Ultimately, separation costs are limited thermodynamically by the energy needed for separation. Therefore, they are tied to energy costs, which tend to go up lately. I have that feeling that the increase in energy costs might eat up the cost decrease by improved separation technique.
Well, strictly spoken, the earth is a (largely) closed system in terms of mass flow. Material resources don't get lost, only diluted. The more diluted, the harder they are to recover, energetically. From a thermodynamic point of view, we can't really have a resource shortage at all - only an energy shortage. You are absolutely right, though, that under that consideration, taking energy out of non-renewable sources is not the best idea. With the sun giving us 1.3 kW/m2, we should be fine in the long term, as long as we act accordingly.
You are the one rallying for torture. You are the one who wants the principles governing civilized nations thrown overboard. It is your plan to shit on the Human Rights Declaration and the Geneva Convention. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof. It is your job to deliver it.
The deeper question is, how did it happen that legal costs skyrocketed out of all reasonable bounds in the US? Disclaimer - I work for a German patent law firm. For the fees we take, a US lawyer would probably not even open the file. So, why does it work reasonably here, but not in the US?
Well, at least that landscape would be improved by a couple of hundreds of meteor impacts... On a more serious note - such irrigation patterns seriously freaked me out on my first flight to the US. I've never seen anything like that in Europe.
Give them Anarchy Online instead of WoW, if you want them to do maths and solve complex reasoning problems. That game had the maddest skill/equipment system ever. I fondly remember scribbling 3 pages of calculations to find out in what way to insert one implant...
Listening to the fans works pretty well for single player games. In the MMORPG context, it can, however, lead to the dreaded nerf - forum nerd rage - counternerf cycles from which no game really profits. Some independent analysis may be helpful there.
I'll give you that I was primed to go off at the next possible occasion, which was your post - no personal offense meant. I completely agree with your concern about unwarranted search and seizure, and I am willing to give you that in the widest sense - being a warning against political apathy - your use of the quote was somewhat merited. I still think it is too strong, comparable to crying about the end of the world on every environmental topic. But in the end, rhetorics is not a good reason to fight when agreeing on the actual subject matter.
Trivial compared to what Niemöller's poem originally was about - the disappearing and murder of people by the fascists. I am not saying that seizure of phones is a trivial matter. I am saying that trotting out that meme on every occasion trivializes the worst chapter of history we experienced so far. I have read a "First they came" post in three different stories on/. today and I am getting fed up with it. Words... they have meanings. Use them accordingly. Using the strongest possible comparison three times a day makes it somewhat meaningless. Save it for when it is needed.
First they came for the laptops, but I didn't speak up because I carried all my data in my phone...
ATTENTION! ATTENTION! This is a public service announcement from the Pre-Revolutionary Committee for the Formation of Revolutionary Tribunals.
People abusing the "First they came"-meme for trivial matters are considered counterrevolutionary and will be FIRST against the wall come the revolution, just to prove them wrong.
Sorry, you got it wrong there - the 4th major foodgroup is cholesterol, not chocolate. Sure, you can use chocolate, but there are alternatives. The perfect breakfast is therefore:
- honey- or acorn syrup-glazed bacon (for the salt, sugar and fat) - scrambled eggs stirred up with cream and fried in butter (to give us the necessary cholesterol) - washed down with beer (for the much needed alcohol, way more nutritious than the tequila shot, giving you Si for your bones and lots of vitamins) - and finally the shot of espresso you suggested.
Trust me, I am a scientist. I know what's good for you.
No offense taken, spun. I know the kind of posts you mean and been tempted to answer like you often enough. Kinda ironic that your reply hit me in that case. In hindsight, I should have been less terse in the first post. Guess I felt a certain urge to get that elusive frist psot...
To satisfy your curiosity - I have a degree in biochemistry. Not in sensory biochemistry, I worked in the field of protein structure while I was still in academia. My criticism is not so much directed at the scientists doing that experiment, but rather on how it is reported here. I didn't even challenge the validity or the design of the experiment, I was just asking a follow-up question. The barrier to establishing a new category of taste simply is the identification of a receptor for it. The sensory system is complex, so the simple fact that fatty acids are detected does not mean there is a taste category associated with it. You might have noticed that my post was in fact not of the "LOLOLOL dumb scientarst idjots" type, I was just asking the question that any life scientist would ask when seeing this headline - "Is there an actual receptor?".
The fact that I included that part in my comment gives indication that I might not have missed it. My point is that the fatty acids still change the physicochemical properties of the milk, and that that might have been what was detected by the test persons. I am not saying that the conclusion is wrong, I am saying that in my opinion this is not enough to establish a new category of taste, taste being defined by specific receptor molecules.
Just the fact that people can detect fatty acids in their non-fat milk doesn't imply that there is an actually taste receptor for fat. Could also be the change of texture of the milk or activation of other taste receptors by the fatty acids. I would only call this a specific taste when the associated taste receptor protein is identified.
A quick question from a European point of view - at what point can you challenge the validity of a patent in court in the US? And what kind of court would handle this? One thing about the German system I particularly like is the specialized Patent Court with its Technical Judges, which are required to have a degree in a technical or scientific field as well as their legal schooling. Here, you can appeal decisions of the patent office before that court, and in my experience, the rulings are generally very sensible.
I seriously don't get the USPTO. I work in the patent law field in Europe. When I have to deal with the European Patent Office, I basically know what to expect and can prepare applications accordingly. Software, in particular, is basically a no-go. I only occasionally deal with the USPTO, and I yet have to see a concept behind their decisions. Folks, please get a sane PTO and a sane patent law. Would make my work significantly easier.
As long as the Constitutional Court slaps their advances into their Orwellian dystopia down regularly, I am still fine around here. It does get tiresome, though.
The secrecy definitely is the main point of their objection - the primary motivation seems to be establishing the powers that the parliament was given in the Lisbon treaty. The motion "Stresses that, unless Parliament is immediately and fully informed at all stages of the negotiations, it reserves its right to take suitable action, including bringing a case before the Court of Justice in order to safeguard its prerogatives". They telling the Commission to follow the treaty text.
However, they also state their concern about the leaked content of ACTA. For example, the motion "Considers that in order to respect fundamental rights, such as the right to freedom of expression and the right to privacy, while fully observing the principle of subsidiarity, the proposed agreement should not make it possible for any so-called three-strikes procedures to be imposed, in full accordance with Parliaments decision on Article 1.1b in the (amending) Directive 2009/140/EC calling for the insertion of a new paragraph 3(a) in Article 1 of Directive 2002/21/EC on the matter of the three strikes policy;"
Slashdot Mirror
Ultimately, separation costs are limited thermodynamically by the energy needed for separation. Therefore, they are tied to energy costs, which tend to go up lately. I have that feeling that the increase in energy costs might eat up the cost decrease by improved separation technique.
Well, strictly spoken, the earth is a (largely) closed system in terms of mass flow. Material resources don't get lost, only diluted. The more diluted, the harder they are to recover, energetically. From a thermodynamic point of view, we can't really have a resource shortage at all - only an energy shortage. You are absolutely right, though, that under that consideration, taking energy out of non-renewable sources is not the best idea. With the sun giving us 1.3 kW/m2, we should be fine in the long term, as long as we act accordingly.
You are the one rallying for torture. You are the one who wants the principles governing civilized nations thrown overboard. It is your plan to shit on the Human Rights Declaration and the Geneva Convention. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof. It is your job to deliver it.
The fact that lawyer fees are somewhat regulated here might play into it, too. And don't mention David Hasselhoff. We do not talk about that... ;)
The deeper question is, how did it happen that legal costs skyrocketed out of all reasonable bounds in the US? Disclaimer - I work for a German patent law firm. For the fees we take, a US lawyer would probably not even open the file. So, why does it work reasonably here, but not in the US?
You mean... The servers, they do nothing!! We already seem to have slashdotted the place.
Well, at least that landscape would be improved by a couple of hundreds of meteor impacts... On a more serious note - such irrigation patterns seriously freaked me out on my first flight to the US. I've never seen anything like that in Europe.
Give them Anarchy Online instead of WoW, if you want them to do maths and solve complex reasoning problems. That game had the maddest skill/equipment system ever. I fondly remember scribbling 3 pages of calculations to find out in what way to insert one implant...
Listening to the fans works pretty well for single player games. In the MMORPG context, it can, however, lead to the dreaded nerf - forum nerd rage - counternerf cycles from which no game really profits. Some independent analysis may be helpful there.
I'll give you that I was primed to go off at the next possible occasion, which was your post - no personal offense meant. I completely agree with your concern about unwarranted search and seizure, and I am willing to give you that in the widest sense - being a warning against political apathy - your use of the quote was somewhat merited. I still think it is too strong, comparable to crying about the end of the world on every environmental topic. But in the end, rhetorics is not a good reason to fight when agreeing on the actual subject matter.
Trivial compared to what Niemöller's poem originally was about - the disappearing and murder of people by the fascists. I am not saying that seizure of phones is a trivial matter. I am saying that trotting out that meme on every occasion trivializes the worst chapter of history we experienced so far. I have read a "First they came" post in three different stories on /. today and I am getting fed up with it. Words... they have meanings. Use them accordingly. Using the strongest possible comparison three times a day makes it somewhat meaningless. Save it for when it is needed.
First they came for the laptops, but I didn't speak up because I carried all my data in my phone...
ATTENTION! ATTENTION! This is a public service announcement from the Pre-Revolutionary Committee for the Formation of Revolutionary Tribunals.
People abusing the "First they came"-meme for trivial matters are considered counterrevolutionary and will be FIRST against the wall come the revolution, just to prove them wrong.
Signed,
Mindcontrolled.
The spice must flow, man, the spice must flow.
Sorry, you got it wrong there - the 4th major foodgroup is cholesterol, not chocolate. Sure, you can use chocolate, but there are alternatives. The perfect breakfast is therefore:
- honey- or acorn syrup-glazed bacon (for the salt, sugar and fat)
- scrambled eggs stirred up with cream and fried in butter (to give us the necessary cholesterol)
- washed down with beer (for the much needed alcohol, way more nutritious than the tequila shot, giving you Si for your bones and lots of vitamins)
- and finally the shot of espresso you suggested.
Trust me, I am a scientist. I know what's good for you.
All definitions in the root class can be overloaded, I guess.
No offense taken, spun. I know the kind of posts you mean and been tempted to answer like you often enough. Kinda ironic that your reply hit me in that case. In hindsight, I should have been less terse in the first post. Guess I felt a certain urge to get that elusive frist psot...
To satisfy your curiosity - I have a degree in biochemistry. Not in sensory biochemistry, I worked in the field of protein structure while I was still in academia. My criticism is not so much directed at the scientists doing that experiment, but rather on how it is reported here. I didn't even challenge the validity or the design of the experiment, I was just asking a follow-up question. The barrier to establishing a new category of taste simply is the identification of a receptor for it. The sensory system is complex, so the simple fact that fatty acids are detected does not mean there is a taste category associated with it. You might have noticed that my post was in fact not of the "LOLOLOL dumb scientarst idjots" type, I was just asking the question that any life scientist would ask when seeing this headline - "Is there an actual receptor?".
Sure, no question about that. I am just interested how that works.
Glutamate is an amino acid that makes up proteins. The receptor recognizes it in its unbound form, not in the form incorporated in proteins, though.
The fact that I included that part in my comment gives indication that I might not have missed it. My point is that the fatty acids still change the physicochemical properties of the milk, and that that might have been what was detected by the test persons. I am not saying that the conclusion is wrong, I am saying that in my opinion this is not enough to establish a new category of taste, taste being defined by specific receptor molecules.
Just the fact that people can detect fatty acids in their non-fat milk doesn't imply that there is an actually taste receptor for fat. Could also be the change of texture of the milk or activation of other taste receptors by the fatty acids. I would only call this a specific taste when the associated taste receptor protein is identified.
A quick question from a European point of view - at what point can you challenge the validity of a patent in court in the US? And what kind of court would handle this? One thing about the German system I particularly like is the specialized Patent Court with its Technical Judges, which are required to have a degree in a technical or scientific field as well as their legal schooling. Here, you can appeal decisions of the patent office before that court, and in my experience, the rulings are generally very sensible.
I seriously don't get the USPTO. I work in the patent law field in Europe. When I have to deal with the European Patent Office, I basically know what to expect and can prepare applications accordingly. Software, in particular, is basically a no-go. I only occasionally deal with the USPTO, and I yet have to see a concept behind their decisions. Folks, please get a sane PTO and a sane patent law. Would make my work significantly easier.
As long as the Constitutional Court slaps their advances into their Orwellian dystopia down regularly, I am still fine around here. It does get tiresome, though.
The secrecy definitely is the main point of their objection - the primary motivation seems to be establishing the powers that the parliament was given in the Lisbon treaty. The motion "Stresses that, unless Parliament is immediately and fully informed at all stages of the negotiations, it reserves its right to take suitable action, including bringing a case before the Court of Justice in order to safeguard its prerogatives". They telling the Commission to follow the treaty text.
However, they also state their concern about the leaked content of ACTA. For example, the motion "Considers that in order to respect fundamental rights, such as the right to freedom of expression and the right to privacy, while fully observing the principle of subsidiarity, the proposed agreement should not make it possible for any so-called three-strikes procedures to be imposed, in full accordance with Parliaments decision on Article 1.1b in the (amending) Directive 2009/140/EC calling for the insertion of a new paragraph 3(a) in Article 1 of Directive 2002/21/EC on the matter of the three strikes policy;"