Hmmm. I really like the implications you raise here. I'm very pleased to see B&N go on the offensive as they do have counterclaims attached to their answer, too. If the DOJ wake up and the EU take notice, this could get really expensive for Microsoft. And I, as you, am really looking forward to discovery. I hope there is a worthy successor to Groklaw to track this.
Google and a variety of others (I like OpenDNS myself) have come up with a good alternative to the DNS service offered by the telcos and cable companies.
Re:The sugar lobby is worse than oil company lobbi
on
Is Sugar Toxic?
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· Score: 1
Sugar has a pretty interesting history of taxation, too. Now why would anybody tax sugar? Perhaps it is something we don't want to encourage.
Many years ago, i read a cool article on the subject of sugar cross-linking of protein molecules in the body in Scientific American. Their conclusion was that this cross-linking process was one of the primary factors of aging. Then around 2000, SciAm published an article on the potential for new drugs that would break these chains of sugars between proteins.
The book, "Sugar Blues" by William Dufty adds some very interesting anecdotal evidence, too.
In a nutshell, refined, white sugar is almost certainly toxic. Refined fructose syrup is also almost certainly toxic. Of course, moderation is the key to a long and healthy life.
Your point is well taken, however, I've had a chance to observe the relative lack of caution that has been taken with GMOs. GMOs were released into the wild long before anyone could ascertain their dangers. GMOs were introduced into our food supply without any debate and very little knowledge on the part of the public.
So while there are some who say there are benefits to GMOs, they seem rather reluctant to label them or tell us how we can avoid them. I suppose if the perverse incentives proffered by patents were removed that would help, but that still won't answer the safety questions concerning GMOs. Maybe it will all work out. Who knows? But I seriously doubt that the people promoting GMOs will take responsibility for damages from GMOs without a few long and vexatious court battles, if that.
Yes, your statements seem perfectly reasonable until you try to put them into practice. I didn't say we shouldn't try, I meant to say that we should be doing a lot more testing in a lab to see if there would be other, "collateral" damage to the environment before we let those buggers out. There may never a way to know for sure, but when it comes to GMOs, I'd rather err on the side of caution.
In closing, I'll say that with ordinary objects that aren't alive, we can usually stop their manufacture or at least slow them down. With GMOs, once they get going, it's not going to be easy stop them if they cause damage. The seed becomes the bomb. Literally.
I didn't say it was unreasonable. I just said it was dangerous in many ways. Often, we cannot comprehend the damage we can do with what seemed like a good idea at the time.
This is not intended as a flame, rather, it is offered as food for thought.
I find it hard to believe that we could improve on a billion years of evolution of what is now the state of the art for converting sunlight to energy. I find it even harder to believe that we could not do that without making some sort of catastrophic mistake that wipes out the food supply by rendering it unsuitable for all other life. Sorry, I'm just a pessimist when it comes to genetic engineering and I'm very unhappy about the gene patent situation particularly with respect to the rapacious antics of Monsanto.
You might be able to do it. But then someone would land a patent on it, modify or cross-pollinate all the major crops and no one would be able to collect the seed from the previous crop to grow more without spending years in court over it. Due to patent extensions and improvements a la' Lemelson, seed collection would be forbidden for the next say, 50 years.
All that and I haven't even addressed the question of what happens to the *nutritional* yield of the resulting plants. Improving photosynthesis doesn't necessarily mean that the nutrition will be improved at the same time. And what about the people who want to eat organic food? There is simply no escape for people who simply want to leave alone what is already nearly perfect.
Just something to consider while you shoot little silver bits coated with genetic material into cells or infect them with a virus to inject the genes you want, all with the utmost uncertainty that the genes will be interpreted and expressed in the way you hope for. My point is, humans are not even remotely smart enough to be messing with genes without making some really big mistakes first.
I found Groklaw in 2003. I can't even remember exactly how i found it. All I remember is that on the first article, I was chuckling to myself and then laughing out loud while reading Pamela's exquisite humor while recounting some absurd action on the part of SCO. Over the ensuing weeks, I became fascinated by this lawsuit and all it's gory details. By 2006, I was spending an hour or so everyday reading the pleadings, understanding the arguments and reading the comments.
There was something that came out of that whole experience that I will never forget. The teamwork. Those guys were committed, totally committed to getting it done. People went to the courthouse, got the pleadings, scanned them, OCR'd them and checked for errors and then formatted them for ease of reading.
Groklaw is also what pushed me over the edge away from Windows, forever. Their description of the Linux community, their enthusiasm and their sheer drive to make Linux a pleasing environment to work in just blew me away. I had to have this, I thought. By mid-2007, I was completely off Windows for my personal computing. I'm a late starter, but now I'm learning the shell, exploring regular expressions and basic bash programming. I'm learning more about how computers work with Linux than I ever have with Windows. I can even see the humor in the help files.
Groklaw gave me a gift that I will never forget. So when Pamela says it's time to quit, I totally understand and wish her well in all her endeavors. They are still putting together the Comes exhibits and tracking lawsuits. There will be plenty of reference material to work with, and all of it will still be in the Library of Congress.
Groklaw is also how I discovered Slashdot. I'm really happy to be a part of this community, even if only a very small part.
What a trip. I'm not an SQL guy, but I'm fascinated by the discussion. So you can look at logs to see that bots are trying to hack your db? Does it look like the bots have any kind of intelligence? Do they seem to learn as they go? Can you tell if there is any human intervention?
So the hack isn't a question of the design of MySQL, it's due to poor configuration of the database itself? I agree with you that there is no assumption of safety as all we can really do is make the wall higher to keep the buggers out. The reason I raise the question is that some in the press will make this out to be a design flaw in MySQL itself rather than talk about the real cause being a configuration that wasn't safe.
That's called reduction to practice. That should be a requirement for *every* patent. But I'd rather do away with patents altogether. There are plenty of inventors out there. And they're too busy inventing to perform patent searches. I'd rather not interrupt them.
The goal of Microsoft is obvious: use RAND to choke off GPL software and limit the developers to BSD type licenses. Then Microsoft can take that work private and doe what it pleases with it. If developers in India are too expensive, BSD software is free.
No, no and no. RAND is blackmail for "we want our patents, and we want our money. Pay up or die." I don't mind the lawsuit so much as the RAND blackmail, but I do mind that the case may be decided by someone who is not really familiar with the concept of software patents. Here's hoping that Bilski will blot out Microsoft's claims and force them to just make better software.
While I think that marketing does help, it is worth noting that scaling for free is a lot more efficient. Yes, it took awhile, but once they figured out how to scale Linux on mobile devices it simply makes better sense for phone manufacturers to work with free tools and operating systems. On the other hand, with Microsoft, they get you, coming and going.
If Google prevails over Oracle in the "java" lawsuit started by Oracle, Microsoft (or their favorite proxy) is likely to come up with their own patent suit against Linux on phones should Google prevail against Oracle. That would be called "marketing" by Microsoft.
Slashdot Mirror
Then perhaps they can enjoin some defendants who can help.
Hmmm. I really like the implications you raise here. I'm very pleased to see B&N go on the offensive as they do have counterclaims attached to their answer, too. If the DOJ wake up and the EU take notice, this could get really expensive for Microsoft. And I, as you, am really looking forward to discovery. I hope there is a worthy successor to Groklaw to track this.
Google and a variety of others (I like OpenDNS myself) have come up with a good alternative to the DNS service offered by the telcos and cable companies.
Sugar has a pretty interesting history of taxation, too. Now why would anybody tax sugar? Perhaps it is something we don't want to encourage.
Many years ago, i read a cool article on the subject of sugar cross-linking of protein molecules in the body in Scientific American. Their conclusion was that this cross-linking process was one of the primary factors of aging. Then around 2000, SciAm published an article on the potential for new drugs that would break these chains of sugars between proteins.
The book, "Sugar Blues" by William Dufty adds some very interesting anecdotal evidence, too.
In a nutshell, refined, white sugar is almost certainly toxic. Refined fructose syrup is also almost certainly toxic. Of course, moderation is the key to a long and healthy life.
Your point is well taken, however, I've had a chance to observe the relative lack of caution that has been taken with GMOs. GMOs were released into the wild long before anyone could ascertain their dangers. GMOs were introduced into our food supply without any debate and very little knowledge on the part of the public.
So while there are some who say there are benefits to GMOs, they seem rather reluctant to label them or tell us how we can avoid them. I suppose if the perverse incentives proffered by patents were removed that would help, but that still won't answer the safety questions concerning GMOs. Maybe it will all work out. Who knows? But I seriously doubt that the people promoting GMOs will take responsibility for damages from GMOs without a few long and vexatious court battles, if that.
Yes, your statements seem perfectly reasonable until you try to put them into practice. I didn't say we shouldn't try, I meant to say that we should be doing a lot more testing in a lab to see if there would be other, "collateral" damage to the environment before we let those buggers out. There may never a way to know for sure, but when it comes to GMOs, I'd rather err on the side of caution.
In closing, I'll say that with ordinary objects that aren't alive, we can usually stop their manufacture or at least slow them down. With GMOs, once they get going, it's not going to be easy stop them if they cause damage. The seed becomes the bomb. Literally.
I didn't say it was unreasonable. I just said it was dangerous in many ways. Often, we cannot comprehend the damage we can do with what seemed like a good idea at the time.
Depends on the context of your question. Can you be more specific?
You're right. This isn't about quantity, it's about sustainable quality.
This is not intended as a flame, rather, it is offered as food for thought.
I find it hard to believe that we could improve on a billion years of evolution of what is now the state of the art for converting sunlight to energy. I find it even harder to believe that we could not do that without making some sort of catastrophic mistake that wipes out the food supply by rendering it unsuitable for all other life. Sorry, I'm just a pessimist when it comes to genetic engineering and I'm very unhappy about the gene patent situation particularly with respect to the rapacious antics of Monsanto.
You might be able to do it. But then someone would land a patent on it, modify or cross-pollinate all the major crops and no one would be able to collect the seed from the previous crop to grow more without spending years in court over it. Due to patent extensions and improvements a la' Lemelson, seed collection would be forbidden for the next say, 50 years.
All that and I haven't even addressed the question of what happens to the *nutritional* yield of the resulting plants. Improving photosynthesis doesn't necessarily mean that the nutrition will be improved at the same time. And what about the people who want to eat organic food? There is simply no escape for people who simply want to leave alone what is already nearly perfect.
Just something to consider while you shoot little silver bits coated with genetic material into cells or infect them with a virus to inject the genes you want, all with the utmost uncertainty that the genes will be interpreted and expressed in the way you hope for. My point is, humans are not even remotely smart enough to be messing with genes without making some really big mistakes first.
I found Groklaw in 2003. I can't even remember exactly how i found it. All I remember is that on the first article, I was chuckling to myself and then laughing out loud while reading Pamela's exquisite humor while recounting some absurd action on the part of SCO. Over the ensuing weeks, I became fascinated by this lawsuit and all it's gory details. By 2006, I was spending an hour or so everyday reading the pleadings, understanding the arguments and reading the comments.
There was something that came out of that whole experience that I will never forget. The teamwork. Those guys were committed, totally committed to getting it done. People went to the courthouse, got the pleadings, scanned them, OCR'd them and checked for errors and then formatted them for ease of reading.
Groklaw is also what pushed me over the edge away from Windows, forever. Their description of the Linux community, their enthusiasm and their sheer drive to make Linux a pleasing environment to work in just blew me away. I had to have this, I thought. By mid-2007, I was completely off Windows for my personal computing. I'm a late starter, but now I'm learning the shell, exploring regular expressions and basic bash programming. I'm learning more about how computers work with Linux than I ever have with Windows. I can even see the humor in the help files.
Groklaw gave me a gift that I will never forget. So when Pamela says it's time to quit, I totally understand and wish her well in all her endeavors. They are still putting together the Comes exhibits and tracking lawsuits. There will be plenty of reference material to work with, and all of it will still be in the Library of Congress.
Groklaw is also how I discovered Slashdot. I'm really happy to be a part of this community, even if only a very small part.
Thank you. That was worth about 2 minutes of laughter. Nice way to start a day.
No kidding. I hate working by myself. I think I would really enjoy working in a team where I can bounce ideas and solve problems together.
What a trip. I'm not an SQL guy, but I'm fascinated by the discussion. So you can look at logs to see that bots are trying to hack your db? Does it look like the bots have any kind of intelligence? Do they seem to learn as they go? Can you tell if there is any human intervention?
So the hack isn't a question of the design of MySQL, it's due to poor configuration of the database itself? I agree with you that there is no assumption of safety as all we can really do is make the wall higher to keep the buggers out. The reason I raise the question is that some in the press will make this out to be a design flaw in MySQL itself rather than talk about the real cause being a configuration that wasn't safe.
I would hope that after watching SCO, they would know better.
Right. No lawsuits for MeeGo yet.
Isn't that "Uncle Duke" from Doonesbury?
That's called reduction to practice. That should be a requirement for *every* patent. But I'd rather do away with patents altogether. There are plenty of inventors out there. And they're too busy inventing to perform patent searches. I'd rather not interrupt them.
The goal of Microsoft is obvious: use RAND to choke off GPL software and limit the developers to BSD type licenses. Then Microsoft can take that work private and doe what it pleases with it. If developers in India are too expensive, BSD software is free.
No, no and no. RAND is blackmail for "we want our patents, and we want our money. Pay up or die." I don't mind the lawsuit so much as the RAND blackmail, but I do mind that the case may be decided by someone who is not really familiar with the concept of software patents. Here's hoping that Bilski will blot out Microsoft's claims and force them to just make better software.
I'm with you on that one.
As Steve Ballmer is so fond of saying, "Developers, developers, developers!"
While I think that marketing does help, it is worth noting that scaling for free is a lot more efficient. Yes, it took awhile, but once they figured out how to scale Linux on mobile devices it simply makes better sense for phone manufacturers to work with free tools and operating systems. On the other hand, with Microsoft, they get you, coming and going.
If Google prevails over Oracle in the "java" lawsuit started by Oracle, Microsoft (or their favorite proxy) is likely to come up with their own patent suit against Linux on phones should Google prevail against Oracle. That would be called "marketing" by Microsoft.
That seems pretty ironic considering that Microsoft seems to focus more on marketing than engineering.