don't always get along, but that's another story.
The way I see it, every scientist builds upon the research of others. That's just how science works. The open sharing of data only serves to speed up that process. Ultimately, every scientific discovery will be "borrowed" by some other scientist down the line. So what if a company takes some of that data and uses it's additional monetary resources to turn the data into a pill that can cure a disease. The point is, science and mankind, benefit in the long run.
There is another side to this as well. Corporate research tends to be very focused on solving a specific problem or answering a specific question. While this type of scince is very valuable and necessary, there is another type of science. The kind where researches study a phenomenon just find out what's going on and how things work. Often this type of "basic research" uncovers answers to problems that previously seemed unrelated. It appears that open data sharing would help to promote this kind of "basic research".
Hmmm,
Well it might be Open Source, but it certainly doesn't seem to be accessable... Did a web search and was unable to find any website or other access to any information.
Lando
/* TODO: Spawn child process, interest child in technology, have child write a new sig */
Same GDP, same gross expenditure on R & D since WWII. One culture shared information, the other didn't. Guess which country made more discoveries in basic science?
Besides, the comparison between public and private biological research is like comparing apples to oranges. They invariably have totally different objectives- one seeks knowlege for its own sake, the other seeks to apply it in the limited scope of making a product or offering a service.
Bad article, worse job of framing it by Slashdot.
Many scientists are the corporate powers who hoarde the innovations. Often when one comes up with a good idea they publish, claim a conflict of interest and get out of the Universities.
While we're rallying for Open Sourced Biology (OSB) or Free Biology (FB) [which is good], why not rally for OPEN SOURCED TRANSPARENT CORPORATE OPERATIONS. This way, the Martha Stewarts and Gary Wennig's can't defraud their investors.
Also -- this one's nothing new -- how about transparancy in ICANN?
Ok, back to biology. Open Sourced Biology is nothing new: its as old as science itself. Back in the good old days, we didn't call it that becase it was just assumed. It was assumed that when something was discovered it would be shared with the world. Watson & Crick & Franklin made their findings available to the public for free upon the presumption that that information would be used to generate more information which would be freely dispersed, ad infinitum. Of course, now the scientific community is moving towards a proprietary model -- the dark side of the force, so to speak. But don't be fooled. The overwhelming majority of science is still transparent and "open sourced".
E-mail any professor at a university about the method they use for a particular protocol, or a finding they've found, and they'll more likely than not respond helpfully if they have time. Try e-mailing Celera on their protocols and see what you get.
You can see the parallels between the science world and the software world. Both started out completely open. Both migrated towards the proprietary closed model (in the case of software, almost completely). Now, both are having lash-back movements of evangelicism for transparency, open source, free software/biology, etc.
social sciences can never use experience to verify their statemen
I agree with you that the point of patents is to promote disclosure in return for a limited monopoly. The problem is that because of the running time of the monopoly (about 10-15 yrs for a drug, because the first 5-10 years deals with the approval process), the patents will be left until the last moment.
The other issue is the non end-use related patents. Large companies can swap licenses on this but smaller companies and the third-world need to carefully avoid the intermediate steps that have been patented.
Again you are right that the Open Source movement is a bit of a Johnnie-Come-Lately as regards disclosure, but the use of copyleft is something that has come from the computer field and has given vast leverage to developers. You are right about the purpose of patents, but essentially they have become a way of sowing a legal minefield in a competitor's path.
For example, it is common in my field (oceanography) that funding agencies require that data be shared openly, but only after the original investigator has had a certain amount of time to work with the data and to publish findings.
It makes sense to give the data originator "first dibs" on the data because
However, it's often the case that there is information in the data that the originator had not thought of, or that becomes clear only by integrating the data with the results of other investigations. That's why open sharing is crucial. Indeed, we would know very little about the state of the ocean, and of the climate system, without open sharing according to established "publish, then share" principles.
PS: throughout the above, please take "data" to mean either the results of measurement or the results of calculation.
Dan Kelley, Dalhousie University, Halifax, NS, Canada.