There are a lot of people living on their own, with phones so they can call/be called by their families, but who do not have the ability to deal with telemarketing calls in a sane/sensible way. I'm not talking about people being jerks, I'm talking about people who mentally are not capable of handling someone trying to coerce them into something over the phone.
I'm sure there are "legitimate" telemarketers out there, but the general tactics are just appalling.
That's the category where telemarketers really cross the line into coercion. There a lot of elderly people or people with alzheimers that are in good enough shape to still be in their own homes, but they really don't have the ability to deal with coercive people on the phone.
I know one woman who changed her long distance service 5 times in a month... and they would NOT stop calling her, despite the requests and then orders from her family. She's nice, pleasant, and didn't have the ability to say no. That's the sort of person who this list is really for, and I for one applaud it.
The issue wasn't the domain name...
on
Beatles Bite Apple
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
The issue was that World Wrestling Federation was using the "WWF" name in a context they'd agreed not to use it in. That's what the agreement was about. World Wildlife Fund had been around for ages before WWE came into being, and it seemed more than reasonable of them to allow WWE to use "WWF" within a limited context. When they started using it in a more expanded context, WWF understandably objected.
Ok, so I'm a nature-geek, but I thought it was pretty cool that they won that case. I figured with all the money WWE had, WWF wouldn't have a chance.
The article does say that, but there are lots of farmed animals that are kept separate from each other for various reasons. Rabbits, for example, will frequently need to be kept separate except for breeding due to some rather vicious expressions of territoriality. There's nothing that says that you can't keep the spiders in separate cages, is there? Besides, it's been done before, something the article doesn't mention.
Well, it's not really all that different from using them as milk/meat/leather factories, is it? Ethically speaking, that is. Specifically, regarding the "chemical factories" issue, this is far less horrific than premarin production. This article has a reasonably unbiased summary of the issues involved there.
It's probably a question of how much exploitation of animals you're comfortable with balanced against the benefit to humans. Compared to a lot of things we do to animals, changing the composition of their milk to harvest spider silk is pretty darned friendly.:)
There isn't currently a spider-silk industry. There's a silk industry, but from what I understand the whole point of spider silk as opposed to silkworm silk (which is at least relatively easily harvested), is that spiders have stronger silk with many more applications. So realistically, what we have here is not one industry "ruining" another, it's an entirely new industry that's being added. It's not like the spiders are going to get upset about us taking over their industry.
On the topic of displaced workers though - there's always going to be a demand for "the real thing". While artificially produced diamonds may be exactly the same as naturally formed ones, for many people they are two entirely different things. It's all a question of perception. As long as people view the two things differently, there will always be a market for the rarer and consequently more expensive natural diamonds.
A Quebec company, Nexia, has genetically engineered goats to produce spider silk within their milk. (Apparently, the way mammary glands work and the way a spider's silk glands work are remarkably similar.) I know that they've been able to pass the genes on to offspring, and they are getting silk from the milk now. I think it is supposed to be as strong as dragline silk, which is the strongest type of spider silk.
I understand from the article that they've figured out how strong silk is actually produced, which should give them a heads-up on making a mechanical/chemical process to do all this artificially. It should be pointed out, though, that there are already means for production of non-artificial spider silk currently, which the article seems to have missed.
I don't know what it's like where you are, but from my experiences (Indiana and BC, Canada), the organ donation registries give you the option to choose:
Not to donate anything,
To donate specific organs only,
To donate any organs/tissues for transplant, or
To donate any organs/tissues for transplant and/or research
If you're really concerned about this, just choose option b and list off what you are willing to give. Heck, some places may allow you to specify organs or tissues only for non-cosmetic transplants.
While I applaud the general idea of sticking to your moral principles, I have a hard time viewing a decision to not donate any of your organs to anyone as being "the good fight".
If you want to be eligible to receive transplanted organs should you ever need them, you must be a registered organ donor.
Otherwise, too bad.
This way, you encourage people to register as organ donors (as I have, for example) *and* you cut down on the leeches. If someone has a religious or other dumbass objection to donating organs, then how is it fair for them to be able to receive them while other people who are willing to contribute to the system die on waiting lists?
Well, there's a rather large problem with that. Someone already mentioned that under this system, people with certain conditions or diseases who aren't allowed to donate wouldn't be allowed to receive organs.
My question is... what about kids? At what age do we decide that they can make their own decisions about transplants? Can their parents decide for them? There was a young (I think 5-year-old) boy around here who just had a heart transplant recently. Would it have been ethical to deny him that heart because he's not of age to decide to donate?
As good as an organ-sharing system may sound, I think that the only way organ donations will increase is if someone works out an incentive plan. Given how few people think that something bad might happen to them, how likely is this group to make much of a difference?
Besides, personally, I have a hard time with giving organs preferentially to altruistic people. They should go to the ones who need them the most, no matter how appealing it might be to reserve them for other nice folks.
As for religious objections to organ donation... I don't know of any religions that believe you should refuse to donate organs but that will happily allow acceptance of them, so these people are hardly abusing the system - no matter how "dumbass" you think their beliefs are.
Would this be the same Canada where vast numbers of First Nations people on reserves still don't have drinkable water and live in substandard housing? I'll grant that the Canadian government is pushing internet access more than many other governments, but let's not overstate the facts TOO broadly, eh?
(The Air Force buys a bunch of really expensive things, frequently with perfectly good reasons to be quiet about them, so confusing the issue of just how much really expensive stuff they bought is not too hard.)
Suddenly, those $5000 hammers and toilet seats make a whole lot more sense!
"The funding? Yeah... we... um... we spent it on a hammer! Oh yeah, and some... toilet seats! Yeah!"
Every study on teaching methods and how kids learn is an experiment on children. They kind of have to be, otherwise the information gained wouldn't be all that useful. That sort of thing goes on all the time.
One of the reasons for using the PDAs and wireless networks was that the kids were getting feedback - the identifications and extra information were uploaded to their PDAs. Walkie talkies and notepads would have worked as far as reporting their info, but would have been less useful for feedback.
Well, the only difference is...
on
Wi-Fi Woods
·
· Score: 1
... that they're using the PDA's as log books.
They're also getting instant feedback on an identification and more information about the plant/animal they reported.
A major advantage of this is that they can get this information while still looking at the plant. This both helps connect the plant with its identification in their mind and means that if specific info is needed to determine the ID, they can do it right away.
Making the correct observations in order to try and identify something back in the lab can be extremely frustrating. Plants have a lot of parts, and often the distinguishing feature is something that you wouldn't normally think of.
Ok, so it's not as similar to a log book as I thought. It's more like a log book with an identification guide and extra information. I think that these kids will most likely be able to go into the woods without their tech and be more interested in what is in there because of this experience.
Instead of... biology?
on
Wi-Fi Woods
·
· Score: 1
Last I heard, biology was a hard science as well. As are botany and zoology, two things these kids are getting a heads-up on.
Frankly, I can't think of a much better way to encourage kids to "understand the world better" than by getting them out in it and teaching them to make accurate observations. It certainly would get them off on the right foot in any science-based career.
Good point. Does the act require anywhere that you have to give up the requested information in a format that can be _easily_ read?
This might be a good idea for those librarians whose associations haven't drafted shredding rules.
"Sorry, sir... but we've found it was easiest to keep our records in Yiddish that has been phonetically translated into Germanic runes. No, I'm afraid we don't have any programs to reverse the process."
That case had a number of odd issues involved
on
Twist on DNA Privacy
·
· Score: 1
One being that a key thing connecting Briere to the crime was actually his bath mat - which police saw when he invited them into his house. They noticed it because it matched fibres found on the girl's clothes.
I have to admit that while I completely understand discarded evidence being allowable, I'm uncomfortable with the fact that citizens can legally refuse to give dna... the police are allowed to take it from other discarded evidence. To me, that seems to be crossing the line.
The trouble is, if it results in a conviction... no politician in this country would dare try to bring a law up to correct the issue.
The other problem? If this technique is sufficiently questionable, the case may be thrown out of court. Given the other evidence against him, I would have a hard time with an otherwise reasonable case being destroyed because the police crossed their boundaries.
Well, it's hard to tell how well it's working. At the very least, I think they've improved their prediction system. It seems to be a combination of exit polls, a calculation of how close the race is, and how the vote goes historically. There's a page on CNN about it, but I have to admit I only skimmed it. =)
Another good archaeology parody book to check out is "Motel of the Mysteries" by David Macaulay. It's a good read, about an amateur archaeologist (Howard Carson) who falls into a shaft while exploring the ancient country of Usa in 4022. His discoveries at the "Toot-n-C'mon" motel are classic. =)
They've been paying attention to the good things in the games that have come out since EQ. An awful lot of people who could give a rat's ass about Star Wars will be trying out SWG (me, for example) because of the changes they've made to the EQ model. As for the housewives, I'm sure EQ-2 will be out soon enough.:)
The Kanas City Star has an article discussing the merits of each addition and touches on the issue of this being an attempt by the movie companies to gouge as much money from die-hard fans as possible."
Although the article does touch on the idea that it might be a gouging tactic, they quite plainly follow that up with a perfectly reasonable explanation. The other DVDs are taking more work, and Peter Jackson hasn't finished the extras for release 3. When they put the extra material back into release 2, they had to have the composer add new music. Yes, they could wait until December to release all three... but why on earth would they? Most folks will be quite happy with just their copy of the movie "as seen in theatres". Anyone who wants the extras will wait for their preferred edition, and in the meantime you can rent it if you're desperate.
C'mon, read the whole article. The entire second half deals with this. Peter Jackson's enough of a loon that personally, I don't think he'd try to screw over Tolkien fans. He's shown how committed he is to the material, let the studio make its money while he finishes his definitive editions.
Is it possible that it might allow for some kind of a vaccine to be made against Ebola/Marburg? Or does the high mutation level counteract any vaccine?
Suuure. Tried it lately? As far as I can tell at the Canadian border, you've got precisely a 50/50 chance of making it in without hassle. (For non-citizens, at any rate.) And two weeks ago, they detained a friend of mine because although she's a Canadian citizen, she's got a Great Britain birth certificate. The trouble is, it's completely up to the discretion of the border guards. God help you if you get the cranky woman at the truck crossing at 3 AM. =)
The Vancouver newspaper ran a story along these same lines a few months ago. Frankly, most of the article was absolute nonsense... (Oooh! You mean they play VIOLENT games there? The horror! Society must be crumbling!) They also said that there had been a gang-related shooting at one. It might seem significant, but it's not really much of a story since there've been like 5 gang related shootings outside of Vancouver in the past month.
I think my personal parental response would be... "Ok, kid. Here's a high speed internet connection, here's a pot of coffee. You're unlikely to get shot in anything less than a virtual way here at home."
I think you managed to sum up all my feelings about Bush over the last week. I found his reponses to be too little, too late, and too profoundly lacking in any emotion whatsoever. I was appalled. I'd never been impressed by Giuliani before this week, but right now I have to say he would have done an infinitely better job as president than Bush did.
Slashdot Mirror
There are a lot of people living on their own, with phones so they can call/be called by their families, but who do not have the ability to deal with telemarketing calls in a sane/sensible way. I'm not talking about people being jerks, I'm talking about people who mentally are not capable of handling someone trying to coerce them into something over the phone.
I'm sure there are "legitimate" telemarketers out there, but the general tactics are just appalling.
For more information on telemarketing fraud and the elderly, check out AARP's site - Telemarketing Fraud Underreported, and their Off the Hook Study.
That's the category where telemarketers really cross the line into coercion. There a lot of elderly people or people with alzheimers that are in good enough shape to still be in their own homes, but they really don't have the ability to deal with coercive people on the phone.
I know one woman who changed her long distance service 5 times in a month... and they would NOT stop calling her, despite the requests and then orders from her family. She's nice, pleasant, and didn't have the ability to say no. That's the sort of person who this list is really for, and I for one applaud it.
The issue was that World Wrestling Federation was using the "WWF" name in a context they'd agreed not to use it in. That's what the agreement was about. World Wildlife Fund had been around for ages before WWE came into being, and it seemed more than reasonable of them to allow WWE to use "WWF" within a limited context. When they started using it in a more expanded context, WWF understandably objected.
Ok, so I'm a nature-geek, but I thought it was pretty cool that they won that case. I figured with all the money WWE had, WWF wouldn't have a chance.
Here's a decent article on the subject: WWF Responds to Name Change
The article does say that, but there are lots of farmed animals that are kept separate from each other for various reasons. Rabbits, for example, will frequently need to be kept separate except for breeding due to some rather vicious expressions of territoriality. There's nothing that says that you can't keep the spiders in separate cages, is there? Besides, it's been done before, something the article doesn't mention.
It's probably a question of how much exploitation of animals you're comfortable with balanced against the benefit to humans. Compared to a lot of things we do to animals, changing the composition of their milk to harvest spider silk is pretty darned friendly.
Dang - should've known Slashdot wouldn't miss something that bizarre. Heard about it on the radio, myself. :)
There isn't currently a spider-silk industry. There's a silk industry, but from what I understand the whole point of spider silk as opposed to silkworm silk (which is at least relatively easily harvested), is that spiders have stronger silk with many more applications. So realistically, what we have here is not one industry "ruining" another, it's an entirely new industry that's being added. It's not like the spiders are going to get upset about us taking over their industry.
On the topic of displaced workers though - there's always going to be a demand for "the real thing". While artificially produced diamonds may be exactly the same as naturally formed ones, for many people they are two entirely different things. It's all a question of perception. As long as people view the two things differently, there will always be a market for the rarer and consequently more expensive natural diamonds.
I understand from the article that they've figured out how strong silk is actually produced, which should give them a heads-up on making a mechanical/chemical process to do all this artificially. It should be pointed out, though, that there are already means for production of non-artificial spider silk currently, which the article seems to have missed.
Not to donate anything,
To donate specific organs only,
To donate any organs/tissues for transplant, or
To donate any organs/tissues for transplant and/or research
If you're really concerned about this, just choose option b and list off what you are willing to give. Heck, some places may allow you to specify organs or tissues only for non-cosmetic transplants.
While I applaud the general idea of sticking to your moral principles, I have a hard time viewing a decision to not donate any of your organs to anyone as being "the good fight".
My question is... what about kids? At what age do we decide that they can make their own decisions about transplants? Can their parents decide for them? There was a young (I think 5-year-old) boy around here who just had a heart transplant recently. Would it have been ethical to deny him that heart because he's not of age to decide to donate?
As good as an organ-sharing system may sound, I think that the only way organ donations will increase is if someone works out an incentive plan. Given how few people think that something bad might happen to them, how likely is this group to make much of a difference?
Besides, personally, I have a hard time with giving organs preferentially to altruistic people. They should go to the ones who need them the most, no matter how appealing it might be to reserve them for other nice folks.
As for religious objections to organ donation... I don't know of any religions that believe you should refuse to donate organs but that will happily allow acceptance of them, so these people are hardly abusing the system - no matter how "dumbass" you think their beliefs are.
Would this be the same Canada where vast numbers of First Nations people on reserves still don't have drinkable water and live in substandard housing? I'll grant that the Canadian government is pushing internet access more than many other governments, but let's not overstate the facts TOO broadly, eh?
(And yes, I live here too.)
"The funding? Yeah... we... um... we spent it on a hammer! Oh yeah, and some... toilet seats! Yeah!"
Every study on teaching methods and how kids learn is an experiment on children. They kind of have to be, otherwise the information gained wouldn't be all that useful. That sort of thing goes on all the time.
One of the reasons for using the PDAs and wireless networks was that the kids were getting feedback - the identifications and extra information were uploaded to their PDAs. Walkie talkies and notepads would have worked as far as reporting their info, but would have been less useful for feedback.
... that they're using the PDA's as log books.
They're also getting instant feedback on an identification and more information about the plant/animal they reported.
A major advantage of this is that they can get this information while still looking at the plant. This both helps connect the plant with its identification in their mind and means that if specific info is needed to determine the ID, they can do it right away.
Making the correct observations in order to try and identify something back in the lab can be extremely frustrating. Plants have a lot of parts, and often the distinguishing feature is something that you wouldn't normally think of.
Ok, so it's not as similar to a log book as I thought. It's more like a log book with an identification guide and extra information. I think that these kids will most likely be able to go into the woods without their tech and be more interested in what is in there because of this experience.
Last I heard, biology was a hard science as well. As are botany and zoology, two things these kids are getting a heads-up on.
Frankly, I can't think of a much better way to encourage kids to "understand the world better" than by getting them out in it and teaching them to make accurate observations. It certainly would get them off on the right foot in any science-based career.
Good point. Does the act require anywhere that you have to give up the requested information in a format that can be _easily_ read?
This might be a good idea for those librarians whose associations haven't drafted shredding rules.
"Sorry, sir... but we've found it was easiest to keep our records in Yiddish that has been phonetically translated into Germanic runes. No, I'm afraid we don't have any programs to reverse the process."
One being that a key thing connecting Briere to the crime was actually his bath mat - which police saw when he invited them into his house. They noticed it because it matched fibres found on the girl's clothes.
I have to admit that while I completely understand discarded evidence being allowable, I'm uncomfortable with the fact that citizens can legally refuse to give dna... the police are allowed to take it from other discarded evidence. To me, that seems to be crossing the line.
The trouble is, if it results in a conviction... no politician in this country would dare try to bring a law up to correct the issue.
The other problem? If this technique is sufficiently questionable, the case may be thrown out of court. Given the other evidence against him, I would have a hard time with an otherwise reasonable case being destroyed because the police crossed their boundaries.
Well, it's hard to tell how well it's working. At the very least, I think they've improved their prediction system. It seems to be a combination of exit polls, a calculation of how close the race is, and how the vote goes historically. There's a page on CNN about it, but I have to admit I only skimmed it. =)
http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2002/pages/how.html
Another good archaeology parody book to check out is "Motel of the Mysteries" by David Macaulay. It's a good read, about an amateur archaeologist (Howard Carson) who falls into a shaft while exploring the ancient country of Usa in 4022. His discoveries at the "Toot-n-C'mon" motel are classic. =)
They've been paying attention to the good things in the games that have come out since EQ. An awful lot of people who could give a rat's ass about Star Wars will be trying out SWG (me, for example) because of the changes they've made to the EQ model. As for the housewives, I'm sure EQ-2 will be out soon enough. :)
Although the article does touch on the idea that it might be a gouging tactic, they quite plainly follow that up with a perfectly reasonable explanation. The other DVDs are taking more work, and Peter Jackson hasn't finished the extras for release 3. When they put the extra material back into release 2, they had to have the composer add new music. Yes, they could wait until December to release all three... but why on earth would they? Most folks will be quite happy with just their copy of the movie "as seen in theatres". Anyone who wants the extras will wait for their preferred edition, and in the meantime you can rent it if you're desperate.
C'mon, read the whole article. The entire second half deals with this. Peter Jackson's enough of a loon that personally, I don't think he'd try to screw over Tolkien fans. He's shown how committed he is to the material, let the studio make its money while he finishes his definitive editions.
Is it possible that it might allow for some kind of a vaccine to be made against Ebola/Marburg? Or does the high mutation level counteract any vaccine?
Suuure. Tried it lately? As far as I can tell at the Canadian border, you've got precisely a 50/50 chance of making it in without hassle. (For non-citizens, at any rate.) And two weeks ago, they detained a friend of mine because although she's a Canadian citizen, she's got a Great Britain birth certificate. The trouble is, it's completely up to the discretion of the border guards. God help you if you get the cranky woman at the truck crossing at 3 AM. =)
The Vancouver newspaper ran a story along these same lines a few months ago. Frankly, most of the article was absolute nonsense... (Oooh! You mean they play VIOLENT games there? The horror! Society must be crumbling!) They also said that there had been a gang-related shooting at one. It might seem significant, but it's not really much of a story since there've been like 5 gang related shootings outside of Vancouver in the past month.
I think my personal parental response would be... "Ok, kid. Here's a high speed internet connection, here's a pot of coffee. You're unlikely to get shot in anything less than a virtual way here at home."
I think you managed to sum up all my feelings about Bush over the last week. I found his reponses to be too little, too late, and too profoundly lacking in any emotion whatsoever. I was appalled. I'd never been impressed by Giuliani before this week, but right now I have to say he would have done an infinitely better job as president than Bush did.