> However a clever in a sense; a robot cannot break silly laws like.. the treathy of geneve, can it?
So... which specific provisoins of Geneva treaty are we talking about violating? Fighting not in uniform (which automatically places you as ineligible to be protected by Geneva convention rules)? Or using places of worship (mosques in this case) as cover? Or using civilian population as human shields? Or taking civilan hostages, and murdeing them? Or blowing up civilians on purpose?
Ahh, I see, those silly laws. Someone must have forgotten to tell about them to those wonderful, harmless, nice, innocent terrorists.
> What you describe is the modern liberal interpretation of the bible where the OT is mostly discounted.
Eh? What are you smoking and can I have some? OT is basically Hebrew Torah. And Judaism does *NOT* have a concept of hell in the first place - it's a Christian mod (OK, you know you have to stay off/. when you use "mod" in relation to theology:)
> It's going to have to show the old, archived data still, which it obviously can with both the old and new systems. So why not continue to offer it?
Not sure about the technical reasons, but t the very least, there's also the business reason - any code there is needs to be maintained. Which costs the company money. So any code the company doesn't need won't be maintained and thus will be retired.
This is just a WAG, there could be other reasons too (underlying data / APIs / etc..)
> Actually the 'Medieval' slant you refer to isn't what Tolkien was interested in - he was actually interested in writing a 'great myth' for england (britain?), which would place it much much earlier than the medieval period. He was inspired by scandanavian epics such as Beowulf and the Finnish Kalevala
Actually, Beowulf *is* considered Medieval literature (not sure about Kalevala). Why do I sy so? Well, perhaps because it was studied by my wife in her just-taken-last-semester "Medieval literature" class in college:)
> With Bush's multiple rounds of slashing taxes, that means we have LESS to spend
Eh? Well, if by "we" you mean "the lazy bums who leech off government handouts", then yes, I suppose you're right. As for me, and most other people who work for a living and thus earn taxable income, ***we*** have MORE to spend.
Thanks for playing, and move to xCommunist Republic of California. Do not pass Go, do not steal my hard-earned dollars in disguise of "taxation".
> Support the ACLU [snip]. Those are the people fighting these battles for you.
Eh? last time I checked, they were finting various people's battles AGAINST my interests, namely: - Open paedofiles (NAMBLA) - The guys who tried to kill my wife of 1 month and myself with 2 planes (I was in WTC with her at 8:45 on 9/11) - Illegal immigrants who want to be rewarded for breaking the laws - Hamas supporters who pay money to have my relatives killed - Violent motherfuckers (sorry, don't respect them enough to call them anarchists) who want to come to MY city, distract the police that MY taxes pay for, with the most likely net effect of more likelyhood of ME getting blown up by some Arab whacko that ACLU insisted be treated nicely 'cause otherwise "it's racial profiling, dude".
One important thing is that some of the "ideal" things involve policies, not only material elements.
~~
A) OK, first the workplace environment itself.
1) CLIMATE. I can live with bad light (as long as desk lamp can compensate. I can live with noisy neighbours (see #3). I can NOT at all be productive in a cold area. My brain freezes. My body is unfomortable and distracting me from work. Most importantly, I catch colds.
2) A lot of people mentione lighting. It is important, but I don't know enough about it to actually offer suggestions.
3) A clear policy allowing for use of headphones to listen to whatever you want to. This has omre than one benefit: - Most importantly, headphones cancel outside noise. Thus, any expenses on having to build soundproof offices are not needed as much. - Also, I'm more productive when listening to music. But I HATE being subjected to sounds I don't like (other people's music choice, news I hate, etc...).
4) Decent monitor. Don't even need to say anything more. I never worked on a dual-monitor setup so not sure if taht's even better than one big one, but could be.
5) Of course, ideal space would be a door-ed office, but in the imperfect world I find cubicles of sufficient size and decent wall height a good enouh thing... I'm lucky in that I am not very distracted by sounds, especially if #3 is implemented (headphone policy).
6) Decent chairs. Very important.
7) Keyboard/mouse palm rests.
~~
B) Now, for around-work environment:
1) Cheapest but among the most comfortable: A good coffee machine which, most importantly, made hot water and, even better, TEA. You may find this breakage from stereotype hard to believe, but in my former job we CONSISTENTLY, for years, ran out of tea packets 10x faster than of coffee ones.
2) Kitchen facilities: having a reasonably clean microwave, a fridge with milk, and a sink with dishwashing soap is about all I ever would ask for. Important part is: have it clean. By someone oter than illegal mexicans who wipe the counter and microwave with the same dirty cloth they use to clean the dirt off other places:(
3) This is from the uber-ideal department: Swimming pool. Not necessarily in the office, but a free membership to a GOOD pool nearby. I don't need or want pool/ping-pong/etc... team relaxation. I don't need a gym. I DO think that swimming is the best ever form of relaxing your mind and body.
~~
C) Computer policies:
Too obvious where there is concensus and too divergent where there isn't one to list anything useful as advice.
One thing I will say though: having e-mail archival policy on Echange server SUCKS ASS. It may save storage space a bit. But it definitely, absolutely kills productivity.
I used to work for a very big international investement bank (left because i was unlucky enough to work under really asshole VP who unfortunately was the darling of his superior MD - thus, couldn't even transfer to another team easily).
Other than that unlucky circumstance, we had a pretty decent office, all things considering:
> We have free soda
Not avialable there, but I'm old enough to wise up and not drink too much soda in the first place. If I want sweet caffeinated drink, I get tea with sugar:)
> We have a free coffee machine (Beans, not instant-mud)
Near-Check. Uber-useful perfect coffee machine which, most importantly, made hot water, hot chocolate and TEA. You may find this breakage from stereotype hard to believe, but we CONSISTENTLY, for years, ran out of tea packets 10x faster than of coffee ones.
> We have kitchen facilities,
Not sure how good they were, but having a reasonably clean microwave, a fridge with milk, and a sink with dishwashing soap is about all I ever would need. If only building management didn't hire illegal mexicans to clean it who wipe the counter and mirowave with the same dirty cloth they use to clean the dirt off other places:(
> We have a pool table, a dart board and "ping-pong"
OK, didn't have that, but to be perfectly honest, I don't find that very helpful. I want to play PP with my wife or friends, not my coworkers.
Now, an *IDEAL* office would have a swimming pool. But I doubt any do.
> We have an open office, two desks together, loosely couple by project.
OK, not bad, but I find cubicles of sufficient size and decent wall height a good enouh thing... I'm lucky in that I am not very distracted by sounds.
> Everyone has the same style chair.
Check.
> There is a non intrusive radio playing all day.
Absolutely bad idea IMHO. Every radio station will have people who hate it.
Now, having an official policy which lets you listen to whatever you want in headphones, that'd be ideal.
> Directors sit in a "fish bowl" (Out of the kitchen as it were)
Isn't that how it is in any larg-ish company?;)
> Everyone has a PC that is capable of doing their job.
Check
> Everyone has VMWare too
Mostly check, although our policies at tiems were weird - like having to jumpthrough major hoops to get Exceed.
I am about 50% less productive when I have to shiver all day from overly efficient air conditioning. Re peat after me: The brain is NOT an x86 CPU. The brain is NOT an x86 CPU. The brain is NOT an x86 CPU. It does NOT work better when chilled./rant
> > What happens when a bio-cracker unleashes a plant virus on all the wheat in North America...?
> Probably a lot of poor people are going to die.
BS. 1) You can make a perfectly good diet without wheat. 2) You will have the same reason to have different kinds of GM wheat as you have for "natural" one. Which means it'd be exactly as difficult for a bio-hacker to wipe out GM wheat as it would be now.
> Not really. In the legislative branch, it's the house and the senate that vote.
Not necessarily. Case in point: Gray Davis, illegal immigrants' drivers licenses and Governator. Yes, voting people out for very unpopular executive/legislative behavior is sadly not as common as it would need to be for "real" democracy to work. Too much idiots and voter apathy. But it is NOT unheard of, as the CA has proven.
> (and in dubya's case it was just his brother in florida and the supreme court) that votes..
Oh? So, in your uber-patronizing opinion, that part of the population which voted FOR Bush (including but not limited to majority of populations in all the states that went to Bush) doesn't count? BTW, i'm not even GOING into the whole counting fiasco, but if you bother investigating, several media-initiated recounts later found that Bush would have won the recount.
> This legislature is much more easily influenced by corporations than by the general public.
I hope you didn't mean "this" to be Republican (if you did, you're fuill of BS. Republicans get MORE money from small donors than Dems).
As for politicians in general, true, but it's 100% the fault of the public. Two reasons: 1) Public doesn't vote out people who should be, for most part. So politicos mostly aren't afraid to make decisions that are not to the benefitof their voters. 2) Public gives TOO much power to TV and ads. Remember, the ONLY reason that lobbyists with money (as opposed to lobbyists with voting muscle such as unions) have ANY influence on politicians is the fact that money given to politician is required to pay for media airtime which these days is required for winning election which is solely due to the fact that Joe H. Public Voter is relying mostly on such media ads for oting decisions. If that was not the case, money in politics would be virtually irrelevant.
-DVK -- now let's see this modded down for ThoughtCrime of not hating Bush.
OK, here's the question... A) What do you mean by "Engineered" in #2 and #3? Is natural selection engineering? Remember, you can theoretically get teh same exact sequence by "accident" (i.e. "natural" mutation) as by GM design.
B) In light of my point #A, how does your whole point #3 work out if the "escaped" sequence was "engineered naturally"?
C) Tangential idea: what if the "Engineering" wasn't the goal? E.g. creation of resistant stain of bacteria by usage of some antibacterial product.
Just some GM food for thought:)
-DVK
Re:And what's more...it's the US/European
on
Open Source Life?
·
· Score: 1
Hmm... so, would you (honest answer please) yell foul if it was an Indian corporation patenting something similar?
Leave it to ShlashDrone moderators to mod up to +5 a comment bashing Bush for a court case in which Canadian court decided that a Canadian farmer's all your base belongs to a Canadian company.
BTW, I would suggest that all the people who oppose GM foods on principle (as opposed to some valid scientific points) should be removed from human gene pool as they ARE a direct result of GM process (the only difference is, their genes weren't modified by Evil Corporation but by some random physical or chemical reaction).
If the hiring manager is smart: he will think "you want to be different from other people, but can't do it other than by body mods" - it's a strike against you. At least that is how I view people with green hair.
If he is a PHB, the body mods themselves will kill the deal.
> The amount of grants that were available 20 years ago was way more than it is today. Back then, grants would have paid pretty much your entire education if you were fairly smart and quite poor. Not so today
If you go to state/city college, tuition is low enough to make do with government and private grant mix. Especially if you are, like the original poster, a woman (not to sound sexist, but a woman in IT has a LOT more grants open to her than a guy - i'm not claiming it's right or wrong, but that's the wa things are).
> You'll have to line up loans for the remainder.
So, how's that a problem. I went 50% grants/50% loans, and the loan amount was incredible to me at the time. I paid it off 6 month after getting my first full time job. Loans are bad when you go to med/law/grad school. For undergrads, being afraid of loan as Fin. Aid. is not wise.
To quote from Matrix... "Cause and effect...". You musta done SOMETHING to make them kick you out.
I lived with my parents till i was financially on my feet enough to be able to afford my own place.
Oh... they wouldn't want your bf to live in? Well, who *forced* you to have a bf?
Up till 20th century people had a very healthy attitude to that effect. You (as a guy) mostly married after you were able to provide for te family. To corellate to equality of 20th century, same applies to a girl.
Not to sound hearless and all, but unless your parents are absolutely unable to support you -even by providing roof (I know some families like that), you have no business yelling at "middle class jackasses" just 'cause your choices in life made you below middle class.
> > such as a green-card-holding professor of nanotechnology who formerly lived under a repressive government
> Why should a professor holding a green card, having come here specifically because our government is at least less repressive than the one he/she left, fear a government agent who properly identifies him/herself and asks reasonable questions in the professor's area of expertise?
You obviously aren't an immigrant from a police state.
I am.
Just for your information, it IS a very likely situation - I might feel somewhat apprehensive near a law enforcement official (heck, I get nervous driving behing a police car), specifically due to being a former Soviet citizen, despite the fact that I'm a US Citizen these days with nothing at all to fear from the law.
Now, imagine that DoD needed some info from Joe GreenCard, who doesn't really have anything to hide but, like me, might get irrationally nervous around an official. The information would not be used to hurt the guy, but he would still not provide it if a DoD papers are flashed - not out of malice but out of psychological issues.
In such a scenario, I would have absolutely no objection to the procesure, PROVIDED THAT IT IS REVIEWED AND AUTHORIZED BY LEGAL AUTHORITY.
> When the CEO of Shell Oil is "terribly worried" about the environment, that's when you know we are FUCKED.
Why would CEO of Shell Oil not be as much - or more - concerned about environment than you, the High Priest of Self-Riteous Enviromentalists?
Because he benefits from Oil-based economy? And you don't? So, are you trying to tell me that you: - Don't drive cars - Don't fly on planes - Don't use ANY plastics (what do you think is plastics industry based on?) - Don't use computers or ANY electronics which aren't ultimately powered by oil? - Don't enjoy all the medical benefits that are only possible because our oil-based economy made modern medical advancements possible - Don't live in peace protected from a lot of people who want to kill you, take your stuff and rape your family's women (you HAVE studied human history, haven't you?). Well, it's oil-devouring planes and tanks and oil-based economy taht lets the armies to function which prevents that - And nobody in your family owns ANY stock (in retirement funds/401Ks/etc...) in any company which benefits from oil.
If you couldn't honestly say "yes, every single one of these items is true about me", then the ONLY difference between the CEO and you is the degree of benefitting from oil. Except unlike him, you can't do anything - or are doing anything - to make oil-based economy any environmentally better, and he does.
And since any CEO is mostly interested in future profits/growth (which is what determines stock price), he will not want the ecology to collapse - that would lead to dramatic fall in the share price. So even assuming that he isn't enviromentally concerned just by virtue of being a human being like you, he stil would be by virtue of being a CEO.
> Also, I find the ethical implications very interesting. After all, who gave us the right to live on Mars? > The answer is sadly: no one. But does that mean we should not live there? Probably yes.
So, who gave "us" - by the way, who are these "us" you refer to? Why do you presume to speak for me? - the right to not colonize Mars when the alternative is to have a big chnk-of-rock wiping out entire Earth biosphere as we know it even if humans don't succeed themselves?
Barring a belief in some supereme power (which, if it exists, makes the whole ethical question moot), NOBODY gives anyone any right. E.g. lifeforms on Mars have no more rights to Mars than humans do. And if you find that chauvinistic and heartless, please imagine yourself a survivor of a shipwreck who's near an inhabited island. Then tell me that you have no *ethical right* to go live on the island just because some tribe is alread there. (You may not have any enforceable right if the natives just catch and eat you of course:)
> It is right that Man put his foot on the Moon. > It would be better if it put it on Earth. > Salvador Allende, 1908-1973
Ahh, yes... let's all take advice from a quote uttered by a devout Marxist who wanted to turn his country into Cuba/USSR copy. How about we go to the Source then? Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin?
Yeah, Pinochet sucked. No question. But he killed far less people (by percentages) than socialist regimes worldwide did in their own countries (starting with USSR). Who are YOU to say that Allende wouldn't have ended up killing far in excess of 3000 people and have ruled for MORE than 17 years while maintaining the same illusion of elections that USSR and Cuba had?
"Allende is seeking the totality of power, which meant Communist tyranny disguised as the dictatorship of the proletariat." -- Statement from the National Assembly of the Chilean Christian Democratic party, May 15, 1973.
Slashdot Mirror
> However a clever in a sense; a robot cannot break silly laws like.. the treathy of geneve, can it?
So... which specific provisoins of Geneva treaty are we talking about violating? Fighting not in uniform (which automatically places you as ineligible to be protected by Geneva convention rules)?
Or using places of worship (mosques in this case) as cover?
Or using civilian population as human shields?
Or taking civilan hostages, and murdeing them?
Or blowing up civilians on purpose?
Ahh, I see, those silly laws.
Someone must have forgotten to tell about them to those wonderful, harmless, nice, innocent terrorists.
> What you describe is the modern liberal interpretation of the bible where the OT is mostly discounted.
/. when you use "mod" in relation to theology :)
Eh? What are you smoking and can I have some? OT is basically Hebrew Torah. And Judaism does *NOT* have a concept of hell in the first place - it's a Christian mod (OK, you know you have to stay off
-DVK
> It's going to have to show the old, archived data still, which it obviously can with both the old and new systems. So why not continue to offer it?
Not sure about the technical reasons, but t the very least, there's also the business reason - any code there is needs to be maintained. Which costs the company money. So any code the company doesn't need won't be maintained and thus will be retired.
This is just a WAG, there could be other reasons too (underlying data / APIs / etc..)
> Actually the 'Medieval' slant you refer to isn't what Tolkien was interested in - he was actually interested in writing a 'great myth' for england (britain?), which would place it much much earlier than the medieval period. He was inspired by scandanavian epics such as Beowulf and the Finnish Kalevala
:)
Actually, Beowulf *is* considered Medieval literature (not sure about Kalevala). Why do I sy so? Well, perhaps because it was studied by my wife in her just-taken-last-semester "Medieval literature" class in college
-DVK
> "Show us admin's how much you love us."
Uhm... shouldn't it be "admins"?
> With Bush's multiple rounds of slashing taxes, that means we have LESS to spend
Eh? Well, if by "we" you mean "the lazy bums who leech off government handouts", then yes, I suppose you're right.
As for me, and most other people who work for a living and thus earn taxable income, ***we*** have MORE to spend.
Thanks for playing, and move to xCommunist Republic of California. Do not pass Go, do not steal my hard-earned dollars in disguise of "taxation".
> Support the ACLU [snip]. Those are the people fighting these battles for you.
Eh? last time I checked, they were finting various people's battles AGAINST my interests, namely:
- Open paedofiles (NAMBLA)
- The guys who tried to kill my wife of 1 month and myself with 2 planes (I was in WTC with her at 8:45 on 9/11)
- Illegal immigrants who want to be rewarded for breaking the laws
- Hamas supporters who pay money to have my relatives killed
- Violent motherfuckers (sorry, don't respect them enough to call them anarchists) who want to come to MY city, distract the police that MY taxes pay for, with the most likely net effect of more likelyhood of ME getting blown up by some Arab whacko that ACLU insisted be treated nicely 'cause otherwise "it's racial profiling, dude".
Yeah, lately ACLU sure did a lot to fight for me.
-DVK
> One of the scariest things about this administration is the sheer lack of transparency
Perhaps you have heard of this guy called FDR? The one who was so flipping secretive and un-transparent that compared to him Bush seems made of glass?
One important thing is that some of the "ideal" things involve policies, not only material elements.
:(
~~
A) OK, first the workplace environment itself.
1) CLIMATE. I can live with bad light (as long as desk lamp can compensate. I can live with noisy neighbours (see #3). I can NOT at all be productive in a cold area. My brain freezes. My body is unfomortable and distracting me from work. Most importantly, I catch colds.
2) A lot of people mentione lighting. It is important, but I don't know enough about it to actually offer suggestions.
3) A clear policy allowing for use of headphones to listen to whatever you want to. This has omre than one benefit:
- Most importantly, headphones cancel outside noise. Thus, any expenses on having to build soundproof offices are not needed as much.
- Also, I'm more productive when listening to music. But I HATE being subjected to sounds I don't like (other people's music choice, news I hate, etc...).
4) Decent monitor. Don't even need to say anything more. I never worked on a dual-monitor setup so not sure if taht's even better than one big one, but could be.
5) Of course, ideal space would be a door-ed office, but in the imperfect world I find cubicles of sufficient size and decent wall height a good enouh thing... I'm lucky in that I am not very distracted by sounds, especially if #3 is implemented (headphone policy).
6) Decent chairs. Very important.
7) Keyboard/mouse palm rests.
~~
B) Now, for around-work environment:
1) Cheapest but among the most comfortable:
A good coffee machine which, most importantly, made hot water and, even better, TEA.
You may find this breakage from stereotype hard to believe, but in my former job we CONSISTENTLY, for years, ran out of tea packets 10x faster than of coffee ones.
2) Kitchen facilities: having a reasonably clean microwave, a fridge with milk, and a sink with dishwashing soap is about all I ever would ask for. Important part is: have it clean. By someone oter than illegal mexicans who wipe the counter and microwave with the same dirty cloth they use to clean the dirt off other places
3) This is from the uber-ideal department:
Swimming pool. Not necessarily in the office, but a free membership to a GOOD pool nearby.
I don't need or want pool/ping-pong/etc... team relaxation. I don't need a gym. I DO think that swimming is the best ever form of relaxing your mind and body.
~~
C) Computer policies:
Too obvious where there is concensus and too divergent where there isn't one to list anything useful as advice.
One thing I will say though: having e-mail archival policy on Echange server SUCKS ASS.
It may save storage space a bit. But it definitely, absolutely kills productivity.
-DVK
I used to work for a very big international investement bank (left because i was unlucky enough to work under really asshole VP who unfortunately was the darling of his superior MD - thus, couldn't even transfer to another team easily).
:)
:(
;)
Other than that unlucky circumstance, we had a pretty decent office, all things considering:
> We have free soda
Not avialable there, but I'm old enough to wise up and not drink too much soda in the first place.
If I want sweet caffeinated drink, I get tea with sugar
> We have a free coffee machine (Beans, not instant-mud)
Near-Check. Uber-useful perfect coffee machine which, most importantly, made hot water, hot chocolate and TEA. You may find this breakage from stereotype hard to believe, but we CONSISTENTLY, for years, ran out of tea packets 10x faster than of coffee ones.
> We have kitchen facilities,
Not sure how good they were, but having a reasonably clean microwave, a fridge with milk, and a sink with dishwashing soap is about all I ever would need. If only building management didn't hire illegal mexicans to clean it who wipe the counter and mirowave with the same dirty cloth they use to clean the dirt off other places
> We have a pool table, a dart board and "ping-pong"
OK, didn't have that, but to be perfectly honest, I don't find that very helpful. I want to play PP with my wife or friends, not my coworkers.
Now, an *IDEAL* office would have a swimming pool. But I doubt any do.
> We have an open office, two desks together, loosely couple by project.
OK, not bad, but I find cubicles of sufficient size and decent wall height a good enouh thing... I'm lucky in that I am not very distracted by sounds.
> Everyone has the same style chair.
Check.
> There is a non intrusive radio playing all day.
Absolutely bad idea IMHO.
Every radio station will have people who hate it.
Now, having an official policy which lets you listen to whatever you want in headphones, that'd be ideal.
> Directors sit in a "fish bowl" (Out of the kitchen as it were)
Isn't that how it is in any larg-ish company?
> Everyone has a PC that is capable of doing their job.
Check
> Everyone has VMWare too
Mostly check, although our policies at tiems were weird - like having to jumpthrough major hoops to get Exceed.
Forget #2-5.
/rant
I am about 50% less productive when I have to shiver all day from overly efficient air conditioning.
Re peat after me: The brain is NOT an x86 CPU.
The brain is NOT an x86 CPU. The brain is NOT an x86 CPU. It does NOT work better when chilled.
> > What happens when a bio-cracker unleashes a plant virus on all the wheat in North America...?
> Probably a lot of poor people are going to die.
BS.
1) You can make a perfectly good diet without wheat.
2) You will have the same reason to have different kinds of GM wheat as you have for "natural" one. Which means it'd be exactly as difficult for a bio-hacker to wipe out GM wheat as it would be now.
-DVK
> Not really. In the legislative branch, it's the house and the senate that vote.
Not necessarily. Case in point: Gray Davis, illegal immigrants' drivers licenses and Governator.
Yes, voting people out for very unpopular executive/legislative behavior is sadly not as common as it would need to be for "real" democracy to work. Too much idiots and voter apathy. But it is NOT unheard of, as the CA has proven.
> (and in dubya's case it was just his brother in florida and the supreme court) that votes..
Oh? So, in your uber-patronizing opinion, that part of the population which voted FOR Bush (including but not limited to majority of populations in all the states that went to Bush) doesn't count?
BTW, i'm not even GOING into the whole counting fiasco, but if you bother investigating, several media-initiated recounts later found that Bush would have won the recount.
> This legislature is much more easily influenced by corporations than by the general public.
I hope you didn't mean "this" to be Republican (if you did, you're fuill of BS. Republicans get MORE money from small donors than Dems).
As for politicians in general, true, but it's 100% the fault of the public. Two reasons:
1) Public doesn't vote out people who should be, for most part. So politicos mostly aren't afraid to make decisions that are not to the benefitof their voters.
2) Public gives TOO much power to TV and ads. Remember, the ONLY reason that lobbyists with money (as opposed to lobbyists with voting muscle such as unions) have ANY influence on politicians is the fact that money given to politician is required to pay for media airtime which these days is required for winning election which is solely due to the fact that Joe H. Public Voter is relying mostly on such media ads for oting decisions. If that was not the case, money in politics would be virtually irrelevant.
-DVK -- now let's see this modded down for ThoughtCrime of not hating Bush.
OK, here's the question...
:)
A) What do you mean by "Engineered" in #2 and #3? Is natural selection engineering? Remember, you can theoretically get teh same exact sequence by "accident" (i.e. "natural" mutation) as by GM design.
B) In light of my point #A, how does your whole point #3 work out if the "escaped" sequence was "engineered naturally"?
C) Tangential idea: what if the "Engineering" wasn't the goal? E.g. creation of resistant stain of bacteria by usage of some antibacterial product.
Just some GM food for thought
-DVK
Hmm... so, would you (honest answer please) yell foul if it was an Indian corporation patenting something similar?
or is it only Evil when it's a US/European Corp?
-DVK
Leave it to ShlashDrone moderators to mod up to +5 a comment bashing Bush for a court case in which Canadian court decided that a Canadian farmer's all your base belongs to a Canadian company.
BTW, I would suggest that all the people who oppose GM foods on principle (as opposed to some valid scientific points) should be removed from human gene pool as they ARE a direct result of GM process (the only difference is, their genes weren't modified by Evil Corporation but by some random physical or chemical reaction).
-DVK
Amen.
If the hiring manager is smart: he will think "you want to be different from other people, but can't do it other than by body mods" - it's a strike against you. At least that is how I view people with green hair.
If he is a PHB, the body mods themselves will kill the deal.
-DVK
> The amount of grants that were available 20 years ago was way more than it is today. Back then, grants would have paid pretty much your entire education if you were fairly smart and quite poor. Not so today
If you go to state/city college, tuition is low enough to make do with government and private grant mix. Especially if you are, like the original poster, a woman (not to sound sexist, but a woman in IT has a LOT more grants open to her than a guy - i'm not claiming it's right or wrong, but that's the wa things are).
> You'll have to line up loans for the remainder.
So, how's that a problem. I went 50% grants/50% loans, and the loan amount was incredible to me at the time. I paid it off 6 month after getting my first full time job.
Loans are bad when you go to med/law/grad school. For undergrads, being afraid of loan as Fin. Aid. is not wise.
-DVK
To quote from Matrix... "Cause and effect...".
You musta done SOMETHING to make them kick you out.
I lived with my parents till i was financially on my feet enough to be able to afford my own place.
Oh... they wouldn't want your bf to live in?
Well, who *forced* you to have a bf?
Up till 20th century people had a very healthy attitude to that effect. You (as a guy) mostly married after you were able to provide for te family. To corellate to equality of 20th century, same applies to a girl.
Not to sound hearless and all, but unless your parents are absolutely unable to support you -even by providing roof (I know some families like that), you have no business yelling at "middle class jackasses" just 'cause your choices in life made you below middle class.
-DVK
Wait... you ADMIT to watching FoxNews on /.??? :)
Do you have extra un-nneeded karma or are you just suicidal?
-DVK
> > such as a green-card-holding professor of nanotechnology who formerly lived under a repressive government
> Why should a professor holding a green card, having come here specifically because our government is at least less repressive than the one he/she left, fear a government agent who properly identifies him/herself and asks reasonable questions in the professor's area of expertise?
You obviously aren't an immigrant from a police state.
I am.
Just for your information, it IS a very likely situation - I might feel somewhat apprehensive near a law enforcement official (heck, I get nervous driving behing a police car), specifically due to being a former Soviet citizen, despite the fact that I'm a US Citizen these days with nothing at all to fear from the law.
Now, imagine that DoD needed some info from Joe GreenCard, who doesn't really have anything to hide but, like me, might get irrationally nervous around an official. The information would not be used to hurt the guy, but he would still not provide it if a DoD papers are flashed - not out of malice but out of psychological issues.
In such a scenario, I would have absolutely no objection to the procesure, PROVIDED THAT IT IS REVIEWED AND AUTHORIZED BY LEGAL AUTHORITY.
-DVK
> Keep in mind that he left Microsoft before it became the Evile Empire that it is today.
:)
Do you think most SlashDrones would be capable of appreciating the difference?
-DVK the Troll
> When the CEO of Shell Oil is "terribly worried" about the environment, that's when you know we are FUCKED.
Why would CEO of Shell Oil not be as much - or more - concerned about environment than you, the High Priest of Self-Riteous Enviromentalists?
Because he benefits from Oil-based economy? And you don't?
So, are you trying to tell me that you:
- Don't drive cars
- Don't fly on planes
- Don't use ANY plastics (what do you think is plastics industry based on?)
- Don't use computers or ANY electronics which aren't ultimately powered by oil?
- Don't enjoy all the medical benefits that are only possible because our oil-based economy made modern medical advancements possible
- Don't live in peace protected from a lot of people who want to kill you, take your stuff and rape your family's women (you HAVE studied human history, haven't you?). Well, it's oil-devouring planes and tanks and oil-based economy taht lets the armies to function which prevents that
- And nobody in your family owns ANY stock (in retirement funds/401Ks/etc...) in any company which benefits from oil.
If you couldn't honestly say "yes, every single one of these items is true about me", then the ONLY difference between the CEO and you is the degree of benefitting from oil. Except unlike him, you can't do anything - or are doing anything - to make oil-based economy any environmentally better, and he does.
And since any CEO is mostly interested in future profits/growth (which is what determines stock price), he will not want the ecology to collapse - that would lead to dramatic fall in the share price. So even assuming that he isn't enviromentally concerned just by virtue of being a human being like you, he stil would be by virtue of being a CEO.
> Also, I find the ethical implications very interesting. After all, who gave us the right to live on Mars?
:)
> The answer is sadly: no one. But does that mean we should not live there? Probably yes.
So, who gave "us" - by the way, who are these "us" you refer to? Why do you presume to speak for me? - the right to not colonize Mars when the alternative is to have a big chnk-of-rock wiping out entire Earth biosphere as we know it even if humans don't succeed themselves?
Barring a belief in some supereme power (which, if it exists, makes the whole ethical question moot), NOBODY gives anyone any right.
E.g. lifeforms on Mars have no more rights to Mars than humans do. And if you find that chauvinistic and heartless, please imagine yourself a survivor of a shipwreck who's near an inhabited island. Then tell me that you have no *ethical right* to go live on the island just because some tribe is alread there. (You may not have any enforceable right if the natives just catch and eat you of course
-DVK
> It is right that Man put his foot on the Moon.
> It would be better if it put it on Earth.
> Salvador Allende, 1908-1973
Ahh, yes... let's all take advice from a quote uttered by a devout Marxist who wanted to turn his country into Cuba/USSR copy.
How about we go to the Source then? Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin?
Yeah, Pinochet sucked. No question. But he killed far less people (by percentages) than socialist regimes worldwide did in their own countries (starting with USSR).
Who are YOU to say that Allende wouldn't have ended up killing far in excess of 3000 people and have ruled for MORE than 17 years while maintaining the same illusion of elections that USSR and Cuba had?
"Allende is seeking the totality of power, which meant Communist tyranny disguised as the dictatorship of the proletariat." -- Statement from the National Assembly of the Chilean Christian Democratic party, May 15, 1973.
-DVK