The greatest gift that the open source movement can give to consumers will be privacy! A web browser that can protect your privacy. We need a solution that any newbie can use. Just download the browser and you are now anonymous when you want. I noticed many savy posters tell us to set up firewalls and allow/disallow packets from certain IP addresses etc. but we NEED a solution that works for the newbie.
Is it possible to do IP spoofing via a browser? Never mind the cookies, they will track us with IP addresses. What I want is a button on mozilla that toggles whether I reject cookies, adds and spoofs my IP address or recieves cookies, ads and sends my real IP for any given site I am looking at, in real time. Is this possible?
This may become the biggest issue on the net. Most slashdotters can probably figure out how to avoid tracking but we need a solution for idiots.
It would be nice to have a registered e-mail service. Perhaps with two versions.
Version one: post office prints out and delivers by hand to person.
Version two: you send your e-mail via the post office, the post office e-mails the recipient notifying them of of registered mail and if the recipient doesn't reply and read it on line via a web browser and password by a certain time, then it gets hand delivered (to help reduce waste).
All registered mail is archived by the USPO and is legally admissable in court cases. I could see many businesses and individuals finding this useful.
I've read too many posts about mutated humans and all the rest here. One of the potential uses of this type of technology is to control gene therapy applications. For example, a diabetic person receives some gene therapy (scientists add a gene for correct insulin to her/his blood cells) the patient starts making too much insulin and suffers.
Scenario 2: The diabetic recieves gene therapy for insulin under the control of a drug. The diabetic patient can take "time release" pills to deliver insulin steadily into her/his blood stream and therefore modulate the level of insulin in her/his blood by taking more or less pills. Allowing the patient to control the dosing of the insulin to their own personal preferences.
Better or worse?
Sure the company makes money selling the pills, does the consumer benefit? I think so! They can stop the therapy by not taking the pills.
This type of technology gives the decision to the consumer! I think it is a good development.
ps. by gene therapy I mean your blood (or muscle) cells are altered but your kids are still diabetic.
couple of comments: first, I guess It's time to dump all of my kleenex stock;-) As far as I can tell from the chart in the CNN story, this drug is NOT very effective, ie reduces overall nasal tissue use by a factor of ~50% and reduces the lenght of a cold by 2-3 days. This company is seeking rapid FDA approval for this drug on the basis that it will cure viral meningitis. Thus the FDA will fast track the drug through trials given the essential need for a drug to combat this type of infection. At the same time this is being hyped as a "cure for the common cold". Viruses mutate VERY rapidly and if they possibly can mutate themselves to be resistant to this drug (and still be able to replicate) they will. As noted in another post here, viruses already have become resistant in lab tests). If the general population starts taking this drug for the common cold it will become useless in a few years as resistance will emerge, and will no longer be able to help those few patients who are seroiusly at rick of dying from a common cold or from meningitis. Regarding rational drug design, scientists in both industry and academia have been working on this for years, the hit/miss ratio (succesful rational drug designs vs unsuccessful) is astronomically small. Having the x-ray or NMR structure of a protein/lead drug complex can help you tune your lead drug but as far as de novo design goes this field is pretty much in its infancy. I can just see it now: new drug approved for treating viral meningitis doctors prescribe drug for rich, whiney flu patients across the world reducing world-wide sale of kleenex drug company gets rich viruses become resistant to drug and drug is now useless in cases where it could have saved lives drug company gets sued for unforseen side effects of drug that was rushed through FDA approval for meningitis and then given to millions of people for common cold who now suffer from nasal polyps.
As far as your idea regarding 3 year patent protection, that may work for the software industry but it would stifle all work in the pharmaceutical/biotech sector as it typically takes 10 years! from lab discovery to market rollout of a product that benefits consumers (people with medical problems).
The cost associated with getting FDA approval of a pharmaceutical based on a gene patent is ~100-300 million dollars as you have to pass phase 1,2 and 3 clinical trial to get approval to market your product from the FDA. This takes huge investment in future payoff to even attempt it. Therefore you need to have patent protection of about 20 years to make your investment worthwile.
I support the patenting of DNA sequences where there is medical benefit to the public from the patent. Provided the patent must specify the use of the sequence for benefit and not cover anything more than is specifically laid out in the claims.
University researchers generally do not care about bringing the benefits fo their discoveries to the public, they are trying to advance knowlege about the science and gain brownie points by publishing papers disclosing new ideas in their fields. It is companies that convert those ideas into products (treatments for diseases). So don't wait for universities to find treatments for every disease.
There are some real benefits to humans in allowing companies to patent DNA sequences. We just have to stop companies from being able to patent anything for any future purpose.
This is one of the first good posts on this topic. I agree that companies must be able to patent the uses of a gene sequence for treating human diseases in order to continue the rapid advance of medicine. However I believe the latest USPTO statement is to discourage companies from sequencing and patenting all the genes in the human genome before they even know what the genes do. Several companies have recently set out do just this, in particular Craig Venter of Celera Genomics(?) has said publicly that he plans to sequence the entire genome faster than the academics in the Human Genome Project can. With the intent of being the first to patent the sequences (without knowing what the sequences do).
The patents should be restricted to specific uses of a particular sequence and not a blanket patent covering all uses of a sequence to be discovered in the future.
For an analogy as to why this last point is very important, imagine a post-apocalyptic world with the loss of all technology. Scientists have discovered how to read old hard drives that survived the apocalypse. They race against competing companies to decode the 1's and 0's they find on the drives, patenting various dll's, apps, preference files etc. as they decode them. Eventually they have collectively recreated Windows 95(insert favorite/most hated operating system here) but no one can use it because of patent restrictions.
If you are willing to accept the possibility of earth and mars haveing a common life origin, presumably via impact crater ejecta, then you believe that life could survive the freezing vacuum of space and the ionizing radiation from the sun.
It then follows that life-containing material ejected from earth could have landed on europa.
If you accept this line of thinking then it is likely that all life in the solar system could have a common origin in being derived from ejecta from planets in distant solar systems and thus may not have arisin on earth in the first place.
1. People fear the unknown. 2. The consequences of artificially created life are unknown. 3. The consequences of naturally ocurring life are unknown. (we can't tell the future)
Therefore: People fear life.
We fear ourselves!
Nature has already tried countless variations on new life with great anticipation and much fear only to have arrived at the present. A situation accepted by most if not all present. Evidently the only criteron for acceptance of the present is to be present.
On this planet we have had several (7 or so) dynasties of living organisms. In each,evolution spread across the earth filling all available niches and then sat stable for millennia until a cataclysmic event killed off most existing life (meteor etc.) and allowed another round of evolution to occur. The round previous to us, the mammals, were the dinosaurs. They lasted 165 milllion years, we havent lasted 1 million yet. I doubt we can make anything in the biology lab that will wipe a significant percentage of us out never mind all life on earth. It is far more likely that we will destroy our environment (pollution/nuclear bombs) or create 'intelligent' devices (computers) that ruin our environment to thwart a perceived threat from us. I guess people are not that afraid of computers since they do not have the ability to replicate yet and hense are still predictable....if you programmed a computer to control robots that made computers and gave it some AI capabilities would that constitute a lifeform. Would that be predictable? Should we be afraid of that?
I am a Canadian who lives in the states. I grew up in the Toronto area. I miss not only Hockey Night in Canada with Don Cherry but I also miss City TV (my top pick of the channels available) and I miss some of the stupid commercials which only make sense to to the locals. I was stunned to be able to watch my home TV over the internet in relativly good quality (internet wise). I was just checking out late great movies on city. They were playing something about mary. I didn't want to the movie over realplayer due to the poor quality but I would gladly watch/LISTEN to hockey and the commercials for local flavour. I doubt this is something that will take the world by storm but it will allow people to watch/listen to their favorite (home) stuff no matter where they are. This is great! Oops did I break a law?!;-)
You can bitch about how little the biotech-oriented postdocs get paid and how there are limited jobs available but you miss the point. There is a scientific revolution ocurring in biology/biotech. Move over physics and chemistry, biology has the burning unknowns. If your motive in life is to make money...be a hore..pick your favorite profitable area. If you love science/information/knowlege and the creation of NEW ideas, then biotech can be an extremely rewarding career even if you don't get the patent/top job. You'll take part in the discovery and invention of ideas that may radically change the world we know..ultimately for the better (natural selection of ideas)
Slashdot Mirror
The greatest gift that the open source movement can give to consumers will be privacy! A web browser that can protect your privacy. We need a solution that any newbie can use. Just download the browser and you are now anonymous when you want. I noticed many savy posters tell us to set up firewalls and allow/disallow packets from certain IP addresses etc. but we NEED a solution that works for the newbie.
Is it possible to do IP spoofing via a browser? Never mind the cookies, they will track us with IP addresses. What I want is a button on mozilla that toggles whether I reject cookies, adds and spoofs my IP address or recieves cookies, ads and sends my real IP for any given site I am looking at, in real time. Is this possible?
This may become the biggest issue on the net. Most slashdotters can probably figure out how to avoid tracking but we need a solution for idiots.
I would love to hear suggestions.
is here
It would be nice to have a registered e-mail service. Perhaps with two versions.
Version one: post office prints out and delivers by hand to person.
Version two: you send your e-mail via the post office, the post office e-mails the recipient notifying them of of registered mail and if the recipient doesn't reply and read it on line via a web browser and password by a certain time, then it gets hand delivered (to help reduce waste).
All registered mail is archived by the USPO and is legally admissable in court cases. I could see many businesses and individuals finding this useful.
Check out the latest issue of Nature, there is an article on DNA computing. Sorry but it's not available online to non-subscribers.
I've read too many posts about mutated humans and all the rest here. One of the potential uses of this type of technology is to control gene therapy applications. For example, a diabetic person receives some gene therapy (scientists add a gene for correct insulin to her/his blood cells) the patient starts making too much insulin and suffers.
Scenario 2: The diabetic recieves gene therapy for insulin under the control of a drug. The diabetic patient can take "time release" pills to deliver insulin steadily into her/his blood stream and therefore modulate the level of insulin in her/his blood by taking more or less pills. Allowing the patient to control the dosing of the insulin to their own personal preferences.
Better or worse?
Sure the company makes money selling the pills, does the consumer benefit? I think so! They can stop the therapy by not taking the pills.
This type of technology gives the decision to the consumer! I think it is a good development.
ps. by gene therapy I mean your blood (or muscle) cells are altered but your kids are still diabetic.
couple of comments: first, I guess It's time to dump all of my kleenex stock ;-) As far as I can tell from the chart in the CNN story, this drug is NOT very effective, ie reduces overall nasal tissue use by a factor of ~50% and reduces the lenght of a cold by 2-3 days. This company is seeking rapid FDA approval for this drug on the basis that it will cure viral meningitis. Thus the FDA will fast track the drug through trials given the essential need for a drug to combat this type of infection. At the same time this is being hyped as a "cure for the common cold". Viruses mutate VERY rapidly and if they possibly can mutate themselves to be resistant to this drug (and still be able to replicate) they will. As noted in another post here, viruses already have become resistant in lab tests). If the general population starts taking this drug for the common cold it will become useless in a few years as resistance will emerge, and will no longer be able to help those few patients who are seroiusly at rick of dying from a common cold or from meningitis. Regarding rational drug design, scientists in both industry and academia have been working on this for years, the hit/miss ratio (succesful rational drug designs vs unsuccessful) is astronomically small. Having the x-ray or NMR structure of a protein/lead drug complex can help you tune your lead drug but as far as de novo design goes this field is pretty much in its infancy. I can just see it now: new drug approved for treating viral meningitis doctors prescribe drug for rich, whiney flu patients across the world reducing world-wide sale of kleenex drug company gets rich viruses become resistant to drug and drug is now useless in cases where it could have saved lives drug company gets sued for unforseen side effects of drug that was rushed through FDA approval for meningitis and then given to millions of people for common cold who now suffer from nasal polyps.
As far as your idea regarding 3 year patent protection, that may work for the software industry but it would stifle all work in the pharmaceutical/biotech sector as it typically takes 10 years! from lab discovery to market rollout of a product that benefits consumers (people with medical problems).
The cost associated with getting FDA approval of a pharmaceutical based on a gene patent is ~100-300 million dollars as you have to pass phase 1,2 and 3 clinical trial to get approval to market your product from the FDA. This takes huge investment in future payoff to even attempt it. Therefore you need to have patent protection of about 20 years to make your investment worthwile.
I support the patenting of DNA sequences where there is medical benefit to the public from the patent. Provided the patent must specify the use of the sequence for benefit and not cover anything more than is specifically laid out in the claims.
University researchers generally do not care about bringing the benefits fo their discoveries to the public, they are trying to advance knowlege about the science and gain brownie points by publishing papers disclosing new ideas in their fields. It is companies that convert those ideas into products (treatments for diseases). So don't wait for universities to find treatments for every disease.
There are some real benefits to humans in allowing companies to patent DNA sequences. We just have to stop companies from being able to patent anything for any future purpose.
This is one of the first good posts on this topic. I agree that companies must be able to patent the uses of a gene sequence for treating human diseases in order to continue the rapid advance of medicine. However I believe the latest USPTO statement is to discourage companies from sequencing and patenting all the genes in the human genome before they even know what the genes do. Several companies have recently set out do just this, in particular Craig Venter of Celera Genomics(?) has said publicly that he plans to sequence the entire genome faster than the academics in the Human Genome Project can. With the intent of being the first to patent the sequences (without knowing what the sequences do).
The patents should be restricted to specific uses of a particular sequence and not a blanket patent covering all uses of a sequence to be discovered in the future.
For an analogy as to why this last point is very important, imagine a post-apocalyptic world with the loss of all technology. Scientists have discovered how to read old hard drives that survived the apocalypse. They race against competing companies to decode the 1's and 0's they find on the drives, patenting various dll's, apps, preference files etc. as they decode them. Eventually they have collectively recreated Windows 95(insert favorite/most hated operating system here) but no one can use it because of patent restrictions.
If you are willing to accept the possibility of earth and mars haveing a common life origin, presumably via impact crater ejecta, then you believe that life could survive the freezing vacuum of space and the ionizing radiation from the sun.
It then follows that life-containing material ejected from earth could have landed on europa.
If you accept this line of thinking then it is likely that all life in the solar system could have a common origin in being derived from ejecta from planets in distant solar systems and thus may not have arisin on earth in the first place.
We are aliens!
1. People fear the unknown.
2. The consequences of artificially created life are unknown.
3. The consequences of naturally ocurring life are unknown. (we can't tell the future)
Therefore: People fear life.
We fear ourselves!
Nature has already tried countless variations on new life with great anticipation and much fear only to have arrived at the present. A situation accepted by most if not all present. Evidently the only criteron for acceptance of the present is to be present.
On this planet we have had several (7 or so) dynasties of living organisms. In each,evolution spread across the earth filling all available niches and then sat stable for millennia until a cataclysmic event killed off most existing life (meteor etc.) and allowed another round of evolution to occur. The round previous to us, the mammals, were the dinosaurs. They lasted 165 milllion years, we havent lasted 1 million yet.
I doubt we can make anything in the biology lab that will wipe a significant percentage of us out never mind all life on earth. It is far more likely that we will destroy our environment (pollution/nuclear bombs) or create 'intelligent' devices (computers) that ruin our environment to thwart a perceived threat from us. I guess people are not that afraid of computers since they do not have the ability to replicate yet and hense are still predictable....if you programmed a computer to control robots that made computers and gave it some AI capabilities would that constitute a lifeform. Would that be predictable? Should we be afraid of that?
Whatever, I'm here!
I am a Canadian who lives in the states. I grew up in the Toronto area. I miss not only Hockey Night in Canada with Don Cherry but I also miss City TV (my top pick of the channels available) and I miss some of the stupid commercials which only make sense to to the locals. I was stunned to be able to watch my home TV over the internet in relativly good quality (internet wise). I was just checking out late great movies on city. They were playing something about mary. I didn't want to the movie over realplayer due to the poor quality but I would gladly watch/LISTEN to hockey and the commercials for local flavour. I doubt this is something that will take the world by storm but it will allow people to watch/listen to their favorite (home) stuff no matter where they are. This is great! Oops did I break a law?! ;-)
You can bitch about how little the biotech-oriented postdocs get paid and how there are limited jobs available but you miss the point. There is a scientific revolution ocurring in biology/biotech. Move over physics and chemistry, biology has the burning unknowns. If your motive in life is to make money...be a hore..pick your favorite profitable area. If you love science/information/knowlege and the creation of NEW ideas, then biotech can be an extremely rewarding career even if you don't get the patent/top job. You'll take part in the discovery and invention of ideas that may radically change the world we know..ultimately for the better (natural selection of ideas)